The smell of hot melted cheese, spicy tomato sauce and warm pizza dough filled the apartment as Natasha strolled in, dropping her bag down by the door with a sound of satisfaction. It had been a long week, and she was glad to be home, glad to be done with that particular mission.
She heard the unmistakable sound of metal against glass and she couldn’t help a slight smile at that. Pizza and beer. Too predictable. She would put good money on the fact that there was a baseball game on the TV as well. Without saying a word she went into the lounge, seeing the game on the television, a box with a pizza open on the table, uneaten with tendrils of steam rising in the air, surrounded by a disassembled rifle, and Bucky there with beer in hand.
“Hey doll, didn’t know you were gonna be back today.”
He looked round with a smile as she came further in, standing behind him, leaning over the back of the couch, hands on his shoulders, looking down at him. “I wasn’t going to be. Things thankfully came to a conclusion. I’m going to get a drink, get changed and then if this isn’t a private moment, I thought I might join you.” There was a teasing note in her voice and it was answered with a low laugh from him.
“I guess I could fit you in to my busy schedule today...”
“Idiot.” With that affectionate comment hanging in the air she disappeared into the bedroom to get changed, having no intention of leaving the apartment again that day. It took a couple of moments to swap outdoor clothes for yoga pants and one of his shirts, and a moment more to go back through to the kitchen to make a drink.
As she stood waiting for the kettle to boil she heard a sound that nearly made her burst out laughing. “James? Are you sure I’m not disturbing a private moment? I’m sure that I can go and invade elsewhere if you need some alone time... perhaps Steve would be interested in some company...”
She was answered by another moan and then, “Blame Steve for this...he’s the one who turned me on to that pizza place. I thought that pizza was just pizza but holy shit this is fuckin’ heaven in a slice. Best damn pizza in the city...Nat, doll, you gotta try it.”
“Why do I somehow feel that I’m coming between you and your lover right now?” She asked, strolling back into the lounge, sitting down beside him, pulling him in for a kiss, tasting the flavour of the pizza and beer as she did. “I’m not sure that I want to come between you and your beloved...”
He grinned. “We’ll make it a threesome...”
“First time for everything...” As he picked up the slice of pizza again she leaned in, biting the other end. “This might get messy.”
The first thing Jim did when he got home was to kick off his shoes so violently he was pretty sure they scuffed the wall; the second was to backtrack to the front door because he’d neglected to shut it on his way in; and the third was to turn on the television, where he wasn’t at all surprised to see Tony’s impromptu press conference from earlier that day, and although Jim had been there himself, he nonetheless paused on his way to the kitchen to watch.
“And that is why, effective immediately, I am shutting down the weapons manufacturing division of Stark Industries -- ”
Stane rose to his feet, following promptly by the press -- Jim remembered standing, too, half-afraid that the press was going to rush Tony right there on the stage -- and Jim changed the channel in time to catch some Hallmark movie going to commercial.
A pizza commercial, specifically, which was enough to remind Jim that he hadn’t eaten much more than a protein bar and some trail mix since getting Tony on the plane...yesterday? Yesterday. And Jim didn’t even like pizza, but damn if he was going to cook himself anything tonight.
He ordered a medium pizza with the works, a side of wings, a side of cheese bread, a two-liter of Coke, and some kind of overly-indulgent chocolate cake, having already decided that he would eat his share tonight and then bring the rest to Tony and Pepper tomorrow.
Instead, he fell asleep, then fell off the couch when the doorbell rang, and ended up shoving all of the food into the fridge, still warm, before dropping into bed. Surely he could make time to eat with Tony and Pepper, together.
He didn't want to do this. He'd rather go scuba diving or into space or eat his own shoes than do this. This wasn't his strength, this wasn't what he was trained for, this --
"All right, Cap your cue's coming up in three, two..."
-- this was a nightmare.
The stagehand signaled one and then waved Steve out of the wings just as a recording of "Star-Spangled Man" burst to life over the speakers. Steve found it in him to smile as he walked on stage, but he could tell it was a little too strained. He reminded himself to talk a deep breath as Robin Roberts met him halfway, hand extended, and the simple gesture of the handshake reminded him that he wasn't here as a performing monkey -- he was here as a bridge between the Avengers and the public, as much of Steve Rogers as he could possibly be while on national television. It was different.
His smile relaxed into something more genuine. He could do this.
--
"Steve, we want to thank you so, so much for joining us here today," Robin said, "but before you go, I have one last question for you."
Steve nodded. The interview had been pretty run-of-the-mill, and Robin and George both had quickly put Steve as ease; he was almost sorry to go now.
"We've been informed that you didn't eat anything while you were waiting backstage. Were you nervous about this appearance?"
Steve laughed. Busted.
"That obvious, huh?"
"Well," George said, "this is your first public appearance in quite some time, right? I mean, we've all seen you and the Avengers in print, but it's hugely rare for anyone to get anyone other than Tony Stark to speak with us in person."
"Not that Mr. Stark isn't fascinating!" Robin added. "But we certainly love hearing from the rest of you."
Steve straightened in his seat and folded his hands in his lap.
"I think the last time I made a public appearance was in 1943. Sort of. It was in Italy for the Allies, so I guess it wasn't technically public, but...it didn't go well," Steve admitted with a laugh. "Before that, I just read my lines and took some pictures."
"Well," said George, "we feel terrible that you didn't have a chance to grab some lunch, so we took the liberty of bringing in something that we hope you'll like better than those cold sandwiches we have back there."
He and Robin turned in unison to look over the shoulders, and out of the wings came the same stagehand from before, this time with a stack of pizza boxes. Steve couldn't help it; he burst out laughing as the stagehand handed the boxes to Steve.
"Oh, wow. You really shouldn't have -- "
He set the stack on the table next to him and opened the top box to find a piping hot pepperoni pizza. His stomach gurgled.
"Thank them with you," Robin was saying, and Steve rose to shake her and George's hands again. "As a thank you from us to the Avengers."
"Well, thank you," Steve said. George shook his head.
"No, thank you. Thank you all for what you do."
They went to commercial, and after a few more good-byes and thank yous, Steve was finally on his way out of the studio. When he reached his bike, he balanced the pizzas on the seat, pulled out his phone, and sent a mass text to just about everyone in his phone who he knew was in town.
Betty let out a groan of relief when she stumbled away from training with Natasha. There were some ways her body should not bend and Natasha was determined to make it happen. Her hand caught her on the wall, a yawn escaping her. The quick little changes they made her do in the beginning never really wiped her out but these hours long sessions always seemed to knock her down in all the worse sort of ways. She leaned further against the wall and headed to the private room they gave her on base. She still had her apartment but Nick knew how much it took out of her and gave her a room. Possible because he still felt guilt but she wasn’t an expert on his motives. It was next to Sharon’s room. After all, besides Bruce, she was the best of getting her to calm down and ignore the nastiness inside. Which was a tad frightening at times. Plus if it began to like the other woman and she got hurt on a mission who’s to say what would happen.
And that was a truly terrifying thought.
She made it to her room, just to be startled by who was sitting on her bed with a laptop and pizza. How in the world? “Okay I get why you would have food, but how did you get into my room?” She moved towards the bed and crawled up until she was next to Sharon, taking the slice of pizza the other woman gave her, trying to ignore the looks she gave her. They weren’t pity, something else, something rawer. It made her nervous but happy? That gross twisted feeling she used to feel with Bruce before they got together and got comfortable together. She moved to curl up on her side, taking a bit before staring up at the other woman.
“Fury gave me a copy of your card and I knew you would be exhausted and hungry after the session. You always get so wiped out and don’t eat afterwards.” The look she gave her was enough to make her dip her head sheepishly. It was just not worth moving and Loki had spoiled her a bit. There had always been food in her room after long grueling sessions. She took another bite of the pizza, letting the taste roll over her tongue while letting her heart rate slow with the tapping of the keys. It was a familiar sound and taste. If she pretended hard enough she could pretend that it was Saturday night in the lab at 12 in the morning. When they got together and worked on the office part of their job, eating pizza and drinking beer. It could be just like it used to be.
But then the pizza started to taste like ash.
Betty opened her eyes and stared at the pizza, things would never be the same again would they? She reached across Sharon and sat the half eaten piece back into the box before curling a bit more into herself. One day it would stop. That is what everyone kept telling her, it would become a full part of her and she would be content with everything. But damn, it wasn’t coming quick enough. She still was in the same place, maybe not as awful but still. She glance up at Sharon when the typing stopped, raising an eyebrow.
“Stop thinking, I know what you are thinking so stop it.” A snort left her before she could help it and she glanced back down at the grey blanket that covered her bed. It just simply was not to be. She would always think… it was a part of her. She was an intellectual; thinking was kind of her thing. She tensed in surprised when Sharon man handled her onto her shoulder, stroking her hair once she was settled.
What was she doing?
With a confused look she opened her mouth to speak only to be silenced when the other shook her head.
“Just relax and be quiet. I have a microwave next door. We can rest a while and then heat up the pizza later.” She opened her mouth to protest again but let it slip shut when the other started to hum and stroke her hair. It was nice. It was calming? Betty stared at the wall confused before her eyes slipped shut against her will and sleep stole her away.
Bucky closed the door of the apartment, kicking off his boots, carefully balancing the pizza box on top of the crate of beer he held in one arm as he made his way into the kitchen.
He put the steaming pizza box on the sideboard while he put the contents of the crate of beer in the fridge bar one, before picking up the pizza and the last remaining beer and heading back into the lounge. With sigh of satisfaction he sat on the couch, put the pizza box beside him, popped open the beer and flicked the TV on.
The game was just starting and he grinned as he kicked his feet up onto the coffee table and took a swig. He hadn't watched a game in such a damn long time, remembered with an affectionate smile sneaking into Ebbet's Field with Steve so many years before.
He picked up a slice of pizza, the cheese just the right side of greasy, and took a bite.
After everything, he could sure as hell get used to this.
Little Anthony looked up to say something, but it sounded unintelligible.
“Finish chewing everything first, darling,” Maria Stark warned him, using a napkin to clean some tomato sauce off her son’s forehead. She had to repress an eye roll, or maybe a smile – she had no idea of how Anthony had managed to get sauce on his forehead, she had only looked away for two minutes to fill his bottle with orange juice. “We have talked about this, haven’t we?”
Anthony nodded his brunette head as she took the fork off his proactive little four-year-old hands. How he had managed to fetch it from across the table so quickly also completely eluded her understanding. “Jarvis told me something today,” he said. Maria sat down next to him on the table, preparing his next forkful of spaghetti. The young boy didn’t open his mouth to eat it, though. Instead, he held Maria’s gaze for a few seconds, until she couldn’t help a small smile.
He almost never volunteered information initially. He liked it when people asked and showed interest.
“What did Jarvis tell you?”
“Did you know that the Asians made pasta first?”
“Did they?”
“They did, but everyone thinks the Italians made pasta first because of spaghetti. But the Italians didn’t make pasta first.” Maria took opportunity of Anthony’s pause to show him the forkful again. This time, he leaned forward to accept it. “But Italians make pasta better.”
“Not with your mouth full,” Maria remarked again, then shrugged lightly. “And Italians make different pasta from the Asians. I don’t think you can compare them.”
“Better.” Anthony looked at her again, smiling. His brown eyes reminded Maria of her littlest sister’s, it was a shame that he would never get to meet her. “Mommy, you’re Italian. It’s better.”
Maria chuckled. “Darling, this is not how it works.” She tried to get Anthony to eat another forkful, but he pressed his back against the back of the chair. “Anthony. You’ve barely eaten anything.”
“Do you know what else the Italians made better?” Anthony was saying. He tried to reach into the spaghetti bowl, but Maria pushed it farther down the table just in time. “Pizza. Did you know that the Greeks made something like pizza first? But the Italians made it better. Did they? I never tried.” She tried to feed him, but he squirmed away again. “Mommy, have you ever tried pizza?”
“Of course, darling.”
“I never ate pizza.”
“You will try it one day.” Howard wasn’t exactly a pizza fan.
“Mommy, I know how ‘pizza’ is spelled. It has two Zs but you say it like there’s a T in the middle because it’s Italian. I’ll show you. But I need a pen.”
Maria stopped him from trying to squirm his way out of the chair.
“It’s just like happens with ‘mozzarella,’” the young boy was saying even as Maria tried to get him to settle. “Mommy, did you know that mozzarella is what they use? To make pizza? It’s a cheese. But they can put other types of cheese on the pizza too, if you don’t like mozzarella on your pizza. Mommy, do you like mozzarella on your pizza?”
Maria dropped the fork on Anthony’s plate, then pulled the plate away from him when she saw that his hand was already busying itself to try to reach for the sharp utensil. “Because if you don’t like mozzarella on your pizza, you don’t need to worry because you can pick another cheese. Mommy, what’s your favorite…” “Anthony,” she called for his attention. He looked at her carefully. Maria knew that look. “Is there something you want to ask me?”
“What cheese do you like?”
“Provolone. Something more important than that?”
Anthony bit a side of his bottom lip, then looked down and turned towards the table again. He stretched his arm to reach for a napkin. “No.”
This worried her sometimes.
Anthony had a very roundabout way of getting to the crux of anything. He barely ever made direct requests – very rarely he made them to Howard, and when he did he was often refused. But she didn’t even think it was a matter of not having heard “yes” enough, or of having gotten a “no” too many times. It was just who he was. He would spend days talking about pizza, hoping you would realize he wants pizza, but he wouldn’t ask for pizza. Obadiah had playfully noted once that he had taken after Howard on that, that he had the business flair to him, a natural ability to say nothing at all but still make it sound important.
Maria saw that under a different light.
She saw Howard’s head buried in his hands, papers and folders littering the desk he had not moved away from for days. It was all in her mind’s eye, she was never actually there, in his Stark Industries office. She was on the phone, whenever she was lucky enough to have him pick it up, and she was talking about how lovely the day was outside, how amazing Anthony’s new lego building was. She was telling him sweet nothings that he wouldn’t hear, when what she meant was Come home. You need to rest. Drop the glass of liquor I know you’re holding. Please. And she never said it. She talked around it.
She saw it in Anthony. She saw it when he managed to grab the napkin and started folding it to make an airplane. He looked distracted, but he made idle pizza comments and avoided eye contact now that he knew that “she was onto him.”
Howard, Obadiah, they all had it wrong. They were barely ever there to see it happening. This wasn’t manipulation, or a “flair for business.” Anthony was just too shy to ask directly for what he wanted.
“Are you sure that you don’t want to ask me something, dear?”
“Look, I made a plane,” Anthony finished it just in time. An adult would have difficulty achieving that complexity in origami. “Mommy, one day I’ll make a plane that will fly us all the way to Italy. I promise.”
He hesitated, still not looking at her.
“Maybe when we’re in Italy we can eat pizza.”
Maria waited a few more moments, combing Anthony’s hair back. She wished he would open up and ask her to eat pizza now, like he clearly wanted to. He didn’t.
“Do you want to try pizza now?” She gave in.
Anthony was busy making another plane. “Do you like pizza?”
“I love pizza.” In all honesty, she was indifferent to it. At worst, she disliked it. “Let’s order one for us.”
The young boy beamed, still looking down at the plane he was building on top of the table. And even that smile was such a silent thing.
Maria didn’t realize it, but the smile was hers, it was the same one that lit up her expression when she was watching Howard’s successes on television, or when she was looking at Anthony playing with his erector set from a distance, or when she was looking at the rain. Silent little satisfactions, moments that were hers, and that nothing would ever taint.
Or maybe in some level she did realize it. She realized it more than she wanted to, that Anthony’s smile was hers.
She could see him sitting behind a desk a few decades from now, when maybe that’s not where he would like to be. And he would try to say it in hundreds of different ways, but the words would never leave him. Can I be an astronaut? Can I be a painter? Can I be a knight? Can I be a super hero? Do I have to be a businessman? And no one would ever hear everything that was left unspoken.
She wished that would change. She wished she could teach Anthony to be more… assertive. She knew she couldn’t rely on the world to give Anthony what he dreamed of if he couldn’t even vocalize it.
At the same time she prayed, she honestly prayed, that he would always have someone who loved him, someone who was patient and who could catch the little tell-tale signs of the things he didn’t want to say.
She wished he would never be talked into submission. She wished he wouldn’t become an insufferable brat. She wished him she could teach him the balance she was never able to find for herself. She wished all of his dreams would come true.
That was her dream. Because Anthony was what gave meaning to everything she had given up on. He was her little piece of Italy. He was her little piece of music. He was all of her silly fantasies – archeological expeditions, learning to ice skate, petting a tiger. He was everything that she had always wanted but had never asked for. He was her last dream come true.
Little more than a decade from now, everything about Anthony would be begging for help in ways other people wouldn’t bother to see, and he would never really say it. And General Ross’ wife would take him in for the weekend, and Maria would be so jealous, God, she would be so jealous, because that was her little boy with the pizza and the paper airplanes and the make-believe swords and he was away most of the year and when he was back Karen would take him, but how could she do anything, what right did she have to take him back when the sound of Howard’s voice made him stiffen and tremble and she had never succeeded in stopping any of it?
And she would never say it.
Year after year, he would grow up, he would become every inch the man she had wanted him to be, but all underneath this vile exterior, something wrong and horrible she had allowed to happen, something that didn’t hurt her because of the way it hurt others, but because of the way it hurt him more than anyone else.
But he was still her little boy, her quiet rainy afternoons, her five kisses on each cheek, the giggling pressed against her shoulder, the Twinkle-twinkle-little-star at the piano.
She should have told him. If she had been allowed the luxury of deliberate last thoughts before dying, that’s what she would have thought. She should have told him everything. She should have made him look at her on the day he wasn’t brave enough to ask for pizza, and she should have said it, that one thing she had never learned but by God, she should have taught him.
Don’t let your dreams die silent.
--------------------
Howard used to tell him that Coney Island was the most fabulous place in the world. The amusements. The fantastic constructions. People believed they had to be living in the future, to be able to visit a place like Coney Island. And at night they wouldn’t go home. They’d sleep on the beach, so they could wake up in this future place.
People didn’t sleep on the beach anymore.
And Stark never had, either. He wished he had, back in the day, when he was little. More than anything, he wished he could have fallen asleep on the beach, and woken up to the lights and sounds of Coney Island, but by the end of the day he was back to the SI offices in New York.
That’s what Coney Island was, really. That’s why Howard had taken him there. It was Stark Industries, as Stark Industries was meant to be. Lovely and bright and hypnotic. Who wouldn’t like that Stark Industries? Right?
See, Stark never went to Coney Island again.
Ever.
He didn’t want to. It was the one iteration of the company that it was completely in his power to avoid.
It wasn’t that he didn’t like Coney Island.
He loved it.
He hated it.
It defined him.
It was too bright and too tainted.
He liked the Santa Monica Pier better.
Stark had found it on his own. His own safe place that wasn’t really safe, it was loud and convoluted and shining and alive. He had found it after his parents died and he moved to California, putting as much distance between himself and his old life as it was geographically possible within US borders. He had found the Pier when he was alone. He had dressed down and sat there and done nothing besides watching the waves with laughter on the background. Year after year, he had looked longingly at the rides, and never riding them, because people underestimated his ability to just not do what he wanted to do, or say what he wanted to say.
But he was happy in the Pier. He was happy being mesmerized. He was happy in a place that was everyone’s, but was also only his. He had never been there with Pepper, or Rhodey, or Happy, or Steve, or anyone, ever, at all. It was just him, and people changed, the lights changed, and at the same time they didn’t, it was the same thing, the same old-fashioned wonder. It felt like a jewelry box. All glitzy and glamorous and a little tacky, little family heirlooms, valuable and old and passed down to who came next.
Santa Monica Pier wasn’t the future. It was in the past and the present and it would survive through to the future, and it would still look as wondrous and kaleidoscopic because Stark would never let anything taint it. He would never ask Steve to come spend the day with him there, he would never ask Pepper, he would never ask anyone, it was one of the secret unspokens. He didn’t want memories of the Pier to be associated with anything or anyone that he could lose. He had lost a lot of things, but he would never lose the Pier.
There was only one person he wouldn’t be scared to bring over to the Pier with him.
She would have hated their pizza. But she would have eaten it anyways, if he asked.
He wouldn’t have asked.
If she asked, he would have joined her in whatever vegetarian meal she wanted, even though he loved pepperoni pizza.
She wouldn’t have asked.
Because both of them knew what it was like, to swallow something back and let secret wishes die.
And still, they would both sit on the bench staring up at the Ferris Wheel, wishing to ride it but not riding it, and smiling silently anyway because they liked watching the lights.
Maybe he didn’t want anyone to ever come with him to the Santa Monica Pier because he was always meant to come here with Maria. Because, no matter who else he was with, Stark would never be able to ask everything. Can we stop walking? Can we sit down?
No. He would have to find an excuse, anything. Like, "No, stop, let me finish my fourth slice of pizza. Jesus."
Then he'd go for a fifth one too, even though he wouldn't want to eat anymore, but it was one of those things, it would be an easy excuse to skirt away from saying the things that were hard to say.
Stop. Stop moving. Stop going to places. Stay put. Can we stay?
Can we watch the lights, just a little bit longer?
Betty sat down the pizza on the table before grinning at Tony. “You can hit play again and don’t worry, I got Pepperoni.” Her hands opened the box and started to fix the plates, only to pause when the other snorted. She glanced over at the teenager who was lounging against her couch like he was in his own home. Which he kind of was. Mom had told him time and time again that he could come over anytime he liked because he was just her kid and this was his home just as much as it was her own home.
“You do this whole wife thing awfully; I’m supposed to pay for our dates. Haven’t you been lectured enough by my father for stuff like this?” She chuckled and handed him his three slices before leaning back with her own two, maneuvering so she was once again propped against his arm comfortably watching The Sword in the Stone. “Eh, I believe in new age thinking and your father isn’t around so you can stop posing peacock.” He was a different person when he didn’t think he was failing his father.
She yelped when he suddenly moved his arm, causing her to fall into his lap. “Hey now, play nice little girl. Remember we have to go back to my house soon and you’ll have to play nice. None of this Peggy Carter stuff. You know how disappointed he gets when you act like that.” She glared up at him before sighing heavily.
“I know but still. I hate how he treats all of you. And how he thinks he is better than momma or me.” A pout crossed her face before she glance back at the tv. “But no matter we are here to eat pizza and watch this movie. So eat your pizza so I can do my wifely job of making sure you stay fed.” Her grinned brightened as Tony nodded his head and ruffled her hair the best he could from the position he put her in. It wasn’t often they got to just relax like this out of the public eye. It was the only time they really ever got along. The rest of the time they were cats and dogs.
“Alright gumdrop, we can do that. Got to make sure my future house wife is happy.” Not that any of this would actually go through. Mom would end up hitting Mr. Stark for his stupid actions. Betty was going to college and she knew Tony would let her have her own career and everything. It would be nice. The best of both worlds really.
