Allie

“Huh,” Sam says one day when they’re getting a post-run coffee (Steve lapped him ten times; eleven just seemed cruel).  He reaches over to where Steve, momentarily bored as Sam read the newspaper on his phone, doodled the Washington Monument on his napkin.  "You’re good.  You ever think about selling these?“

"I did, for a while,” Steve says, shrugging.  "Before the war.  Little cartoons and things for some money here and there.  Supplies were hard to get, though.“

"No, not like that, man,” Sam says, and holds up the napkin.  "Captain America just doodled the Washington Monument on a Starbucks napkin.  It may be a couple steps away from Banksy levels of commentary on capitalist propaganda, but do you have any idea what the VA would do to get its hands on this?“

Steve nearly snorts into his coffee.  "It’s a crappy doodle, Sam.”

“Okay, first of all, if this is a crappy doodle, art you actually put some effort into would probably make my ego spontaneously shrivel up and die,” Sam says, “but more importantly, you could auction this off and make six figures, probably seven.  Easy.”

“Sure, Sam,” Steve says.

Sam shoves the napkin across the table.  "Sign it.  I’m serious.“

Steve rolls his eyes and signs it.  

"Now hold it up and point to it.”

“Good enough?” Steve asks.

“Hang on, good point, no.  Say you drew it.  I’m going to take a video.”

Three hours later, he sends Steve a link to an eBay auction.

The napkin is at half a million dollars already.

His phone buzzes with a text from Sam.  "Pick a charity,“ it says.  "We’re going to do some good that doesn’t involve punching people in the face.”

The auction ends at $2.7 million, which Sam chalks up as low due to the lack of publicity until the last day, when the news organizations finally picked up the story.  It goes to Inner-City Arts, and the next time Steve sees Tony, the napkin is framed on his wall.  Of course.

bellarke → 1.10: i am become death

Tony Stark was insulting his fellow Avengers for daring to care about their “precious freedoms” in EG.

Thank God he kept the phone. That’s about the only thing Pepper has to be thankful for now, where Tony’s concerned.

She leaves the house, takes baby Morgan with her, to the park. Morgan’s too young to really play with other kids, which Pepper doesn’t mind. Pepper worries about the Extremis, how it might manifest itself if Morgan has her favorite toy snatched away by some unsuspecting, unenhanced child. So far, Extremis seems only to have helped her. She can see farther than she should at this stage. She could hold her head up immediately after birth. Nothing more extraordinary than that, so far, but Ross still wants her.

So no, Pepper would rather not have Morgan around other kids right now, just in case. She gets to keep Morgan close, doesn’t have to share.

Except that won’t be the case anymore. Not unless she wants to share her daughter (read: lose her) to Ross and his lackeys.

Tony’s away in D.C., meeting with them now. Being their poster boy. He’s always been good at working a crowd, selling a product. Even if that product is mass incarceration, the civil rights of thousands disappearing. He’s away, so she has time. Unless he suspects what she’s doing, in which case he’ll be home in seconds, and she’ll never get another chance. At least not without things turning bloody again, like they did at the airport.

So she leaves the house, because there are countless devices connected to FRIDAY that could be listening. She leaves her regular Stark phone, Stark watch. Even the reading glasses Tony made for her that have far more bells and whistles than they should. The only tech she has on her is that ancient burner phone. Without the glasses, she has to squint a little. Fortunately, there’s only one number in the contacts.

She sits on a park bench, listens to birds chirp. Morgan sleeps peacefully in her stroller as the phone rings, rings again.

It’s torture to look at the photos, but it’s worse not to. Morgan smiles and sleeps, so she must be okay, so Pepper should be happy about that part. She is. Mostly. She tries not to think about how easily Morgan seems to get along without her. They’re not giving her the full picture, Pepper knows this. They carefully select what to show her, so she’ll worry less. As if that’s possible. They won’t show her Morgan red-faced from crying, or spitting up the formula she must be taking now. Pepper almost wishes they would. She needs to know that her daughter still needs her.

Rhodey comes by the apartment. Pepper’s careful to hide the photos away before letting him in. They have coffee, exchange empty pleasantries. She doesn’t bother asking how it’s going in Washington. She has her own sources there, since Tony has a history of being as selective with the truth as her friends the war criminals are with Morgan’s pictures. She knows what’s happening there. More accurately, what isn’t.

“He’s slipping, Pepper,” Rhodey says eventually, as she knew he would.

“I know.”

The only person who won’t be surprised by the call is Clark. Which isn’t to say he won’t be surprised at all, just at a different time. Clark will be the one who wakes up in the middle of the night. He won’t know why at first, the way few of us do when roused from a sound sleep by nothing at all.

And it really will be nothing. Clark will stare into the dark, thinking, listening, and realize the world has gone silent. The white noise at the edge of his hearing, his subtle companion for decades, has ceased.