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Chapter 3: Iris

The Iron Mechanic is a fairly nice place, even if its proprietor's a little on the eccentric side. It isn't far from Empire Boulevard, so Steve takes the B train to get there. As he exits the subway, he winces, fumbles for his sunglasses, puts them on, and pulls the visor of his Dodgers cap down lower. It's once again a glorious summer day, ridiculously bright and cheery, but he's still feeling like shit. Another sleepless night. Another nightmare. This time, though, he's pretty sure someone – the girl in 4B – was playing some music. Guitar. And singing or humming. He isn't able to tell which because her voice was muffled by the shared wall between their bedrooms, but whatever it was... Her voice is beautiful, as beautiful as she is. Sweet and soft and lyrical. Magical, even if that's stupid and lame. Natalie. She got him calm, at least, thwarted the fast plummet into hell and helped him keep his head above water so to speak. He wonders if she did it on purpose, if she heard him. That's a horrifying prospect. Old Phillips was partially deaf, and he routinely took his hearing aids out before bed (and forgot to put them back in – that was how Steve discovered his hearing loss). So Steve didn't have to worry before about anyone discovering how screwed up he was. Now... Last night he never got back to sleep, stressing and wondering if she noticed his nightmare, but thinking about her and the memory of her song kept his other memories – a cell that's as dark as night and full of dirt and filth and Bucky's screaming and he's screaming too and God he's hungry and thirsty and it hurts and no one's coming for them they have to get out somehow – at bay.

So even though he's tired and the bright sun hurts his eyes and his head, he supposes it could be worse.

It's not a long walk from the subway terminal to Tony's shop, so that's good. He's gotten so used to going pretty much everywhere with Max so it's weird to be without him now. Tony told him months ago he could bring the dog down to the shop if he wanted, but the thought of Max laying in all that dirt and mess in there... Steve's not as much of a clean freak as he used to be, not by far, but no thank you to having to get engine grease out of Max's fur.

As he approaches the building, heading around the back to where the garage bays are, his phone beeps in his shorts pocket, so he pulls it out. Goddamn it. Coulson again. It's an email this time. "Captain Rogers, I'd really appreciate if we could maybe meet for lunch sometime this week. You don't need to do anything other than show up and enjoy a free meal and listen to what I want to say. I've got a bunch of documents from the hospital where you recovered outside Kandahar. I was wondering if you'd help me understand better what went on. None of it has to go on record. I'm still trying to track down the farmers that got you to safety. I know you were not conscious at the time most of these reports were made, but I could still use your help. The docs make some mention of wanting to contact the Army, particularly when they found Lieutenant Barnes' dog tags in your–" He hits the delete button before he can read the rest.

"What's with the frown?"

Tony Stark's voice thankfully rescues Steve from his memories again, and he pulls himself back from what feels like the verge of a panic attack. When he gets his breathing under control and manages to focus, he finds the self-proclaimed Iron Mechanic is hunched over the engine of what looks like an old Pontiac Firebird. Tony leans up and frowns himself when he gets a decent look at Steve, and Steve knows he probably looks like hell, even in the shadows of the garage bay. "Holy fuck, Cap. You okay?"

Jesus, he has to get a better handle on how he reacts to stuff. He shuts his phone off and slides it back into his pocket. "Yeah," he manages. "I'm fine. And I told you to stop calling me that."

Tony grins. It's a good one, very much like him. A bit arrogant and shit-eating, but Steve likes it. Steve likes Tony a lot, actually. Tony was something of a celebrity once upon a time. He was the only son of Howard Stark, a rich and famous weapons contractor who owned and ran Stark Industries. The extremely successful company profited a great deal through the years of government defense contracts and the like. Stark Senior was notoriously obsessive, cold and driven and very ambitious. Tony's about as far from that as possible. He and his father did not see eye to eye, never did to Steve's understanding. Tony's a certifiable genius. Steve's never met anyone quite like him. He graduated high school something like three years early. Excelled at MIT to the point where they, too, graduated him early so he'd stop embarrassing their top engineering and physics professors during lectures. He's smart beyond the pale, picks up things like a sponge, dissects them down to their fundamentals without even trying. He can figure out anything, from quantum mechanics to complex computer programming to rebuilding a carburetor to how to create clean energy (a project on which Tony's actually working in the back room of his mechanic's shop here. Steve's seen it. Something called an arc reactor? It'll change the world, Tony claims, "if I ever get off my ass and finish working out the bugs"). The man's an absolute marvel, a powerhouse in terms of smarts.