The Park, Sunday Afternoon

[screwyoumarvel]

There was a pale blond boy, small and skinny for his age, running around the park on Sunday afternoon. This was great! Steve almost never got to go to the park! His mother was always working, or he was sick, and since his dad had died...well. Things weren't great.

But the playground at this park was like nothing he'd ever seen before! Were those plastics? How keen!

The fact that he had to stop and cough into his sleeve, oh, every two minutes or so did not deter him in the least. He was Errol Flynn! "Take that! And that!" he declared, swishing a stick as a sword. If only Arnie was here to play with him!

((Open park is open!))

Comments

[hoorayimrich.livejournal.com]

"You shouldn't do that if you're sick," Tony informed him, an armful of things found at the junkyard in hand. Because robots. ROBOTS.

[screwyoumarvel]

"I'm not sick!" Steve protested. And then coughed twice. "I've just been running around!" For. About twenty minutes. "What do you have there?"

[hoorayimrich.livejournal.com]

"Stuff to make robots."

ROBOTS.

[screwyoumarvel]

"What's a robot?" Steve asked, looking confused.

Look, that word didn't even exist until 1920, and that was in the Czech Republic.

[hoorayimrich.livejournal.com]

Tony stared at him for a moment. "Huh?"

It didn't compute, okay? HE WAS A CHILD OF THE 90s!

[screwyoumarvel]

"What's a robot?" Steve asked again. Was it a word in another language? There were lots of immigrants in Steve's neighborhood. You know, like his parents. "Is it a kind of toy? Why would you need metal to make a toy?"

[hoorayimrich.livejournal.com]

"It can be a toy," Tony replied slowly. "If I want to make it one. It's like a--machine person?"

Kind of.

[screwyoumarvel]

Steve looked confused. "Like in a science fiction show?"

[hoorayimrich.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, but for real. Not pretend." Which was an important distinction.

[screwyoumarvel]

"That seems very unlikely," Steve said somberly. Then he switched gears. "I'm playing Robin Hood, do you want to play with me?" It was easier with fire escapes to shoot villains from, but there was a jungle gym, that was almost as good.

[hoorayimrich.livejournal.com]

"Is not! I'm a scientist," Tony informed him, peering over jungle gym. "How do you play Robin Hood?"

[screwyoumarvel]

How did he not know how to play Robin Hood? "Like Errol Flynn!" Steve explained. "You get the bad guys with a bow! Or a sword!" He brandished his stick. See? Totally a sword.

Oh, wait, he had to cough some more.

[hoorayimrich.livejournal.com]

STOP HAVING CONSUMPTION, STEVE. THIS ISN'T THE 1800s.

"Are you sure you're okay?"

[screwyoumarvel]

HE WOULD LOVE TO.

"I'm fine! I'm not sick, I can play!" Totally fine.

[hoorayimrich.livejournal.com]

Fine? Was he fine?

"I don't have a stick..." He just had a box of scraps. WHERE WAS THAT DAMN CAVE?

[screwyoumarvel]

"There's trees," Steve pointed out. Actual trees! This park was awesome! Not as good as Central Park but he hardly ever got to go there anyway. "They have sticks."

[hoorayimrich.livejournal.com]

Tony looked at the trees. Then back at Steve. Maybe if there were some metal sticks...

"Maybe I can play the other guy?" There was another guy, right? "Flynn something?"

STOP BEING SO YOUNG.

[screwyoumarvel]

Steve looked Disappointed at Tony's total lack of Knowing Anything. "Errol Flynn is Robin Hood." He considered, then offered, "You can be Little John?"

[hoorayimrich.livejournal.com]

Yeah, well. Steve didn't even know what a robot was. So there.

"I guess," Tony muttered, going to hunt up a stick. "Be cooler to play soldier."

[screwyoumarvel]

"War isn't something to play at!" Steve protested. "And hopefully it's over forever since the Great War!" Oh, Steve.

[hoorayimrich.livejournal.com]

Tony was just going to stare for a moment. "Iraq?" He heard his dad mention it!

[screwyoumarvel]

The globes and maps at Steve's school were all from before the end of the War; they were really out of date and still just had the Ottoman Empire. Still, he was pretty sure that was one of the countries that had been formed out of it...he thought. But he didn't know what it had to do with anything. "No?"

[hoorayimrich.livejournal.com]

"Afghanistan?" Tony, stop being helpful.

[screwyoumarvel]

Another young country of whose existence Steve was only vaguely aware. "I don't think there was much of a war before the British gave them their independence." Well, there might have been, but Steve was two and it was the British involved, anyway.

[hoorayimrich.livejournal.com]

"Really?" Tony's knowledge of history was... not so good. "I just know what my dad talks about."

[screwyoumarvel]

"We learned about it some in school." When Steve was able to go to school. "There's a whole bunch of new countries now but our maps are old so we don't have them." Urrrrrrrrchin.

[hoorayimrich.livejournal.com]

"Weird. Can't you look it up online?" Neeeeerd.

[screwyoumarvel]

"On what line? The telegraph line?" Steve asked, confused. "Telegraphs are expensive. Maybe I could look it up at the library, but there's hardly ever time to go there." Steve loved the library. It was all so grand and they let you take books for free.

[hoorayimrich.livejournal.com]

Tony gave him another look. "You're weird."

Then brandished a stick for inspection.

[screwyoumarvel]

Steve looked wounded. It wasn't exactly 'America is Disappointed,' but it was probably a pretty effective look. "I am not." Then he had to admit, albeit grudgingly because Tony had called him weird, "That's a good stick."

[hoorayimrich.livejournal.com]

STOP SUBJECTING HIM TO GUILT. "You're a little weird," Tony grumbled.

[screwyoumarvel]

He was not! Steve struck a gallant, Errol Flynnesque pose with his sword and said, "En garde!" That was French for 'put your dukes up,' you know.

[hoorayimrich.livejournal.com]

WEIRDO.

"En garde," Tony countered, frowning as he followed suit. There was possibly a reason why he and Rhodey stuck to playing soldiers. "Is this like knights?"

YES, TONY. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.

[screwyoumarvel]

"Sort of," Steve allowed, because Tony didn't know anything, because he was the weirdo, not Steve. Then he hit Tony's stick with his stick.

[hoorayimrich.livejournal.com]

Nuh uh.

Tony nodded seriously, smacking Steve's 'sword' right on back. "Have at thee!"

He totally saw that in a movie.

[screwyoumarvel]

Steve smacked Tony's 'sword' with all his strength. So. Kind of pitifully, really.

[hoorayimrich.livejournal.com]

Yeeeeah.

"Uh." Well, this was awkward. "How about you help me with the robot instead?"

[screwyoumarvel]

"That doesn't sound like much fun." Also, he didn't know how. "I'd rather play Robin Hood!" Even if he was a weakling, omg.

[hoorayimrich.livejournal.com]

"It's super fun," Tony assured him. "I can make them fly if I have the right stuff."

[screwyoumarvel]

"Like airplanes?" Steve wondered. "Like a model airplane?" Sure, Steve.

[hoorayimrich.livejournal.com]

"Way better!" Hovercraft better, Steve. Hovercraft.

[screwyoumarvel]

Did not compute. "...zeppelins? They didn't really work so well." Like, boom, not so well.