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cap_ironman2013-12-31 12:52 am
cap_ironman_fe) wrote in cap_ironman2013-12-31 12:52 am
Entry tags:
Secret Santa: Pinion
Happy Holidays: Whizzy
Title: Pinion
Rating: R
Universe: X-Factor 231? Unsure of the universe designation.
Warnings: Graphic Violence/Gore
From:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kiyaar
Steve wakes up, facedown, in a pile of debris in what used to be Midtown, and tries to scream but for the blood in his throat.
Some of his face gets left on the concrete when he picks his head up.
***
Carol spackles cream cheese over her bagel.
“Do you think, though? I’d be exhausted if I my father was always trying to kill me. Or have me killed. Whatever.”
“That’s probably libel,” Steve says, and crams half of his own bagel into his mouth. “You should maybe reconsider accusing the King of Spartax of pre-meditated murder. In public.”
Carol shrugs. “Tony says he’s a shit.”
Tony, who’s going to be home in three hours, twenty minutes, and 31 seconds, by Steve’s watch.
“Hey, have you heard from our Genosha contingent?” Steve says, noticing the time. “They haven’t checked in since last night.”
“You’re the first person they’d call if they run into problems,” Carol says. “Relax.”
“I am relaxed.”
“No, you aren’t, you’re all preened and eager,” she says.
Steve ignores that. “So, the Avengers levels of the tower are empty,” he barrels on, because he is not transparently gay for anyone but Carol, “and we still have three hours until he gets back.”
“Don’t you have a brass meeting?”
“No,” Steve says. “Cleared my schedule.”
“No,” she decides. “You’re not eager.”
“Are you gonna assist?” Steve says. “Or not?”
The glee that makes its way onto Carol’s face should not be allowed. “It’s practically an invitation,” she agrees.
“We could rearrange all of them,” he says. “I’m pretty sure there’s a protocol that makes them dance.” He shrugs. “We could do it in an hour, tops.”
“We could just tell him we’d eloped,” Carol says. “You’d get roughly the same effect.”
There’s the edge of a laugh on Steve’s tongue, because the morning is bright, and in three hours he’s going to get to see Tony, Tony, who will stalk off the Quinjet and bitch about Reed for hours while Steve works the knots out of his back, Tony, who will roll his eyes when Steve asks about Peter Quill and kiss him and climb into his lap and squirm while Steve touches him and tells him how loved he is.
Someone screams, outside.
***
Steve wakes, and Tony is holding a needle.
***
Midtown is rubble, and Tony fights his way through a crater the size of an aircraft carrier.
There are bodies, some of them not bodies, and someone – something rushes him, slithering around his legs before he screams and repulsors the shit out of it.
After, his armor tells him it was a civilian.
He thinks, vaguely, that he should be fighting, but there are too many to fight, and Steve –
His armor reads 6.089 billion mutant life signatures planetwide.
***
“Oh my god,” is the first thing he remembers hearing Tony say, hushed and strained and grieved.
Tony.
It rushes out of him, the thought, before he even sits up. Tony is safe, he thinks, before he thinks anything else, before he realizes he can’t lift his head because it’s heavy, before he realizes that everything is the wrong shade.
He screams.
The pain is like burning, it’s everywhere, Carol, he thinks, and another scream makes it out of his mouth like a mournful roar.
“Steve,” Tony says, but his hands shake where they’re touching his face. “Steve.”
[INITIALIZING. . .]
He rolls his head to the side, delirious with pain, and sees something shine in his soft focus.
Later, he’ll remember the moment, the abject disbelief, it can’t be, this isn’t real, this is a nightmare, this is something called up from hell, expressly for him, but then he tries to roar with his anger and feels that snap, and suddenly his nerves are on fire and all that’s in his brain is
[SYSTEM ERROR, REBOOTING. . . ]
***
Steve stands in the street outside the coffee shop.
“Where’d it come from,” Steve yells. “Carol?”
The ground shakes beneath his feet, and the words get stolen from his mouth as the streets fill with people screaming.
And running, they’re running, too, because one of the skyscrapers a few blocks north is falling, surreally slow, the bulk of it sliding to the ground before the dust cloud rushes out in a splintering wave.
He spins around, but Carol’s gone.
In her place is something massive and hissing and burning with flame, like when she was Binary, but terrible, the shape of her face wicked and sharp, the lines of her body smooth and black and hissing with fire.
“Carol,” Steve gasps.
She turns at the sound of his voice, and then burning black coiling energy erupts from her and –
That’s how it happens, that the last glimpse of humanity Steve ever gets is blinding and white and suffocating.
The last thing he feels is rage and something massive punching out of his chest, before he melts, like slag, to the flame of her.
***
Tony is holding a needle, and Steve is upright, somehow.
“Don’t look down,” Tony says, and reaches for his face. “Look at me, Steve, look.”
[DESIGNATION: A.E. STARK. BP ELEVATED 145/96, HR 90 BPM]
His face feels like it’s burning. Tony’s hands are cool, clammy, smelling of equal parts phosphorus and copper. Tony –
Tony’s hand, he can only feel one of them, oh, god, he’s paralyzed, he’s – Jesus, no –
[CALIBRATING. . .]
And just like that, there’s warmth on both of his cheeks.
He sucks in a breath that doesn’t feel like it reaches his lungs.
Tony swallows, his eyes sunken and purple. He hasn’t shaved in days, it looks like. Steve doesn’t recognize the facility they’re in; there’s broken glass everywhere. One of the walls has an enormous dent in it like the Hulk decided to land a blow. There’s a workbench, behind him, disassembled components of one of his helmets strewn across the surface. They could be in one of his armories.
“I made a decision,” Tony says, swallowing, his throat beading up and down, and Steve –
Steve reaches his hands up to feel his own throat, except –
Except he feels warm metal against his throat instead of skin.
[21.769% ADAMANTIUM-5, 70.998% VIBRANIUM, 07.233% TITANIUM, IMPURITY EST. 0.0000000012%]
“What did you do,” Steve gasps, except it’s not his voice, it’s something like his voice, some recreation using filters and audio samples. The look that comes across Tony’s face is something Steve hasn’t seen often, but he’s seen it before, once, before they worked everything out with the SHRA, once when Sharon lost the baby and he lost himself in inconsolable rage for two days in the gym and it took Tony breaking his arm to snap him out of it –
“I need you to listen to me,” Tony says.
***
When Tony finally makes Earth orbit, half of the Peak is gone.
Tony sees the debris, sees it listing, spinning on the wrong axis like a rusted-through top, sees the sun just starting to rise on the other side, sees the sparkle of metal and brass and bodies laid out in a dirty smear between Earth and the Moon.
There isn’t a single Avengers alert waiting for him. He tries Carol, before he tries Clint, and Jan, and Natasha and Sam and Peter. There are concerns. There are responsibilities. There are failsafes and all of them failed and he is alone and he doesn’t have a clue what happened.
Code scrolls out in his visor, and Tony watches the cloud of a nuclear blast blossom up from Alaska.
[STEVE ROGERS, LOCATED.]
Tony prays, he rockets through the atmosphere with abandon enough to burn the paint off of the outer layer, down, down, down, tears through the sky to see a giant swirling maw in the middle of the Atlantic with his stomach a gaping hole.
***
“I made a decision,” Tony says, and something shifts and grates inside Steve’s chest –
***
“I’ll miss you,” Tony says.
“You’re the one that’s leaving,” Steve says. He touches Tony’s perfect back, and Tony stretches like a cat, pressed up against his chest.
“Hold down the fort?” Tony says, and steps on his feet to kiss him.
***
Steve looks down and –
It’s exquisite, like everything Tony builds, it’s disgusting how smooth it is, how elegant. Perfect tech, like the armor Tony bleeds out of his bones, but red and deep blue, perfect tech over every inch of him, and he swallows and chokes, and that’s something, he still has a mouth, god, he runs his tongue over his cracked lips, he –
He quails and retches onto the floor.
“Please tell me this isn’t real,” Steve gasps, but it’s for show, none of it even reaches his lungs. “Oh my god, Tony, please, Tony–”
“You were dying,” Tony says. “You were – you had napalm burns, Steve, what the fuck was I supposed to do, your mutation saps your healing factor, I don’t –”
Steel legs, the vaguest memory of lying in a pile of rubble before it’s called up in perfect 1080P, ocular memory of things that he doesn’t consciously remember scrolling across his field of vision, his skin charred black, Carol’s eyes, twin points of magma in her face and then –
It wasn’t napalm, he thinks.
Every nerve in his body fires at once, and his metal limbs feel like they’re burning.
It hurts, it hurts enough that he’s kneeling and gasping on the floor, and Tony looks wretched.
“I had to do something to suppress it,” Tony says, stumbling over it. “You’re doing something with your subconscious, you – hurt me,” he finishes, barely loud enough for humans to hear, but Steve can hear, he can hear everything, every shallow breath Tony draws in through his punctured lung, every thrum of his racing heart –
“Your mutation,” Tony rounds off in a whisper.
***
Tony wrenches the doors of Area 51 open, sobbing, bleeding, without Steve.
***
“Get it off,” Steve says, and Tony coils back like he thinks Steve might rip him apart.
(He wants to, part of him wants to, Tony–)
The full-body nerve shock hits him again, stronger, this time, and he goes down to his knees and screams in pain.
His knees clank on the floor, because he’s made of metal –
“Please,” Tony begs, “just listen, it’s temporary, ok, it’s not meant to be permanent, I had to do something. Wanda did something, don’t, Steve, don’t freak out, please,” he begs, and Steve wants to hide his face, he wants to bury his head, he wants Tony to hold him and he won’t feel it –
He touches his face, and –
His face –
“Get it off!” Steve screams, hoarsely, but he can’t make the volume he used to, his voice levels out at 89.2089 DB, and he’s on his feet again in .0983 seconds, flawless, there are reaction times and statistics spooling out in front of him like he’s wearing a visor, and he isn’t, there’s a mirrored wall across the room, he has to see, he has to –
Half of his face is covered in metal.
***
“No,” Tony breathes, to no one, because there isn’t anyone, because he’s moved 4 tons of rubble to find him, and that cannot be Steve.
No, because he left, ten days ago, stood on his toes to make up the inch in height difference, kissed Steve in the bathroom tasting of mint, kissed his mouth, his lips, and –
Steve’s lips are burned, charred to an ugly black, gaping to show his teeth set in bleeding gums.
Half of his face is burnt off.
Tony scans, and scans, because that isn’t right, because he has to have vitals, he’s still warm, he’s hot to the touch, and Tony touches him and shoves whatever female husk of a body is next to him away and tries to pick him up and some of Steve’s arm comes off in his gauntleted hands –
***
He looks, for as long as it takes to steady his hands, to lower Steve into the stasis tank, for the shit that used to be cotton to be peeled off what’s left of his skin and the green slime to wash over him and preserve.
He spends 5 hours gutting the suits Fury lets him store here, gutting the walls for circuitry and components, gutting, while Steve lists in a tank of green slick. Bones and some parody of flesh.
At the end of it, he has something he would have been proud of building, once, and Steve still doesn’t have a heartbeat.
***
Half of Steve’s face is covered in metal, and the rest –
There isn’t a rest, he looks like guys in pictures from Vietnam, half of their faces melted off, his nose is burnt away with some wretched amalgam of skin covering it, he’s – he has one eye, he has one eye and the other one is something glowing and red, he’s metal, all of him is metal, he’s grotesque, there’s a coil of wire feeding out of his chest and into some unit on his back, and he realizes with a jolt it’s keeping his heart beating.
“What did you do to me,” he says, and he rounds on Tony, he feels like he’s going to be sick, but there’s nothing to come up, he knows, his – it’s already compensating for things like organs, that’s why he’s so heavy, there’s – circuitry in him –
“It’s life support,” Tony says, “We need to get somewhere safe, you were–” he looks at the ceiling like he’s lost. “I can’t do this alone,” he says desperately. “Someone set off nukes, Steve, in Europe, and here, and there’s – we’re in the bunker underneath the Triskelion,” he whispers. “I didn’t know where else to go, I don’t know if there’s anyone left, let me explain – ”
“My face,” he says helplessly, everything, he wants to say, and chokes, and Tony’s at his side, in an instant, and it takes 2.4 seconds for the metal over what used to be his arms to adjust to the sensation –
“It’ll heal,” Tony says over him, “if I can figure this out! I kept it simple, for now, it’s based on those experiments A.I.M. was doing, the Deathlok project–”
Steve spins around faster than his brain ever fired.
“For now?” he says, he can’t be fucking serious, this can’t be real –
“Your muscle was coming off in my fucking hands,” Tony says, and he’s shaking. “What was I supposed to do?”
“Get help,” Steve says incredulously, and the look on Tony’s face twists miserably.
“From who,” Tony says, and he’s inches from yelling, “everyone is dead, Steve, or – monsters,” he gasps, “I don’t know all of it yet, but–” He swipes a desperate hand over his face and looks at the ceiling. “I came back to find you dying,” he says, his voice shaking with it, “and Reed was – and when I picked you up, I–”
Tony scrubs his hands through his hair. “Fuck,” he says hoarsely.
“You what, Tony,” Steve snaps.
“I had to get you back,” Tony whispers, like it’s any explanation.
Tony brought him back.
[PARAMETERS EXCEEDED, COOLDOWN INITIATED. . .]
Something hisses into his neck, and code scrolls across his vision again.
“Oh my god,” Steve says, “oh my god,” and he’s on his knees again, Tony is there with him, saying things, I panicked, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, bending to kiss him even though the disgust is plain on his face, and what’s the point, his mouth is a weeping gash, he’d rather be dead than this, and Steve hates it, pulls away, he can’t, he hates everything, he hates Tony for this, he hates Tony –
“This is what you do when you panic?” Steve says. “Did you even think?” Steve says. “Tony, what the fuck were you thinking–”
“I’m sorry,” Tony chants, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but you were – listen, just – there are 6 billion mutant bio-signatures,” he whispers hysterically, “We got back and New York was – they’re not regular mutants, Steve, I don’t – something happened, something changed, you have something, Steve, whatever happened, you’re an omega-level mutant, do you understand? I tried to rean – touch you and you – projected something, ok, it only showed up on IR sensors, it attacked me, I had to,” he begs. “I think it’s some manifestation of your subconscious, I put in neural suppressors until I can figure it out, until I can figure all of it out, until I can build you something better, ok, but I need you to be able to fight until then–”
“THERE IS A METAL PLATE BOLTED TO MY SKULL,” Steve roars.
He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care about New York, he doesn’t care, this isn’t reversible, he knows it, he can fucking feel it, Tony did this, Tony panicked, this is what Tony does when he panics, he builds, he tried to build Steve back to life and he doesn’t want it –
“Steve,” Tony pleads. “It’s just temporary. It’s just – I know, I just wanted to – I can build you something like Barnes had, ok, if we can get to one of my armories, I can scavenge synth–”
Tony can scavenge to make him a nicer frame.
Steve upturns Tony’s entire workbench with no effort at all.
Tony presses himself flat to the wall, but Steve’s scanners don’t register his armor anywhere.
“IN WHAT UNIVERSE,” Steve bellows, and he kicks what’s left of Tony’s lab table into the wall like it’s nothing, “IS THIS AN ACCEPTABLE COMPROMISE?”
Tony is crying, and the feeling thrumming in Steve’s chest is –
Rage, when maybe it should be pity.
“I wanted to save you,” Tony says, and he looks terrified, he looks as terrified as Steve feels, but there’s nowhere for it to go, his arms start to tingle again, and he realizes that there’s nowhere for physiological responses to go so they’re just absorbed into the system –
“I DON’T WANT THIS,” Steve shouts. “Look at me, Tony, LOOK AT ME! You brought me back to be this, who are you, who fucking DOES THAT–”
“Steve, no,” Tony all but sobs, “It’s just tech. If I can figure out your mutation, I can fix your healing factor, but all of your energy is going to your fucking – id, that’s why I suppressed your mutation, Steve, I will fix this–”
“We don’t all want to be machines,” Steve snarls, and Tony looks like he’s been struck.
“You’re not,” he snaps, tears streaming down his face. “You’re not, Steve, it’s you–”
“Did you give me Extremis,” Steve snarls, “Did you make that decision for me, too–”
“It’s a neural link, Steve, the suit is – it’s healing you,” Tony says desperately, “It’s just to monitor your brainwaves and control the biometrics while I figure out how to fix your mutation–”
“It’s not a SUIT,” Steve screams, “I CAN’T TAKE IT OFF.”
Tony presses his hand to his mouth like he’s about to sob.
“I couldn’t lose you,” he says, and something snaps in Steve’s chest.
Steve strikes him across the face.
[ERROR: PORTS 8023-11308. . . COMPENSATING. . . ]
Tony goes down, hard, his head cracking against the opposite wall, the double-paned glass falling in shards around him.
He looks up, terrified, and Steve –
He just hit Tony.
Tony feels, with a shaking hand, at the back of his head, and Steve’s body stands still.
That should feel wrong, but it doesn’t feel like anything.
[ERROR: PORTS 8023-11308. . . COMPENSATING. . . ]
“What’s the system telling you,” Tony says, suddenly deathly quiet.
The system gives him a target. Tony Stark. Targeting.
It sends shudders of fabricated pleasure up and down his spine.
“What was that,” Steve says, the words sharp and irritated on his tongue. He has to know; it’s an imperative shudders through every cell of him.
[NEURAL BOLT FAILING. . . COMPENSATING. . .]
“What happened to me,” he snaps. “You said – you said you had to contain it. What did you have to contain?”
Tony’s fear sends his sensors spiking.
“You have no impulse control,” Tony says. “It’s like – superego,” he pants. “You have no superego. You’re all id.”
You hurt me, Tony said. I had to.
“Steve,” Tony says, his hands coming up like the shield Steve wielded once, “it’s ok, the suit–”
“It’s fine,” Steve snarls. “The suit is controlling it, but I’m a monster the minute it comes off, right–
“-Steve–”
“OH RIGHT,” Steve roars. “IT ISN’T COMING OFF.”
[KERNEL PANIC. . .
NEURAL BOLT BREACHED, SYSTEM SHUTDOWN in 28, 27, 26. . .
RESOLVING. . .
ATTEMPTING TO COMPENSATE. . .
ATTEMPTING TO COMPENSATE. . .
CONTAINMENT PARAMETERS CORRUPTED. SERVICE UNIT IMMEDIATELY]
“Take me offline,” Steve says, walking over to the console. It shows his biosigns, his everything, the way three of his organs have been replaced, the extensive braidwork of wires Tony has so very carefully laid into his abdomen, the perfect sterile precision of it all.
The artist in him is lost, the soldier in him is snarling, and Steve is never going to touch Tony again because his hands are made of metal and his body is broken and half of him is a machine and Tony had no right, he had no right, how could he –
“Something is wrong,” Tony quavers.
Steve wrenches the cable he knows plugs into the back of his neck out of its housing, and slots it into his body with a shudder.
“Don’t, Steve,” Tony is gasping, and he’s up, he’s not even reaching for his armor, (fool), Steve could paint the walls with his blood if he wanted, why does he want that–
Tony screams, and Steve looks down to see his own blue hand crushing Tony’s wrist.
“I can take it offline,” Tony says, his endorphins spiking, and sends the armor out to coat his arm. “Something is wrong, just let me – what are you doing–”
“You’re not listening,” Steve says, and throws him down.
[DESIGNATION: A.E.STARK, FIBULA FRACTURED]
Tony gasps, on the floor.
“You’re still you,” Tony says. “Please,” he hisses, his mouth a bloody mess, his left eye dark with blood around the ring of his iris. “I think – please let me, please, please, there is no one left, Steve –”
“Turn me off, Tony,” Steve snaps, and Tony –
Tony stands still as death in the middle of a sea of glittering shards of glass, and Steve watches the armor spill over his filthy clothes.
Steve’s arm turns into a cannon, and he fires, because attack seems like the best option.
“I’m not going to let you do this,” Tony says.
“You don’t have a choice,” Steve says, and opens the circuits.
***
Nevada is quiet, and smells like dust, instead of metal and blood.
The armor keeps him standing, long after he should, lets him brace his legs and heave the doors open when his lung has collapsed, helpfully injects him with painkillers and stimulants and things that help him mimic life. Puts 02% of system energy into tracking the lone Starktech signature moving North over the Rockies.
Tony screams with the effort it costs his body. His armor is only at half-power, but he twists his face into a snarl behind the faceplate, gets a hand in, then an arm, digs his armored feet into the ground soft with dry leaves and heaves the bay doors open.
[ACCESS – ANTHONY EDWARD STARK, GRANTED]
The lights come up as soon as he steps through the inner doors, one thousand of them, gleaming red and gold and silent in the silo.
He swore he’d never use them, but desperate times.
He should feel relief, as the eyes come up in glowing pairs, but all he feels is nothing.
When he leans over the console to download the code, he looks at his golden hands, smeared with Steve’s blood.
***
“Hello, Steve,” Tony says, years later. “It’s been a while.”
Tony wonders what it’s like for Steve to see him like this.
Grey.
“Hello, Tony,” Steve says. “You don’t have any more whiles.”
At last, Tony thinks, and wonders if Steve can die, again.
Title: Pinion
Rating: R
Universe: X-Factor 231? Unsure of the universe designation.
Warnings: Graphic Violence/Gore
From:
kiyaarSteve wakes up, facedown, in a pile of debris in what used to be Midtown, and tries to scream but for the blood in his throat.
Some of his face gets left on the concrete when he picks his head up.
Carol spackles cream cheese over her bagel.
“Do you think, though? I’d be exhausted if I my father was always trying to kill me. Or have me killed. Whatever.”
“That’s probably libel,” Steve says, and crams half of his own bagel into his mouth. “You should maybe reconsider accusing the King of Spartax of pre-meditated murder. In public.”
Carol shrugs. “Tony says he’s a shit.”
Tony, who’s going to be home in three hours, twenty minutes, and 31 seconds, by Steve’s watch.
“Hey, have you heard from our Genosha contingent?” Steve says, noticing the time. “They haven’t checked in since last night.”
“You’re the first person they’d call if they run into problems,” Carol says. “Relax.”
“I am relaxed.”
“No, you aren’t, you’re all preened and eager,” she says.
Steve ignores that. “So, the Avengers levels of the tower are empty,” he barrels on, because he is not transparently gay for anyone but Carol, “and we still have three hours until he gets back.”
“Don’t you have a brass meeting?”
“No,” Steve says. “Cleared my schedule.”
“No,” she decides. “You’re not eager.”
“Are you gonna assist?” Steve says. “Or not?”
The glee that makes its way onto Carol’s face should not be allowed. “It’s practically an invitation,” she agrees.
“We could rearrange all of them,” he says. “I’m pretty sure there’s a protocol that makes them dance.” He shrugs. “We could do it in an hour, tops.”
“We could just tell him we’d eloped,” Carol says. “You’d get roughly the same effect.”
There’s the edge of a laugh on Steve’s tongue, because the morning is bright, and in three hours he’s going to get to see Tony, Tony, who will stalk off the Quinjet and bitch about Reed for hours while Steve works the knots out of his back, Tony, who will roll his eyes when Steve asks about Peter Quill and kiss him and climb into his lap and squirm while Steve touches him and tells him how loved he is.
Someone screams, outside.
Steve wakes, and Tony is holding a needle.
Midtown is rubble, and Tony fights his way through a crater the size of an aircraft carrier.
There are bodies, some of them not bodies, and someone – something rushes him, slithering around his legs before he screams and repulsors the shit out of it.
After, his armor tells him it was a civilian.
He thinks, vaguely, that he should be fighting, but there are too many to fight, and Steve –
His armor reads 6.089 billion mutant life signatures planetwide.
“Oh my god,” is the first thing he remembers hearing Tony say, hushed and strained and grieved.
Tony.
It rushes out of him, the thought, before he even sits up. Tony is safe, he thinks, before he thinks anything else, before he realizes he can’t lift his head because it’s heavy, before he realizes that everything is the wrong shade.
He screams.
The pain is like burning, it’s everywhere, Carol, he thinks, and another scream makes it out of his mouth like a mournful roar.
“Steve,” Tony says, but his hands shake where they’re touching his face. “Steve.”
[INITIALIZING. . .]
He rolls his head to the side, delirious with pain, and sees something shine in his soft focus.
Later, he’ll remember the moment, the abject disbelief, it can’t be, this isn’t real, this is a nightmare, this is something called up from hell, expressly for him, but then he tries to roar with his anger and feels that snap, and suddenly his nerves are on fire and all that’s in his brain is
[SYSTEM ERROR, REBOOTING. . . ]
Steve stands in the street outside the coffee shop.
“Where’d it come from,” Steve yells. “Carol?”
The ground shakes beneath his feet, and the words get stolen from his mouth as the streets fill with people screaming.
And running, they’re running, too, because one of the skyscrapers a few blocks north is falling, surreally slow, the bulk of it sliding to the ground before the dust cloud rushes out in a splintering wave.
He spins around, but Carol’s gone.
In her place is something massive and hissing and burning with flame, like when she was Binary, but terrible, the shape of her face wicked and sharp, the lines of her body smooth and black and hissing with fire.
“Carol,” Steve gasps.
She turns at the sound of his voice, and then burning black coiling energy erupts from her and –
That’s how it happens, that the last glimpse of humanity Steve ever gets is blinding and white and suffocating.
The last thing he feels is rage and something massive punching out of his chest, before he melts, like slag, to the flame of her.
Tony is holding a needle, and Steve is upright, somehow.
“Don’t look down,” Tony says, and reaches for his face. “Look at me, Steve, look.”
[DESIGNATION: A.E. STARK. BP ELEVATED 145/96, HR 90 BPM]
His face feels like it’s burning. Tony’s hands are cool, clammy, smelling of equal parts phosphorus and copper. Tony –
Tony’s hand, he can only feel one of them, oh, god, he’s paralyzed, he’s – Jesus, no –
[CALIBRATING. . .]
And just like that, there’s warmth on both of his cheeks.
He sucks in a breath that doesn’t feel like it reaches his lungs.
Tony swallows, his eyes sunken and purple. He hasn’t shaved in days, it looks like. Steve doesn’t recognize the facility they’re in; there’s broken glass everywhere. One of the walls has an enormous dent in it like the Hulk decided to land a blow. There’s a workbench, behind him, disassembled components of one of his helmets strewn across the surface. They could be in one of his armories.
“I made a decision,” Tony says, swallowing, his throat beading up and down, and Steve –
Steve reaches his hands up to feel his own throat, except –
Except he feels warm metal against his throat instead of skin.
[21.769% ADAMANTIUM-5, 70.998% VIBRANIUM, 07.233% TITANIUM, IMPURITY EST. 0.0000000012%]
“What did you do,” Steve gasps, except it’s not his voice, it’s something like his voice, some recreation using filters and audio samples. The look that comes across Tony’s face is something Steve hasn’t seen often, but he’s seen it before, once, before they worked everything out with the SHRA, once when Sharon lost the baby and he lost himself in inconsolable rage for two days in the gym and it took Tony breaking his arm to snap him out of it –
“I need you to listen to me,” Tony says.
When Tony finally makes Earth orbit, half of the Peak is gone.
Tony sees the debris, sees it listing, spinning on the wrong axis like a rusted-through top, sees the sun just starting to rise on the other side, sees the sparkle of metal and brass and bodies laid out in a dirty smear between Earth and the Moon.
There isn’t a single Avengers alert waiting for him. He tries Carol, before he tries Clint, and Jan, and Natasha and Sam and Peter. There are concerns. There are responsibilities. There are failsafes and all of them failed and he is alone and he doesn’t have a clue what happened.
Code scrolls out in his visor, and Tony watches the cloud of a nuclear blast blossom up from Alaska.
[STEVE ROGERS, LOCATED.]
Tony prays, he rockets through the atmosphere with abandon enough to burn the paint off of the outer layer, down, down, down, tears through the sky to see a giant swirling maw in the middle of the Atlantic with his stomach a gaping hole.
“I made a decision,” Tony says, and something shifts and grates inside Steve’s chest –
“I’ll miss you,” Tony says.
“You’re the one that’s leaving,” Steve says. He touches Tony’s perfect back, and Tony stretches like a cat, pressed up against his chest.
“Hold down the fort?” Tony says, and steps on his feet to kiss him.
Steve looks down and –
It’s exquisite, like everything Tony builds, it’s disgusting how smooth it is, how elegant. Perfect tech, like the armor Tony bleeds out of his bones, but red and deep blue, perfect tech over every inch of him, and he swallows and chokes, and that’s something, he still has a mouth, god, he runs his tongue over his cracked lips, he –
He quails and retches onto the floor.
“Please tell me this isn’t real,” Steve gasps, but it’s for show, none of it even reaches his lungs. “Oh my god, Tony, please, Tony–”
“You were dying,” Tony says. “You were – you had napalm burns, Steve, what the fuck was I supposed to do, your mutation saps your healing factor, I don’t –”
Steel legs, the vaguest memory of lying in a pile of rubble before it’s called up in perfect 1080P, ocular memory of things that he doesn’t consciously remember scrolling across his field of vision, his skin charred black, Carol’s eyes, twin points of magma in her face and then –
It wasn’t napalm, he thinks.
Every nerve in his body fires at once, and his metal limbs feel like they’re burning.
It hurts, it hurts enough that he’s kneeling and gasping on the floor, and Tony looks wretched.
“I had to do something to suppress it,” Tony says, stumbling over it. “You’re doing something with your subconscious, you – hurt me,” he finishes, barely loud enough for humans to hear, but Steve can hear, he can hear everything, every shallow breath Tony draws in through his punctured lung, every thrum of his racing heart –
“Your mutation,” Tony rounds off in a whisper.
Tony wrenches the doors of Area 51 open, sobbing, bleeding, without Steve.
“Get it off,” Steve says, and Tony coils back like he thinks Steve might rip him apart.
(He wants to, part of him wants to, Tony–)
The full-body nerve shock hits him again, stronger, this time, and he goes down to his knees and screams in pain.
His knees clank on the floor, because he’s made of metal –
“Please,” Tony begs, “just listen, it’s temporary, ok, it’s not meant to be permanent, I had to do something. Wanda did something, don’t, Steve, don’t freak out, please,” he begs, and Steve wants to hide his face, he wants to bury his head, he wants Tony to hold him and he won’t feel it –
He touches his face, and –
His face –
“Get it off!” Steve screams, hoarsely, but he can’t make the volume he used to, his voice levels out at 89.2089 DB, and he’s on his feet again in .0983 seconds, flawless, there are reaction times and statistics spooling out in front of him like he’s wearing a visor, and he isn’t, there’s a mirrored wall across the room, he has to see, he has to –
Half of his face is covered in metal.
“No,” Tony breathes, to no one, because there isn’t anyone, because he’s moved 4 tons of rubble to find him, and that cannot be Steve.
No, because he left, ten days ago, stood on his toes to make up the inch in height difference, kissed Steve in the bathroom tasting of mint, kissed his mouth, his lips, and –
Steve’s lips are burned, charred to an ugly black, gaping to show his teeth set in bleeding gums.
Half of his face is burnt off.
Tony scans, and scans, because that isn’t right, because he has to have vitals, he’s still warm, he’s hot to the touch, and Tony touches him and shoves whatever female husk of a body is next to him away and tries to pick him up and some of Steve’s arm comes off in his gauntleted hands –
He looks, for as long as it takes to steady his hands, to lower Steve into the stasis tank, for the shit that used to be cotton to be peeled off what’s left of his skin and the green slime to wash over him and preserve.
He spends 5 hours gutting the suits Fury lets him store here, gutting the walls for circuitry and components, gutting, while Steve lists in a tank of green slick. Bones and some parody of flesh.
At the end of it, he has something he would have been proud of building, once, and Steve still doesn’t have a heartbeat.
Half of Steve’s face is covered in metal, and the rest –
There isn’t a rest, he looks like guys in pictures from Vietnam, half of their faces melted off, his nose is burnt away with some wretched amalgam of skin covering it, he’s – he has one eye, he has one eye and the other one is something glowing and red, he’s metal, all of him is metal, he’s grotesque, there’s a coil of wire feeding out of his chest and into some unit on his back, and he realizes with a jolt it’s keeping his heart beating.
“What did you do to me,” he says, and he rounds on Tony, he feels like he’s going to be sick, but there’s nothing to come up, he knows, his – it’s already compensating for things like organs, that’s why he’s so heavy, there’s – circuitry in him –
“It’s life support,” Tony says, “We need to get somewhere safe, you were–” he looks at the ceiling like he’s lost. “I can’t do this alone,” he says desperately. “Someone set off nukes, Steve, in Europe, and here, and there’s – we’re in the bunker underneath the Triskelion,” he whispers. “I didn’t know where else to go, I don’t know if there’s anyone left, let me explain – ”
“My face,” he says helplessly, everything, he wants to say, and chokes, and Tony’s at his side, in an instant, and it takes 2.4 seconds for the metal over what used to be his arms to adjust to the sensation –
“It’ll heal,” Tony says over him, “if I can figure this out! I kept it simple, for now, it’s based on those experiments A.I.M. was doing, the Deathlok project–”
Steve spins around faster than his brain ever fired.
“For now?” he says, he can’t be fucking serious, this can’t be real –
“Your muscle was coming off in my fucking hands,” Tony says, and he’s shaking. “What was I supposed to do?”
“Get help,” Steve says incredulously, and the look on Tony’s face twists miserably.
“From who,” Tony says, and he’s inches from yelling, “everyone is dead, Steve, or – monsters,” he gasps, “I don’t know all of it yet, but–” He swipes a desperate hand over his face and looks at the ceiling. “I came back to find you dying,” he says, his voice shaking with it, “and Reed was – and when I picked you up, I–”
Tony scrubs his hands through his hair. “Fuck,” he says hoarsely.
“You what, Tony,” Steve snaps.
“I had to get you back,” Tony whispers, like it’s any explanation.
Tony brought him back.
[PARAMETERS EXCEEDED, COOLDOWN INITIATED. . .]
Something hisses into his neck, and code scrolls across his vision again.
“Oh my god,” Steve says, “oh my god,” and he’s on his knees again, Tony is there with him, saying things, I panicked, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, bending to kiss him even though the disgust is plain on his face, and what’s the point, his mouth is a weeping gash, he’d rather be dead than this, and Steve hates it, pulls away, he can’t, he hates everything, he hates Tony for this, he hates Tony –
“This is what you do when you panic?” Steve says. “Did you even think?” Steve says. “Tony, what the fuck were you thinking–”
“I’m sorry,” Tony chants, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but you were – listen, just – there are 6 billion mutant bio-signatures,” he whispers hysterically, “We got back and New York was – they’re not regular mutants, Steve, I don’t – something happened, something changed, you have something, Steve, whatever happened, you’re an omega-level mutant, do you understand? I tried to rean – touch you and you – projected something, ok, it only showed up on IR sensors, it attacked me, I had to,” he begs. “I think it’s some manifestation of your subconscious, I put in neural suppressors until I can figure it out, until I can figure all of it out, until I can build you something better, ok, but I need you to be able to fight until then–”
“THERE IS A METAL PLATE BOLTED TO MY SKULL,” Steve roars.
He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care about New York, he doesn’t care, this isn’t reversible, he knows it, he can fucking feel it, Tony did this, Tony panicked, this is what Tony does when he panics, he builds, he tried to build Steve back to life and he doesn’t want it –
“Steve,” Tony pleads. “It’s just temporary. It’s just – I know, I just wanted to – I can build you something like Barnes had, ok, if we can get to one of my armories, I can scavenge synth–”
Tony can scavenge to make him a nicer frame.
Steve upturns Tony’s entire workbench with no effort at all.
Tony presses himself flat to the wall, but Steve’s scanners don’t register his armor anywhere.
“IN WHAT UNIVERSE,” Steve bellows, and he kicks what’s left of Tony’s lab table into the wall like it’s nothing, “IS THIS AN ACCEPTABLE COMPROMISE?”
Tony is crying, and the feeling thrumming in Steve’s chest is –
Rage, when maybe it should be pity.
“I wanted to save you,” Tony says, and he looks terrified, he looks as terrified as Steve feels, but there’s nowhere for it to go, his arms start to tingle again, and he realizes that there’s nowhere for physiological responses to go so they’re just absorbed into the system –
“I DON’T WANT THIS,” Steve shouts. “Look at me, Tony, LOOK AT ME! You brought me back to be this, who are you, who fucking DOES THAT–”
“Steve, no,” Tony all but sobs, “It’s just tech. If I can figure out your mutation, I can fix your healing factor, but all of your energy is going to your fucking – id, that’s why I suppressed your mutation, Steve, I will fix this–”
“We don’t all want to be machines,” Steve snarls, and Tony looks like he’s been struck.
“You’re not,” he snaps, tears streaming down his face. “You’re not, Steve, it’s you–”
“Did you give me Extremis,” Steve snarls, “Did you make that decision for me, too–”
“It’s a neural link, Steve, the suit is – it’s healing you,” Tony says desperately, “It’s just to monitor your brainwaves and control the biometrics while I figure out how to fix your mutation–”
“It’s not a SUIT,” Steve screams, “I CAN’T TAKE IT OFF.”
Tony presses his hand to his mouth like he’s about to sob.
“I couldn’t lose you,” he says, and something snaps in Steve’s chest.
Steve strikes him across the face.
[ERROR: PORTS 8023-11308. . . COMPENSATING. . . ]
Tony goes down, hard, his head cracking against the opposite wall, the double-paned glass falling in shards around him.
He looks up, terrified, and Steve –
He just hit Tony.
Tony feels, with a shaking hand, at the back of his head, and Steve’s body stands still.
That should feel wrong, but it doesn’t feel like anything.
[ERROR: PORTS 8023-11308. . . COMPENSATING. . . ]
“What’s the system telling you,” Tony says, suddenly deathly quiet.
The system gives him a target. Tony Stark. Targeting.
It sends shudders of fabricated pleasure up and down his spine.
“What was that,” Steve says, the words sharp and irritated on his tongue. He has to know; it’s an imperative shudders through every cell of him.
[NEURAL BOLT FAILING. . . COMPENSATING. . .]
“What happened to me,” he snaps. “You said – you said you had to contain it. What did you have to contain?”
Tony’s fear sends his sensors spiking.
“You have no impulse control,” Tony says. “It’s like – superego,” he pants. “You have no superego. You’re all id.”
You hurt me, Tony said. I had to.
“Steve,” Tony says, his hands coming up like the shield Steve wielded once, “it’s ok, the suit–”
“It’s fine,” Steve snarls. “The suit is controlling it, but I’m a monster the minute it comes off, right–
“-Steve–”
“OH RIGHT,” Steve roars. “IT ISN’T COMING OFF.”
[KERNEL PANIC. . .
NEURAL BOLT BREACHED, SYSTEM SHUTDOWN in 28, 27, 26. . .
RESOLVING. . .
ATTEMPTING TO COMPENSATE. . .
ATTEMPTING TO COMPENSATE. . .
CONTAINMENT PARAMETERS CORRUPTED. SERVICE UNIT IMMEDIATELY]
“Take me offline,” Steve says, walking over to the console. It shows his biosigns, his everything, the way three of his organs have been replaced, the extensive braidwork of wires Tony has so very carefully laid into his abdomen, the perfect sterile precision of it all.
The artist in him is lost, the soldier in him is snarling, and Steve is never going to touch Tony again because his hands are made of metal and his body is broken and half of him is a machine and Tony had no right, he had no right, how could he –
“Something is wrong,” Tony quavers.
Steve wrenches the cable he knows plugs into the back of his neck out of its housing, and slots it into his body with a shudder.
“Don’t, Steve,” Tony is gasping, and he’s up, he’s not even reaching for his armor, (fool), Steve could paint the walls with his blood if he wanted, why does he want that–
Tony screams, and Steve looks down to see his own blue hand crushing Tony’s wrist.
“I can take it offline,” Tony says, his endorphins spiking, and sends the armor out to coat his arm. “Something is wrong, just let me – what are you doing–”
“You’re not listening,” Steve says, and throws him down.
[DESIGNATION: A.E.STARK, FIBULA FRACTURED]
Tony gasps, on the floor.
“You’re still you,” Tony says. “Please,” he hisses, his mouth a bloody mess, his left eye dark with blood around the ring of his iris. “I think – please let me, please, please, there is no one left, Steve –”
“Turn me off, Tony,” Steve snaps, and Tony –
Tony stands still as death in the middle of a sea of glittering shards of glass, and Steve watches the armor spill over his filthy clothes.
Steve’s arm turns into a cannon, and he fires, because attack seems like the best option.
“I’m not going to let you do this,” Tony says.
“You don’t have a choice,” Steve says, and opens the circuits.
Nevada is quiet, and smells like dust, instead of metal and blood.
The armor keeps him standing, long after he should, lets him brace his legs and heave the doors open when his lung has collapsed, helpfully injects him with painkillers and stimulants and things that help him mimic life. Puts 02% of system energy into tracking the lone Starktech signature moving North over the Rockies.
Tony screams with the effort it costs his body. His armor is only at half-power, but he twists his face into a snarl behind the faceplate, gets a hand in, then an arm, digs his armored feet into the ground soft with dry leaves and heaves the bay doors open.
[ACCESS – ANTHONY EDWARD STARK, GRANTED]
The lights come up as soon as he steps through the inner doors, one thousand of them, gleaming red and gold and silent in the silo.
He swore he’d never use them, but desperate times.
He should feel relief, as the eyes come up in glowing pairs, but all he feels is nothing.
When he leans over the console to download the code, he looks at his golden hands, smeared with Steve’s blood.
“Hello, Steve,” Tony says, years later. “It’s been a while.”
Tony wonders what it’s like for Steve to see him like this.
Grey.
“Hello, Tony,” Steve says. “You don’t have any more whiles.”
At last, Tony thinks, and wonders if Steve can die, again.