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cap_ironman2013-08-05 10:31 pm
elspethdixon.livejournal.com) wrote in cap_ironman2013-08-05 10:31 pm
Entry tags:
Reassembled, Epilogue.
Title: Reassembled, Epilogue
Authors:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
seanchai and 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:dorothy1901, who did a wonderful job of catching our many, many typos. 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.
Note: Completely discarding the posting schedule, but I promised myself I'd finish this fic before I turned thirty, and that's... in about four hours from now.
Epilogue
Daytime tv was sort of mind-numbing, even with the insane number of channels Tony’s television had. Clint shifted slightly on the couch, trying to find an angle to lean back against the couch arm that would put the least amount of pressure on the bruises on his back. It was, unsurprisingly, the one that put the most strain on his cracked ribs.
Talk show. Talk show. Some kind of soap opera in Spanish. CNN showing the same news bites he’d already seen an hour ago and the hour before that. Fox promising to reveal how prescription drugs would give you cancer. Commercial. Commercial. Commercial in Spanish. Something in Japanese that a normal tv wouldn’t even be able to pick up on this side of the planet. Four different ESPN channels that were all reporting on sports no one cared about like golf and tennis.
Finally, he found that kids cartoon about the children with magic kung fu that was more addictive than he was ever going to publically admit, and settled down to kill half an hour.
The worst part about deep bruises and broken bones was how long they took to heal. He wasn’t even seriously hurt, not like Tony was, but he was going to be stuck doing nothing for nearly as long, while his archery got rusty. It could be worse – he could have broken his collarbone or sprained something; nothing took longer to heal than a bad sprain – but it was still a pain.
The first couple of days, he had just wanted to take medically unsound doses of ibuprofen and sleep, and had mostly just been relieved that Chthon was gone and they were all alive. Now he was bored out of his skull.
Bored, and stuck in Avengers tower with nothing to do while Cap, Sam, Thor, and Carol got to handle all the meetings with SHIELD, the clean-up work with the city, getting the mansion cleaned up and repaired, and anything else remotely productive.
Hank was physically back to normal, supposedly, but his personality had been reset to mopey bitch scientist from hell and he’d barely left his and Jan’s room, and Clint was just fine letting him hibernate there. Tony had finally come home from the Helicarrier’s medical bay yesterday, and wasn’t up for anything but lying in bed and running his entire business empire over the internet. According to Barnes, the Helicarrier’s doctors had only let him go because he’d been all but attempting to run SE from a hospital bed, along with half of SHIELD for good measure, and they’d kicked him out before Maria Hill could kill him.
The ability to surf the web with your brain must be nice when you were laid up flat on your back.
Clint was contemplating how bored he’d be if he just turned the cooking show he’d ended up staring at after the kids cartoon had ended off vs. how much he didn’t care about cooking and the fact that it was making him feel both hungry and nauseous, vs. Rachel Ray’s boobs when Wanda came in.
She didn’t look as tired as she had for the first couple of days after Times Square, but the backs of her hands were still covered with bandaids, the thick, airtight ones you put over blisters and burns. Did she still have Strange’s tattoos under there, or had they been burned off?
Maybe she wouldn’t need them anymore with Chthon sealed up again.
“I didn’t know you were interested in cooking, Clint.” The tone of her voice wasn’t actually mocking, but Clint had known her long enough to be able to tell that she was mocking him anyway.
“Shut up, she’s hot.”
Wanda cast a considering look at the television screen, then shrugged. “She’s not really my type.”
He was never sure if she was joking or not when she said things like that. Was Clint the only heterosexual person on the entire team? Hank barely counted, what with naming himself after various female insects. The next thing you knew, Sam would turn out to secretly like guys, too, and Jan would hook up with She-Hulk and that would be kind of hot.
And he was just trying to distract himself from the awkwardness of a one-on-one conversation with Wanda. Clint sighed inwardly, and made himself smile at her. She was trying. He could, too.
“You had the hots for Wonderman back when he had a mullet. You have no taste.”
“It wasn’t his hair I was attracted to.”
“You and Disney Channel Tony.”
“We have to stop calling him that. One of us is going to accidentally say it in front of him someday.”
“Carol started it,” he returned. She was right, though. He would end up feeling like an idiot – an embarrassed idiot – if he actually called the other man that to his face. It was the sort of thing Spiderman would do.
He’d be very surprised if Hellrung hadn’t already heard it from Carol several times over, but just because she still resented him for stealing her boyfriend didn’t mean that Clint had anything against him. He had never even met Hellrung in person.
Wanda sat down on the other end of the couch, next to his feet, and they both watched as Rachel Ray perkily demonstrated how to mince garlic. The couch was sized to be able to handle Thor – even with Clint stretched out nearly full-length on it, there was still plenty of room.
He still had to fight the urge to draw his feet back, in case she didn’t want his toes touching her thigh.
The silence should have been excruciating, but something about it was oddly comforting. At some point, Clint realized, he’d stopped feeling so uncomfortable around her. Stopped picturing that night in Transia whenever he looked at her, remembering it whenever she touched him.
“So,” he finally asked, after several minutes of watching her try not to pick at the edge of the bandages on her hands, “are you… going to be okay?”
Wanda smiled at him, her face just a little too stiff. “I’m fine.”
Neither of them said anything for a long moment, and then she blurted out,
“I could have brought him back.”
Could have- Clint blinked at her, about to ask what she was talking about, but she didn’t give him the chance.
“I had the power to do it,” she went on. “For two minutes, I was a god. I could have brought Vision back.”
“Then why didn’t you?” It wasn’t very tactful, and as soon as Clint asked, he wished he could take the words back.
Wanda didn’t flinch, though, or look anything other than sad and a little haunted. “I had to banish Chthon. It took all the power the spear had; if I’d used it up bringing Vision back, he would have won.”
“Then you didn’t have a choice.”
“I could have undone the rest of what he made me do, too. Given everyone their powers back. I should feel guilty about that, but instead I just keep thinking, I could have had him back.”
“You brought me back.” And she hadn’t had the spear then.
“That was when I was still possessed by Chthon, channeling his power.” She shook her head slowly. “I don’t even remember doing it, or know how I did.”
“That makes two of us.” But- “Why me?” It ought to have been Vision. He’d been her husband, and she clearly still loved him, for all that their relationship had ended.
When she’d brought Simon back, it had been because she loved him, both for himself and for the ways in which he was a reflection of Vision, and because he loved her. And possibly because he hadn’t truly been dead, just disembodied or turned into pure energy or… something. No one had ever been particularly clear on that part.
Whereas he-- it had never been like that between the two of them. Maybe if things had gone differently at some point, if she hadn’t fallen so hard for Vision, and if he’d never met Bobbi, but as it was… the only time anything had ever happened between them, they had both been under mind-control.
Bringing him back didn’t make sense. Thor had come back to life entirely on his own, but he was a god, and the normal rules don’t apply to them. Cap had been brought back by Doom for god knew what reasons, probably some convoluted plan involving brainwashing and an army of Latverian super soldiers, but if anyone deserved a second chance at life, it was Cap. It was only justice that he’d gotten it. Whereas Clint himself – he was a pretty good guy, and a damn good superhero, but why him? Why him, and not the man Wanda had loved, or any one of the other people the Avengers had lost.
Why him and not Bobbi?
“I don’t know. I just know I’m glad I did. The world wouldn’t be right without you, any more than it would be without Cap, or without Simon, or my—“ she broke off. “I miss Pietro. I think he’s alive. I want to think I’d know if he weren’t, but twins don’t actually work like that.”
If he’d thought about it beforehand, Clint wouldn’t have moved, would have kept his hands to himself, but Wanda looked so miserable for a moment, and before he knew it, he’d shoved himself upright and leaned over to pull her into a hug.
“Don’t look so sad, Witchie,” he told her. “We won, remember?”
“Yeah,” she said after a moment, and he could feel her arms come up to hug him back. “I guess we did.”
Even gentle as it was, the touch on his bruised back still hurt. Clint didn’t particularly care.
***
SHIELD would pay for inflicting this humiliation upon him, Doom swore. He would not be confined down here long – Latveria’s lawyers were the best in the world, and would even now be arranging his release – but being forced to endure even a moment in the Helicarrier’s cells was intolerable.
It paled beside the infuriating loss of the spear’s power to the Scarlet Witch, but that had been defeat at the hands of a foe who, while not as great as Doom, was still worthy of at least minimal respect. Being forced to allow SHIELD’s busybody agents to haul him – him, Victor von Doom – away in cuffs, on the other hand…
The next group of SHIELD personal who trespassed across his borders to investigate some supposed “human rights violation” were not going to be leaving again. Ever.
They had taken Doom’s armor, but had at least left him his mask. Staring at his unmasked reflection in the sheet of polished metal that had been bolted to the wall over the cell’s primitive sink – presumably ionized force-fields that prevented the water from reaching a level sufficient to drown oneself in were what passed for high-tech amongst SHIELD operatives – would have been the final unbearable humiliation.
All that power... and the Scarlet Witch had wasted it all banishing Chthon back to his prison.
It had had to be done, of course, but Doom was certain that, had he been wielding the spear, he could have dealt with Chthon and still had at least a portion of the spear's magic left over. Perhaps not enough to elevate himself to the level of a god, but certainly enough to make good use of. If that woman hadn't taken it, if Blake hadn't somehow escaped his grasp, victory would have been his.
Replacing the men who had been guarding the warehouse would be yet another inconvenience. Better to allow them to return to Latveria with him first; it would be easier to dispense justice without American law enforcement interfering.
His jaw still ached under his mask, the bruise where Van Dyne had struck him throbbing. He would remember that offense as well.
"I'm disappointed in you, Victor." The voice seemed to come from everywhere at once.
He did not startle in surprise - Victor von Doom never did anything so undignified - simply raised his eyes to meet Loki's in the polished metal mirror. Her reflection stood behind him, slightly to one side, and close enough that he should have been able to feel her body pressed against his and her breath on the side of his neck. An illusion only; if he turned to look beside him, there would be nothing but empty air.
"Loki," he said. "I was growing tired of waiting. You will free me from this place at once."
If she was disappointed that he hadn't flinched at her sudden appearance, it didn't show.
"Why would I do that?" She smiled, revealing sharp, white teeth. "I thought it courteous to inform you that our engagement has come to an end. It was pleasant while it lasted, but at the moment, you're of little use to me."
Doom shot to his feet, nearly lunging for the mirror before he remembered the futility of that. He curled his hands into fists, wanting to smash her face in, to wrap his hands around that long, white neck and throttle her. No one dismissed him that way.
"Our engagement is over when I say it is," he shouted. "No one treats Victor von Doom this way! Do you think you'll get back into Valhalla on your own? We would have won if you hadn't let that bird take the spear from you! Instead you just stood there and let Sin ruin everything."
Loki's eyes narrowed. "No, that was you," she said sharply. "You chose to work with her in the first place. Now my spear is destroyed, my lost power is spent and beyond regaining, and my brother smirks and celebrates his victory. Had you chosen your allies more wisely, we would e'en now be enthroned in Asgard." She curled her hand into a fist, scarred lips tightening. “My brother will regret siding against me, and that mortal chaos mage will regret stealing my spear. That’s for later, though.” The smile she flashed him was cruel enough that Doom knew it was, for once, a real one. “In truth, I just came to bid you farewell.”
“When I get out of here,” Doom vowed, “I’ll make what Odin did to you look mild.”
She actually laughed. Laughed. At him. “It’s so cute when mortals try to threaten me. You were entertaining, for a Midgardian. Perhaps I’ll find a use for you again sometime.” She leaned forward just an inch or two and kissed the edge of his reflection’s mask, running her tongue along the seam where it joined to flesh.
Then she was gone, and the mirror showed only Doom himself, alone in an empty cell.
***
“We can’t avoid him the whole evening.”
“I can try,” Steve muttered, knowing he was being childish. The short, greying man currently standing by the buffet table was one of the trustees of the Metropolitan Museum, and Steve strongly suspected that he was the specific trustee he had argued with over the phone and through email for most of a week.
The fact that the John Dee manuscript had been severely damaged in the course of saving the world was less significant to the museum than the fact that it had been severely damaged, period. A very large donation to the museum might not be enough to avoid a potential lawsuit this time. The Maria Stark Foundation’s lawyers were working on it, and so were SE’s lawyers, but Steve preferred not to push his luck.
He might have been slightly rude in that last email. Tony usually handled that side of the Avengers’ business, but he had still been in a hospital bed at that point.
“You catch more flies with honey.” Tony eyed the trustee consideringly. “Maybe I should go apologize in person.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” The two of them had already been on display enough this evening, from the gauntlet of paparazzi with cameras outside to the handful of guests who couldn’t stop staring at them, as if they expected to see debauched playboy Tony Stark throw his famous superhero boyfriend up against a wall and have his way with him at any second.
It was the first public appearance either of them had made outside of an Avengers-related press conference in three weeks, Steve reminded himself, the first one since Times Square. He should have expected it. He had expected it. He just wasn’t used to being on display as Steve Rogers, rather than as Captain America.
That made it different, somehow.
No hiding, he reminded himself. Not even from rich strangers with plastic smiles at a fundraising gala.
They weren’t the only same-sex couple here. They were just the one the most people were looking at.
“We could always hide behind the—whatever those are.” Tony nodded at a large, feathery-looking bush that could have come straight out of Dr. Seuss illustration.
“Photographers would follow us in case we were sneaking away to make out.”
Tony waved a hand dismissively. “They do that anyway. They got a picture of me and Rumiko kissing behind one of the giant cycads once.” He smiled a little, his eyes going to a brightly flowered tropical plant. “Ru liked flowers; she used to love this thing. She’d have liked it even more this year, with all the snow outside.”
The New York Botanical Gardens’ annual gala was usually held in the spring or summer – the fact that Steve even knew this was probably a sign that he’d paid far too much attention to Tony’s social life even before they’d gotten together – but this spring, New York had been attacked by Doombots and the Mandarin, and the upheaveal caused by the fighting over registration had still lingered. Hence holding the 2007 gala in December.
The Gardens’ conservatory was a huge, glass and metal work of Victorian art, built back when public architecture had still been designed to be attractive. It was warm and humid inside, full of everything from tangles of exotic tropical plants to neatly laid out water gardens. On the other side of the glass walls, early snow was drifting down and just starting to stick.
If they were lucky, it would stay snow, and not turn into sleet and ice. And since the chaos Chthon and the spear had been generating was gone, they might actually get lucky.
Steve wasn’t sure if they were long overdue for some good luck in general, or if they’d already had more than their fair share.
“I know flowers aren’t your thing, though,” Tony was continuing. “I’ll take you on a real date eventually.”
“As opposed to something you have to go to anyway?”
Tony’s lips twitched. “What do you think I meant by a real date?”
He looked good – he always did, in formal wear – no longer pale or drawn and tired from pain. There were still bandages under that expensive suit, though the staples and stitches had already come out, and he was still moving stiffly, but he was in better shape than any normal person who’d had a spear shoved into his gut and broken two ribs less than a month ago had any right to be.
Wanda still couldn't explain exactly what she had done, either to Tony or Maya Hansen''s satisfaction, but some of the Extremis’s healing factor had come back, along with most of the rest of its functionality.
Steve’s own cracked ribs had already healed, so maybe Sam had a point about the super soldier serum having a mild healing factor. Not that he planned to admit it.
“Some place I don’t have to wear a tuxedo or a suit and tie,” he told Tony.
“You’re so hard to please,” Tony said. “Don’t use the Extremis, don’t get stabbed, don’t take me anywhere expensive…”
“Most people have no difficulty not getting killed,” Steve said mildly.
Tony’s smile slipped for a moment, and Steve remembered the raw grief on his face in those magazine photos. Before he could apologize, the smile was back, if a little too bright.
“We’re not most people.”
“No,” Steve agreed. “Most people lead boring lives.”
The silence stretched out, just long enough to be awkward and for Steve to again consider apologizing for bringing the topic of death up at all.
Somewhere behind them, the musicians began playing again.
“I said before that I’d take you dancing.” Tony gestured at the small dance floor that had been set up in the center of the conservatory floor.
“Are you sure you’re up for it?” He’d been trying not to hover all evening, but he couldn’t help asking. The visceral memory of Tony’s broken ribs moving under his hands was something it was going to take him a while to forget.
Tony didn’t actually roll his eyes, but something about his expression implied the motion anyway. “As long as you don’t do that pornographic thing I’ve seen you do with Sharon and slide me through your legs.”
Steve shook his head. “It wouldn’t work. You’re too tall, and you weigh too much.” Even slightly underweight from his recent hospital stay, Tony had a good four inches and thirty pounds on Sharon. Steve could pick him up, with a little effort, but tossing him around a dance floor in some of the more athletic swing moves wasn’t going to happen.
Tony grinned, and his eyes looked very blue. “Great, then dance with me. I want to see the expression on Assemblyman Liefeld's face when he has to watch Captain America dancing with another man.” He nodded at the State Assembly's minority leader, who had carefully avoided greeting either of them when they arrived.
Tony had a point there. There were times when Steve felt aggressively daring and defiant just for holding Tony’s hand or putting an arm around his waist in public, and other times when he found himself halfway through some blatantly intimate gesture before the question of how people would react and if he really should be doing this in front of an audience occurred to him. Tonight, he felt like being defiant.
They’d saved the world and almost died – actually died, in his case – and had damn well earned the right to dance with whomever they wanted. Or would have, if that was something that had to be earned.
“Which of us is leading?”
Tony stared at him blankly for a moment, as if he’d forgotten that that would even be in question. Then he smiled again, the expression not quite a smirk. “I’ll flip you for it.”
“You can lead next time,” Steve told him, and dragged him out on to the floor.
~End~
Aaaand, that's where we'll leave them for the moment ^_^. Not every loose end has been tied up, but this is Marvel, and they never are – there's always room left open to lead into another event.
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
Authors:
seanchai and elspethdixonUniverse: 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:
dorothy1901, who did a wonderful job of catching our many, many typos. 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.
Note: Completely discarding the posting schedule, but I promised myself I'd finish this fic before I turned thirty, and that's... in about four hours from now.
Daytime tv was sort of mind-numbing, even with the insane number of channels Tony’s television had. Clint shifted slightly on the couch, trying to find an angle to lean back against the couch arm that would put the least amount of pressure on the bruises on his back. It was, unsurprisingly, the one that put the most strain on his cracked ribs.
Talk show. Talk show. Some kind of soap opera in Spanish. CNN showing the same news bites he’d already seen an hour ago and the hour before that. Fox promising to reveal how prescription drugs would give you cancer. Commercial. Commercial. Commercial in Spanish. Something in Japanese that a normal tv wouldn’t even be able to pick up on this side of the planet. Four different ESPN channels that were all reporting on sports no one cared about like golf and tennis.
Finally, he found that kids cartoon about the children with magic kung fu that was more addictive than he was ever going to publically admit, and settled down to kill half an hour.
The worst part about deep bruises and broken bones was how long they took to heal. He wasn’t even seriously hurt, not like Tony was, but he was going to be stuck doing nothing for nearly as long, while his archery got rusty. It could be worse – he could have broken his collarbone or sprained something; nothing took longer to heal than a bad sprain – but it was still a pain.
The first couple of days, he had just wanted to take medically unsound doses of ibuprofen and sleep, and had mostly just been relieved that Chthon was gone and they were all alive. Now he was bored out of his skull.
Bored, and stuck in Avengers tower with nothing to do while Cap, Sam, Thor, and Carol got to handle all the meetings with SHIELD, the clean-up work with the city, getting the mansion cleaned up and repaired, and anything else remotely productive.
Hank was physically back to normal, supposedly, but his personality had been reset to mopey bitch scientist from hell and he’d barely left his and Jan’s room, and Clint was just fine letting him hibernate there. Tony had finally come home from the Helicarrier’s medical bay yesterday, and wasn’t up for anything but lying in bed and running his entire business empire over the internet. According to Barnes, the Helicarrier’s doctors had only let him go because he’d been all but attempting to run SE from a hospital bed, along with half of SHIELD for good measure, and they’d kicked him out before Maria Hill could kill him.
The ability to surf the web with your brain must be nice when you were laid up flat on your back.
Clint was contemplating how bored he’d be if he just turned the cooking show he’d ended up staring at after the kids cartoon had ended off vs. how much he didn’t care about cooking and the fact that it was making him feel both hungry and nauseous, vs. Rachel Ray’s boobs when Wanda came in.
She didn’t look as tired as she had for the first couple of days after Times Square, but the backs of her hands were still covered with bandaids, the thick, airtight ones you put over blisters and burns. Did she still have Strange’s tattoos under there, or had they been burned off?
Maybe she wouldn’t need them anymore with Chthon sealed up again.
“I didn’t know you were interested in cooking, Clint.” The tone of her voice wasn’t actually mocking, but Clint had known her long enough to be able to tell that she was mocking him anyway.
“Shut up, she’s hot.”
Wanda cast a considering look at the television screen, then shrugged. “She’s not really my type.”
He was never sure if she was joking or not when she said things like that. Was Clint the only heterosexual person on the entire team? Hank barely counted, what with naming himself after various female insects. The next thing you knew, Sam would turn out to secretly like guys, too, and Jan would hook up with She-Hulk and that would be kind of hot.
And he was just trying to distract himself from the awkwardness of a one-on-one conversation with Wanda. Clint sighed inwardly, and made himself smile at her. She was trying. He could, too.
“You had the hots for Wonderman back when he had a mullet. You have no taste.”
“It wasn’t his hair I was attracted to.”
“You and Disney Channel Tony.”
“We have to stop calling him that. One of us is going to accidentally say it in front of him someday.”
“Carol started it,” he returned. She was right, though. He would end up feeling like an idiot – an embarrassed idiot – if he actually called the other man that to his face. It was the sort of thing Spiderman would do.
He’d be very surprised if Hellrung hadn’t already heard it from Carol several times over, but just because she still resented him for stealing her boyfriend didn’t mean that Clint had anything against him. He had never even met Hellrung in person.
Wanda sat down on the other end of the couch, next to his feet, and they both watched as Rachel Ray perkily demonstrated how to mince garlic. The couch was sized to be able to handle Thor – even with Clint stretched out nearly full-length on it, there was still plenty of room.
He still had to fight the urge to draw his feet back, in case she didn’t want his toes touching her thigh.
The silence should have been excruciating, but something about it was oddly comforting. At some point, Clint realized, he’d stopped feeling so uncomfortable around her. Stopped picturing that night in Transia whenever he looked at her, remembering it whenever she touched him.
“So,” he finally asked, after several minutes of watching her try not to pick at the edge of the bandages on her hands, “are you… going to be okay?”
Wanda smiled at him, her face just a little too stiff. “I’m fine.”
Neither of them said anything for a long moment, and then she blurted out,
“I could have brought him back.”
Could have- Clint blinked at her, about to ask what she was talking about, but she didn’t give him the chance.
“I had the power to do it,” she went on. “For two minutes, I was a god. I could have brought Vision back.”
“Then why didn’t you?” It wasn’t very tactful, and as soon as Clint asked, he wished he could take the words back.
Wanda didn’t flinch, though, or look anything other than sad and a little haunted. “I had to banish Chthon. It took all the power the spear had; if I’d used it up bringing Vision back, he would have won.”
“Then you didn’t have a choice.”
“I could have undone the rest of what he made me do, too. Given everyone their powers back. I should feel guilty about that, but instead I just keep thinking, I could have had him back.”
“You brought me back.” And she hadn’t had the spear then.
“That was when I was still possessed by Chthon, channeling his power.” She shook her head slowly. “I don’t even remember doing it, or know how I did.”
“That makes two of us.” But- “Why me?” It ought to have been Vision. He’d been her husband, and she clearly still loved him, for all that their relationship had ended.
When she’d brought Simon back, it had been because she loved him, both for himself and for the ways in which he was a reflection of Vision, and because he loved her. And possibly because he hadn’t truly been dead, just disembodied or turned into pure energy or… something. No one had ever been particularly clear on that part.
Whereas he-- it had never been like that between the two of them. Maybe if things had gone differently at some point, if she hadn’t fallen so hard for Vision, and if he’d never met Bobbi, but as it was… the only time anything had ever happened between them, they had both been under mind-control.
Bringing him back didn’t make sense. Thor had come back to life entirely on his own, but he was a god, and the normal rules don’t apply to them. Cap had been brought back by Doom for god knew what reasons, probably some convoluted plan involving brainwashing and an army of Latverian super soldiers, but if anyone deserved a second chance at life, it was Cap. It was only justice that he’d gotten it. Whereas Clint himself – he was a pretty good guy, and a damn good superhero, but why him? Why him, and not the man Wanda had loved, or any one of the other people the Avengers had lost.
Why him and not Bobbi?
“I don’t know. I just know I’m glad I did. The world wouldn’t be right without you, any more than it would be without Cap, or without Simon, or my—“ she broke off. “I miss Pietro. I think he’s alive. I want to think I’d know if he weren’t, but twins don’t actually work like that.”
If he’d thought about it beforehand, Clint wouldn’t have moved, would have kept his hands to himself, but Wanda looked so miserable for a moment, and before he knew it, he’d shoved himself upright and leaned over to pull her into a hug.
“Don’t look so sad, Witchie,” he told her. “We won, remember?”
“Yeah,” she said after a moment, and he could feel her arms come up to hug him back. “I guess we did.”
Even gentle as it was, the touch on his bruised back still hurt. Clint didn’t particularly care.
SHIELD would pay for inflicting this humiliation upon him, Doom swore. He would not be confined down here long – Latveria’s lawyers were the best in the world, and would even now be arranging his release – but being forced to endure even a moment in the Helicarrier’s cells was intolerable.
It paled beside the infuriating loss of the spear’s power to the Scarlet Witch, but that had been defeat at the hands of a foe who, while not as great as Doom, was still worthy of at least minimal respect. Being forced to allow SHIELD’s busybody agents to haul him – him, Victor von Doom – away in cuffs, on the other hand…
The next group of SHIELD personal who trespassed across his borders to investigate some supposed “human rights violation” were not going to be leaving again. Ever.
They had taken Doom’s armor, but had at least left him his mask. Staring at his unmasked reflection in the sheet of polished metal that had been bolted to the wall over the cell’s primitive sink – presumably ionized force-fields that prevented the water from reaching a level sufficient to drown oneself in were what passed for high-tech amongst SHIELD operatives – would have been the final unbearable humiliation.
All that power... and the Scarlet Witch had wasted it all banishing Chthon back to his prison.
It had had to be done, of course, but Doom was certain that, had he been wielding the spear, he could have dealt with Chthon and still had at least a portion of the spear's magic left over. Perhaps not enough to elevate himself to the level of a god, but certainly enough to make good use of. If that woman hadn't taken it, if Blake hadn't somehow escaped his grasp, victory would have been his.
Replacing the men who had been guarding the warehouse would be yet another inconvenience. Better to allow them to return to Latveria with him first; it would be easier to dispense justice without American law enforcement interfering.
His jaw still ached under his mask, the bruise where Van Dyne had struck him throbbing. He would remember that offense as well.
"I'm disappointed in you, Victor." The voice seemed to come from everywhere at once.
He did not startle in surprise - Victor von Doom never did anything so undignified - simply raised his eyes to meet Loki's in the polished metal mirror. Her reflection stood behind him, slightly to one side, and close enough that he should have been able to feel her body pressed against his and her breath on the side of his neck. An illusion only; if he turned to look beside him, there would be nothing but empty air.
"Loki," he said. "I was growing tired of waiting. You will free me from this place at once."
If she was disappointed that he hadn't flinched at her sudden appearance, it didn't show.
"Why would I do that?" She smiled, revealing sharp, white teeth. "I thought it courteous to inform you that our engagement has come to an end. It was pleasant while it lasted, but at the moment, you're of little use to me."
Doom shot to his feet, nearly lunging for the mirror before he remembered the futility of that. He curled his hands into fists, wanting to smash her face in, to wrap his hands around that long, white neck and throttle her. No one dismissed him that way.
"Our engagement is over when I say it is," he shouted. "No one treats Victor von Doom this way! Do you think you'll get back into Valhalla on your own? We would have won if you hadn't let that bird take the spear from you! Instead you just stood there and let Sin ruin everything."
Loki's eyes narrowed. "No, that was you," she said sharply. "You chose to work with her in the first place. Now my spear is destroyed, my lost power is spent and beyond regaining, and my brother smirks and celebrates his victory. Had you chosen your allies more wisely, we would e'en now be enthroned in Asgard." She curled her hand into a fist, scarred lips tightening. “My brother will regret siding against me, and that mortal chaos mage will regret stealing my spear. That’s for later, though.” The smile she flashed him was cruel enough that Doom knew it was, for once, a real one. “In truth, I just came to bid you farewell.”
“When I get out of here,” Doom vowed, “I’ll make what Odin did to you look mild.”
She actually laughed. Laughed. At him. “It’s so cute when mortals try to threaten me. You were entertaining, for a Midgardian. Perhaps I’ll find a use for you again sometime.” She leaned forward just an inch or two and kissed the edge of his reflection’s mask, running her tongue along the seam where it joined to flesh.
Then she was gone, and the mirror showed only Doom himself, alone in an empty cell.
“We can’t avoid him the whole evening.”
“I can try,” Steve muttered, knowing he was being childish. The short, greying man currently standing by the buffet table was one of the trustees of the Metropolitan Museum, and Steve strongly suspected that he was the specific trustee he had argued with over the phone and through email for most of a week.
The fact that the John Dee manuscript had been severely damaged in the course of saving the world was less significant to the museum than the fact that it had been severely damaged, period. A very large donation to the museum might not be enough to avoid a potential lawsuit this time. The Maria Stark Foundation’s lawyers were working on it, and so were SE’s lawyers, but Steve preferred not to push his luck.
He might have been slightly rude in that last email. Tony usually handled that side of the Avengers’ business, but he had still been in a hospital bed at that point.
“You catch more flies with honey.” Tony eyed the trustee consideringly. “Maybe I should go apologize in person.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” The two of them had already been on display enough this evening, from the gauntlet of paparazzi with cameras outside to the handful of guests who couldn’t stop staring at them, as if they expected to see debauched playboy Tony Stark throw his famous superhero boyfriend up against a wall and have his way with him at any second.
It was the first public appearance either of them had made outside of an Avengers-related press conference in three weeks, Steve reminded himself, the first one since Times Square. He should have expected it. He had expected it. He just wasn’t used to being on display as Steve Rogers, rather than as Captain America.
That made it different, somehow.
No hiding, he reminded himself. Not even from rich strangers with plastic smiles at a fundraising gala.
They weren’t the only same-sex couple here. They were just the one the most people were looking at.
“We could always hide behind the—whatever those are.” Tony nodded at a large, feathery-looking bush that could have come straight out of Dr. Seuss illustration.
“Photographers would follow us in case we were sneaking away to make out.”
Tony waved a hand dismissively. “They do that anyway. They got a picture of me and Rumiko kissing behind one of the giant cycads once.” He smiled a little, his eyes going to a brightly flowered tropical plant. “Ru liked flowers; she used to love this thing. She’d have liked it even more this year, with all the snow outside.”
The New York Botanical Gardens’ annual gala was usually held in the spring or summer – the fact that Steve even knew this was probably a sign that he’d paid far too much attention to Tony’s social life even before they’d gotten together – but this spring, New York had been attacked by Doombots and the Mandarin, and the upheaveal caused by the fighting over registration had still lingered. Hence holding the 2007 gala in December.
The Gardens’ conservatory was a huge, glass and metal work of Victorian art, built back when public architecture had still been designed to be attractive. It was warm and humid inside, full of everything from tangles of exotic tropical plants to neatly laid out water gardens. On the other side of the glass walls, early snow was drifting down and just starting to stick.
If they were lucky, it would stay snow, and not turn into sleet and ice. And since the chaos Chthon and the spear had been generating was gone, they might actually get lucky.
Steve wasn’t sure if they were long overdue for some good luck in general, or if they’d already had more than their fair share.
“I know flowers aren’t your thing, though,” Tony was continuing. “I’ll take you on a real date eventually.”
“As opposed to something you have to go to anyway?”
Tony’s lips twitched. “What do you think I meant by a real date?”
He looked good – he always did, in formal wear – no longer pale or drawn and tired from pain. There were still bandages under that expensive suit, though the staples and stitches had already come out, and he was still moving stiffly, but he was in better shape than any normal person who’d had a spear shoved into his gut and broken two ribs less than a month ago had any right to be.
Wanda still couldn't explain exactly what she had done, either to Tony or Maya Hansen''s satisfaction, but some of the Extremis’s healing factor had come back, along with most of the rest of its functionality.
Steve’s own cracked ribs had already healed, so maybe Sam had a point about the super soldier serum having a mild healing factor. Not that he planned to admit it.
“Some place I don’t have to wear a tuxedo or a suit and tie,” he told Tony.
“You’re so hard to please,” Tony said. “Don’t use the Extremis, don’t get stabbed, don’t take me anywhere expensive…”
“Most people have no difficulty not getting killed,” Steve said mildly.
Tony’s smile slipped for a moment, and Steve remembered the raw grief on his face in those magazine photos. Before he could apologize, the smile was back, if a little too bright.
“We’re not most people.”
“No,” Steve agreed. “Most people lead boring lives.”
The silence stretched out, just long enough to be awkward and for Steve to again consider apologizing for bringing the topic of death up at all.
Somewhere behind them, the musicians began playing again.
“I said before that I’d take you dancing.” Tony gestured at the small dance floor that had been set up in the center of the conservatory floor.
“Are you sure you’re up for it?” He’d been trying not to hover all evening, but he couldn’t help asking. The visceral memory of Tony’s broken ribs moving under his hands was something it was going to take him a while to forget.
Tony didn’t actually roll his eyes, but something about his expression implied the motion anyway. “As long as you don’t do that pornographic thing I’ve seen you do with Sharon and slide me through your legs.”
Steve shook his head. “It wouldn’t work. You’re too tall, and you weigh too much.” Even slightly underweight from his recent hospital stay, Tony had a good four inches and thirty pounds on Sharon. Steve could pick him up, with a little effort, but tossing him around a dance floor in some of the more athletic swing moves wasn’t going to happen.
Tony grinned, and his eyes looked very blue. “Great, then dance with me. I want to see the expression on Assemblyman Liefeld's face when he has to watch Captain America dancing with another man.” He nodded at the State Assembly's minority leader, who had carefully avoided greeting either of them when they arrived.
Tony had a point there. There were times when Steve felt aggressively daring and defiant just for holding Tony’s hand or putting an arm around his waist in public, and other times when he found himself halfway through some blatantly intimate gesture before the question of how people would react and if he really should be doing this in front of an audience occurred to him. Tonight, he felt like being defiant.
They’d saved the world and almost died – actually died, in his case – and had damn well earned the right to dance with whomever they wanted. Or would have, if that was something that had to be earned.
“Which of us is leading?”
Tony stared at him blankly for a moment, as if he’d forgotten that that would even be in question. Then he smiled again, the expression not quite a smirk. “I’ll flip you for it.”
“You can lead next time,” Steve told him, and dragged him out on to the floor.
Aaaand, that's where we'll leave them for the moment ^_^. Not every loose end has been tied up, but this is Marvel, and they never are – there's always room left open to lead into another event.
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
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Thank you tons to both of you for finishing this story!! it was one of the most amazing rides ever!! Is such a complete and totally incredible story!!!
Tons of hugs to both of you!!! Be well!!!
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And thank you and
Your fiction did not bring me into this fandom (that dubious honour belongs to
Thank you both so much.
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I think valtyr may have single-handedly dragged more people into this fandom than almost anyone else.
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Also, I hope you have a great Birthday! :-)
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I loved every moment of Clint's inner dialog (I was going to pick out my fav lines, but that would end up being like the whole thing.) I was glad he and Wanda were able to come to friendship. And Steve's thoughts on sometimes being defiant and sometimes second-guessing was another smart detail.
This series has been one of my favorite, and definitely one of the stories I re-read the most. I love your takes on the 616 people and have loved all the twists and turns and povs and *fixing* you have done! <333
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It's hard to believe that you started this serious before Cap was reborn! It's interesting to read an AU that is as compelling and believable as canon.
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I just want to say thank you to both of you.You too are so adorable ;w; Ressurection-verse means much to me.
Happy birthday Ms Elspath!
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The whole fic was amazing, absolutely amazing and I loved every part of it. The scene at the end with Steve and Tony was just perfect. It's a great ending, but I'm just so sad it's the ending...
Happy birthday!
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And second, thank you so so so much for this amazing fic. For all your amazing fics guys. Your talent is so freaking big.
Because of you I really got into this fandom and that it's something that I will appreciate for the rest of my life.
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Sincerely,
Me and the whole fandom.
P.S. Happy Birthday!