Title: The Life That Late I Led
Author: clarahow // clarascarters // charleybradburies (will be posted after challenge)
Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe (prim. Avengers, Captain America, + Agent Carter)
Characters: Daniel Sousa (POV), Peggy Carter, Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Sharon Carter, Howard Stark, Original Characters, some mentions of other Marvel characters
Pairing: Steve/Tony, background Daniel/Peggy
Length: 883w
Rating: T+
Summary:
Notes: Also for Stony Bingo @ cap_ironman (outsider POV)
Title from "Kiss Me, Kate."

Of all the relationships - all the events, all the timelines - Daniel never would have foreseen, it’s really quite shocking to be sitting in the pews for this one.

Howard staying with Maria for more than a year had been surprising enough that it almost hadn’t surprised Daniel when they announced they were getting married, and the entirely unreligious elopement had been even less surprising. The only surprising parts about the announcement of their son had been that they’d been happily married for a number of years beforehand, and little Sharon’s great displeasure at no longer being the littlest in the family. But that, she’d gotten over as soon as Tony grew old enough for she and Stephanie to pester, and all had been well on that front.

From the very start, Tony had been his father’s son, especially as he’d gotten older and older and hated the comparison more and more. And oh, how poor Maria and Peggy and Jarvis tried to help them both, and how terribly it backfired - no one in the world could help a Stark keep himself together. As brilliant and creative and just as they both were, something seemed to be just...inevitably amiss in their patterns of thinking, in ways that dragged them back down the same rivers time and time again. They’d labor continuously for what they believed was right, but never transfer that knowledge, never apply it to themselves, always thinking they were above the laws of nature and taking home with them only the shame they felt at not being able to fix everything. Daniel had spent enough of his life around them to know it well, too well. He’d known both its magnificence and its chaos.

Steve Rogers, of course, had stood, too, on both sides, so perhaps it shouldn’t surprise Daniel so terribly that he and Tony had ended up drawn to each other. Perhaps, since it seemed to be Steve’s forte to show up when all hope seemed to be lost, it made more sense than a lot of things. Peggy had mourned him, sure, and plenty, but she’d made it, because that’s who she was. (And Daniel, of course, could come up with a thousand reasons not to think too far into Steve’s non-death, but thankfully Steve never cared to give him a reason. He’d come back just as young and just as respectful as he’d been back then, and managed to fit in better than any of the people who’d aged less gracefully.)

The day the marriage ruling finally happened, though, had been a joyous one all around SHIELD, perhaps especially for those who’d been around long enough to remember when blacks and whites couldn’t marry, either, or when the military had unintentionally recruited gays in a naive attempt to keep the ranks half as straight as they thought they were, or even Stonewall. Daniel remembers where he and Peggy when JFK was assassinated, when MLK was assassinated...Trotsky, Malcolm X, John Lennon...he remembers fleeing America, operating SHIELD without government oversight, during part of the Vietnam War, raising children on hidden military bases while Peggy refused to withdraw her declaration of the war’s excesses from the debate.

He and Stephanie had been visiting Sharon in her apartment in DC when they found out Steve had returned, and Stephanie had pretended that Sharon’s cat needed to be watched so that she could stay over when Fury summoned the other two, to talk about Peggy’s potential involvement. Retired and subjectively frail, she still deserved to know, everyone figured, but Daniel was the only one who originally supported the idea of Steve visiting her himself.

Daniel hadn’t been there the first time Steve had visited, as he was somehow still busy, but he was there one of the following times - the only time Steve had actively brought up other people, had talked candidly of his involvement with the Avengers, had listened so very patiently to Peggy talk about Howard, repeating a couple stories as she’d become wont to do. It was a bit surprising, as from her reporting he’d never seemed keen to talk about it, but the engagement announcement had cleared things up quite a bit. At least, about the fact that he and Tony were actually getting along, that is. There were dozens of questions that it raised in turn, but those, for the most part, waited.

Having been subject to many of the jokes himself, Daniel knows there must be plenty of crude talk about who may or may not wear the pants between Steve and Tony, but from the wedding set-up, the statistic seems surprising tilted in Steve’s favor: small, press-free, liberal Catholic church wedding, plenty of friends, and plenty of food that was notably not Stark-level fancy. (Well, maybe about as fancy as Howard’s Velveeta weakness.)

Tony groans at Stephanie when she mentions it in conversation later, but it really is more surprising that Tony’s getting married at all than that he’s marrying a man.

“An older man,” Sharon adds teasingly, and the two slightly-inebriated adults chase each other around for a little bit, laughing and pretending to fight.

It’s enough like back when they were kids that Daniel can’t help but be startled when someone’s phone rings.