Man Out of Time - A Captain America / Avengers Fanfiction

Chapter 26

A bonus-prize goes to anyone who got the obscure reference to Wolfram and Hart. No … this isn't going to turn into a crossover fic, but for those of you who know what that means…

Thanks for reading!

X

Chapter 26

Things were subdued in the Stark Tower penthouse suite when he made his way up at 6:45 on the nose. A five-man band played jazz, the throaty hum of a tenor-sax adding ambiance to the room. Wait staff rushed about like ants, putting the finishing touches on the buffet. An enormous multi-tiered cake sat in the middle, similar to a wedding cake in construction, but with a red-headed Barbie at the pinnacle standing next to an action figure of Iron Man. On the layers below, action figures battled grey-skinned Chitauri. Including an action figure of him. Oh … great. The real reason Tony insisted he be here today … so he could brag he had the real Avengers at his beck and call.

The cake was … garish. An adolescent boy's dream, not a pretty cake with flowers as befitting a classy woman like Pepper Potts. And yet … his eyes were drawn to the red-haired Barbie with the little black stick in her upraised hands. A magic wand? Or a conductor's baton. The latter, he thought. For all Tony Stark's faults, when he had put the woman he loved in charge of running his empire, he had put her in charge with a capital 'C.'

"Where is everybody?" he asked a guard dressed as a butler.

"Everybody knows when a party starts at 7:00," the guard gave him a grin, "you don't show up until 8:00."

"Oh," Steve said, unaware of this strange rule of social behavior. "Tony said be here at 6:45."

"He's over there," the guard said. "By the bar."

"Figures," Steve muttered under his breath.

He paused over a subtle outline in the floor where the polished marble did not quite match. The tiles were square, but instead of ripping up and replacing each damaged tile, they'd been painstakingly cut to the exact shape of the hole the Hulk had pounded into the floor, leaving a clear outline of a humanoid form. Tony Stark wished to memorialize the exact spot where the Avengers had taken down the God of Lies. Steve suspected the only thing preventing him from drawing a white line like a crime scene photo was the good taste of Pepper Potts.

"Tony," Steve said stiffly to Tony Stark's back.

"Hey … Steve," Tony said, turning to gesture magnanimously into the room. "Thanks for coming."

"How long are you going to make me stay?" Steve asked, tugging at his bowtie.

"Until you get that phone number you came for," Tony said. He turned and hurried towards the door to greet some guests.

As a man who had come from a generation that wore a suit jacket and tie to church or just about any other function, the tuxedo felt natural. Life had been simpler in 1945, when every man owned one good suit, a handful of slacks, and a half-dozen button down shirts. If you were doing hot, sweaty work, you stripped down to your undershirt. When you were done, you showered and put on a real shirt to go out in public. Life had been simpler then.

Now the rules had changed. Undershirts came in different colors, with corporate logos plastered across the chest. Instead of owning one good suit, which became your trademark, wearing the same outfit to two occasions in a row was cause for ridicule. In fact, wearing the same casual attire was also cause for ridicule, he was finding out. At least the gang kids showed up wearing the same garishly-colored jacket, even when it was 90 degrees outside, and didn't poke fun at his closet full of identical khaki beige slacks and button-down Arrow shirts. Here in Tony Stark's world, Steve always felt out-of-place. He wondered if the attire Pepper had been kind enough to provide screamed 'rented tux.'