kore_logs | when will you make a grave? for i will be home then

“What? No. I’m telling you now. This isn’t after you saw it. This is before. Isn’t it? Have you seen it already? Were you spying on the house?”

The barrage of questions is only half-serious. He doesn’t think Steve was peeping in windows, getting an eyeful of the cat before he let himself be found. But he teases him about it anyway, because he doesn’t know what else to say.

“We are going to domesticate it. Although right now, I’m thinking we need to domesticate you. Look at you. You’re all—” He waves a hand at Steve’s face. “You’re going wild man there. We just need to get you a few plaid shirts and one of those orange hats and you’ll be set.”

He looks incredibly relieved. "I'd love a good clean shirt and a shave." He just feels uncomfortable in his own skin, being unwashed and the like. He'll be happy to see running water and someone's grandpa's clothes, even if they are covered in cat hair from a cat that might try to kill him in his sleep.

Once they get to the house, Steve looks himself in the mirror in the hall and he looks... pretty shocked at his reflection. Though it's only been ten days, he looks like an utter mess and with his wrinkled, dirty clothes from sleeping in the wilderness, he barely recognizes himself. He feels older. He feels ...diluted. Like he's still there, just watered out.

The layout of the house hasn’t changed. Minus the addition of the cat and Elle spending time in their attic, nothing has changed at all. Steve’s room is the same as he left it, almost as though Tony turned it into a shrine in his memory. Or simply because he refused to believe that Steve would be gone forever. All of his clothes are exactly where he left them.

“So listen, why don’t you go get a shower, change your clothes, shave off that dead beaver on your face, and I’ll make you something to eat? Something hot. And hot to drink, too?” Tony suggests, jerking a thumb toward the kitchen. “I can actually cook things. Not a five course meal, but enough, you know? Your stuff’s where you left it. No one touched anything.”

"You gonna ask me how to make a steak again?" he replies. It's not meant to be a jab; it's a fair question. He heads into his room anyway, to get clean clothes to take to the bathroom. He wonders what happens if he remembers something, will he remember it by the time he finds somewhere to write it down? Will he want to remember?

He doesn't know Elle's living here, and he'll be a little upset they didn't insist she take his empty room. Maybe it's because he's still attached to the idea of Peggy being in the attic, but he can identify that his room would have been the logical one to give up. At least they didn't give it to the cat.

That one, he's still trying to piece together. Why would they bring home a sabretooth tiger cub? "If you don't mind," he calls from his room, not too loudly. "Why don't we do breakfast?"

"Breakfast? Sure. We can do breakfast."

He takes a moment to poke around in the kitchen, taking stock of what they have that constitutes breakfast food. Breakfast food that he's accustomed to seeing, anyway. What he's most used to eating for breakfast is coffee, and if the powdered everything is any indication, people from Steve's time might eat shoes for breakfast. Or something equally bizarre. He doesn't know.

"How about pancakes?" he calls a minute later. "You want pancakes? We've got enough mix for that." Plus, Tony can actually make those. And he can make a boatload, so that Steve and his bottomless pit of a stomach won't leave the table unsatisfied.

"Sure!" he calls from the bathroom, and then proceeds to wet the razor they have. He should trim first, but he doesn't remember if they have scissors. He hasn't exactly gotten used to these multi-blade razors, so he sort of makes a mess with the blades (but thankfully not on his face.)

This could be better; he'll have to shave again soon, but the mirror's fogging up from the water running, so he quickly jumps in to shower. When he's done, he can feel some spots where he's probably left an awkward thin triangle of beard left, and when he finishes up and towels himself off and dries his hair, it won't exactly sit back in the position it belongs. He needs like, pomade (okay, he would have used vaseline), stat. And a haircut. And a comb.

But when he's done, he's already feeling like more of his usual self, and the confidence goes a long way. Not a hundred percent up to his clean-cut prim ways, but it's definitely better than how he started. He's even losing some of the bags under his eyes. They were competing with his irises.

He walks out fully dressed (except he's only wearing his undershirt-- the shower was hot and he doesn't want to sweat into his nice clean plaids) and checks up on how far Tony's gotten with the pancakes.

When he gets the go-ahead, Tony starts work on the pancakes. They don’t have milk, and he’s hardly the pro with powder that Steve apparently is, so he does without it, using plain water instead. Without JARVIS there to point out where he’s going wrong, he has to pay more attention to what he’s doing than he usually would. He even goes so far as to read the instructions on the box, instead of making up his own as he goes along.

Yet despite his lack of culinary skill, the batter is smooth when he pours it into the pan and the pancakes are almost perfect circles. There’s a small pile of finished pancakes gradually growing larger on a plate on the counter when Steve emerges from his shower, looking more like himself than he did when Tony found him. He’s even got coffee brewing, but by this point in his life, he can make coffee in his sleep.

“Well, now you look like the Steve Rogers I know,” he comments casually, giving Steve a brief once over to make sure there’s nothing visibly wrong with him. “Much better, by the way. The beard doesn’t really work for you. It’s too… busy. How do you feel?”

Steve quirks a brow at Tony's description of the beard. "Idle," he replies, now that it's gone. "Pancakes look good." He states that proudly, because (and it's a little-known thing) when Steve started making pancakes, they were all different sizes, the batter was too runny, he'd burn the bottoms or the butter would be too much and actually seep through the finished pancake.

He doesn't expect there to be butter or cream, but he does love some pancake syrup (he likes maple syrup, but it'd be wasted on him since he adores the fake stuff.) He looks in the pantry for the powdered milk he put there at least two weeks ago. It seems to be rather well-hidden, but bam, milk powder and water, and he's made them both glasses of milk to go with their pancakes.

If Tony knew about Steve’s pancake problems, he would assume that it had something to do with the ingredients of the time and not his skill at making them. Even before the serum, it’s hard for him to imagine that there’s something Steve can’t do. Or at the very least, can’t do properly.

“Do you like syrup on your pancakes? I don’t know why I’m asking that. Everyone loves syrup.” He does know what he’s asking. Powdered eggs. And apparently, judging from the concoction Steve is making, powdered milk is a real thing after all. “Anyway, there’s some in the cabinet.” He pauses in the act of flipping one of the cooking pancakes to point to the cabinet in question. “If you want to get it out.”

He does, and he goes to do that. Oh my god, it's real off-brand syrup, just like the shit Steve loves. High fructose corn syrup? Perfect. He sets out both their plates (where did Steve get placemats from? Is this guy for real?) and their milk. It looks just like a typical breakfast.

He feels better already, just from the smell. If the key to a man's heart's through his stomach, then the scent is the twist in the lock. And Steve? He always comes hungry (that would explain a lot about the state of how abundantly he cares.)

"Don't suppose we have any fresh fruit?" he asks. It's worth a shot.

“Uh…”

Do they have fresh fruit? Tony kind of doubts it. What supplies appeared in town were mostly non-perishables and slow-perishables. And apparently poisonous spiders. He looks around, glancing over countertops that he knows are devoid of fruit and tries to remember if Bruce put anything anywhere else.

“I don’t think we do. If we did, Elle probably ate it.” Oh right. Elle’s here. That’s new. He should probably tell Steve about that.

“She’s staying here too. In the attic. Bruce brought her home one day, I’m not really sure why.”

"You should've let her stay in my room," he says. "Less of a hassle to get to." He doesn't even know Elle, though doubtless he's seen her around. Well, he's definitely seen her around because he's met Veronica. But anyway.

While Tony's still frying flapjacks, Steve takes the initiative to look around. Maybe they've got dried, or jam, or something. Anything to brighten up the plates, make it seem like they've got more than they have. He's a master of that, of making do and waiting until rewards are ripe for the plucking.

“Yeah, no.” He says it automatically, so flat and matter-of-fact that it’s obvious he won’t accept any argument to the contrary. “It’s your room. You were coming back. I wasn’t going to move her in and then move her out again.”

He was coming back because Tony was going to find him if it killed him. Thankfully, it didn’t need to get to that, but he’d been prepared for it.

The stack of finished pancakes is getting larger, and Tony makes a few more before calling it quits for the moment. He’ll only eat about three of them. The other dozen are all Steve’s.

“Find anything? Cause these pancakes are done.”

Alright, Steve's not going to push that further. Elle gets the attic. "Yeah, raisins." He frowns. Not a big fan. "Do you want them?" He might as well. They're just a little too sweet, and he prefers fresh grapes. Well, Steve prefers fresh most things, though most dried fruit is awesome. Dried bananas, dried pineapple-- he loves dried kiwi. But raisins, yuck.

Definitely Bucky's influence.

He brings out the box of them anyway, sets them on the table in case Tony would like them, and then looks confused at their hilariously mismatched piles. "Sure you don't want any more of these?"

Tony isn’t a huge fan of raisins, but he’ll eat them in a pinch if he has to. He’s not really sure how well they go with pancakes, though after he’s finished eating the main course, he’ll probably grab a handful just to get the taste of the syrup out of his mouth.

“There’s more batter,” he responds, cocking his head toward the bowl on the counter as he carries the two plates over to the table. The plate with the larger stack gets set down on Steve’s side. “If either one of us is still hungry after this, I can make more.”

Pulling out his chair, Tony takes a seat. “Seriously, eat as much as you want.”

That sounds like a challenge. Steve will actually eat them out of house and home if he took Tony up on it, so he thinks he'll settle for this nice stack. Waste none, want none.

He proceeds to drown the cakes in syrup, not because he thinks Tony can't cook them, but because he's actually got a bit of a sweet tooth and Steve will actually use his pancakes like a freaking sponge for syrup.

He does just that. Seriously, if he had bacon, sausage, or eggs... totally covered in syrup by this point. Actually, he really loves fried chicken and has a sudden craving for that on top of his pancake rafts floating in a syrup sea.

"Should we... feed the cat?" he asks, after two bites.

Watching Steve eat is like some weird kind of modern art that Tony can’t help but stare at. There’s a part of him that wants to ask if he’d like a little pancake with his syrup, but after whatever ordeal he’s been through, he probably deserves to drink the whole bottle if he wants to. Tony certainly doesn’t care.

When he puts the bottle down, Tony picks it up and puts a bit of syrup on his own pancakes. Not nearly as much as Steve, there’s still more doughy fluff than there is sea of thick brown goo, but there’s enough to taste, at least.

“Nah,” he says, shrugging as he starts cutting a pancake up into smaller bites. “I’ll make something for it after we’re done. It eats damn near everything, I’m surprised it hasn’t eaten the rug yet. Did you ever have pets? Do you know how to get them to listen to you?”

"Before I went into the army, I couldn't intimidate a rabbit if I tried," he confesses. Seriously, those were some vicious rabbits at the pet store. Puppies loved him, however, but cats and meaner dogs would find him to be easy prey. That's not exactly fair, in terms of cats, since they own everybody.

It looks like this one isn't special, in that regard. He just hopes he's not going to wake up with its ass in his face, because for some reason, cats really love doing that to him. That, and sidling up to him and acting all flirtatious and then trying to gnaw his hand off.

"And be glad it's not eating our upholstered furniture. I don't know how we'd fix it."

If there’s anyone in town the tiger does take a liking to, Tony suspects it will be Steve. That’s just the way Steve is. A magnetic personality that someone can try to hate but ultimately can’t. Even, he thinks, wild animals.

“I could probably fix the furniture. And the doors if it – he, she, I don’t know – starts destroying them. It’s the socializing that I’m having trouble with.” Quite possibly, that’s because he has trouble with socialization on his own. Trying to teach something else how to function with people is like the blind leading the blind.

“We just need to get it actually liking us. Then it won’t try to eat us. In theory, anyway.”

It's quite obvious that lack of sleep and a long day caused Steve to basically fall asleep into his shawarma. It should now be quite obvious that with decent rest and no invading chitauri army, that Steve can tuck away food faster than most champions. In fact, if they were strapped for cash, they could enlist him and Thor in separate eating contests.

But speaking of bad ideas. "You brought home a wild cat that's going to grow up about the size of a small bear, and it hates you."

Moreover, shouldn't Bruce be able to figure out what sex their cat is?? Shouldn't he have made an announcement?

Anyway, Steve dabs the corners of his mouth with a napkin and then gets up. "Where is it?"

“A lot of sentient beings hate me. That’s nothing new. In fact, it’s probably proof of sentience in the first place.”

Tony knows that he isn’t the most likeable of people. He’s also well aware that that’s a personal choice and that he could stop being a dick if he wanted to. The problem is, he doesn’t. People are going to dislike him anyway. He finds that he can live with it a hell of a lot easier if he’s disliked because he’s an ass than just because he has money or good looks or a brain that he knows how to use.

“If I stopped bringing people home who hated me, I wouldn’t bring anyone home at all.” Not that the tiger is people, exactly. But whatever. Steve gets the point.

“It’s in my room. I didn’t know where else to put it.”

Steve is compelled to sit back down, and look Tony straight in the eyes. "I don't have a lot of friends. Never did. I guess that's why no matter what I say, you won't believe me. I'm not too great at expressing how I feel," he says, and in all honesty, he's not. Everything's a too-late story for him, and there's only one person he thinks who's disappeared from his life knowing exactly how much he cares for them.

"You're just going to have to believe me when I say I like you. I wouldn't be pretending if I didn't, I'm not that kind of man. You know that." And then he gets up again and starts walking towards Tony's room, because the prospect of possibly getting mauled by an ancient beast is slightly less uncomfortable than discussing his feelings in a vain attempt to get Tony to stop being so negative about himself.

He hadn’t made that comment as a jab at Steve. He hadn’t even been thinking about Steve when he’d made it. Just the tiger and the fact that, yes, it hated him and probably would continue to hate him forever because that’s just how things work for him.

Blinking, he watches him get up, too dumbfounded to do or say anything for a moment. Once his brain comes back online, he leaves the table and follows him. It’s easier, he decides, not to comment on the whole friend issue. Period.

“What are you doing? Are you going to try to engage the tiger? Don’t do that. It might try to bite you and I absolutely cannot have Captain America being bitten by my tiger.”

Because if he gets bitten, fine. But Steve? No way.

He just gives Tony a look. It's a look like, bro are you serious this cannot be worse than the aliens, or the ambush of wolf tiger things. It's just one little cat. So he slowly opens the door, and has no idea what he's going to find.

At first, he stands back, waits for it to be comfortable with him in its territory. Seriously, Tony doesn't want to sleep so he invites a tiger to be in his room? Wow. There needs to be a word for how determinedly stubborn Tony wants to be when he wants to sabotage his own health.

After a little bit, he starts walking slower, and he's calm about it. He just hopes the damn thing isn't hungry.

Said tiger, who will one day soon come to have the name Stanley, is laying on the large soft thing in the center of the room when the wall opens. His – he’s a male, even if the one with the star in his chest hasn’t paid enough attention to figure it out – ears prick up and he lifts his large head to scrutinize the two-legs that made the hole. His nostrils flare, scenting the air, and what he smells is something new.

Blood and bone, hair and the strange, foul-smelling plant fibers the two-legs cover themselves with. And something else that he cannot name. Like the smell of a lightning strike, the smoke of a fire, and warmth of the sun on rent earth all rolled into one.

The two-legs comes in and he sits up, great golden eyes gleaming. He’s curious. Unlike the loud one, this one, at least, is quiet.

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