"This face was made for television," he jokes when people ask how he'd gotten the job, but really it had just started out as doing a favor for a friend of a friend who was willing to give him an advance before he'd even shot a scene. When he turns out to be horribly stiff in front of a camera he feels a little guilty, but the posters they'd printed already have his face on them, and there's no one else willing to do favors for a guy who'd flipped out and destroyed the rec room in his fraternity—literally destroyed, as in thrown the pool table and the mini fridge out the second-story window and then set fire to the curtains. Steve doesn't ask Bruce about it, and Bruce, who is teeth-meltingly gentle with the kids they manage scrounge up to appear on the show, almost never talks except to give him directions or ask if he can stay an extra hour.

It's not a bad way to pay for college, especially because they film exclusively in the afternoons and on weekends and all of Steve's classes are early in the morning. Bucky jokes in his emails that he should have been the one to join the army, he'd find the 5am wake up call a refreshing morning spent sleeping in, but Steve has asthma and heart palpitations he has to take three different medications for, and they'd rejected him all three times he'd tried to enlist. Bucky, who'd gone with him to the recruiter for "moral support" (in reality to keep him from lying to the recruiter), had been intrigued by the offer of free education and a pension after only twenty years, and had joined up himself. Steve still hasn't forgiven him.

He plays "Captain America", which, as he'd said out loud upon first hearing it from the friend of a friend, is the stupidest name he's ever heard of for a children's television show, but it sort of works anyway. It meshes seamlessly with the show's earnest but awkward attempts to teach kids about American history while also instilling good moral values like sticking up for those weaker than you and being honest. Bruce, who is a bio-chemical engineering graduate student by day, explains to Steve during his interview (lunch at the cafeteria) that he feels very strongly about educating children but feels more comfortable interacting with them at a remove. Steve thinks of the rumors, but only says that he doesn't have any experience with children whatsoever, to which Bruce replies with a dismissive wave of his hand, as though experience with children were of trifling concern to the producer of a children's television show.

His first scene is a speech about the Revolutionary War, which he flubs on the first take by exclaiming in the middle of a sentence, "Really? I didn't know that."

"You didn't know the Revolutionary War started in 1775?" Bruce, who is operating the camera, asks incredulously.

Steve shrugs.

"I thought it started in 1776," he says lamely, though in truth he doesn't think he's being that thick. 1776 is the year everyone talks about, it's the year they mark as the beginning of the country, so logically...

Bruce sighs and shakes his head, and they start the scene over.

His costume is awful, and he takes the first opportunity to ask Bruce if he can make some alterations, to which Bruce replies with a distracted grunt, which Steve takes as a yes. It is maybe disingenuous to ask him when he's in the middle of an editing jag, which he measures in bags of pita chips rather than hours, but Steve really hates that costume.

His first move is to replace the weird head-thingie with a metal helmet he finds at a junk shop and paints blue, and then adds an 'A' in white on the forehead to be conciliatory even though he thinks it looks just as stupid on the helmet as it had on the mask/hat thing. Next he tries unpicking the boyshorts that are somehow attached to the tights he wears them over, but he ends up ripping both of them and quietly replaces them with blue cargo pants and a much more substantial belt. You almost never see him full-body anyway.

The boots and gloves can stay, but that shield is just an atrocity. What is he, a knight? But the shield is some sort of symbolic part of the character, at least according to Bruce, so he tries to find a replacement and in the end he recruits Natasha over in theater to help him make a round one out of foamcore and metallic paint. It looks pretty good. She critiques his shaping on the foamcore, but overall he can tell she thinks he cuts a dashing figure, and he poses and makes her promise to watch the show when it finally airs (if it finally airs, he adds under his breath).

"Only if you come help paint sets," she demands. He shakes his head in mock despair.

"You drive a hard bargain."

"You love it."

"You know I do."

He winks, and jogs back across campus in the costume, feeling almost a little cool.

Bruce hates it.

Of course he does, Steve thinks to himself as Bruce huffs and puffs and rants and raves. He isn't even sure Bruce remembers authorizing changes in the first place.

"But it just looked so... homemade," he argues. Bruce gestures sharply at him.

"And this doesn't?!"

"Hey, I'll have you know, I did this paint job myself."

"You look like a... like a soldier!" Bruce exclaims, and Steve finds himself losing his own temper a little bit.

"Who are the ones fighting and dying to make all this history you find so important. I may not know dates very well, but I know for damn sure what kind of person is worth teaching kids to look up to, and it ain't the politicians."

Bruce glares at him, but Steve thinks about his Vietnam veteran father who had drunk himself to death and feels his own ire rising, and he thinks if Bruce says one more word he's liable to punch him.

Bruce takes a couple of deep breaths and lowers his shoulders. When he speaks, it is in a tightly controlled voice.

"I don't want kids thinking violence is in any way okay. It's not a good way to solve problems. You wear a shield for a reason."

Steve hates the way Bruce talks about Captain America and himself as though they are the same person, but he can see that Bruce has a personal stake in this anti-violence stance, and he pushes his own temper down to answer calmly back.

"I kept the shield because I agree with you about that. Violence is bad, and it's not what I'd teach to kids either. But if you're going to teach them history you're going to be talking about wars, and we were the good guys in a lot of those wars. Why not address that directly?"

"Because the moral complexities of the necessity of war is a bit of an advanced topic for young children."

"And war itself isn't? Bruce, for crying out loud, you have me running my lines for a segment on the cotton gin's impact on slavery, you think that's not a complicated topic?"

Bruce whooshes out a sigh and runs his fingers through his hair, turning away from Steve slightly. It's just them in the studio, which is Bruce's girlfriend's parents' basement, and Steve feels sillier and sillier standing there arguing with such anger in a costume that makes him look like someone had taken a soldier and dip-dyed him in an American flag.

"Fine," Bruce says eventually, "you can keep the costume. But I'm not doing an episode on the moral implications of war, or on anything. This show is strictly about facts."

"Sure," Steve says, trying very hard not to be sarcastic, because he does understand that Bruce is being really nice to him about messing up his costume, which had cost him a hundred dollars in materials and bribe money for his cousin, who he later admits isn't very good at sewing.

Anyway, he gets used to speaking in front of a camera fairly quickly, but it takes him ages to stop feeling like an unwieldy monster around children who only come up to his knees. The first time they have kids on the set he panics and hangs out upstairs in the kitchen with Betty, glad that so far none of them interact with him onscreen. She teases him gently, and then manages to coax him downstairs "just to watch," though by he end of shooting he's somehow ended up play-sword-fighting with her neighbor's daughter and enjoying it, so he's pretty sure Betty is made of magic. She has to be, to be dating Bruce. (The rec room story is entirely true, but it was also somewhat provoked, though Betty doesn't say exactly how. Steve doesn't ask.)

Betty isn't there most of the time, though, and Bruce finds it hilarious that children apparently terrify Steve. He, having not known this about himself before now, tries to shrug off Bruce's amusement at his expense, but one day after the kids have all gone home he corners Bruce.

"What if I'd dropped her?" he demands, shouting. He'd only been lifting her up by her armpits to place the American flag in a sconce on the wall, but still. Bruce stifles a laugh, and Steve's glare deepens. "I'm serious, Bruce. What if one of them gets hurt?"

All the laughter leaves Bruce's face in an instant.

"You would never intentionally hurt a child," he assures him. Steve blinks, amazed that this is even in question.

"Of course not," he says.

"No," Bruce agrees slowly, as though he hadn't meant to say what he'd said. "Of course not."

Steve decides he was being silly and backs away from that land mine as quickly as possible.

Sometimes they shoot on location, and that's pretty fun. A lot of landmarks he talks "in front of" are just green screened in behind him, but a couple of times they day-trip to Boston or Philadelphia and film segments live. He and Bruce get used to each other.

He finally meets Tony.

Tony is the rich friend Bruce had told him bankrolled the whole project with his fun money, since his dad was hardly likely to sign over actual company funds to a college film project. He is also the only person Bruce actually refers to as a friend, which makes him unique if nothing else. What Steve hadn't known was that Tony is a baby.

He refrains from asking how old Tony is, but the kid can apparently see the question in his eyes and offers his hand like it's the opening thrust in a sword fight.

"Hey, Tony Stark, yes I'm fifteen, you must be Cap."

"Steve," Steve says, taking Tony's hand and shaking it. "Nice to meet you."

"Pleasure. You know, you look less pretty in real life."

Steve cannot believe he's being postured at by a fifteen-year-old who looks like he's about twelve. He stifles an indulgent smile and just says,

"That's the photoshop."

"Not that you aren't pretty," Tony hastily adds, backing away from tough guy so fast Steve is afraid he might trip. "Just... not in a... I mean, you are pretty—not that you—"

"Tony, Steve's like ten years older than you," Bruce informs him from across the room where he's four and half bags of chips into editing the War of 1812 episode, and Tony blushes. Ah. Steve... actually isn't sure what to do about that. They both stand in awkward silence not quite looking at each other until Tony wanders over to Bruce and asks what he's doing and Steve sits down to finish his sketching assignment. They don't speak to each other for the rest of the afternoon.

Natasha laughs.

"Poor boy," she says, painting in the leaves where Steve has outlined them. He shakes his head, still laughing ruefully.

"What do I do?" he pleads. "He keeps sneaking glances at me and staring at my arms."

"You do have nice arms," she assures him, painting one of them with a long, green stripe. He gives her a matching one down her bicep, which is impressive in its own way. She frowns and brandishes the paintbrush like a weapon. He holds his hands up in surrender.

"Just not the clothes," he asks, "I like this shirt."

"Then why did you wear it painting?" She carefully draws a flower at the end of his green stripe and goes back to painting.

"I'm not Jackson Pollack," he protests. "I can paint without getting it all over myself."

"Just ignore it," Natasha advises, frowning delicately at a particularly tiny leaf. "Don't treat him any differently, and he'll get used to you."

"But he's fifteen. It's not like I can take him out drinking."

"You don't go drinking," she points out. He waves the paintbrush impatiently.

"You know what I mean."

"My advice still stands," she says, and then changes the subject. "When is the show coming out?"

"Next month. We have a five am slot on Saturday, which is pretty good for public access, or so I'm told."

"You are enjoying this," Natasha says with a little surprise, looking at him. "You said you hated everything about it, but you're invested now."

"Well," Steve says defensively, "It is my job."

Natasha smiles secretly and goes back to painting.

Betty's father revokes permission to use his basement when he comes back from Afghanistan, and that's how Steve finds out that Bruce is forbidden from even seeing Betty, much less dating her. He stands awkwardly in front of the camera, which is still rolling, as Bruce stands there and takes the verbal abuse Captain Ross heaps on him, having come back to the states to find his basement overrun by, apparently, the way he's practically breathing fire, his worst enemy.

Steve is getting ready to deck the guy even though he knows that won't do a lick of good (Bruce looks like he's about to cry or flip over a table, Steve's not sure which, and he hates bullies past the point of reason) when Betty comes home and starts shouting at her father. The man can barely stand to argue back at first, though he seems to be picking up steam as Steve takes Bruce by the shoulders and steers him out of the basement and down the upper-class suburban street Betty lives on to a nearby playground, where Bruce, cursing and crying, punches a tire swing for a full ten minutes before collapsing into a hunched-over seated position on the bark chips and holds his head in his hands. Steve just sits near him, shoulders touching, offering moral support minus empty condolences or attempts at wisdom. Bruce never says anything, just sits there until the sun goes down and then lets Steve escort him home.

They find their equipment on the lawn when they go back the next day. Bruce stares at it in dismay (neither of them have cars), and Steve starts calling people, trying to see if anyone can lend them a few hours of drive time in exchange for money or favors. Natasha's roommate (who owns a moped) answers the phone and won't put her on no matter how Steve pleads with him, but he promises to come and lend muscle if they'll give him pizza. Steve had foolishly given him the address in the hopes that he would pass it along, and he hangs up feeling frustrated.

"Tony's ordering us a truck," Bruce says quietly, lowering his phone from his ear. Steve makes a face, and Bruce makes one back.

"He can afford it," Bruce says, shrugging. Steve sighs and accepts it, and together they wait on the front lawn until the truck arrives.

The driver's name tag says THOR, and he flashes them a blindingly white smile before picking up two large pieces of mixing equipment, one in each hand, and carries them easily to the truck. If Steve had to guess he'd say Thor is easily six foot nine, with biceps the size of grapefruits and long hair tied back neatly in a braid that somehow doesn't look girly. The guy could probably wear a tutu and make it look masculine, though, and Bruce seems as nonplussed as Steve feels.

"Where did Tony find this guy?" he whispers to him when Thor is in the truck setting down lighting equipment.

"I have no idea," Bruce whispers back. "I think he and I need to have a talk."

Steve silently agrees.

They hitch a ride with Thor back to the storage unit his truck is contracted to take the equipment to, which is how they learn Tony also rented them a storage unit. Steve catches sight of Clint's purple moped coming up to the house in the rear view mirror as they round the corner, but he doesn't draw attention to it. He'd made it clear Clint didn't need to come, and if he decided to anyway, that's his problem.

It isn't that he dislikes Clint, per se. He can be really fun, and he's pretty good at holding poses for drawing and has an interesting and expressive face, so as an artist Steve feels obligated to like him for his body at least. But he can be... obnoxious. And he's a bit of a slob. And he sleeps with anything that stays still for five minutes, which, to Steve's knowledge (which is right from the source, so probably accurate), has never included Natasha. He honestly isn't sure that Clint and Natasha are friends so much as she keeps him as a pet for her amusement. He still tries to sleep with her— mostly on principle, Steve is sure, since he actually puts notches in his bedpost like a total cretin. But it's mostly half-hearted flirting at this point.

Anyway, Steve doesn't feel all that guilty leaving him behind, but he does decide to buy Clint a pizza anyway, if only to keep him well-oiled for asking drawing favors from.

The storage unit is big enough they could probably use it as a studio, which is Tony's intention, or so he informs Bruce in a text assuring him that such a use of this space is totally legal, he checked and everything.

"Bruce, I have to ask," Steve says, hauling equipment from the truck along with Thor, "How did you and Tony...?"

"Become friends?" Bruce supplies. He takes his glasses off and begins polishing them on his shirt. "I don't really know, honestly. He just sort of latched on to me when I was at MIT, something about geniuses having to stick together. But he's a good kid. He just doesn't have good male role models in his life."

If Steve had to guess he'd say that's probably the understatement of the year, but he doesn't want to know and doesn't say any more. Thor is curious about the equipment he's moving, and Bruce gets going on a digression-filled friendly rant about film-making and education and patriotism, which Steve would totally rescue Thor from except he actually seems interested. He's apparently not native to America (though he doesn't say where he is from) and doesn't know that much about American history, but is excited to learn more. He promises to watch the show when it airs, and drives away an hour later humming the Star Spangled Banner.

Bruce just about has an aneurysm when he discovers that the metal walls of the storage unit give him so much echo that the entire day's film is completely unusable. Steve gently suggests they build a makeshift sound booth, which they have space for, and dub over the video, which calms him considerably. But the problem of sound still plagues him, until Natasha mentions to Steve that the local gymnastics studio where she works is replacing all the foam in their cheese pit and is just giving the old stuff away. Tony is happy to pay for another day of Thor, especially since it's on a weekend and he can come.

It's a bit of a relief to be around Tony and not be the object of his badly-hidden attraction, but Steve feels bad for Thor, who surely notices being stared at. If he does, he gives no indication. Bruce puts Tony to work moving foam, which is light, but they need a lot of it. They end up taking most of the pit, and Natasha finally gets a chance to meet Bruce and Tony, which pleases Steve. He wants her to see for herself just how little exaggeration he uses when he talks about the two of them. She shakes her head slowly when she catches sight of Tony tracking Thor's movements inappropriately closely as the giant man pretends to struggle to lift a particularly large piece of foam, eventually raising it above his head with great pretended effort. Everyone claps, and he tosses it in the truck and takes a bow.

Thor even stays with them to help tape foam up on the walls, just shrugging when Tony offers to pay him for his time.

"I don't have another appointment until the afternoon," he says. Steve wonders out loud how a moving truck company can be so free on a weekend, and Thor explains that he actually just started and doesn't have much of a client base yet.

"You guys are my first repeat customers," he says, smiling broadly. "I might win this bet with my dad yet."

While taping up foam he tells them the saga of his first major fight with his CEO dad, which had resulted in him getting kicked out of the house and all communication cut off. Before slamming the door in his face his father had shouted that he could come home when he'd proven himself worthy to inherit, and Thor, who had never thought about a business being something you could be unworthy of, had sold most of his belongings and bought the moving truck, determined to prove he could run a business without his father's help.

"Loki still talks to me, at least," he says, only a little mournfully. "He says father's health has been failing ever since I left, but he does like to exaggerate. It might just be his way of making me feel better."

They celebrate putting the foam up by having Bruce film them being silly, and when he plays back the video it sounds much better, though it's a little hard to hear when all of them are laughing at themselves and making fun of each other. Thor leaves for his next appointment, accepting payment from Tony with a firm handshake and a nod to the rest of them, and Natasha says she has to get back to the studio and gives Steve a peck on the cheek before she leaves, making Tony scowl, which is doubtless why she did it.