ext_1177 ([identity profile] elspethdixon.livejournal.com) wrote in [community profile] cap_ironman2013-08-04 08:00 pm

Reassembled, chapter 18

Title: Reassembled, Chapter 18
Authors: [livejournal.com profile] seanchai and [livejournal.com profile] elspethdixon
Universe: 616, AU from the end of Civil War
Rated: PG-13
Pairings: Steve/Tony, Hank/Jan, various other supporting character pairings, both canon and not.
Warnings: Some swearing and violence, references to past dub-con (mind-control-induced).
Disclaimer: The characters and situations depicted herein belong to Stan Lee and Marvel comics. No profit is being made off of this fan-written work. We're paid in love, people.

Beta: [livejournal.com profile] dorothy1901, who did a wonderful job of catching our many, many typos. [livejournal.com profile] grey_bard and several others helped with brainstorming.

Summary: The long-delayed conclusion to Resurrection-verse. Registration is long gone, several people are back from the dead, and Steve and Tony have put their lives and their team back together. Mostly. One long-time Avenger is still missing. Now she’s back, and Chthon has come with her.


Chapter Eighteen





All the giant electronic billboards blew at once, the noise swallowed by the painfully loud scream of sound that seemed to come from inside Steve’s head. He jerked his shield arm up automatically, and then—

The world lurched sickeningly, the ground pitching under his feet. His ears popped as the air pressure plummeted, and Wanda’s voice echoed through his bones, his head, the ground under his feet.

”I BANISH YOU!”

Wanda was levitating a foot off the ground, glowing with a light so bright that it cast sharp, black shadows. They stretched out behind Sin, long and distorted and wrong, darker and thicker than they should be.

He couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe. The light flared brighter, blindingly white.

Then it was gone, and Steve was blinking away a purple smear of afterimage.

The sound of the metal spearhead hitting the pavement was jarringly loud in the sudden silence.

Sin was lying limply in the center of a ring of shiny, half-melted asphalt. Sam was still down, and Clint, and Tony… god, Tony.

Wanda swayed for a moment, then collapsed to the ground in a graceless heap, and suddenly Steve could move again.

He hesitated for an instant, torn between the instinct to rush to Wanda’s side, the desire to grab Sam and shake him and make sure he was all right, and the fear that Tony was bleeding out, dying, already dead.

The blood still smeared across his shield decided him. Whatever Chthon or the spear had done to Sam and Wanda, it wasn’t physical, and it wasn’t going to kill them in the next few minutes. It couldn’t. Not when there wasn’t a mark on them. Tony, on the other hand…

His armor was dead again. It must have shorted out when the billboards blew. Steve fumbled with almost invisible metal latches, trying to find the manual releases, because Tony would be pissed as hell if he used his shield to smash them open again. It felt like hours before he felt the first catch come loose.

Somewhere behind him, he could hear Thor shouting – Loki was gone, escaped somehow – and Doom’s armor clanking as he tried to wrestle free of Carol’s grasp. None of it was as important as making sure he pulled Tony’s helmet off as carefully as possible, without jarring his spine.

He was breathing. Steve felt dizzy with relief as he pried Tony’s breastplate loose. As long as Tony was still alive, they could fix him. Maybe it hadn’t been that bad. The spear might have just grazed him, the magic knocking him out, or-

The breastplate finally came free, a hole wide enough for three of Steve’s fingers punched straight through it. Beneath it, his white dress shirt was soaked in blood.

Too much blood. Even when he pulled the shirt aside, he couldn’t tell how deep the stab wound in Tony’s left side was – the blood obscured everything, welling up again instantly every time he tried to wipe it away. He caught a flash of white the second time and his stomach lurched as he recognized bone.

Bone was good, Steve reminded himself. It meant the spear might have glanced off a rib rather than shredding internal organs. If the spear hadn’t just sliced through his ribs like a meat cleaver. It had scratched his shield, punched through the armor like it was paper.

Tony’s eyes were closed, his breath coming in small, shallow pants, but he flinched visibly when Steve put pressure on the wound.

“It’s over,” Steve told him. “Hold on. Help is coming.” ’You’re going to be okay,’ Sharon had said. She’d told him to hold on, too, and her hands had been covered in blood just like his were now.

SHIELD had to be coming. Even if Tony hadn’t gotten through to them, they had to know something had happened. Between the power outage, the green flames – they were gone now; when had they stopped burning? – and the blinding explosion of Wanda’s magic, everyone in the city had to know.

Tony flinched, his face drawn tight with pain, and then his eyes opened. “…we win?”

“Yes,” Steve said. He pressed harder, leaning his weight on his hands and ignoring the sickening way he could feel Tony’s ribs shifting – at least one had to be broken. “We won. Chthon’s gone.”

Blood was seeping between his fingers, the raw, metallic smell of it so thick that he could taste it in the back of his throat. He remembered drowning on it, feeling cold and sick and unable to breathe, and hoped the spear hadn’t caught one of Tony’s lungs.

Tony coughed faintly, then moaned, his eyes closing again. “Hurts,” he whispered. “Worse than being shot. Ow.”

“You’ll be fine.” The words spilled out automatically. “It’s not that bad.”

Tony’s lips stretched into something that might have been a smile. “You’re a terrible liar.” He hadn’t had a chance to shave in the past twenty-four hours, and dark stubble blurred the edges of his goatee, stark against pale skin. All traces of the gold underarmor were gone, reabsorbed back into wherever it went when the armor shut down.

He had looked less fragile when Steve had left him sitting in a hospital bed with an IV in his arm.

“SHIELD’s coming,” he repeated. He could hear the sound of helicopter rotors overhead again, too loud and the wrong rhythm to be from news copters.

Tony didn’t reply. Steve wasn’t sure he’d heard him.

He saw only snatches of what was going on around them, afraid to look away from Tony for more than a moment. Carol and Thor were restraining Doom, one of them holding each of his arms. Jan was kneeling by Clint, who was sitting up, one arm wrapped around his ribs, and trying to wave her off toward Wanda. Sam was on his knees, too, head bent, cradling Redwing in his arms. Strange was still unconscious, his balled up cloak supporting his head, and Wong was crouched beside Wanda.

Redwing had grabbed the spear in his talons, and he was so much smaller than Strange – what would it do to Sam, if Redwing-

Tony coughed again, his entire body flinching at the motion, and Steve could feel muscles jumping and shaking under his hands. There was no blood on his lips, so he wasn’t drowning it as it filled a punctured lung, but his breathing didn’t sound right.

“Tony?” He sounded desperate, Steve knew, afraid, when Tony needed him to sound calm. “They’re landing now. We’ll get you help.”

No response. Steve didn’t dare take his hands from the wound to touch Tony’s face or check his pulse, so instead he leaned down until his forehead was nearly touching Tony’s and listened for the sound of his breathing. The thumping noise of helicopter rotors drowned out everything else, but he could feel Tony’s breath against his face.

Someone grabbed his shoulder, fingers digging in so hard that his entire arm went numb, and pulled him upright. “Are you all right? Where are you hurt?”

Bucky was crouching over him, face tight, and Steve could almost feel his shoulder blade shifting and his tendons straining under his metal fingers. “You’re going to break my shoulder, champ,” he managed.

The pressure immediately eased, and then Bucky whistled softly. “Damn,” he said. “Stark looks bad. Is that all his blood?”

“Yes.” Forcing the word out around the tightness in his throat hurt. “The spear went right through his armor. I think some of his ribs are broken. Clint’s injured, too, and Wanda.” Once he’d begun, the words just kept pouring out. “And Sam – Redwing grabbed the spear. I think it did something to them. I don’t know. They need medical attention, too.”

“Yeah, we noticed.” Without taking his hand from Steve’s shoulder, Bucky pulled the glove off his good hand with his teeth and pressed his bare fingers against Tony’s throat. “Thor and the Wasp are the only ones that don’t look like they were pulled through a cheese grater backwards. I thought Warbird was invulnerable. His pulse is good,” he added. “Well, it’s there, anyway. Are you hurt?”

Steve shook his head. “No.” He was just about the only one who wasn’t.

“Medics over here!”

For the first time since he’d met her, Steve welcomed the sound of Sub-director Hill issuing orders.

Part of him didn’t want to let Tony go, superstitiously afraid that his hands against the hole in Tony’s side were the only thing keeping him from bleeding out, but the paramedics could do more than he could. Steve let Bucky pull him to his feet and out of the way, and watched as the SHIELD medics took Tony away from him.

***




“I’m fine,” Clint insisted, through gritted, teeth. “Go help Wanda. She’s just… lying there. What if it did something to her?”

“I don’t even know what she did,” Jan admitted. It had stopped Sin, or whatever it was Sin had become, and that was all that mattered at the moment. If there were any side effects... they’d deal with those later.

Clint was still trying to get up, each movement causing him obvious pain. Jan grabbed him by the shoulder. “Stop it. You’ll puncture a lung if you don’t stay still.” The words came out sharp-edged and harsh; she wanted to shake Clint, yell at him for being so careless, for not dodging, for sitting up and moving when he probably had broken ribs.

Sin was lying motionless in the center of a ring of blackened and melted asphalt. She looked dead. Jan hoped the bitch was. It was wrong, but— She forced herself to look away, to ignore the sound of Doom ranting as SHIELD agents cuffed him and dragged him toward one of the waiting helicopters.

Either way, it wouldn’t change anything. Hank was still-- he would be fine. He had to be fine. They had gotten him to the hospital within minutes, and the chemicals in his bloodstream had only been at lethal levels for a few seconds. Once he’d returned to full size, they’d have gone back to normal, so if wasn’t as if he’d have gotten worse after she’d left him.

Jan tensed, her body managing one last surge of adrenaline as she felt someone coming up behind her, and then Sam fell heavily to his knees next to Clint, Redwing cradled against his chest.

“You okay?” he asked Clint, voice hoarse and a little shaky.

“Yeah. You?”

Sam nodded. He didn’t look okay – he looked battered and shell-shocked – but since he was conscious, mobile, and coherent, Jan took him at his word. “Iron Man’s hurt pretty bad. Strange, too, I think. I don’t know about the Scarlet Witch.”

Clint winced, and she didn’t think it was from pain this time. “She’ll be okay. We won, right? Chthon’s gone. She has to be.”

Wanda didn’t by any means have to be – that explosion of magic could have killed her, or she could open her eyes and be nothing but a puppet controlled by Chthon, the way she’d been when Clint had found her in Europe – but after everything that had been done to her, that would be beyond unfair, and Jan pushed the thought away.

Her knuckles stung where she’d skinned them on Doom’s mask, bits of skin torn off them. It was a sharp counterpoint to the dull headache she’d woken up with in Doom’s warehouse, which had never quite gone away, and the muscles in her arms and legs still felt wobbly from the transition back from being goliath-sized. Shrinking never made her feel this worn out.

“Tony has the extremis,” she said. “He’ll be okay.” He hadn’t been able to use it as heavily since the Mandarin had zapped him, and lately he’d stopped using it for anything but controlling his armor, probably at Steve’s insistence, but the basic functions were still there. He’d survived stopping his own heart before; he’d survive this.

And so would Wanda, and Hank. And Clint would be fine, too, stupid broken ribs aside. They had to be.

A swarm of SHIELD personnel were carrying Tony and Wanda to the helicopters on stretchers, and three of them were headed purposefully toward where the three of them were huddled on the ground.

It took Jan a moment to recognize the blonde woman striding toward them as Sharon Carter. She needed sleep, she thought, and something to eat. It had been a very long day.

“Sam.” Sharon bent down, peering at Sam’s face and frowning at Redwing, still a terrified mass of feathers against Sam’s chest. “Steve said you and Redwing were hurt.”

Sam shook his head. “He’s just scared. All the fireworks were a little much for him.”

Sharon let it go, though Jan saw her surreptitiously wave one of the medics toward Sam before directing the other to see to Clint. “We’re taking all you into custody until we can get this mess sorted out. Director Fury wants to debrief everyone involved in this, including Parker, Cage, and Daredevil and anyone else they dragged into that mess at the cathedral.

“The cathedral?” Jan blinked at her, knowing she looked and sounded stupid. “What hap- oh, the spear. She wouldn’t have just strolled in and walked out with it.”

Sharon nodded, then grimaced at the collection of SHIELD agents that were blocking the spot where Sin had fallen from view. “Synthia Schmidt was on two different international terrorist watch lists, with outstanding warrants and extradition orders out for her in a half dozen countries. If you were military or police and one of you had shot her, you’d be media heroes. As it is... this is going to be a political mess.”

“She’s dead?” That was… she wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Just moments ago she had been sincerely wishing the other woman dead, but- they were supposed to stop criminals and monsters, not kill them. Not unless there was no other option.

She remembered the way the air around Sin had rippled and distorted, the white glow of her eyes, and the otherworldly voice that had made her ears ache, and shuddered. Maybe there hadn’t been.

Still… she had planned to beat Sin to a pulp, her and Doom both, and make them stew humiliatingly in a jail cell, preferably one with nasty energy forcefields and ugly orange jumpsuits that would clash hideously with Sin’s red hair and Doom’s sense of dignity.

This felt empty, somehow. Sin hadn’t even been herself anymore when she’d died.

“Washington’s not going to like that she was killed with superpowers,” Jan said, after a moment. The CIA and half a dozen other government agencies would have fought SHIELD for custody of Sin if she’d been taken alive, with the other governments Sharon had mentioned putting in their bids. Dead, she had considerably less value to the intelligence community, and dead at the hands of superhumans, she was a Friends of Humanity or Anti-Repeal martyr waiting to happen.

The fact that she’d nearly destroyed Times Square, and possibly the entire city, would weigh less with Miriam Sharpe and her supporters than their political agenda did.

Jan looked up, for the first time really taking in the dark electronic billboards, several of them still emitting noxious smoke; the shattered remains of a building scaffold; the glass, plaster, and brick dust covering the sidewalk. Most of New York was just going to be disappointed they wouldn’t get to see Sin’s head on a pike.

One of the SHIELD medics – a woman who looked vaguely familiar – was prodding at Clint’s torso and checking his pupils, easily thwarting his attempts to prevent her from removing his mask. Her partner looked as if he were preparing to strap Clint to a backboard. Surely that had to be just a precaution.

“Just let them work, Clint,” she said, before he had a chance to decide to protest.

He ignored her. “Which helicopter are you taking me to? I want to go in the one with Wanda and Tony.”

There were sirens closing in from more than one direction now, and car horns and shouting from the still-blocked streets now that the eerie silence of the green fire was gone. One of the medics said something she didn’t catch to Sam. “No,” Sam said firmly, lurching to his feet and taking a step back, just a little defensively, from the man attempting to check on him. “Redwing stays with me. We’re fine.”

“We thought we were going to have to interrogate Doom about your whereabouts,” Sharon was saying. “Until Stark contacted us. Thor just grunted at me when I asked him, so I’m asking you. Where is Dr. Pym?”

Jan just stared at her for a moment, unable to think of an answer. She couldn’t remember the name of the hospital they’d taken him to. Some wife she was – flying out while her husband was still on the table in the emergency room and not even bothering to mark where she’d left him. Ex-husband. Boyfriend. Whatever he was.

She hadn’t even been able to remember exactly what he took. Not Wellbutrin, that wasn’t right – that had been the second one they’d tried, after the SSRIs and the first not-lithium mood stabilizer had just made things worse.

“Wasp?” Sharon’s voice was softer now, less brisk. “Are you all right?”

And Jan burst humiliatingly into tears.

***



He could still feel the blood under his fingernails. It was irrational, he knew; Sharon had forced him to wash his hands and face and change out of his bloodied costume and into a spare SHIELD uniform. More than that - he’d been wearing his gloves during the fight and after, when he’d pressed his hands against Tony’s side to try and stop the bleeding.

The gloves would be ruined. Hydrogen peroxide would take the bloodstains off his tunic and pants, but nothing was going to salvage his gloves.

He was still in surgery. It had only been forty minutes, Steve reminded himself. Not long at all, for broken ribs and a huge, jagged-edged puncture wound. There was no reason to think that anything had gone wrong.

Surgery took time. And Tony had been through worse, much worse. This was nothing compared to being shot in the spine, or his first heart surgery.

He’d been on the operating table for nearly eight hours that time. In retrospect, Steve wasn’t sure how he could have been so calm about it – he hadn’t known Tony as well then, hadn’t realized how much would be missing from his life if they had lost him.

He sat up straighter, then slumped forward and leaned his elbows on his knees again when the position failed to be any kinder to his bruised ribs and sore shoulder than his previous one.

Clint was going to be all right, at least. He had two cracked ribs and one out-and-out broken one, and a back full of nasty bruises, but considering how hard Sin – Chthon? – had kicked him and how violently he’d hit the pavement, he’d been lucky. They had given him a mild dose of painkillers, and when Steve had checked in on him, he’d been asleep.

Sam was doing okay, too, which was a minor miracle. Steve had been so certain, when he’d seen Redwing grab the spear and heard Sam scream, seen him collapse to his knees, that the spear was going to kill him, drive him insane, burn and electrocute Redwing the way it had Strange. He wasn’t sure what losing Redwing would have done to Sam, didn’t want to think about it too deeply.

Redwing was more than just a pet, had always been. Steve had never pried too hard into exactly how it worked, but Sam could see what Redwing saw, feel what he felt. Feeling his bird die was something he might not have recovered from.

If they hadn’t been in the infirmary, with Tony being cut up and stitched back together right there in the next room, and if Sharon and Carol hadn’t intervened, he would have ended up having a shouting match with Sam right there in the infirmary bay. And Sam hadn’t needed that, no matter how much Steve wanted to impress on him exactly how suicidally stupid he’d been.

It didn’t matter. He was alive, and mostly in one piece, and Steve could yell at him later.

Chthon was gone. The city hadn’t been destroyed. No one had died.

Except Sin. He ought to regret that, to see her as yet another of the Red Skull’s victims, but at the moment, he was too tired to feel anything but relief.

“Wanda’s awake.”

Steve jerked upright, his hand going for his shield even as he recognized Carol’s voice. Despite the number of fights and crises he’d been through in the past 48 hours, his body still had enough adrenaline left to set his heart racing. “Carol. Don’t sneak up on me.”

“You must be tired. No one can sneak on these floors.” She knocked the heel of one boot against the metal deck plating, the impact making a sharp, metallic sound.

Bucky and Natasha were both pretty good at it, though they were hardly typical, but she had a point. He should have heard her coming.

“Wanda’s awake,” she repeated. “They aren’t letting anyone in to see her yet; the nurse said the SHIELD psychics were still evaluating her.”

Awake. “Good. That’s good.” The doctors had brushed his questions aside when he’d asked about her, and it had been obvious from their careful non-answers that no one been sure whether or not she would ever regain consciousness, and if she would still be Wanda when she did so. Strange was still unconscious, so no one was entirely sure what Wanda had done to banish Chthon, but she had used the spear to do it, and everyone else who had tried to draw on its power was either dead or badly injured.

“How’s your leg?” He nodded at the gauze patch tapped over Carol’s thigh. It looked odd, out of place with the torn costume she was still wearing. Both her gloves were gone, and her right forearm was also wrapped in gauze – defensive wounds. She’d thrown her arm up to block Loki’s knife.

“Oh, that?” Carol glanced down at her bandaged thigh, shrugged. “Fine. It wasn’t deep. I probably didn’t even need the stitches; I think the nurse just wanted to play with his adamantium needles.”

They both stood there for a moment, neither saying anything. Carol looked as tired as he felt. Her hair was a tangled and windblown mess, and her red sash seemed to have gone wherever her gloves had.

“Is Tony-“ she began, after a few minutes.

“He’s still in surgery.”

Carol made a noncommittal sound. She didn’t need to ask for further details; superheroes were as familiar with casualties and hospital vigils as soldiers, and Carol had been both. She didn’t try to offer reassurances, either.

Steve appreciated that. It meant he didn’t have to pretend to be reassured.

“Don called in. Hank’s in stable condition at the Bellevue Hospital Center. And Hill says they’re having Spiderman and Luke and the others brought up to the helicarrier.” She dropped into the chair next to Steve’s, waving at him to sit down as well, and stretched her legs out in front of her, wincing a little as she straightened the injured one. Carol had a lot of leg to stretch out, most of it bare, but no one in the infirmary bay gave her so much as a second glance. “It’s a good thing Chthon was more focused on his end goal than he was on killing them. It sounds like he just bulldozed through them and didn’t look back. Or Sin did.”

“Whatever we fought, it wasn’t Sin anymore.” Had she still been in there somewhere, the way Luhkin had still been trapped inside the Red Skull’s stolen body, or had Chthon killed her when he took possession of her?

Carol didn’t have anything to say to that, and Steve was left to stare down at his clean hands again, and at the long scratch disfiguring the center of his shield. How was he going to get that out? You couldn’t polish vibranium.

Tony would know.

It seemed like an eternity passed before one of the nurses came to speak to them.
Steve’s heart lurched as the man came closer; Tony was out of surgery. Or had there been complications, internal bleeding they hadn’t been able to stop, irreparable damage-

The nurse smiled at them, his broad, freckled face pleasant. It was a real smile, not a polite or practiced one, and the knot in Steve’s stomach hurt just a little less.

“They’ve finished evaluating your teammate,” he said, to Carol. “Ms. Maximoff is being allowed visitors now.”

Carol’s answering smile was a little strained, and her voice was suspiciously thick as she answered, “Oh, good. Thank you.” She turned to Steve, smile still fixed in place. “You go first.”

“I don’t-“ he started, not sure if she wanted a chance to compose herself before speaking to Wanda, or if she was just being polite, and Carol gave his shoulder a little shove.

“Go. I wouldn’t even know what to say.”

Wanda was sitting up in bed, an IV line in the crook of her arm. They had stripped off her costume and put her in a light blue hospital gown, and her hands were wrapped in bandages – from touching the spear? From Strange’s tattoos? In Times Square, they had glowed with so much power that her gloves had been burned away.

Did she have a matching bandage on the back of her neck?

“Wanda-“ he started.

“Did we lose anyone?” she interrupted, the words sharp and hurried. “They wouldn’t tell me anything.” She leaned forward, no longer lying back against the raised hospital bed, eyes intent on his face.

“No.” And eventually, that would stop seeming both miraculous and too good to be true. “Sin is dead, but none of us… everyone’s going to be okay.”

Not for want of Tony trying, though. He’d done nothing whatsoever to stop Sin from stabbing him; Steve could still see the spear sliding easily through his armor, see Tony deliberately leaving himself open, taking the blow in order to get the chance to bring his repulsors up and blast her.

He had to have known his armor wouldn’t stand up to a weapon made out of uru, especially after seeing it scratch Steve’s shield.

Wanda winced almost imperceptibly, but nodded. “I knew she would be. Chthon began modifying me to be his avatar before I was born, and she didn’t even have any powers, or innate magical ability. Channeling that much chaos power through her body would have destroyed her.”

Steve nodded. He ought to have expected that. But even if Chthon’s power hadn’t been killing her, she would never have survived the injuries they had inflicted on her. A normal human would have been dead long before she reached Times Square, from the beating she’d taken from Luke’s team, and no one could have survived Tony’s repulsor blast.

Stopping Chthon had meant taking her down by any means necessary. He’d known that from the moment Sin had stepped into the spell-circle, her eyes glowing with inhuman power.

Luke and Peter shouldn’t have had to bloody their hands, though. Or Danny, or Jess, or anyone else they’d had with them.

“How did you stop him?” He immediately wished he hadn’t asked, as her face shut down.

“I’m sorry,” he offered, not quite sure what he was apologizing for. “You’ve just woken up, I shouldn’t-“

“I used the spear’s power to force Chthon back where he’d come from. And seal him back in.”

“Are you sure? I mean, are you sure he’s really sealed away again?”

“With that much power? Yes, he’s sealed up.” She hesitated, looking not at Steve but somewhere past him. “I don’t think you can really understand it, Cap. That kind of power – I was a goddess, just for a moment, or something that could have come close to one, if I’d wanted to.” She shuddered, wrapping her arms around herself despite the tangle of IV line. “It was terrifying.”

He ought to say something comforting, but what could he say to that? He had no powers – the super soldier serum barely counted. He would never know what having the power to alter reality was like, and he was thankful for it.

“You saved our lives,” he told her, though she didn’t need to be told.

Wanda gave him a tired smile. “We saved the world. Again.”

“I guess we did.” He’d be proud of them all later, Steve decided. Right now, it was hard to think of anything other than the casualties – than Tony – even with Wanda right in front of him.

It was silly to hover in the doorway, Steve decided. The tiny little room had no chairs, but there was a second bed parallel to Wanda’s. He sat down heavily on it, leaning his shield against his feet. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

She nodded. “I will be.”

He’d have to be satisfied with that.

There were things he ought to be doing, Steve knew. He still hadn’t been formally debriefed, he needed to find out Hank’s status, not to mention Peter’s and Luke’s, and the city was undoubtedly in an uproar right now.

There were things he ought to be doing, but for a moment, he let himself sit quietly across from Wanda and just be grateful that she was all right, and to try, again, to block out the memory of Tony’s blood seeping through his fingers.


***



She’d gotten away. He’d had her – well, Thor had – and then between Chthon and Wanda’s fireworks with the spear, Loki had managed to teleport herself away to safety. When faced with the potential end of the world, of course she’d looked out for herself first. Leaving the rest of them to die would only have been a bonus.

Don wasn’t sure what Thor had been planning to do with her if he’d been able to drag her back to Asgard in chains as he’d hoped to. He wasn’t sure Thor knew, either. After the destruction of the Ragnarok, he’d been unwilling to kill another Asgardian, and for all that Loki herself had rejected the label, Thor still thought of her as an Asgardian.

Odin’s old solution, the chains and snakes and venom, involved a degree of calculated cruelty that Thor would never be comfortable with. And considering that his other half had thought literally sewing Loki’s mouth closed was a funny joke, that said something.

They would have thought of something. The idea of Loki still running around out there, angry and humiliated at losing the spear and plotting who knew what in order to get back at Thor was one Don preferred not to contemplate.

He would have to think about it eventually, but at the moment, the mess she had left behind her was more than enough to deal with.

The staff at Bellevue had been kind enough to lend him clean surgical scrubs, to replace the torn and bloodstained clothes he’d still been wearing when he turned back into himself. The sleeves were too short, but it was significantly better than being covered in his own blood, as well as whatever grime he’d picked up from the warehouse floor.

Getting the clothing on just reminded him of the ache in his shoulders and leg from spending hours chained to a wall. Somehow, though transforming into Thor healed major injuries like the stab wound in his leg, it did nothing to erase exhaustion or sore muscles. His bad leg would barely bend, and his knee felt like it might go out at any moment.

He would stay off of it later, when there were no more crises to deal with.

Don reclaimed his walking stick and used it to push himself to his feet; the nurse he’d managed to catch between patients had told him that Hank was in stable condition, that there hadn’t been any neurological damage, and the multiple organ failures they had been afraid might occur hadn’t happened, but he’d feel better if he could read Hank’s chart for himself.

They had put him in a private room, of course – most city hospitals did that with superheroes now, for insurance reasons. It was a painfully long walk from the staff room, but at least it was on the same floor.

Don was halfway through the door before he realized that Hank already had company; Jan, shrunken down to Barbie-doll size in order to fit easily on the edge of the hospital bed, was sitting by Hank’s head, petting his hair with one hand.

“-thought of something less stupidly dangerous?”

Hank didn’t say anything, just turned his head into Jan, his eyes closed, and Don immediately felt uncomfortable and intrusive. He cleared his throat awkwardly, deliberately letting the end of his walking stick clack loudly against the floor.

Jan started, turning toward the door, and Hank opened his eyes, sitting up a little.

“Don-“ he croaked. "You’re walking. Is your leg-“

“It healed as soon as I turned into Thor.”

“Oh, right. Of course it would. I think I missed that part of our escape.”

“You were busy seizing and throwing up all over me.”

Hank winced. “Sorry.”

Don started to reach for the chart hanging at the foot of Hank’s bed, then stopped, glancing at him. “Can I-“

“Go ahead.” Hank waved a hand at him. “You probably understand it better than half the doctors here. I don’t think they’ve ever treated mass-shifting-induced poisoning before.”

“Neither have I,” Don said absently, as he began reading his way through the recorded vital signs, medications given, and other information. Most of the chart had been filled out by someone with blissfully legible handwriting, so it didn’t take very long.

The duty nurse had been right – there didn’t seem to be any serious damage. “You’re lucky you still have a central nervous system,” he told Hank, as he put the chart back in place. “What were you thinking? ”

Hank winced. “I wasn’t. I just… panicked.”

From Jan’s expression, she had already heard this explanation, and didn’t like it any better the second time around. Even scaled down, her face was eloquent.

Somehow, the fact that Hank hadn’t thought it through made it even worse, and Don had to fight the impulse to shout at him. “Do you have any idea what lithium poisoning can do to people?” Nearly two solid days of disaster and bloodshed and near-apocalypse, and they had come closest to losing one of their teammates through pure accidental stupidity

Hank’s eyes narrowed, and he looked entirely unimpressed. “I’m a biochemist. Of course I do.”

Don was tired enough that anger was hard to hold on to. He might still be chained to a wall, slowly bleeding to death, if it weren’t for Hank, thoughtless and unnecessary heroics or not. “You were far, far luckier than you deserve to be,” he told Hank finally, “and they’re pretty sure there’s no permanent damage.” Something which most of the hospital staff he’d talked to considered either a minor miracle, or just one more of the many reasons why superhuman biology was confusing and unfathomable.

There was a chair by the wall, the only piece of furniture the room contained other than the bed. It was the same hard, utilitarian plastic most hospital chair were made of, but Don was used to that. He lowered himself gingerly into it, sore muscles protesting, and stretched his leg out. “They want to keep you here for another 24 hours because they’re still not sure what actually happened to you, but SHIELD is pushing to have you transferred to the Helicarrier.

Hank closed his eyes, rubbing at his face with his free hand, the one unencumbered by either pulse monitor or IV line. “I don’t care,” he said, the words muffled. “Go away. My head hurts.”

It probably did. He looked pale, eyes bloodshot and his face still bruised from whatever had happened to him during the attack on the mansion. Had that really been less than forty-eight hours ago?

Passing out on the floor of Doom’s warehouse-turned-dungeon didn’t count as sleep. Thor might have nearly unlimited energy, but Don was more than ready to crash for a few hours, preferably a full eight.

“You scared the daylights out of Thor, you know,” he said, because the concern that had prompted him to make the trek down here hadn’t been his alone. “He’s decided to forgive you. Apparently suicidal bravery is honorable and valiant in his books, not pointless and stupid.”

Hank opened his eyes, his hands coming away from his face. “That’s… good,” he said tiredly.

It was less emotion than Don had expected. Hank had been nearly yelling at him in the warehouse, had snarled angrily at Thor the few times Thor had tried to confront him about it. Even his apologies had sounded angry. “Are you all right?”

“No.” Hank’s voice was tight, low, and he dropped his gaze to his hands as if he hated the admission. “Please go away.”

He could feel Thor’s bafflement, his other half not sure whether to be hurt or offended at having his first overtures of renewed friendship either ignored or rejected. They had faced great danger together, fought a sworn enemy and shed blood together, and blood was what brotherhoods were forged from.

His own vague feeling of affront must have shown on his face – or maybe Thor’s did – because Hank grimaced and elaborated.

“I can’t talk about the cloning thing right now,” he said roughly. Or Bill, or –“ his voice cracked, and he paused, swallowing audibly. “Look, you can come back later and we can talk things over like adults, or you can stay here, and we can scream profanity at each other. Your choice. I can’t do this now.” His face twisted, and he dropped his head into his hands, his breathing harsh.

Crying, or trying not to. It might have been jarring if the other man hadn’t just gone through significant physical trauma. His near brush with death by poisoning hadn’t left any visible physical marks, but his entire system would still be shaken by it. Thor’s prompting aside, this probably hadn’t been the best time to try to discuss anything significant.

“Damn it,” Hank hissed, voice uneven. “I’m crying. Why am I crying? Jan?”

Not just the aftermath of trauma, Don realized. It had been long enough since their escape that the medication that had almost killed him would be nearly out of Hank’s system by now. A good thing, from a medical perspective – the doctors would want to do more bloodwork on him, let all remnants of the lithium and other medications completely leave his body and make certain his liver was up to the task before prescribing any more. Probably not such a good thing from where Hank was sitting, though. “You’re probably starting to go through withdrawal.”

“I know,” Hank muttered. “I hate my life.”

Jan was making ‘go away’ gestures at him from behind Hank’s head, waving from him to the door.

Hank was going to be all right. Anything else could wait until later. “I’ll just… leave,” Don said, pushing himself to his feet.

***


They had cleaned up the blood. Steve didn’t know why he had expected otherwise. Of course they had.

It made Tony look less like he was at death’s door, but not by much.

He’d seen Tony unconscious in hospital beds so often by now that there shouldn’t have been any drama left to it. Even the IV line in his arm and oxygen canula in his nose, and the wide swath of bandaging around his torso shouldn’t have been anything new or frightening. He had looked worse after heart surgery, and when Steve had visited him in the hospital after he had stopped drinking, when he’d disappeared for all those weeks.

He’d seen Tony look worse, but that had been before.

He wasn’t sure how long he’d essentially hidden in Wanda’s room before Nick had come and personally dragged him off to be debriefed, or how long said debriefing had taken, but it felt as if he’d been on the helicarrier for hours. Days. There'd been a prepared media statement from SHIELD and a press conference somewhere in there, too, with more slanted questions about superpowers and public safety than he'd been able to listen to right now. By the time he’d made his way back to the infirmary, Tony had been out of surgery.

At a civilian hospital, he would have had to argue or beg to get the details of said surgery out of the medical staff. Not here.

There were strands of dark hair sticking to Tony’s forehead. Steve carefully brushed them back, Tony’s skin cool and clammy under his fingers. At least he didn’t have a fever.

He was going to be fine. He’d wake up any moment now, and smile at Steve, and offer some bullshit explanation about how deliberately allowing himself to be impaled had been the only way to save the world. Then he’d apologize insincerely, and do the exact same thing all over again three months from now.

His eyes were staring to burn. Steve closed them and let his head hang forward for a moment, his hand still in Tony’s hair. He felt almost as if he were floating, so tired that his ribs didn’t even hurt anymore.

The blood was all over his hands, seeping through his fingers despite his efforts to stop it. It dripped off the sides of the hospital bed, pooling on the floor, the red so dark in the smoky candlelight that it looked almost black. Doom would-

“Cap?”

Steve jerked himself upright at the sound of Wanda’s voice, the world lurching around him for a moment. No blood. Not on his hands, or the floor, or the sheets. And Doom was locked away securely in the Helicarrier’s cells, though unfortunately not for long.

“Wanda,” he managed. He cleared his throat, and the next part came out significantly less hoarse. “They let you up.”

“The burns on my hands weren’t serious,” she said from behind him. She wasn’t barefoot, but whatever shoes she was wearing were soft-soled, much quieter than her costume’s boots. Steve didn’t bother to turn and look as she came up behind him; had Tony’s eyelashes just moved? No, his vision had blurred for a moment.

“I convinced them to let me out of bed, but I think they were planning to get me up and walking around soon anyway.”

Steve nodded. “Do you need to sit down?” he offered, as she came to stand by his side. As much as he didn’t want to, he gently slid his hand from Tony’s hair and sat up straighter, ready to surrender the room’s only chair to Wanda. She’d drained herself to the point of unconsciousness to save them; in her position, he’d be dead on his feet.

She shook her head, the movement just visible out of the corner of his eye. “I’m fine.”

While Wanda was one of the teammates he could trust to actually say those words without lying, years spent around Tony, Carol, and Nick – who had taken weeks to admit that he could no longer see out of his left eye after taking that piece of shrapnel in the face – had him automatically turning his head to check.

She was wearing pale green hospital scrubs rather than the flimsy hospital gown she’d had on earlier, and while she looked exhausted, she also looked a hell of a lot better than Tony did.

Wanda stared at him for a moment, concern on her face, and then said, tentatively, “Cap, is Tony… Carol said he was going to be all right.” It was as much a question as a statement.

“This time,” Steve said. His eyes were still hot and blurry; he blinked hard, forcing it away, and pressed the heels of his hands against them for a moment, blotting away moisture. “His heart stopped on the operating table,” he blurted out. “It was already damaged. The doctor said the blood loss and the stress of the surgery was…” he broke off, not wanting to continue.

“I thought the Extremis had a healing factor.”

“He damaged it fighting the Mandarin. It hasn’t worked properly for months now.”

“Oh,” she said. “Clint said he was using it less often.”

“You have no idea how much effort and nagging on my part that took.” It wasn’t all that funny, but Steve felt his mouth trying to pull into a smile anyway.

“I can guess.” Her voice was too tired and hoarse to be dry, but he could still hear the attempt at humor in it.

Tony had listened, though. Eventually. And had nearly died anyway, after they had stopped Sin and Chthon and Doom, after their backup had come, when they were all supposed to be safe.

“I could take a look at him,” Wanda said after a moment.

Steve looked up from where Tony’s hand lay in his – his fingers and palm were callused, rough with tiny, healed burns, and even long fingers and an expensive manicure never quite managed to make his hands look elegant. “Take a look?”

“The spear was a powerful magical artifact. And Sin used his blood to-“ she broke off, looking away for a moment, a quick movement of the eyes that meant that she regretted whatever it was she had almost said. “There could be magical damage.”

Steve wasn’t sure what she saw on his face this time – he was almost running out of the energy to react to bad news – but she hurried on.

“I can check for that,” she blurted out. “Now that I don’t have to worry about Chthon’s presence and the spear’s influence distorting any attempt to work magic, it would be simple. There’s barely any ambient chaos left in the city right now.”

It was probably an unnecessary risk. Wanda was tired, shaken, and SHIELD had to have magic workers on call somewhere.

But none of them would know the aftereffects of chaos magic as well as she would, and none of them were here right now.

“Do it,” Steve said, because now that the possibility had been suggested, he couldn’t stand not knowing.

He surrendered the chair to her, reluctantly stepping back from Tony’s bedside, and watched for several endless minutes as Wanda held her bandaged hands over Tony’s even more heavily bandaged torso.

Pink light flickered over them, and her face tightened. He was about to order her to stop, sure she was hurting herself, when she muttered something in Transian, and then, “It’s corrupted. I think if I-“ the light around her hands flared brighter, and Tony’s entire body pulsed with it for a fraction of a second.

Steve started forward—and Wanda sagged to lean against the edge of the bed, the light flickering out.

“What happened? Are you all right? Is Tony-“

“Fine. He’s fine. So am I.”

“Was there-“

“There’s no magical damage. I wish I could fix the rest,” she nodded at the bandages covering his torso, “but I can’t directly manipulate reality anymore.”

Steve nodded – he took Wanda or Strange’s word on that sort of thing. Magic was far from his area of expertise. Tony was all right; that was the important part. The spear hadn’t cursed him, or eaten his soul, or opened him up to possession by Chthon.

It had done enough to him without that.

“I couldn’t fix the injury, but I think I was able to fix something. My chaos powers are partially entropy-based, and I can… sometimes I can sense when a system is degrading or damaged. We tried to use that once, on the Force Works team, but the computer hardware couldn’t handle the chaos energy for prolonged periods of time. A human body has more natural chaos in it, and is more resistant to it, but Tony’s not a standard human anymore. I don’t know exactly what was wrong with his Extremis, but I could feel that it had destabilized. So I sort of… gave it a nudge in the other direction.”

“You gave- did you just do the magical equivalent of hitting him with a wrench?”

“I wouldn’t put it exactly like that,” Wanda said slowly, in a way that failed to diminish Steve’s certainty that that was exactly what she had done. “But it worked. There’s less low-grade chaos in his system now.”

He wasn’t even sure what that meant, but the steady sound of Tony’s heart monitor hadn’t changed, and none of the other monitors hooked up to him had set off any alarms, so at least she hadn’t made things worse.

He let Wanda keep the chair – she looked even more exhausted now, and he probably should have ordered her to get back in bed – and perched gingerly on the edge of Tony’s bed, taking Tony’s lax hand in his.

There had to be an empty hospital bed waiting for Wanda to return to it. Steve was tired enough that his eyes ached and his whole body felt hollow, and he hadn’t channeled colossal amounts of magical power.

He’d make her leave in a few minutes.

He wasn’t sure how long he sat there, absently rubbing his thumb back and forth over the back of Tony’s hand, before he felt Tony’s fingers twitch slightly.

Steve jolted back to alertness, leaning forwards, his eyes focusing intently on Tony’s face. “Tony?”

For an endless moment, nothing happened, but then the soft beep of the heart monitor sped up slightly, and Tony’s eyebrows drew together in a faint frown.

“Tony?”

Tony’s eyes blinked open, dazed blue slits. It took him several seconds to focus on Steve, but then his lips curved in a smile. “Oh,” he said faintly. “The world didn’t end. Good.”

Steve blinked hard, trying to force back the tears that suddenly blurred his vision. “No,” he managed. “We won.”

“I know.” Tony’s voice was thick, the words slightly slurred. “Otherwise we’d be dead.”

’You nearly died anyway,’ Steve wanted to say, relief leaving him almost angry. Instead, he tightened his grip on Tony’s hand, and said, “You have one broken rib and one fractured one. The spear sliced clean through the first one and nicked the second. You were lucky, though – it didn’t hit your liver and only nicked your lung.”

Tony frowned, assimilating this. “It hurts like hell. How many stitches did they put in me?”

“A lot,” Steve said flatly. They were both being far too blasé about this, he thought distantly. As if this were old hat.

Tony’s fingers had curled around his, squeezing hard enough to make it plain that he wasn’t joking about the pain. Wanda had slipped out at some point in the past few moments, quietly enough that Steve wasn’t sure Tony had even known she was there.

Steve swallowed, his throat suddenly so tight that it hurt. “You nearly died.” His voice grated, low and hoarse. “Your heart stopped on the operating table. They- they got it started again, but-“

Tony’s eyes widened, and he lifted his head slightly, trying to look down at his chest. “I’m not going to die, am I?” He sounded honestly concerned. Then he closed his eyes for a moment, wincing, and answered himself. “I’m not hooked up to enough monitors for that.”

“You-“ words failed Steve for moment. “You just scanned all the equipment in the room with the extremis, didn’t you?”

“Yes?” Then confusion instantly melted into contriteness. “Sorry. I’m not supposed to do that, am I?” Tony closed his eyes again, and groaned faintly, his fingers relaxing in Steve’s hand. “I feel much too good, even with the pain. How much morphine do they have me on?”

“Enough,” Steve told him. He wanted to be angry, wanted to yell and kick something and exorcise hours’ worth of desperate worry, but looking down at Tony’s pale face and half-lidded eyes, he couldn’t bring himself to. “Why did you do it?” he asked softly. “Let her stab you that way. You had to have known your armor wouldn’t stop it, not after what it did to my shield.”

“I’m on drugs,” Tony said. “Remind me, what did it do to your shield?”

“Scratched it. Right down the middle. Not even adamantium can do that.”

“That’s interesting. I hadn’t thought about that, but Thor’s hammer did dent it once. I wonder how they work uru; it must be even harder to work with than adamantium.” Then he seemed to remember what they were talking about, and smiled a little. “I didn’t even notice.”

“How could you not notice?”

“Not everyone pays attention to your shield in the middle of a fight, Steve. And even if I had, it wouldn’t have- she was supposed to be dead. I could see daylight through her ribcage. She wasn’t supposed to be able to stab me.”

Oh. Steve absorbed that for a moment. For hours, he’d been sure that Tony had taken that blow on purpose, because it was the sort of thing that Tony would do. Had done, in the past, more than once. “She died as soon as Wanda drove Chthon out of her,” he said, and then, before Tony could start wallowing in misplaced guilt, “Wanda says she wouldn’t have survived his possession regardless. She was a dead woman from the moment he took over her body.”

“And Doom?”

“We got him too, for now. He’ll probably be out of the Helicarrier’s brig by tomorrow, but at least he’s out of our hair for the moment.”

“Was anyone else hurt?”

“They’re fine.” It was only a slight lie – Clint, Wanda, and Hank might not be exactly fine at the moment, but they would all recover.

“Mmm,” Tony mumbled. “Good.” His eyelids were starting to droop, and his voice had gone distant, as if he were half-asleep. “C’mere.” He tugged slightly on Steve’s hand, still in his, and Steve obediently bent down.

Tony wrapped his other arm clumsily around Steve’s shoulders, pulling him into an awkward hug.

Steve kept himself tense, carefully braced over Tony’s body and trying hard not to lean any weight on him as he buried his face in Tony’s neck. Tony’s skin smelled like antiseptic and some undefinable scent Steve associated with hospitals, but it was warm and alive, not clammy with shock, and he could feel Tony’s breath against his ear.

“You almost died,” he said, closing his eyes and fighting the impulse to hug Tony to him. “Don’t do that again.”

“I didn’t use the Extremis,” Tony said, as if this somehow made the entire thing all better. “And you’re okay. So everything’s good.”

“Never again,” Steve repeated.

“No more being impaled on spears by chaos demons,” Tony agreed amiably, his words starting to slur again. “Jus’ because I love you.” He patted Steve on the back a couple of times, and then let his arm go limp, a heavy weight across Steve’s shoulders.

Steve gently disentangled himself from Tony’s arms, trying his best not to pull on any of the tubes and wires attached to him, and carefully lowered his right arm back to the bed. They had put the IV line in Tony’s left arm – they always did, unless Tony was awake at the time to insist they use his right. “I love you, too,” he said.

Tony was already asleep, but Steve thought he saw him smile a little.



* * *





Sorry for the missed posting again last week, guys.


Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven Part One | Chapter Seven Part Two | Chapter Eight | Chapter Nine | Chapter Ten Part One | Chapter Ten Part Two | Chapter Eleven | Chapter Twelve | Chapter Thirteen | Chapter Fourteen, part one | Chapter Fourteen, part two | Chapter Fifteen | Chapter Sixteen | Chapter Seventeen | Chapter Eighteen | Epilogue

[identity profile] liroseify.livejournal.com 2013-08-05 02:13 am (UTC)(link)
It seems I've been doing nothing but work lately... This has brighten my entire week! Loved it!

[identity profile] lil-shepherd.livejournal.com 2013-08-05 04:23 am (UTC)(link)
Hey, two weeks is fine. It's probably good for our self control to have to wait.

Loved this week's angst filled episode.

[identity profile] cellia.livejournal.com 2013-08-05 04:25 am (UTC)(link)
Aw, fluffy (if also bittersweet) aftermath. I loved seeing Don's take on Thor and events and Steve worriedly at Tony's bedside. Also nice to see Wanda trying her best, even if she's a little beaten down. I hope she and Carol can make up!

[identity profile] salmastryon.livejournal.com 2013-08-05 04:10 pm (UTC)(link)
I have to say I love the little detail about the IV line. When you are really worried about someone sometimes your mind focuses on little details like that, because it can't handle the big things.

It also rang so true that Steve fully expected that Tony had gotten stabbed on purpose. I'm sure that is something they'll have to continue to work on. Steve trusting Tony not to tray to kill himself and Tony trying not to do that. :)

I'm really curious what Wanda actually did and Steve's comment about the wrench cracked me up.

I totally get where Hank was coming from. With everything his body was dealing it made him totally incapable of handling Thor's apology. I think it shows growth though that he could recognize that and admit it. Thor being indignant about his apology not being properly acknowledge just was soooo Thor. :)

I think I'll stop now before I gush too much. >.>
I've already read this twice now.

[identity profile] aggie-12.livejournal.com 2013-08-05 05:10 pm (UTC)(link)
Yay! Everyone's ok, or at least on the road to getting there. Great update and I'm looking forward to more :-)
navaan: (pocket watch)

[personal profile] navaan 2013-08-06 08:52 am (UTC)(link)
Wonderful chapter. Loved how Steve's assumtion about Tony taking the hit on purpose was false thise time. He has so many reasons to assume that it would be something Tony would do, but in the middle of a fight so many things are happening and sometimes it just goes wrong.

Also lovely scenes with Wanda.

[identity profile] w-a-i-d.livejournal.com 2013-08-06 10:39 am (UTC)(link)
Wanda hit the Extremis with a wrench! Awesome.

I love Tony being almost frustratingly cuddly and agreeable on waking up, like Steve is all geared up for emotional grappling with Angsty!Self-Destructive!Tony and instead he gets nothing but "aww, I'm alive and my boyfriend's here and the world didn't end. So nice. <3"