1. Development

"What's all this?" Steve asked, a frown creasing his brow as Coulson shoved the battered plastic crate into his hands before moving past him toward the k-cup machine.

"Damned if I know," Phil shrugged, pulling a mug down from the cupboard. "Some junior agents found it down in storage. It's got your name on it."

"Um... Phil," Steve still wasn't that comfortable calling the Agent by his first name but Phil had insisted. Steve, Phil had pointed out, was technically a consultant, not an agent so formality wasn't necessarily appropriate. Steve really thought Phil just wanted someone other than Pepper to call him by his proper name.

"Problem?" Coulson asked, snapping the K-cup machine closed.

"This isn't my handwriting," Steve pointed out as he looked down at the tag on the crate. The tag was old, very old and appeared to have been pulled off another box and attached to this one with packing tape. "It's..." his voice trailed off and a queazy feeling rolled though his stomach.

"You all right, Cap?" there was genuine concern in the other man's face as Steve's eyes swung up to meet his. He drew in a shaky breath.

"I... I think it's Howard's," Steve knew it was Howard's and that fact alone rolled over him like a wave. The blocky, engineer's Copperplate stood out bold and sharp, so different from Peggy's firm precise italic script or Bucky's sloppy scrawl that he continually had to struggle to decipher. The realization that he couldn't tell Tony's handwriting from a complete stranger's even if their lives depended on it slammed into him like a truck. A brutal reminder of where he was now. He'd never once seen Natasha's or Bruce's handwriting. He wasn't even sure Clint knew that a pen wasn't a projectile. The fact that Thor probably couldn't even write in English made his knees shake slightly.

Moments like this had grown so rare that he'd begun to forget what they felt like. He had a smart phone for heaven's sake, Tony had even convinced him to follow the news on his STARK tablet. (He still wasn't giving up his Sunday copy of the New York Times, some things were sacred.) It was the tiny things now, the small things he'd almost forgotten in this brave new world and he drew in a shaky breath.

"Steve?" Phil's use of his first name snapped him back to the present like a rubber band. Phil almost always used 'Cap' or occasionally 'Rogers' in front of Fury but rarely called him Steve.

"I'm ok," Steve answered quickly, shaking off the sick feeling.

"If you wanted some help," Phil's words were unusually hesitant and Steve tore his eyes away from the crate to meet his gaze. "Going through your things, I don't mind putting off my reports for an hour or two."

"No," Steve shook his head. "It's ok, I think I'll just take this up to my room." He let out a sigh, heading for the door. He turned back, his brow furrowing.

"Thanks for this, Phil," he said, indicating the crate. Coulson nodded with a smile and Steve disappeared into the rec room, climbing the stairs to his suite. JARVIS unlocked his door for him and he shouldered it open, kicking it closed behind him and slumping against it with a sigh.

"Are you all right sir?" The AI asked. Steve drew in a slow breath, nodding. He crossed the room, dumping the crate on his breakfast bar and rummaging through his refrigerator. It was mostly empty and he closed his eyes a moment, letting the cold air wash over his face in what Bruce teasingly dubbed "attracting penguins" and Tony called his "right as an American". Steve let out a huff of air, grabbing a bottle of Coke.

He rolled the cold glass in his palm for a moment before twisting off the metal cap and taking a long pull, His mind slipping back to the glee he'd felt the first time he'd been able to open a soda bottle with his bare hands. The sodas in their futuristic plastic bottles tasted different now. They were sweetening them with corn syrup and really, what was with that? Corn syrup went in pie.

Except for the sodas in his fridge. He could remember mentioning it to Bruce one night while they'd made dinner together and the long convoluted explanation of the economics involved. What he'd taken away from it was that the twenty-first century was too much obsessed with quantity and too little committed to quality.

Two days later the glass bottled sodas had appeared in the fridge in his suite as if by magic. He wasn't stupid enough to wonder where they'd come from, even though he was 90% certain that Tony had been in the lab for the entire duration of his conversation with Bruce. And he definitely wasn't surprised to see the first ingredient listed on the side of the bottle was Refined Sugar.

They tasted almost exactly the way Steve remembered.

He let out a long, slow breath, turning back to the breakfast bar, Coke in hand. He pried the lid free, setting it aside and peering into the crate with a dubious expression.

There was a stack of notebook paper on the top and he snorted in amusement, pulling out the first one. It was a drawing of Howard's personal plane, the billionaire hanging out of its window as if he were a teenager on a Sunday drive. The plane was dragging a banner line and trussed at the end of the line, flapping in the breeze was a caricature of Hitler, a little bubble over his head declaring "Mine Goose Ist Cooked!" Steve smiled fondly, his eye drifting to his own signature in the corner and he remembered doodling the drawing in one of Howard's lab notebooks cooling his heels, waiting for medical to clear the Commandos after a mission. A day when he'd been particularly bored and Howard's lab had been particularly boring. The fact that Howard had torn it from the notebook and kept it made his chest hurt a little.

There were others; A pin-up girl leaning on his shield who bore a striking resemblance to Peggy, one of Bucky trying to stuff Captain America in a foot locker while simultaneously flirting with a pair of pretty girls with the caption: Haven't seen him around. One of a single rose, the paper's edges frayed and "Happy Birthday Peggy" scrawled in his best script. There was a hole near the top and he smiled sadly, remembering tacking it to the board beside her desk with the chocolate bar from his rations. At the time he'd lamented that it couldn't be something more, had even thought about talking Howard into a clandestine shopping trip to Switzerland. Howard would have done it too. Would have relished it. Steve could almost see the smug satisfaction on his face at the very notion, but Steve hadn't had the heart to ask. It would be too dangerous and though Steve wouldn't have minded the risk himself he would never be able to bring himself to risk Howard's life over a birthday present.

So Peggy had got a Hershey bar. And even though she still acted annoyed with him half the time she'd brushed a kiss on his cheek as if it were actually something worthwhile.

Beneath the notebook drawings was an envelope and he pried it open, dumping a stack of photos out on the counter. Familiar faces stared back at him. Bucky and Dum Dum trying to drink each other under the table, Gabe and Jacques hunched over a chess board, Howard ruffling Steve's hair. And Peggy, a clipboard in her hands, half facing away from the camera so that her lashes and the line of her perfect red lips stood out against the drab gray sky visible beyond the canvas walls of the tent.

Every single photo was in rich full color, so real and so true and so unbearably near that they made his breath hitch. And even though he knew he shouldn't he couldn't help but touch, just the barest caress of his fingertips against the paper.

He gathered them up carefully, sealing them back in the envelope with shaking hands. Color photos had been so rare in the forties he didn't need to wonder where these had come from. He didn't really want to, but he looked down into the box.

In the very bottom were a dozen or so three inch film reels without boxes or labels bearing only serial numbers, penned in Howard's familiar block print along each metal rim: CA04071907, CA12021982, CA21101989.

"JARVIS, um, I know this is an unusual question but I don't suppose there's an old reel to reel projector lurking around STARK tower somewhere, is there?" Steve asked hesitantly.

"There is not, Captain," JARVIS related. Steve sighed in disappointment. "There is, however, a film digitizer in Mr Stark's lab." Steve's face creased in a frown.

"I..." Steve gave a small laugh, his ears coloring slightly. "I wouldn't have the faintest idea how to use something like that, JARVIS." he admitted.

"I would be happy to assist you, Captain," JARVIS offered. "I'm confident sir would not mind your use of his lab in his absence... also, Dum-E could use the distraction."

"Tony being out of town a bit rough on the little guy?" Steve asked, holding back a smile. Tony had headed out to LA two days prior to deal with something that had gone wrong in R&D. Steve hadn't understood even half of what Tony had said before disappearing in a whirlwind of Armani and Stark tech.

"To put it mildly, sir," JARVIS sighed. "They all do seem to be rather fond of you."

"I'm going to take that as a compliment," Steve nodded, scooping up the now half empty crate and heading toward the door. "You sure Tony won't mind."

"If Mr. Stark was at all concerned with your access to his lab he would not have invited you to live here, much less allow you a passkey to his secured workroom."

"That's definitely a compliment," Steve raised his eyebrows as he boarded the lift.

"Yes sir," JARVIS confirmed. "It is."

The lab really wasn't too bad.

Steve looked over the workbench piled high with clutter and spare parts that drifted over the sides and across the floor. There were several plastic crates half open and half empty and something that looked suspiciously like parts of Phase 2 scattered over the counter that served as a makeshift kitchen. There was, however, no sign of empty pizza boxes or half smashed take out containers or cups of three day old stagnant coffee which was, in Steve's mind at least, a good sign.

It was also a clear signal that Tony had not been in his lab for quite some time and the bots had had more than ample opportunity to clean up after him.

Steve dropped his crate on the only bare corner of the workbench with a sigh.

"Hey, Dum-E," he smiled, petting the bot absently as if it were a dog, Dum-E's clicks and whistles calming tension he hadn't realized he was carrying.

"Yoo is quite adept at loading the machine, sir," Jarvis declared as both Yoo and Butterfingers swooped in on him as well, vying for attention. "If you'd like to give him the film reels."

"Be careful with these, ok?" Steve cautioned, handing the crate to Yoo with a chuckle as the bot sped across the lab. "How long will this take, JARVIS."

"I will need several minutes for Yoo to load the machine and then the duration of the film's play time in order to digitize it. Shall I notify you when the first one is completed?"

"Actually... if it's all right, I'll just hang out here and wait," Steve declared awkwardly, his cheeks coloring as Butterfingers clung to the hem of his t-shirt with a whine that sounded on the verge of needy. "I... they seem lonely."

"They do miss Mr. Stark when he's away, sir," JARVIS acknowledged.

"Would Tony... mind if I checked on them while he's gone?" Steve asked hesitantly. "I mean, if I'm breaching some sort of rule he has."

"I'm sure Mr. Stark would be grateful that you took an interest in their welfare, sir," JARVIS' tone held a hint of amusement and Steve settled on the floor, his back to the couch in the corner. He dug underneath it a moment pulling out a messenger bag, removing the notebook inside and dumping the pencils out on the floor. Dum-E made a delighted squeak, scuttling after the few that rolled away before setting about lining them up by color.

"You guys want to learn to draw?" he asked as Butterfingers leaned over his shoulder.

development |diˈveləpmənt|

noun

1. an event constituting a new stage in a changing situation

2. the process of treating photographic film with chemicals to make a visible image.

Author's Note:

This story is part of a series called "Coulson Lives but the Avengers Might be the Death of him." The full list of stories and their chronological order can be found on my profile page