felicitygs | alphabet challenge

Setup-ish for ghost story I’m working on. Actually kind of don’t like it, but that’s because I need to actually research and find the terminology for Tony’s spiel and it’s a drabble, so I didn’t. Ah well. This isn’t going to end up in the final story anyway.

U. Hatred

“You know, they say hate is just the other side of love,” he says, voice smug.

“And heroes are only idiots who live to tell the tale,” Steve returns, trying not to bristle. He doesn’t look up, instead continuing to fill in the details of his sketch.

“You must be the biggest idiot of them all, then.”

“What do you want, Tony?” Steve asks.

“Nothing, can’t a guy just talk? I’m just here to talk. But now that you–”

“Cut the crap,” Steve says, putting his pencil down and looking up at the engineer.

“Right, right, I forget, you want it simple and to the point,” and Steve can hear the implication behind it. His eyes narrow, but Tony is either oblivious or getting exactly what he wants. It’s hard to be sure when he’s wearing his sun glasses.

“Wow, look at you, you’re pretty pissed off about this situation, aren’t you?” Tony asks, leaning forward, peering over the sun glasses to look at Steve. Steve meets his gaze levelly. “Right, fine, since you want to the point, there was an anomoly over the Himalayas giving off gamma radiation that ceased at roughly oh-three hundred hours. Readings suggest it was an Einstein-Rosen bridge, rainbows, special effects, but there’s no footage of it. It lasted approximately three minutes and forty seconds. Which is to say–”

“You think someone or something that shouldn’t be from Asgard is kicking around the Himalayas,” Steve says, cutting Tony off. “We need someone to go look because there are SHIELD agents missing, and possibly civilain casualties. We need me because if it’s Asgardian, it might be Loki and if it’s Loki that might be nasty. I’m not stupid.”

Tony frowns, as if he wasn’t trying to imply that at all. Steve doesn’t feel bad.

If there’s one thing he hates, more than anything, it’s how everyone has been treating him like he’s stupid since he woke up. He’s never been stupid–he might not be a genius like Tony and Bruce, but he can think fast and he can remember things given only a short time. He has no idea how he works with these people and creates the plans he does and yet they all miss that he’s not actually stupid, only working on a culture gap near seventy years wide.

“Where’s Thor?” Steve asks.

“Asgard. Haven’t heard from him. He never did tell us what they did to Loki. Presuming it is Loki, and not some other crazy space viking out for blood. No telling, with space vikings.” Tony still looks confused, as confused as he can with his eyes hidden.

Steve nods.