So much in this new century is different, but somehow it hits Steve particularly hard that it's art. He'd always thought he'd go to art school eventually, but now, when he looks at all the art around him (and there's <I>so much</i> of it) he can't even figure out the techniques they used to make it. He can still buy a <i>Superman</i> comic, and read about Lois and Clark, but instead of the plain four-color printing in his day, everything is rendered in bright washes of color, better than even the printing in the slick magazines used to be able to do.

He finally asks Tony about it, because Tony <I>said</i> he could ask, and Tony offers to set him up with everything he'll need to do digital art. "I mostly use it for design," he said, "so all the best stuff down it my workshop, but the tools are there for painting, too, sure."

So they bring their supper down the stairs one evening when nothing else is happening, and after they've eaten, Tony gives him a tablet which he can draw on without actually drawing; a stylus that can be a pen, and a pencil, and a dozen different brushes, if he presses the right buttons; he shows him how to use the "holographic" screens that let his images hang in  the air in front of him (and then shows him how to use one of the small, glass-covered screens that are a tiny bit more familiar), and the "programs" that let him make art.

They're a little more complicated than the simple communications programs that he was taught to use at SHIELD, but after an hour or so of Tony leaning over his shoulders and pointing things out to him, he's managed to paint a baseball that's at least recognizable as a baseball, and he's confident enough that he can learn the rest on his own to shoo Tony away while he tries to tell Steve that he has a full 3D modelling program that could do a simple shape like a sphere in perfect detail, and then fabricate one for him before he could blink.

Steve doesn't tell him that he's missing the point; he's pretty sure Tony already knows, he just needs to be saying <i>something</i>, so Steve tells him to go work on one of his own projects, Steve will be all right.

He gets so asborbed in learning the new skill that he quickly loses track of what Steve is doing. Even with his rudimentary knowledge and talent, painting on a computer is amazing: he never has to worry about running out of paint, and when he'll have enough money to buy more; he can be as profligate as he likes. And he can make all sorts of mistakes, too, and then erase them or cover them up without any sign they were ever there. And Jarvis shows him how to use something called "google image" which is any index of pretty much every image or object ever created in history, if he needs a reference for something he's drawing. If this is the sort of thing this future allows, he's starting to think he might understand Tony a little.

Eventually he realizes that he hasn't heard anything for some time except for the scratch of his stylus and the near-inaudible hum of machinery that seems to be a constant is this future, and he looks across the workshop to see Tony leaning heavy on a table, still in a way that Steve's never seen him before. He quietly puts down his own work and walks over; Tony doesn't react, and Steve sees that he's fallen asleep right there, sitting up. He should probably Wake Tony up and get them both to proper bedrooms - the little clock on the corner of his screen, now that he thinks to check it, shows that it's somehow gone 2 AM without his noticing -  but instead he asks JARVIS if he can dim the lights in the shop, and keeps working just by the glow of the screens.

***

A few days after the night Tony, embarassingly, forgot that he'd offered to help Captain America out, and crashed in his lab as usual without even remembering he was there, something Tony is never going to live down in his own memory even if Cap's been nice enough not to say anything about it, the man himself comes up to Tony and says, "I just wanted to thank you for all the time you given to helping me. I don't have much I can give you in return, but, um, here, JARVIS showed me how to print it out," and hands a framed picture to Tony.

It's a painting of Tony, fallen asleep at a table in his lab. The lab is darkenend, and the scene is lit just by the glow of his arc reactor, which outlines everything in a nimbus of blue. The painting itself is kind of rough, but there's clear talent behind it, and Tony kind of likes it; then he sees the signature in the corner - S. Rog - and realizes that Steve himself painted it, and when.

"Were you <i>watching me sleep</i>?" Tony asks with a smirk, and Captain America honest-to-god blushes.

"I've been wanting to draw you for awhile," he says, "I've at least sketched everyone else on the team, but that was the first time I saw you sitting still long enough for me to even try."

"Well, fair enough," Tony says, "It's good. I like it. Getting used to the digital age, huh?"

Cap shrugs. "I still like pencil and paper best, but, well, computer art just seemed like the right medium for you," and rubs awkwardly at his neck.

Because Tony is secretly a sap, and also has had a mancrush on Captain America since he was about six, he hangs the framed portrait in one of his offices, among a collection of diplomas or certificates. Nobody really comments on it until one day Pepper comes in and gestures at it. "Sleeping with an artist now, Tony? Do I get to find out before the tabloids do? 'Woman Asleep At Table' - nice. Snide, yet sympathetic. I think I like her."

It takes Tony less than five seconds to run a search on "Woman Asleep At Table" - a Vermeer painting, 16th century, and very obviously the reference for the portrait Cap had painted. It takes him another few seconds to read the wikipedia article about the Vermeer painting and the transparent symobolism of sex and drunkenness, promiscuity and post-coital intimacy that it supposedly contained.

"I especially like the way she replaced the fruit of forbidden passion with potstickers," Pepper says. "It's very you."

"Wow," Tony says. "Pepper, make a note: Captain America is secretly <i>evil</i>."

"<i>Cap</i> painted that?" Pepper asks, and Tony raises his hands a sits back.

"I promise you, I'm not dating Captain America," he says.

"Yeah?" Pepper asks, raising her eyebrows, with another glance at the portrait. "Well, you might want to make sure he knows that."