It was a miracle and a half that Steve survived long enough to be serumed up. What if there was a reason for that? (And for his Disney-princess-esque waist…)

"Hey, Cap!" Stark hollered. Steve cringed a bit at the noise level. "Phone's for you," he said quieter, when he realized that Steve was right there.

An eyebrow raised a bit as he took the phone cautiously. "Hello? Rogers speaking."

"Cap, we found something interesting with your genealogy."

Fury sounded half exasperated, half incredulous, and all resigned.

Steve hesitated. "My genealogy? My ancestors? How in the—you do realize that for all that I'm an American citizen, I'm a purebred Irishman?"

"Yes, Captain, we know," Fury said, still sounding exasperated. "We know a little too well, actually. Are you aware that you surviving long enough to meet Dr. Erskine was a major miracle in and of itself?"

"Yes," Steve said immediately. "And when I track him down, you can thank Bucky Barnes."

Fury barked a laugh. "You can thank your ancestors, actually."

Steve fumbled at the phone for a moment. "Excuse me? How does some long-dead person affect someone across the sea and separated by however many centuries between us?"

Even Stark looked at the phone strangely. Steve shrugged helplessly.

"Your ancestor, a queen of a small island country in the UK's general area—"

"So now I'm royalty?" Steve said incredulously.

Stark burst into laughter.

"Yank the other chain, Fury," Steve said, beginning to grow frustrated with the man. "It might even have bells."

Stark's laughter turned into cackles.

"Heaven and hell both know that I am so done with this shit that I'm in it to my eyeballs," Fury growled. "But yes, your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-times-another-twenty grandmother ended up drinking a magic-fucking-flower while pregnant, and the baby magically had blonde hair and healing powers. There, now you know why you survived to be twenty and why you survived the goddamn experiment in the first place."

Then he hung up.

Steve pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it like it was supposed to make Fury's story make any more sense.

"Uh…you okay?" Stark asked cautiously.

Steve waited another beat. "I can't decide if Fury was trolling me, or if he just can't make that crap up."

"It's Fury, his sense of humor is kinda lacking."

"I think I'd rather have him spontaneously grow a sense of humor than have a flower part of my genetic makeup."

Stark paused, visibly ran that sentence back over in his head, and said, very succinctly, "What the fuck?"

Steve gave him the extremely abbreviated version that Fury passed on.

Stark looked reluctantly impressed. "That's either the biggest piece of bullshit that I've ever heard—and I have a Board of Directors—or Fury now hates magic even more than he did. I'm actually leaning toward the latter."

"But a plant?" Steve all but whined.

"Not even a plant, but a flower. But wait, not just any kind of flower! A magic flower!" Stark said, sweeping his arms in grand gestures like he was advertising said flower. He turned suddenly, as if just realizing something. "Oh, I have so many puns to work with now, it's not even funny," he said gleefully.

Steve buried his head in his hands, helpless laughter shuddering through him.