Dont Blame Me
In all truth, Steve Rodgers had made a plethora of irrevocable mistakes. Allowing a manic German scientist to perform unstable experiments upon his person? No one could deny the shockwave of consequences birthed from that one. Crashing an airplane into the ice? Well, it’s seventy-five years later and Steve can’t operate a microwave oven. Choosing a giant American Flag as his uniform and thus somehow becoming military propaganda despite dying to end racism and antisemitism? Ick.
But this situation he had fallen his way into, well… Clint certainly seemed to believe losing the tesseract topped the ever-lengthening list of foolishness.
“At the bus stop? You fucking left the all-powerful object predating the very universe, on a dirty bus bench in Queens?” Clint asked, utterly baffled.
Steve pinched the bridge of his nose, truly lamenting in the most regrettable of fashions every choice had ever foolishly made, all of which led up to now. Said decisions starting somewhere around his birth and ending with continuing to breathe at this very moment.
“You already asked that question at the apartment. And the mall when you forced us to pick up Natasha. And at the gas station and the Starbucks and the second Starbucks when you wanted more whip cream. The answer is still yes.”
“I know, I'm just trying to process the fucking hilarious mental image of Captain America riding the bus with a big blue infinity stone in his purse.”
“I wasn’t wearing the uniform,” Steve frowned. “and driver’s license expired in 1949, and Bucky was busy at the farmer’s market. How else am I supposed to transport it?.”
“Genuinely any other way.” Natasha offered. “He was too busy for an infinity stone?”
Clint raised an eyebrow. “I thought his name was James?”
Natasha leaned forward and slapped the music volume dial to zero. “Whatever, there’s no time to dwell on Steve’s blatantly obvious lies. We need to find the tesseract immediately, you should have let me drive.” She rounded on Bucky. “Gun it, babushka.”
“No way,” Clint hissed, “you drive like a wall-punching incel plays Grand Theft Auto. There’s a picture of you with xs over your eyes hanging in every traffic court in Europe.”
“I’m literally gay, what do you expect? I’m fast, not safe.”
Bucky, the alleged James Bush Bush, spun the dial back to full volume. “Turn off my Mitski again and I’ll swerve into oncoming traffic.”
“Try me, you cold bowl of soup. I'll make jewelry from your teeth when I find you in Hell.”
Steve slipped into his most meditative voice, something he would never admit to doing as Bucky affectionately mockingly referred to as his “disappointed little league coach” tone. “Woah, hey now, that’s uncalled for. Don’t compare my boyfriend to gazpacho.”
Oops.
Clint choked, then coughed, then produced a horrifying wheezing sound akin to a walrus playing the saxophone without a reed, all while spitting peppermint mocha latte on the carpeting. “Captain America is dating the Winter Soldier? For real, for real?”
Double oops. Steve was simply too filled with gentle love and care for his boyfriend. His devotion could not be contained. Or, for that matter, apparently even managed.
Bucky’s hands tighten the steering wheel, knuckles bleaching white. Steve squeezed his knee. “You know?”
“About you being the Winter Soldier? Well, the metal arm was sort of a giveaway, and I hacked all of SHIELD's classified files months ago. The director's password was just “Goose<3”.” Natasha shrugged. “But people in brainwashed Russian assassin houses shouldn’t throw brainwashed Russian assassin stones.”
Steve swiveled in his chair. Perhaps he should have seen this revelation coming, after all, she was operating under a false identity and radiated an unparalleled amount of power, but he’d simply assumed Natasha was just like that. Teenage girl terrifying. “You’re an assassin?”
“Reformed,” Natasha took a long sip of her refresher, rattling the ice with her straw. “Mostly.”
Steve shot a wary glance in Clint’s direction. “And you?”
Clint waved a hand in dismissal. “Me? I’m just some guy.”
Steve released a relieved breath. “So not another reformed master assassin, then?”
“Oh no, I’m like very much an assassin.”
“That is not being a “normal guy”! What do you think normal guys do? Because it is not contract killing!”
“I don’t know, sell drugs? Work in an office? Both?” Clint made a “pfft” sound. “Besides, like that’s the weirdest revelation of today. You’re the national hero who lost to public transport in a fight for an infinity stone.”
“He’s got you there, Stevie,” Bucky grumbled.
“What? There are infinitely more shocking revelations. Was nobody else floored by America having 50 states now? Or cigarettes. They cause asthma, I was prescribed cigarettes for asthma!”
“They also cause cancer,” Natasha said, tone casual. “Turn right, the gamma radiation detector is picking up a giant mass of energy just sitting in an apartment in Queens.”
Steve blinked. “Cigarettes cause what?”
“You’re reading it wrong.” Clint interrupted, taking the detector from her hands. “The scanner’s detecting another surge in Stark Tower.”
Natasha flicked his forehead hard and snatched the device back. “The radiation in Stark Tower is too small to be the tesseract, you literal clown, Stark’s probably just violating the Geneva Convention again.”
At this point in his life, Steve should definitely have known better than to interrupt two quarreling assassins, but then again, he also definitely should have known better than to let them into his car. “Where exactly did you acquire a gamma radiation detector?”
“Make a left on Jackson Avenue.” Natasha and Clint had entered a lethal staring, or perhaps a telepathic communication of sorts. “Clint stole it from SHIELD headquarters.”
Clint’s eyes never strayed from Natasha’s. “I thought it was a Nintendo Switch. Kind of a bummer honestly.”
Mesmerized, Steve shook his head as Clint broke from his stare with Natasha, evidently having lost, to bark at Bucky. “Ey, James, you took a right instead of left.”
“No, I definitely turned left, I know my directions.”
“I know you can’t lake the “l”s because your hands are on the wheel, bu-”
“I do not need to make the “l”s. I am 93 years old.”
“You definitely made a left.” Natasha piped up.
Bucky slammed a u-turn, sending them reeling sideways. “You’re just being deliberately difficult because I shot you, aren’t you, Natalia.”
“Because you what?” Clint shouted.
“Oh no,” Steve mumbled. “Not this fight again.”
“I am reasonably difficult considering your dumb blonde of a boyfriend managed to lose the most powerful object in the fucking universe to a city bus. Because of this, I had to ditch Thor in an Ikea to help you fucking noodles find it again. The entire planet is in danger now!” Natasha punched the back of his seat. “And I knew you remembered shooting me.”
“Should we intervene?” Steve whispered to Clint.
Clint hummed. “I wouldn’t if I were you. Tasha’s a biter.”
“Steve might be dumb and blonde, but only I get to call him a dumb blonde! It is a term of endearment!” Bucky yanked the lever controlling the positioning of his seat, leaning all the way back into Natasha’s space. “Maybe I do remember shooting you, maybe I don’t, I’ve shot a lot of people! JFK, for example.”
“No fighting in the Mini Cooper. Please, be civilized. This is a peaceful environment.” Steve pleaded.
Clint rolled out of the way of Bucky and Natasha’s tussle. “You shot JFK? Magneto, who controls metal, lost a fight with you, the man with the metal arm, and you proceeded to assassinate our sexist president?”
“I always considered Rutherford B. Hayes to be our sexiest president, but-
“You ruined Y2K fashion for me, I can never wear low-rise jeans again.” Without warning, Natasha unbuckled her seatbelt, grabbing a fistful of Bucky’s hair as she vaulted over the seat divider.
“Y2K fashion should never have been in in the first place, sequins are ugl-” Bucky broke off, cursing in Russian as Natasha’s hands clamped over his eyes.
Steve gasped. “No, not in the Mini Cooper!”
*
Thor frowned, taking a left past a sky-high display of armor for what felt like the tenth time, but in actuality was probably only the fifteenth. He contemplated asking another employee for directions towards the exit but feared they too would break down in tears and explain how they were also unable to escape. The last man he asked had begun sobbing and eventually confessed he was only a customer who came in looking for a table lamp but was recruited by the manager after wandering the isles for so many days.
“Lady Nat?” He called. “I have sampled all of their fine meatballs, but I fear I have become lost. Lady Nat?”
Oh Norns, perhaps the managers had gotten to Nat as well.
Just as Thor began to contemplate inciting minor violence, a brown, fuzzy object caught this interest. Immediately, he seized it, reading the tag to discover the name belonging to this lovely creature.
Thor laughed, holding the bear aloft. “Hello, Djungleskog, what a friendly shape you are!”
*
“Just what I need,” Clint grouse, kicking the severed bumper. “Two broken arms.”
Apparently, letting Natasha and Bucky fight out their feelings in a moving vehicle Bucky had been driving was not the best course of action. In an unforeseen turn of events, they had in fact horrible crashed Steve’s car, and were now continuing their quarreling outside of the wreckage as Steve mourned over the corpse of his poor, poor car.
Steve winced in sympathy. “Is the other one broken now too?”
Clint shrugged, and if the scrunched look on his face was any indicator, immediately regretted doing so. “No clue, that’s a problem for Later Clint.”
Steve spared a forlorn glance at the flaming wreckage of his car, what little remained intact now wrapped around a light pole. His steering wheel has been relocated to a nearby tree, while his tires have scattered along the street. Somehow, the car alarm still manages to screech, beeping in time to Steve’s growing headache.
“This,” Clint gestures vaguely towards the disaster area. “This is a problem for now.”
“They crashed my car.” Steve mumbles, crossing his arms, but he absolutely isn’t pouting.
You know what they say, Cap, you can lead a former KGB assassin to a Mini Cooper, but you can’t make them play nice.” Clint threw both his hands up in a defensive gesture, then proceeded to go deathly pale and crumple lowers himself gently onto the curb. “You know what? I might just take a nap.”
“This is so bad for the environment,” There was, perhaps, a microscopic change Steve could have been pouting, but he felt justified at the moment. “And my credit score would be ruined if I had credit cards. Or a bank account.”
“You can’t even drive.” Clint reminds him. “Plus, now that Tasha and Ducky have thrown down and established that Tasha is the alpha male but Buckaroo is still very pretty, they can bond and plot horribly against us.”
Steve squinted across the street where Bucky and Natasha were hovering over his destroyed car, attempting to fish something out of the fiery pile. They were speaking in Russian once again, but now the corner of Bucky’s mouth quirked at a remark Natasha offered.
“My Russian is questionable at best, but I’m pretty confident she either just offered to french braid Buck’s hair or threatened to break both his thumbs with her pinky.”
“Probably both.”
“Most definitely both.” Steve agreed. “Wait, did you say they were fighting to establish dominance? Because Bucky is literally a bot-”
“Sorry about the car.” Natasha interrupted, tone nowhere near apologetic.
“Won’t happen again,” Bucky said, offering a painfully stiff thumbs up.
“You alright, Clint?” she asked, giving him a quick once over.
“I think my eyes switched places and all of my bones hurt.”
“Perfect, the tesseract is only a few complexes over.” She gave the detector dangling between her fingers a little shake to demonstrate it still functioned. “The gamma mass is centralized to one apartment, so there’s no need to delay.”
Steve bit his lip, for no mission was ever so simple as strolling in without any form of resistance. Clint seemed to agree, for he asked, “Who owns the apartment? A shell company? Some fake identity? It held under the name of someone already dead?”
Natasha pulled her phone from her pocket. “As far as I can tell, the holding is entirely legit. I pulled up the property records and as of earlier this month, the apartment belongs to one, quite beautiful I might add, May Parker.”
“You have nothing on her?”
Natasha shook her head. “She hasn’t any affiliations with suspicious corporations, not strange activity in any of her bank accounts. Not even a parking ticket. She’s just an emergency room nurse who lives alone after her husband passed away early last year.”
“Really? Cap lost the tesseract to a clean, saintly woman who lives completely alone?”
“Apparently.” Natasha's expression never changed, but amusement seeped into her tone. Well, alone except for her twelve-year-old nephew, Peter Parker.”
*
“Sir,” the latest employee called after him. “Sir, you cannot buy so many stuffed animals without first purchasing a piece of furniture. Sir, I know you can hear me”
Thor contemplated his option for approximately one second, before scooping his menagerie of plush critters into his arms and bolting as the employee began to give chase. “I shall not relinquish my companions.”
“Hand over the Jättelek and the Lilleplutt right now, or I’ll be forced to use physical punishment for your lack of cooperation.”
“Never!” Thor shouted. “I would sooner die than abandon any friend.”
“You leave me no choice, sir, you are breaking store policy! I don’t want to have to get the broom!”
Thor ran faster.
*
“It could be a trap.” Bucky reasoned. “For all we know, May and Peter Parker could have died years ago. Or never have existed in the first place.”
“A trap for who?” Natasha argued. “SHIELD? Captain America? We got lucky with the gamma detector, no one could have anticipated we’d even have it.”
“Someone in SHIELD maybe, but they’d want the tesseract close by for safekeeping, not collecting dust in a random apartment in Queens,” Clint added.
Steve understood the need for planning, he’d been the captain of the Howling Commandos after all, but this wasn’t a war, and he had a far more seamless solution up his sleeve.
“I could just go for it. In and out” Steve offered earnestly.
Clint said firmly, “No way.”
“Absolutely not.” chorused Natasha.
Bucky shook his head. “Stevie you’re so fucking dumb.”
Well, that is awfully rude and unexpected.
“Look,” Natasha said, steely tone brokering no room for argument. “I spent years training intensively to do exactly this sort of thing, and if none of us intend to die during the world’s silliest retrieval mission, I suggest we employ a modicum of finesse.”
Clint’s voice was dangerously low, “Are you thinking of the Philadelphia Side Hustle? I’m not sure my body could even take another, and my mind certainly can’t”
“No, far worse.” Her features fell grim. “I need to borrow Thor’s little brother, Loki.”
*
Peter Parker sighed, clicking out of his browser page and powering off the computer. He’d fished the laptop out of a dumpster in the nice part of town a few days ago, and still, he couldn’t find answers to the question which had been plaguing him. No textbook or geology forum or even expert in the field so far seemed able to even take a wild guess at the nature of the stone Peter had discovered at the bus stop earlier in the month.
The object held most of the definite properties of a stone, but perhaps it was something else entirely. An advanced piece of tech? An in depth prop from some sort of Broadway play or Blockbuster movie? Or, dare he even think, could the rock be extraterrestrial?
Peter was pulled from his pondering as Aunt May called after him. “Peter, dinner is ready.”
“Coming!” He called back, shoving the mysterious rock back into his sock drawer.
Oh well, there was always tomorrow. Besides, if Peter couldn’t uncover the answer, then there was an exciting possibility Peter could have discovered a geological anomaly.
Whatever it may be, Peter had discovered something special. After all, who had ever seen such a deep blue hue before? Or so luminescent?