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"Your hair isn’t that bad," Hank said.
The crying coming from the bathroom increased in volume.
Hank shot Steve a speculative look. "Should I send in some ants to cheer her up?"
Steve briefly caught Thor’s gaze and despite the vast chasm of difference between their upbringing, Thor inclined his head a little, and Steve knew instantly that he and the Asgardian thundergod had but one matching thought in their warrior souls: just how had Hank managed to hold onto someone as awesome as Jan for as long as he had?
"No," Jarvis interrupted; the butler looked panicked, but then again he was in control of the Mansion’s caretaking and upkeep, and catering for superheroes was exhausting enough without having to add dealing with insect infestations to his to-do list. "I’d really rather you didn’t."
Hank turned to Iron Man. "You could blast the door down?"
A faint whistling sound came from Iron Man’s modulator. It was surprisingly coherent on the matter despite not including a single actual coherent word.
"Baby," Hank patted the door helplessly, "come on. It’s not that bad."
"It is that bad!" Jan’s pitch was edging up to the kind of frequency where she wouldn’t need a cybernetic helmet to communicate with her partner’s ants. "It’s hideous!"
Thor shifted his bulky weight from side-to-side as Hank stroked the door pathetically. Team practice was due to start ten minutes before. Thor was not the most patient Avenger. If Steve didn’t handle this soon, he could probably kiss his new beautiful team goodbye.
Steve had lost so much. His home. Bucky. Time. He refused to lose the Avengers too. Not when they were the only thing that made sense to him in this decade.
"I could unscrew the door," Iron Man suggested quietly, producing a small red repair kit from a hidden panel on his incredible armor.
Steve shot him a brief, reassuring smile. "It’s okay, I’ve got this." He was the team leader. It was time to stand up and lead.
Hank stepped aside with only the slightest hesitation when Steve approached the door, his shoulders squared.
"Wasp, get out here," Steve said. "That’s an order."
He held his breath. They weren’t on a battlefield, where he knew she would automatically follow his commands. Although the air felt just as tight as it did before a battle, the tension as ripe as an apple about to fall from a tree.
Then the door clicked, and Jan poked her head out. She wore a sheepish expression and had a towel wrapped neatly around her head in a manner that Steve suspected some people had the technique for coded into their DNA from birth, like spiders with their ability to weave webs. No one he’d ever met so far would admit to being taught how to do it.
"That doesn’t really go with your uniform," Hank said, and Jan made a move to go back into the bathroom; Steve gritted his teeth and inserted his foot over the door jamb so she couldn’t close it again. Jan threw Steve an injurious look which then settled into something wetter.
"I need you," Steve said.
A tear slipped down Jan’s cheek.
"Good going, making her cry," Hank muttered and then loudly yelped, “Ow! Which one of you shocked me?"
Steve glanced briefly back. Iron Man and Thor were exchanging one of those silent nods of mutual understanding. Both of them had shocked Hank, then. Steve could understand why they had that impulse. Hank, bless him, could be kind of annoying for someone so damn smart.
"You need me?" Jan asked, tearfully. Her pretty mouth stretched into a smile. "No one ever needs me."
"We do," Steve said. He took her hands carefully and looked her directly in the eyes. "And I faithfully promise on all our behalf that we will resolutely promise to completely ignore your hair until you tell us you’re happy with it again."
Jan’s mouth was a moue of uncertainty. "I don’t know, Cap. I don’t know if you’re all up to that."
Steve frowned. "Why wouldn’t we? We have experience doing it."
"We do?" Jan sounded skeptical.
"Yeah," Steve nodded confidently. "You know. The way we pretend every day that we have no idea Tony Stark is Iron Man.”
Another of those coherent, faint, wordless whistling sounds came from Iron Man’s modulator.
"Um," Jan said, "the way we what?"
Steve beamed. "That’s the spirit."
Iron Man prodded Steve in the arm reproachfully with one metal finger and Steve turned his grin briefly to his metal-clad friend before turning back to Jan with a supportive thumbs up.
"Uh, yeah, what Jan said?" Hank kept moving his stare from Steve to Iron Man. It was an improvement from where he’d been unable to stop staring at Jan’s horrific new hair color, something she was unveiling now by accident. The towel seemed to slip from her head unnoticed as she stared at Iron Man. It really was an unflattering shade.
Iron Man prodded Steve in the arm with one metal finger again.
"What?" Steve asked, turning back to Iron Man.
Everyone was staring at Iron Man, not Jan. That should be an improvement to their situation but Steve was starting to suspect he was wrong to think that.
"You’re Tony Stark?" Jan demanded, her eyes wide.
"Oh, my god," Iron Man sighed, and then did something with his mask, before managing to remove it entirely. Tony Stark shot Steve an angry glance.
Steve blinked back at him, nonplussed. Well. That just ruined his promise to Jan, if Tony was going to go around admitting it was him.
And then Steve noticed everyone was staring. Thor, Hank, Jan, and Jarvis at Tony in shock; Tony at Steve in increasing frustration.
"Oh," Steve said, realizing his mistake. He winced. "I’m sorry, Stark. I thought we all knew and we were just pretending not to."
It was amazing, actually, that Tony didn’t need the Iron Man modulator to make that expressive, wordless, whistling noise that meant he was too stressed out to speak.
Steve quailed. "If there’s anything I can do to make up for this let me know," he said, hurriedly, because modern times were confusing, but manners and knowing how to apologize and atone for mistakes were things that never went out of style.
Steve caught a glimpse of their fight on a row of television screens as they limped back to the Mansion after their narrow victory against the Wrecking Crew. On every screen, there was a close-up of Steve and Jan fighting next to each other, their matching hair-color sparking the news anchor to howl in horror that this might be the start of a new and ridiculous fashion trend.
Ridiculous was probably fair. It really was a very terrible shade of green.
