Disclaimer: The characters portrayed herein are not mine. They belong to Disney and Marvel Studios.

Note: Spoilers for Iron Man I

MAKE DO

Looking back, Steve Rogers was embarrassed how long it had taken him, had taken Captain America to figure it out. He was, after all, supposed to be a gifted strategist, an excellent tactician. There were entire books, war histories, about his exploits and his skills. And not all of that had been merely the product of the American propaganda machine of the forties; he had had enough successes with the Howling Commandos, and later with the Avengers, to prove that he was well able to work with a group of very disparate, very talented people, and put together plans and stratagems that used the skill sets of those individuals to singularly devastating effect.

But, somehow, he'd missed that one particular aspect, that crucial facet of Tony Stark.

Missed it multiple times, despite having it shoved in his face on several occasions with typically infuriating Stark brashness (and that wasn't new. Howard had been like that, too. But where Howard could tone it down, could display a surprising empathy, his son had elevated cocksure audacity to an art form.)

It was probably because he didn't like the man, though that had never affected his ability to work with someone before. Still, Tony Stark was unique like that.

Because underneath all the cyncism, and the snark and the witty quips and snake-oil salesman polish. . . . Tony Stark was a shallow, self-serving, fame-chasing pathetic mess who'd never ever live up to the legacy of Howard Stark. Or so Steve had thought at the time.

"I'd simply cut the wire." Because he wasn't a soldier, had never been in a position where the wire couldn't be cut and the sacrifice play had to be made, and wouldn't have made it, even if he had been. . .

"Has Banner arrived yet?" Because he couldn't imagine facing an army without a hulking, monstrous menace every bit as likely to turn on his own side as to face his enemy to pick up the slack that would inevitably be left by one Tony Stark. . .

Steve Rogers had long ago learned to Make Do. Not enough food in the house? Make do with what was there. Not enough money for medicine? Make do with being sickly. Not fit enough for the regular army? Make do with being a lab rat, with serving his country that way. Not enough supporters in the military brass to be sent out as a soldier? Make do with being a propaganda device. Not enough men or equipment to make a frontal assault? Make do with subterfuge, with taking the brunt of the attack on his own super-serum shoulders.

Not enough time to get off a Hydra plane with a deadly payload, and ensure it stays clear of New York? Make do with riding it down, the whole way down, into the ice.

But Tony Stark? Well, it wasn't so much that Tony Stark flatly refused to Make Do, as that he refused to even entertain it as a possibility. Making do might have been something that Howard accepted, but for Tony? It wasn't even on the cards. Ever.

And that? That was just blindly unrealistic. A complete disconnect from how the world worked, a willful obtuseness, destined for disaster.

Except that it worked.

Steve hadn't realised how well it worked - how emphatically well Tony Stark made it work - until he got hold of Stark's file. Not the TIME magazine article on Stark Industries during the handover from Stane to a now of-age Stark, or even that strange publication, that 'Rolling Stone' biographical article that had read even more like a propaganda love-in than anything Steve had read since his own days as a media darling.

Steve remembered briefly meeting Stane, remembered liking the man and feeling vaguely grateful that Howard had someone, some voice of reason tempering his flights of fancy, someone encouraging Howard to turn his indisputably brilliant engineering skills back to making the weaponry that could serve his country. And how apropos that the man had ended up being Godfather, mentor, and supporter to Tony? It was terrible, another terrible loss to Tony, that he'd died in a light aircraft crash. Losing parents to a car accident, and godparent to an airplane. . . Terrible, but no reason to be an ass.

But the file? The file was illuminating, as much for what it didn't say as for what it did. He wasn't entirely sure why - and why now, after the battle of manhattan, after the Chitauri invasion, after he and Stark had snarled and growled their way into a professionally functional enmity laced with a smattering of mutual tolerance if not respect - why Fury had deigned to provide it. He didn't like any of the reasons he could think of, and he didn't trust the one-eyed SHIELD Director as far as he could throw him. Him, or one of the Hydra weapons stashed in the bowels of the flying fortress the Director called home.

But still, whatever Fury's motive in providing it, the file made for insightful reading.

Stark hadn't been 'lost' in Afghanistan, hiding out in various hills and villages waiting for his inevitable rescue after a surprise attack had decimated the military convoy he'd been traveling in.

He'd been in a cave. Captive. In a cave. Held by one of the most vicious, brutal terrorist groups the twenty first century had ever spawned, one that made Hydra look like an afternoon tea book club. For three months.

The details were sketchy, extrapolation and inference as abundant as any known facts, but terrifying.

Fact: Tony Stark had been held in such a manner that he'd been able to build the first prototype Iron Man suit to engineer his escape. Extrapolation: the Ten Rings had wanted him to build something for them, something that had required them to provide him with at least a rudimentary workspace. Supposition: Most likely, the Jericho missile system.

Fact: When finally rescued from the desert, Tony Stark had been in possession of an arc reactor implanted in his chest that (long and short of it) kept him alive, and a series of behavioural changes most commonly seen in people who'd been systematically and savagely traumatised. Extrapolation: someone with medical training had assisted in the implantation of the arc reactor, and in keeping Stark alive and more or less well . . . while he was brutally tortured. Supposition: Either the Ten Rings had a sympathetic doctor on payroll, or they'd held at least one other hostage. One who'd probably not survived Tony Stark's escape.

Fact: Shortly after his return, and his decision to change the direction of Stark Industries research and development, Tony Stark's mentor, colleague and friend Obadiah Stane had died.

Fact: This had nothing to do with light aircraft, this was because he'd tried to murder Tony for the second time, this time using Stark's own technology.

Fact: Tony Stark had fought back. And won. Steve swallowed, hard.

Tony Stark was in no way his father, and never would be. They might seem superficially similar in appearance, in manner, but they were fundamentally and at the very core so utterly different that it made Steve boggle to think they held a family connection. Howard Stark had been pragmatic, willful and determined. He'd taken what he had to hand, and turned Making Do with it into an art form; equipment, materiel, even Steve Rogers himself, prior to his transformation.

At no point in his life had Tony Stark allowed himself to simply Make Do with how things were. At no point had a mere thing like circumstances, like opportunity, like environment dictated Tony Stark's plans. Informed them? yes. Been made to serve them? Absolutely. But dictated them? Not. One. Bit.

Tony Stark, Steve realised, was that most terrifying, that most inspiring of things. . . Billionare, genius, playboy, philanthropist . . .Tony Stark was, above all that, an optimist.

An optimist, that he could survive torture, that he could invent a way to keep his own heart beating, that he could engineer a means of escape right under his captors' very noses.

"I'd simply cut the wire." Because he would. No way to do so? He'd make a way. Force a way. Engineer an entirely new branch of science to come up with a way to Cut. That. Wire.

"Has Banner arrived yet?" Because of course he had faith that Bruce Banner would come. How could he not? He was needed, so he would be there.

Tony Stark was not his father.

Tony Stark was an optimist. And by being so, he'd changed the world. He wouldn't Make Do with anything; he'd demand, insist, and invent. . . and the world would just have to Make Do with that.

No, Tony Stark was not his father, and Steve? Well, he could work with that. And he could respect it. And he could well and truly Make Do with not judging the younger Stark on it.

NOTE: This fic is not part of 'Lost Creatures'. It exists because I'm having a wee spot of trouble with the redraft (re-re-redraft) of the latest chapter and so I figured I'd bash out a short character piece to make myself feel better. Of course, because I am a glutton for punishment, I had to write it from the point of view of the one Avengers character who I find disturbing in concept and largely incomprehensible in execution. Because how else do I get a feel for the character?

Comments and constructive criticism greatly appreciated - let me know what you think.