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cap_ironman2008-06-08 11:49 pm
seanchai.livejournal.com) wrote in cap_ironman2008-06-08 11:49 pm
Entry tags:
Hostages to Fortune 7/7
Title: Hostages to Fortune 7/7
Authors:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
seanchai and elspethdixon
Rated: PG-13
Pairings: Steve/Tony, Hank/Jan.
Warnings: No much, really. Some swearing and violence.
Disclaimer: The characters and situations depicted herein belong to Stan Lee and Marvel comics. No profit is being made off of this derivative work. We're paid in love, people.
Summary: The sequel to Readjustment. Things are finally settling down, and the Avengers are settling in. It's time for disaster to strike again.
X-posted to Marvel Slash.
And again, our thanks totavella for the great beta job.
Hostages to Fortune
The Avengers' living room was a much less convenient place from which to run an international business than Tony's office was. However, thanks to threats from Pepper and a combination of blackmail and bribery from Steve, Tony had agreed to work from home for the day.
Technically, he'd agreed to take a day off from work and stay home, but since Steve was elsewhere for the moment, what he didn't know wouldn't hurt Tony.
SE's VP of Sales was generally gratingly upbeat, but lately his emailed memos had become terse and to the point, and his voice, filtered from his cell phone through the Extremis, currently sounded impatient and annoyed. *SHIELD wants to know why Stark Enterprises will let them purchase body armor containing proprietary SE hardware, but won't sell them any repulsor-based technology.*
Because after all of the trouble he'd gone through to keep his armor's specs out of Nick Fury's hands over the years, he wasn't about to just hand them over now, no matter how much SE might need SHIELD's business after losing the US military contracts.
*I think SHIELD will find, if they read the fine print, that the contract for the body armor only licensed a one-time purchase of the basic hardware. Nothing about software, or, shall we say, extra features, was mentioned.*
Director Fury has been threatening to come to my office in person.* And that, Tony thought wryly, would explain the sudden ill temper.
*The contract is explicitly laid out,* he said. *They got exactly what they were promised. If Fury wants to bitch at somebody, have him call me.*
*All right, sir.* The "it's your funeral" was unspoken, but came through loud and clear anyway.
Tony should have been in a meeting with Stark Enterprise's board of directors right now, discussing the business forecast for the next year and avoiding discussing the fact that he was once again funding the Avengers. Pepper had convinced him that he ought to reschedule for tomorrow. "When you show up to a meeting pale and shaky, with circles under your bloodshot eyes," she had said, "there's only one assumption the board is going to make, and it's not that you just spent twenty-four hours in a hospital."
Tony had pointed out that he had just spent twenty-four hours in the hospital, and, moreover, that it had been on the news, but he'd taken her point. With businessmen, as with supervillains, it was never a good idea to show weakness.
There were forty-six new messages in his in-box. Tony scanned the titles, and deleted everything that wasn't from Pepper or Sal or marked "urgent." CNN and the other major news stations were mercifully free of footage from the Meridian now; naked pictures of a recent American Idol winner had surfaced on the Internet yesterday, and no one cared about Tony Stark and Janet Van Dyne being hospitalized anymore. The pictures, to Tony's semi-expert eye, looked photoshopped, but that hadn't deterred The New York Sun and Entertainment Tonight yet, and probably never would.
"My God," Clint's voice broke in on Tony's thoughts, "what the hell's wrong with your eyes?"
Tony blinked, immediately shutting off the Extremis, and looked up to find Clint standing in the doorway. He almost asked him not to tell Steve, but remembered just in time that that would be the best way to ensure that he would.
He hadn't had a nosebleed in weeks, and, as long as he limited the number of connections he kept open at one time, no headaches either. At this point, Steve was just being unreasonably paranoid about the Extremis; there was no longer any reason to avoid using it.
"Clint," he said, "are you looking for Steve?" He realized that he'd been unconsciously rubbing at his temples with his left hand, and halted the gesture immediately, letting his hands fall back to his lap. Apparently, he'd developed a reflexive habit, despite the fact that it didn't hurt anymore.
"Kind of," Clint started. "I don't know." He shrugged, looking oddly hesitant. "Maybe." He had one shoulder resting against the doorframe, superficially casual, but Tony could see him shifting his weight on the balls of his feet, as if prepared to defend himself or run.
"Is something wrong?" That uneasy expression was not something Tony was used to seeing on Clint.
"I don't know," Clint repeated. He frowned, then seemed to come to a decision of some sort, and stepped into the room, dropping into the chair across from Tony.
"You've had people mess with your head before," he said, after a moment. "And, well, let's just say you've gotten around."
"You could say that," Tony admitted, with a smile he didn't feel. Mind control was not something he particularly wanted to talk about right now, but Clint was clearly worried about something.
"You know how it took me a while to turn up again after I came back from the dead?" Clint started. He was picking at a loose thread on the knee of his jeans, slowly turning a small hole in the fabric into a larger one.
Tony nodded.
"I kind of went looking for Wanda, and then I found her, hiding in this little town, with amnesia, and kind of, um, left her there. After sleeping with her." Clint mumbled this last bit in a rush, still intent on the widening hole in his jeans.
Tony nodded once more, not saying anything. Clint was having enough trouble getting the words out as it was. And Tony had done more than his fair share of sleeping with people in deeply unfortunate circumstances; who was he to throw stones?
"Except, I can't really remember sleeping with her, or deciding to sleep with her. It just kind of... happened." Another pause, then, "Carol thinks maybe I was mind-controlled. That means I wasn't really taking advantage of her, right?"
"I've been told on good authority that having sex with someone when they're too drunk to say yes or no is something like assault," Tony said slowly. It wasn't a question with a clear-cut answer, particularly since he only knew what Clint had just told him, and Clint didn't know the whole story himself. "Being under mind-control is kind of like being drunk; you're not in control of your actions, so I guess it would be the same thing. If anything, if you were under some kind of mind-control, she took advantage of you."
"Great," Clint sighed. He didn't look comforted; Tony had the feeling his words hadn't been helpful. "So I'm a date-rape victim. Why does that not make me feel better?"
"Because no one likes being a victim." Tony looked away, running a hand through his hair, and thought for a second.
"How sure are you that she had amnesia?"
"Pretty sure. She wasn't acting like herself at all." Clint shook his head. "She didn't remember having powers, or even who I was. She's an omega level mutant. If she'd known who I was, and thought I was some kind of threat, she could have just wriggled her nose and winked me out of existence."
"Where was she?"
Clint started to answer, then stopped, making a face. "I... don't know. I have no freaking idea. She must have whammied that out of my head, too."
So Wanda was out there somewhere, possibly with amnesia, possibly still in full possession of her powers, and they had no idea where. Tony made a mental note to keep an eye out for any unexplained events or energy surges in Europe. "If she's not using her powers on a major scale, and she really does have amnesia, than she's not a major threat right this moment. We've got enough to deal with here without mounting a global search for someone who wants to stay lost and can use magic to keep it that way."
"Are you sure?" Clint said dubiously, raising his eyebrows slightly. "I could try getting a telepath or Dr. Strange or somebody to un-mind-whammy me."
"Right now, she's not doing anything. If we go after her, that could change. Who knows what it could provoke her into doing." Even if she truly did have amnesia, it would be risky; it was a proven fact that latent mutant powers activated when people were under stress.
"After you and Cap's stupidity, everyone here's probably pretty tired of fighting fellow Avengers," Clint offered, after a moment of silence.
If Tony was being honest with himself, that probably played a larger role in his decision that they didn't need to take on Wanda right now than he really liked to admit.
"I just wish I knew why she brought me back," Clint went on.
"Does it matter?" Tony shrugged one shoulder. "Like I told Steve, just be glad you have a second chance."
"Did that get him to stop worrying about whether Doom had sacrificed thirteen virgins to Satan to bring him back?"
"Maybe a little," Tony said. "At least, I hope so. Then I told him that evil done in the name of God is still evil, and good done in the name of the devil is still good, and his being back was good in my book." He said it with a grin, knowing that Clint had been roped into reading half the Chronicles of Narnia to Cassie when she'd been little.
"Cap asked you for advice and you quoted The Horse and His Boy?" Clint stared at him for a moment, then snickered. "And he didn't just laugh at you?"
"I didn't tell him what it was from," Tony admitted. "I said I thought it was in the Bible somewhere. Knowing C.S. Lewis, it probably is. Steve never read the whole series; he read the first book, and then Hank told him how the last one ended, so he didn't bother with the rest of them." At least Steve had been spared the experience of getting most of the way through the entire series before discovering that Narnia was all a lie. Tony had met very few fellow science fiction fans who didn't loathe The Last Battle. Thor had been particularly disgusted when he had gotten to that point and discovered that Aslan was Jesus and not Odin.
Clint shrugged. "They weren't that good after the second one, anyway. Not that I cared," he went on hastily, "since they're kids' books and I was only reading them to Cassie."
Tony smirked, not bothering to dispute the claim; maybe Clint hadn't cared about Narnia, but that didn't change the fact that he had visibly teared up at the end of The Iron Giant, which they had also only been watching because of Cassie. Tony chose to overlook the fact that he had been teary-eyed himself; the movie had had an unexpectedly sad ending for a cartoon. He remembered thinking at the time that Scott ought to have warned them.
Steve had also been secretly sucked in, though he hadn't really understood some of the jokes; there were times when it was easy to forget that he was from another time, and then there were times like that, when you remembered that he had missed the entire cold war. Steve...
"Do me a favor," Tony said, holding a hand up. "When you tell Steve that Wanda's still out there, don't bring up the 'sleeping with people while they're mind controlled, and whether or not it's assault' part."
"Why?" Clint asked, abruptly looking hunted again. "You think he'd be mad at me?"
"I just don't think that's a conversation Steve really needs to have right now." That possible interpretation of events didn't seem to have occurred to Steve, and Tony intended to keep it that way. Steve had enough to deal with in the wake of everything that had happened to him, without adding that.
"Oh," Clint said, not bothering to hide the fact that he hadn't followed that. "So, what the hell is up with your eyes?"
"Ah, don't mention that to Steve, either."
"Don't mention what to Steve?" Steve's voice came from the doorway, just as Clint, with typical bad timing, grinned, and said, "Is this connected to that thing where you can talk to computers but Cap doesn't like it because it makes your brains leak out your nose? God, you're whipped."
"Tony," Steve's blue eyes took on a wounded, plaintive look that Tony was almost certain he was largely faking. "You promised you were actually going to take today off, and not just use the Extremis to telecommute."
"You two are so married that it's sickening," Clint announced, bracing his hands against his thighs and standing. He surveyed them for a long moment, then shook his head, pulling a face. "God, I need to get laid. Jan's right. This team needs more girls."
Steve did not actually say, "Very classy, Clint," but Tony could see him thinking it loudly.
Tony watched Clint leave, then turned to Steve. "I'm not used to taking days off. I was bored." He looked up at Steve, offering him a smirk. "You said you'd stay here and distract me."
"I did, didn't I?" Steve said, grinning slowly. He crossed the room in three long strides, and then he was sitting balanced on the arm of Tony's chair, facing him, an arrangement that made him a full head taller than Tony, instead of the usual couple of inches.
Tony grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pulled him closer. Steve let himself be dragged forward, putting one big hand on the back of Tony's neck. Tony closed his eyes and tipped his head back, losing himself in the kiss. He had only been gone a week, but it felt like it had been so much longer. He gave the front of Steve's shirt another tug, leaning backwards, and Steve slid forward, off the chair's arm, until he was half in Tony's lap, not breaking the kiss.
He had been so certain that he'd lost Steve again.
Steve's other hand was on his hip now, thumb tucked inside the waistband of his jeans. "We should move this somewhere else," Steve breathed, lips still inches away from Tony's.
"Good idea," Tony said, pulling his gaze away from Steve's mouth to meet his eyes. "I promised Jarvis that you wouldn't break any more furniture."
"That wasn't my fault," Steve protested, a flush spreading across his cheekbones. "It was a very spindly bed."
Tony grinned. He'd actually been thinking of the time Steve had thrown his shield inside the front hallway of the mansion, taking out a laundry list of antiques. "The new one is wrought iron," he said, "and I built it, so I can assure you that it's anything but spindly."
"You left for DC," Steve said. He pressed an open-mouthed kiss on the corner of Tony's jaw, and slid his hand from behind Tony's neck, moving it to rest warm and solid on the center of Tony's chest. "I don't think we've thoroughly tested it."
"You're right." Tony ran one hand up Steve's thigh and hooked the other into the front of his jeans. "All Stark Enterprises products are tested to destruction."
"In that case, we'll have to be very thorough." Steve drew the fingers of his right hand down Tony's chest, across his stomach, and then stood up, pulling Tony with him. "You have a reputation to maintain."
Tony grinned even wider, and let Steve drag him down the hallway to their bedroom; he did, in fact, have a reputation to maintain.
***
Tony had disappeared again. If he was hiding in a corner somewhere, using the Extremis to hold a Stark Enterprises teleconference, Steve was going to physically haul him back to their room and tie him to the bed. He'd established only hours ago that the metal bed frame was very solid indeed, so it would take a long time for Tony to get himself loose.
Actually, that idea had possibilities beyond simply keeping Tony out of trouble. Not that that could actually stop him from using the Extremis, but that just meant Steve would have to put a little extra effort into distracting him.
Which was probably something best thought about when they didn't have company, Steve decided; he could hear voices coming from the living room.
"You know perfectly well I can do my own maintenance work," Rhodey was saying. "How many days did Pepper make you promise to stay out of the lab and away from your armor?"
"All I promised Pepper was that I'd stay home from work today," Tony countered. "Steve's the one who made me promise to stay out of the lab. And that I wouldn't use the Extremis to telecommute."
Steve halted in the living room doorway, torn between amusement and exasperation. Tony and Rhodey were sitting side-by-side on the long leather couch, their backs to him. Several pieces of the War Machine armor were spread out on the coffee table, and Tony, who had informed Steve mere hours ago that they had to be careful not to damage Jarvis's furniture, was poking at them absently with a tiny screwdriver. A small, pen-shaped implement that Steve recognized as a pocket acetylene torch was sitting on the polished table top, next to one of Rhodey's half-disassembled jet-boots.
Steve hadn't really expected Tony to stay away from his tech toys for a whole day. At least he was sitting down in the living room in relative comfort instead of downstairs using the armor's augmented strength to manhandle Quinjet engine blocks.
"Your cat is staring at me," Rhodey commented.
The cat was, in fact, staring at him. It was sitting on the floor a foot or so away from the couch, unblinking blue gaze fixed on Rhodey.
"It's Jarvis's cat." Tony was holding one of the boots on his lap now, poking at its sole with the screwdriver. "There's a crack in the edge of the jet propulsion unit's housing. You've got melted glass in it."
"That would be from stepping in powdered glass while I helped rescue your ass from that restaurant. The jet boots must have slagged it." Rhodey bent down and picked up the bundle of purple feathers the cat had just spat out at his feet. "Here," he said. "Go chase something."
"Dogs chase things, not cats." Tony shrugged one shoulder, and added, voice rueful, "This can't have been much of a vacation for you. Sorry."
Rhodey tossed the feathers away from him. The cat launched itself at them with a clumsy speed that Steve had learned by this point was born of insanity. "After Gyrich, Gauntlet, and Justice, stopping crazy people from jumping out tenth-story windows is a vacation," Rhodey said, cat dealt with.
Tony's shoulders, seen from behind, had a relaxed set to them, no sign of the tension that had been there this morning. For all that Steve had hoped to get him to rest and recover from AIM's poison, a chance to play with the War Machine armor would probably do him almost as much good as actual rest.
The part of Steve that wanted to snarl at Rhodey to stay away from Tony, to keep his paws off him because he'd tried to hurt him in the past, was completely irrational and motivated solely by leftover protectiveness from yesterday.
Being jealous of Rhodey because Tony used to have a crush on him was equally irrational, especially since Steve had no problem with the two dozen women Tony had slept with over the years. Well, the ones that hadn't tried to kill Tony.
"You think there's any chance Spiderman might be willing to sign on with us?" Rhodey went on. "He's been doing this since he was younger than most of those kids, and he's got actual experience as a teacher, which is more than the rest of us have."
"Honestly? I think there's about as much chance of Peter signing on for anything that's got 'Initiative' in the name as there is of Roxxon Oil suddenly deciding to sponsor Greenpeace."
"Yeah. You know, you might want to rethink 'lying to people for their own good' as a leadership strategy."
"Really? It's always worked so well until now."
Rhodey snorted. "The next time you open a conversation with 'Rhodey, old friend, can you do me a favor?' remind me to say 'hell no."
"Oh, come on. It can't be that bad."
"Oh yes it can. It's even worse than having to work with John Walker every day, with you in full-on crazy mode for a team leader."
Steve took a step forward into the room, intending to put a halt to this line of conversation before it went any further. Tony didn't need any reminders of that godawful mess with Immortus's mind control right now, not after spending most of a day in a semi-catatonic huddle because he'd been convinced that he had killed people. Steve himself preferred not to dwell on those few months either; for a brief but miserable period, they had all honestly thought that Tony had truly gone over the edge, had become a killer. He'd broken free of Immortus' hold in the end, just in time to help defeat him, but Steve had very nearly lost him forever.
"I didn't realize you hated being part of the program that much." Tony's voice was chagrined, his shoulders tensing up and his fingers halting whatever they were doing to Rhodey's boots, and Steve took another step into the room.
"Ignore me." Rhodey waved a hand dismissively. "I don't actually hate it. I think it's important. I'm just frustrated that nobody else seems to."
"Of course we all-" Tony started, clearly preparing to assure Rhodey that everyone thought turning sixteen-year-olds into a superpowered auxiliary to the U.S. military was a good idea.
"A lot of people still have reservations about the Initiative," Steve said mildly, stepping into Rhodey and Tony's line of sight. "That fact that it was originally compulsory didn't endear it to anyone."
Rhodey looked up, raised an eyebrow at Steve, and shook his head slightly, frustration visible in the set of his face for a moment. "You know, I wouldn't expect you of all people to have any issues with superheroes getting government training."
It hadn't been the source of the training he'd objected to, but that fact that they hadn't had a choice, and that there had been no way to be sure of what the government planned to use them for. And recruiting children was... Steve frowned, and shrugged, uncomfortable now. "I was twenty-one when I signed on for it. I was already an adult. I've seen what happens when you put kids in costumes and send them into war zones." He wondered sometimes what Bucky would be like if he'd had a chance to have a normal childhood - he'd had that taken away from him long before the explosion.
"You know we're not doing that anymore," Rhodey said, and the irritation was clear this time. "We were barely doing that in the first place; the trainees were only to be sent into action as a last resort." He frowned, and paused for a moment, adding, "I'm pretty sure Baron von Blitzschlag was trying to set up some kind of under the table black ops program with some of the recruits, but he's gone now, and I can personally assure you that none of those kids are going to do anything more dangerous than put out forest fires in Colorado until they're eighteen. Trust me," he looked up at Steve, meeting his eyes directly, "there's already been one lawsuit, and we don't want to give any more parents a reason to sue us."
Tony was very intently studying Rhodey's boot, as if prying tiny pieces of glass out of the mechanism required every single bit of his attention. His head was bent, wisps of hair hanging down over his eyes, and he'd already managed to acquire a thin smear of soot over one cheekbone.
Jarvis's reaction the next time he saw the top of the coffee table was going to be interesting.
On the one hand, Steve probably ought to find Rhodey's explanation reassuring. On the other hand... "Baron von Blitzschlag?" he repeated slowly. "I'm pretty sure I heard his name during the war, and I think it was in connection with Heinrich Zemo." And possibly with Red Skull's German supersoldier project as well.
Rhodey pulled a face. "That doesn't surprise me in the slightest."
Tony looked up. "I heard that Norman Osborn put in a good word for him with the hiring committee." He didn't give the words any particular inflection, as if summoning up emotion about the whole thing were beyond him at this point. Using tiny tweezers, he carefully removed another infinitesimal piece of glass from the bottom of the half-dismantled boot, setting it down amid the pile of glass pieces he was creating on top of one of Jan's fashion magazines.
If Jan wasn't done with that, she was going to be less than pleased. Steve checked the title absently, and reconsidered; no, it was Vogue. She only read that in order to mock other designers' haute couture clothing anyway.
"It's not about making superpowered soldiers," Rhodey was saying. He was leaning forward now, elbows on his knees, intent. "It's about making sure these kids have some idea of what the hell they're doing. I was an adult when I got into this game, ex-military, a trained pilot, and it was still more than I could handle. I was just lucky there weren't any serious consequences. A lot of us haven't been that lucky."
Tony gave a little half-smile. "That's my fault," he said wryly. "I tossed you into the deep end of the pool without bothering to tell you how to swim."
"Yeah," Rhodey snorted. "Because you were really in a state to give me instructions." He turned back to Steve. "It's not a choice for these kids; their powers aren't some experiment they volunteered for, or a suit of armor that they can take off if they can't handle it. If no one takes responsibility for training them, they're going to get hurt, and they're going to hurt other people."
That was actually a very good point. Steve had certainly seen the damage out-of-control superpowers could cause.
Wanda, Carol, Firestar, Jack of Hearts; all of them had struggled with their powers. Jack had had to spend hours locked in a zero chamber just to keep his powers far enough under control to avoid exploding. And then, of course, there was the Hulk.
Steve had chosen to be given the supersoldier serum, just as Tony had chosen to put on the armor, but not everyone got to choose. Some of the Avengers had been born with superpowers, and others had acquired them by accident, like Carol and Peter. Luke Cage had technically volunteered for the experiment that had given him unbreakable skin, but considering the circumstances, he really hadn't had the option of saying no. Sam hadn't chosen his powers, either.
They had all been adults, and most of them had had teammates to try and help them deal with it. All except Peter, who had handled being a fifteen-year-old solo hero far better than anyone ought to have expected him to.
"You know, Peter really would be good at that," Steve said, after a long moment. "But you'll never get him to leave New York City, anymore than you'd get Daredevil to." Not that they would want to; both the remnants of the Initiative and New York law enforcement were pretending very hard that Daredevil didn't exist these days. The unqualified disaster that their attempt to prove Matt Murdock was Daredevil had turned into wasn't something anyone was likely to forget anytime soon.
"So," Tony said conversationally, "how long were you standing there listening to us?"
"You know who else would be good at it?" Steve said, ignoring the question but feeling his ears go hot. "Delroy Garrett." Triathlon was another hero who'd had problems with his powers, although the circumstances had been a little more esoteric than simple lack of control, and he was also deeply committed both to superheroing and to the ideas of training, discipline, and self-improvement.
"He's already signed on with the Initiative," Tony said, a tiny line appearing between his eyebrows as he considered the idea. "And when he's not convinced that you're insulting the cult he belongs to, he's good with people."
"He doesn't belong to a cult anymore," Steve pointed out, in the interest of fairness. "The Triune Understanding hasn't existed in years, and Delroy's part of the reason why." He'd been deeply angry when he had learned that the religion whose tenets he'd believed in so strongly had been a front for a crazy megalomaniac's attempt to build himself a power base.
"I know, I know," Tony said, waving the little metal tweezers dismissively. "You're right; he'd be good at training people. Plus, he believes in being a part of something, like you two."
"The military is not a cult, Tony."
"This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine-"
"That's the marines," Rhodey interrupted. "They are a cult. Anyway, you're one to talk, mister I-sleep-in-my-armor."
Steve could have pointed out that the Marine Corps emphasis on esprit de corps and unit cohesion had a practical purpose, but as a former Air Force officer, Rhodey knew that perfectly well. This kind of teasing byplay with Tony was obviously something just as familiar to Rhodey as it was to him. Which made sense, he supposed. Tony did the same thing with Pepper, and with most of the other long-time Avengers.
"I've never really worked with Triathlon," Rhodey said, returning to the topic at hand. "I hear he's done a good job as a team leader for the Initiative, though." He frowned faintly, expression speculative. "I wonder if I can get him reassigned."
"I've cleaned all the glass out of you," Tony said, addressing the metal boot in his hands. "Why are you still not working? What else is wrong with you?"
Steve had always enjoyed watching Tony work; how intensely focused he got, how dexterous those long, callused fingers were... and the fact that Tony occasionally started talking to his lab equipment or to half-assembled pieces of machinery never failed to amuse him.
"Do you want us to leave you and my armor alone together?" Rhodey asked, raising his eyebrows.
"What?" Tony looked up, blinking. It wasn't an act - Steve was pretty sure he honestly had no idea what the two of them had just been talking about. "You know, I think I could get you a ten percent increase in thrust from these, if I just recalibrate a few things and add a few minor modifications."
The smear of soot made a dark streak across one prominent cheekbone. Yesterday, his eyes had been smudged with dark circles, looking almost bruised, but now only faint traces of them remained. He could easily have just emerged from a night spent in the lab, where he been too absorbed in some project or other to sleep.
Steve leaned down and curved one hand around the side of Tony's face, using his thumb to brush away the soot. Tony's eyes fluttered to half-mast, and he leaned into Steve's hand for a moment before Steve let go and drew his hand away.
The cat returned once more, Clint's arrow fletching firmly grasped in its mouth, and spat the feathers out onto Rhodey's foot. When he didn't immediately reach down to pick them up, the cat raised itself onto its haunches, placed both front paws on Rhodey's knee, and mewled demandingly.
"I can come back for my armor later," Rhodey said, regarding Steve and Tony with a blank poker face that would have done Nick Fury proud. "Sorry, cat," he added, pushing the kitten's paws off his knee. "You'll have to find someone else to play with." He scooped the feathers up for what was presumably the last time and threw them, to the cat's violent delight. It leapt into the air as the feathers drifted away, snatching at them with both paws.
"I should have it all back together in a couple of hours," Tony said. "I've got everything I need to upgrade the bootjets in my lab."
Steve gave Tony a look, which Tony didn't appear to notice. By this point, he'd probably forgotten that his lab was supposed to be off limits for the day. "Have fun," Steve sighed, giving up. He turned to Rhodey. "I'll walk you out."
The central hallway of the Avengers' living quarters had once had a painting of the original five Avengers hanging in it, but it had disappeared to the same place that all of the rest of the artwork in Stark Tower seemed to have gone to. The hallway was left looking barren, more sterile even than a hotel, which would at least have had an ugly pastel print.
Rhodey didn't comment on the stripped-down decor. Either he was doing the same thing everyone else seemed to be doing and ignoring it, or he simply didn't know that anything was missing; Steve wasn't sure if he'd been in Stark Tower prior to the Registration mess.
Whatever problem might have once existed between Rhodey and Tony, they had obviously dealt with it. Even the awkwardness that Steve was thought he'd picked up on after Tony had told Rhodey that he liked men seemed to have dissipated.
Which was all to the good, considering that Rhodey was one of the few people Tony had left outside of the Avengers at this point; he'd never had that large a support network to begin with, and now Happy Hogan was gone and things were apparently awkward with Pepper as a result, which wasn't surprising, but was unfortunate. It also meant that, old disagreements or no, Rhodey had a power to hurt Tony that few people possessed these days.
And even if it was unintentional, Tony was unlikely to defend himself. For one thing, he'd had feelings for Rhodey once, and Tony's willingness to take anything dealt out by someone he was in a relationship with was something that had periodically worried Steve, and worried him even more so now that Steve was in a relationship with him.
Steve hesistated, steps slowing, trying to think of the proper way to explain this to Rhodey, when Rhodey spoke.
"My armor's got four times the firepower of Tony's," he said, in a conversational tone. "If you hurt him, you'll get to experience it firsthand."
Steve stopped dead and stared at Rhodey, completely nonplussed. "If I..." he started.
"I'm not saying you would," Rhodey went on, "but Tony's got a pretty lousy track record where women are concerned. He lets half the women he sleeps with walk all over him, and I don't you think you being a guy is gonna make any difference there."
"This is the second time I've had this conversation this week," Steve found himself saying, more plaintively than he would have liked to. "Why would anyone think that I would hurt Tony, or that I'm not serious about him or that I don't have enough experience to keep him satisfied?" He could feel his ears turning red, remembering Pepper's comment about that.
Rhodey made a face. "I'm not touching that one." He shook his head slightly, and added, "Pepper got to you first, huh?"
"Pepper got to me first," Steve confirmed. "Trust me, the threats aren't necesary." Watching the way Tony had been hurting while under the toxin's influence had been agony. And watching and being unable to help had been nearly unbearable. There had been far too many times in the past where Tony had been hurt and Steve had found himself unable to do anything, but this time had been one of the worst, because he had so much more to lose now. "The other day, I-" He broke off, not knowing how to continue or even if he wanted to.
Rhodey nodded slowly, and smiled a little. "I know what you mean." He snorted, adding, "Thank god there's only one of him. I don't think I could take it if I had to worry about more high maintenance, self-destructive people."
"On that note," Steve said, "good luck dealing with your superpowered teenagers."
"Oh, thanks a lot." Rhodey sighed. "You're sure Spiderman wouldn't be willing to help?"
"You could ask him," Steve said, "but I doubt you'll have much luck."
Rhodey shrugged, and then grinned. "Well, this trip wasn't a total loss. At least I'm getting new jet boots out of it."
There were times that Steve wondered exactly why Tony and Rhodey were friends, and then there were the times, like now, when he was reminded that they shared a deep and abiding love for things that went very fast, exploded, or both.
***
The man behind the bakery counter finished ringing up her purchase and wished her a good afternoon, while she stood frozen, still clutching the loaf of bread she had just bought.
The name he had called her was not hers, and, she realized abruptly, she had no idea who he was.
In fact, Wanda realized slowly, as she wandered out of the bakery and into the narrow, cobblestone street, she had no idea who any of the people here were, people who kept smiling and nodding at her as if they knew her. She didn't even know where here was, though the old-world look of the town, with its wood and plaster buildings and gable windows suggested Europe.
Why would she expect anything else? She had never lived anywhere else. She had learned English from her Aunt, out of textbooks, and through practicing on tourists, so why did it seem strange that she and the Baker had been speaking in Rumanian?
She was thinking in English, she realized, and had been at least since that moment in the bakery, despite the fact that Rumanian was her native tongue, the language she'd spoken her whole life.
Had she really learned English at her Aunt's kitchen table? How long had she been able to think in it? Everything prior to the last few minutes was distant, almost unreal.
She'd lived in this small village, at the foot of Mount Wundgadore, for her whole life. But how could she have? It didn't make sense; she didn't know any of these people, didn't even remember the names of the streets.
Her feet kept moving automatically, without any conscious input from her.
As she walked slowly along the narrow streets, mostly empty under the early afternoon sun, she tried desperately to put a name to any of the handful of people she passed, to remember who lived in even one of the houses, remember if she'd ever eaten at that little cafe, bought anything at that shop... she couldn't.
The last clear thing she remembered was the time a month or so back when a blond tourist had rescued her, and she had kissed him and taken him home for the night. Clint. His name had been Clint. It was, Wanda realized, the only name other than her own that she knew.
Why had she slept with him? She had liked him, yes, maybe even been drawn to him; he had been very friendly, and certainly not unattractive. But somehow she didn't think of herself as the kind of person who had sex with strange men just to be friendly. She hadn't done it before, had she?
Was that why the baker had smiled at her? Why so many of the men she passed on the street nodded at her? Wanda hugged the loaf of bread against her chest and walked faster.
She kept walking until she had left town far behind, following a small, winding path right to the foot of the mountain, just where the landscape started to slope upward. Why on earth had she decided to live so far out of town? She ought to at least have a bicycle or something -- surely she didn't walk the whole mile and half every time she needed groceries.
The house at the end of the path didn't look any more familiar than the ones in town had, but Wanda found herself walking up to the door and lifting the latch. The door proved to be unlocked, swinging open easily at her touch.
The cottage was drab inside, bland cream walls undecorated. Somehow, it didn't look like the kind of place she would live in; there ought to have been... more color?
Wanda closed the heavy, wooden door behind her, and carefully set the loaf of bread down on the kitchen table, shoulders suddenly stiff. There was someone else in the house; she could feel it.
"Hello?" She turned in a slow circle, hands coming up, ready to defend herself. "Is anyone there?"
Only silence answered her.
Every nerve on edge, Wanda made a careful circuit of the house, finding no one. Everything was very clean and neat, almost sterile. She had no books, no photographs, not even so much as a vase of flowers. The house was like a cottage in a children’s picture book; one that was still waiting for someone to actually live there.
As she went from room to empty room, the conviction that she was not alone only grew. "This isn't right," she whispered to herself in growing frustration. "I shouldn't be here."
"You belong here." The whispery voice echoed through the house, faint, but seeming to come from everywhere at once.
She knew that voice. It was her aunt's voice. Aunt Agatha was dead...
"This is where you have always belonged," her aunt's voice went on, gentle but commanding. "Here. With me."
Wanda froze; everything in her wanted to turn and run, but her body wasn't listening, and she knew, suddenly, that this, this thing, whatever it was, was not only not her aunt, but evil. Evil and unimaginably ancient.
The blond American hadn't been the only person who'd come here to see her. As the thing-that-was-not-her-aunt spoke, a hazy memory tugged at the corner of her mind. There had been another visitor, a beast-man with blue fur, who had accused her her of doing something terrible, and had begged for her help. She had laughed at him. She didn't know why; she had listened to him plead, and opened her mouth to apologize, to tell him she was sorry, but she had no idea what he was talking about, but instead she had mocked him, and sent him away. She hadn't known him either, but she had the nagging feeling that she should have, and that she knew the blond American from somewhere else, too.
Who was she really? What had she done?
Whatever it was, the thing speaking to her in her dead aunt's voice was involved. Wanda tried again to run, to get as far away from this place as possible, but her body was paralyzed. How long had she been here, in this empty fairy tale cottage with no art on the walls? What had it done to her?
"Now be a good girl," the-thing-that-was-not-her-aunt told her, "and lock the door."
And she did. She wasn't sure if she was locking someone else out, or herself in.
***
Steve arched his body backwards and watched Tony's fist go sailing over his head. Tony had put his entire weight into the punch, which meant that he was already off balance when Steve straightened up, sidestepped Tony's attempt to rush him, and pivoted on one foot, launching a kick at Tony's head. Tony managed to block the blow with one arm, but just barely.
Steve had missed sparring like this. The two of them had practiced together on and off for over seven years now, ever since Tony had first come to him and asked for lessons on how to defend himself, since his "bodyguard" had been framed for murder and Tony had handed the armor over to SHIELD. If Steve hadn't already been almost certain that Tony himself was Iron Man before that first lesson, he'd known it without a doubt by the time it was over.
Tony had done all of his fighting in the armor before that point, and he had repeatedly left himself wide open, more so than his relative lack of experience in hand-to-hand combat could have accounted for; he'd been so used to depending on the armor's ability to absorb damage that he often hadn't bothered to dodge or block Steve's blows.
At least, that was what Steve had concluded at the time. Now, with a little more perspective on where Tony's head had been back then, he wondered if there might not have been more to it than that.
Tony was wearing sweatpants and a white undershirt that had a long smear of black motor oil across the front, right over his heart. The dark circles the toxin had left under his eyes were gone, his hair was matted to his head with sweat, and he was grinning at Steve. It was an expression Steve didn't see nearly enough of these days -- one he'd never seen as often as he would have liked.
"Okay, Captain America," he said, "now you're just showing off."
Steve was grinning back now. "Oh, that wasn't showing off," he said, and threw himself into a back handspring to dodge Tony's next blow. "That was," he finished, now on the opposite side of the room. "We should do this more often," he added, as he braced himself for Tony's next attack. "I've missed this."
"What would I do without my regular collection of bruises from being thrown into the mat?" Still grinning, Tony came at Steve, who sidestepped him easily. He blocked all but one of the flurry of blows Steve aimed at him, even managing to land one of his own in return.
"I'll have to start being more careful," Steve said, swaying sideways to let Tony's fist slide past his head. "Pepper and Rhodey have both threatened me with maiming if I ever hurt you."
Tony faltered for a moment, completely missing the opening Steve had deliberately left in his defenses in order to lure him into an attack and get him off balance again. "You would never hurt me," he protested.
"Everybody makes mistakes, Tony."
Tony sidestepped another kick, circling slowly around Steve. He was going to try and come at him from the side, Steve judged. "I guess I ought to be flattered that they think my honor's still worth defending." He shrugged one shoulder, and rubbed the back of one hand across his forehead, wiping away beads of sweat. "I shouldn't be surprised. Our first night back here after the hearing, I found a note on my pillow saying, 'I know where you sleep. James. P.S. Say hi to Steve and ask him why he has so many pansy-ass sweaters.'"
"Bucky did not say that." Steve moved with Tony, keeping the other man within his line-of-sight. He didn't doubt that Bucky was capable of sneaking into the top floor floor of the heavily secured Stark Tower and leaving Tony a threatening note, but the bit about the sweaters had to be Tony editorializing. "And you're one to talk." Tony's most hideous sweater, a shapeless, colorless mass of grey wool, had been destroyed along with one of SHIELD's flying cars in the final battle against Red Skull, but he still possessed an equally shapeless deep orange sweater.
"Steve, it took me half an hour to find the bug your ex-sidekick left in our closet. It was inside one of your sweaters."
"You searched the rest of the room, too, right?" Steve asked, the thought of Bucky overhearing some of the things he'd spent the past few weeks doing with Tony throwing him off just enough that one of Tony's blows slipped past his guard, catching him on the shoulder.
"Do you think I'd have sex with you in that room if I knew the Winter Soldier, and probably Nick Fury, were watching?"
"Yes," Steve answered, without hesitation, and threw a punch at Tony.
Tony smirked, dodging back out of range, the blow missing him by less than an inch. "And it never occurred to you and Sharon that the backseats of those flying cars are monitored?"
Actually, it hadn't. And he preferred not to think about the fact that, as a high ranking SHIELD agent, Sharon had to have known. "Most of the time I have a longer reach than whomever I'm fighting," Steve observed, as he and Tony circled one another again. "I haven't got that advantage with you."
"No," Tony said, breathing hard, the exertion obviously starting to tell on him. "Just forty pounds of extra mass. Physics, remember?"
Steve himself was nowhere near winded yet, but he had broken a sweat. He really had missed this.
Hand-to-hand practice with other people -- Sam, Clint, Sharon -- was always either simply practice, and a chance to improve one another's technique, or a competition. It was those things with Tony, too, but somehow it had always felt like a game; he could relax, have fun, even show off a little if he felt like it. It was only recently that he had realized that it had also been a form of flirting.
In their last few sparring matches, Tony had been hesitating, not taking the openings Steve had deliberately left him, not hitting with his full weight into the punches he threw. They'd only had the chance to work out together a few times since Tony's ribs and shoulder had healed, but Tony had hesitated every time, so Steve could tell it was a pattern. He wasn't sure Tony had even been aware of it, but Steve knew Tony's fighting abilities as well as he knew his own -- which wasn't surprising considering that he'd taught him -- and he could tell.
This time, Tony wasn't hesitating, and Steve allowed himself to hope that all of the misery of the past year was finally behind them. Not just Registration, but everything. The destruction of the mansion, which had been both his and Tony's home; the team breaking apart; losing Thor and Clint and Vision and Scott and Jack; losing Wanda in a different way; learning just how thoroughly he had failed to protect Bucky; Tony being used like a puppet, until he was forced to stop his own heart to put an end to it; Stamford, and the American people turning on them, and all of them turning on each other... His own death, and what it had done to Tony.
Some of the things they had lost could never be recovered, but Steve had never dared to hope that they would be able to salvage this much, to build something new out of the ashes. He'd certainly never expected anything as miraculous as Clint's return, or Thor's -- even though he might still be avoiding them, just knowing that he was alive was like having a weight that Steve hadn't even known was there lifted off his shoulders.
He had never even imagined what he had with Tony, had thought, in his very darkest moments, that their friendship had been replaced by contempt and betrayal, but now he couldn't imagine not having it. The fact that Tony could now spar with him without being half-paralyzed by his own guilt over what had happened meant, hopefully, that Tony was now able to put everything behind him as well. Which meant that they could both move on.
Tony launched a kick of his own at Steve's side, and Steve twisted out of the way and tackled Tony -- who was off balance again -- to the mat.
"That was better," Steve said, grinning at Tony, who was now flat on his back on the mat with Steve straddling him, using his ‘extra mass’ to pin him in place. "You're actually trying this time, but I still took you down pretty quickly. Come on, rich boy," he added, smirking down at Tony, "give me a real challenge."
Tony smirked back, looking surprisingly triumphant for a man who was currently pinned to the floor. "Why? I've got you right where I want you." And then his hips writhed in a way that made Steve lose all interest in sparring.
Apparently, sparring was now also foreplay.
"Um," said Steve, suddenly suspecting that he had, in fact, been outmaneuvered. He couldn't bring himself to mind.
***
The entrance to Stark Tower was designed to be imposing; the double doors were close to eight feet high, with a grill of decorative metalwork covering them. Beyond them, through the gaps in the ironwork, the three-story-high, marble-floored lobby was visible, the wide expanse dotted with men and women in what were probably very expensive suits.
Don was not impressed. When one had been to Asgard, very little was truly impressive.
He hadn't intended to come here. He hadn't intended to be in New York at all, but the ravens had brought Thor word of a tall, black-haired woman who had appeared in a burst of light in midtown Manhattan. The ravens declined to speak to him the majority of the time, and their counsel was not to be trusted, but the possibility that Sif was in New York was not one he could afford to overlook.
And, unfortunately, where Thor went, Don Blake went also.
"There is merit in Hawkeye's words." Thor's voice rumbled in the back of his mind. Don chose to ignore the faint scolding undertone. "I have thought much on them. The Avengers have been my comrades in arms for many years. My solitude has weighed heavily on me in Asgard," he went on, musingly.
"What solitude?" Don muttered. "There are three hundred Asgardians there now, and they're all huge. And loud." He knew what Thor meant, though, much though he didn't like admitting it. Neither of them were lonely for company; it was a different kind of loneliness. He missed having people to talk to who understood, whom he didn't have to pretend around.
None of the people in Oklahoma knew about Don Blake's connection with Thor, and none of the other Asgardians had ever really understood Thor's attachment to humans, even now, after spending time among them.
"If Captain America has forgiven Iron Man and Yellowjacket, he must have a reason, and I would hear that reason."
"It had better be a good one." He could feel Thor's agreement. Clint had said that "evil government people" were involved, but Tony and the others should have been able to stand up to them; they were Avengers.
Avengers were supposed to be the good guys, and he had trusted them. Don wasn't the one who had been cloned, whose DNA had been experimented with and used to create monsters, but the betrayal was no less personal for that.
"So," Don said, after a long moment of silence, "which one of us is going to do this?"
His only answer was silence; Thor was leaving it up to him.
Don hesitated, then slammed the end of his walking stick against the ground.
***
Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven
Sorry this is going up so late; I've been both sick, and swamped with finals, and didn't have a chance to edit this earlier.
I always hate to ask, but anyone want to write me fluff?
Authors:
seanchai and elspethdixonRated: PG-13
Pairings: Steve/Tony, Hank/Jan.
Warnings: No much, really. Some swearing and violence.
Disclaimer: The characters and situations depicted herein belong to Stan Lee and Marvel comics. No profit is being made off of this derivative work. We're paid in love, people.
Summary: The sequel to Readjustment. Things are finally settling down, and the Avengers are settling in. It's time for disaster to strike again.
X-posted to Marvel Slash.
And again, our thanks to
tavella for the great beta job.The Avengers' living room was a much less convenient place from which to run an international business than Tony's office was. However, thanks to threats from Pepper and a combination of blackmail and bribery from Steve, Tony had agreed to work from home for the day.
Technically, he'd agreed to take a day off from work and stay home, but since Steve was elsewhere for the moment, what he didn't know wouldn't hurt Tony.
SE's VP of Sales was generally gratingly upbeat, but lately his emailed memos had become terse and to the point, and his voice, filtered from his cell phone through the Extremis, currently sounded impatient and annoyed. *SHIELD wants to know why Stark Enterprises will let them purchase body armor containing proprietary SE hardware, but won't sell them any repulsor-based technology.*
Because after all of the trouble he'd gone through to keep his armor's specs out of Nick Fury's hands over the years, he wasn't about to just hand them over now, no matter how much SE might need SHIELD's business after losing the US military contracts.
*I think SHIELD will find, if they read the fine print, that the contract for the body armor only licensed a one-time purchase of the basic hardware. Nothing about software, or, shall we say, extra features, was mentioned.*
Director Fury has been threatening to come to my office in person.* And that, Tony thought wryly, would explain the sudden ill temper.
*The contract is explicitly laid out,* he said. *They got exactly what they were promised. If Fury wants to bitch at somebody, have him call me.*
*All right, sir.* The "it's your funeral" was unspoken, but came through loud and clear anyway.
Tony should have been in a meeting with Stark Enterprise's board of directors right now, discussing the business forecast for the next year and avoiding discussing the fact that he was once again funding the Avengers. Pepper had convinced him that he ought to reschedule for tomorrow. "When you show up to a meeting pale and shaky, with circles under your bloodshot eyes," she had said, "there's only one assumption the board is going to make, and it's not that you just spent twenty-four hours in a hospital."
Tony had pointed out that he had just spent twenty-four hours in the hospital, and, moreover, that it had been on the news, but he'd taken her point. With businessmen, as with supervillains, it was never a good idea to show weakness.
There were forty-six new messages in his in-box. Tony scanned the titles, and deleted everything that wasn't from Pepper or Sal or marked "urgent." CNN and the other major news stations were mercifully free of footage from the Meridian now; naked pictures of a recent American Idol winner had surfaced on the Internet yesterday, and no one cared about Tony Stark and Janet Van Dyne being hospitalized anymore. The pictures, to Tony's semi-expert eye, looked photoshopped, but that hadn't deterred The New York Sun and Entertainment Tonight yet, and probably never would.
"My God," Clint's voice broke in on Tony's thoughts, "what the hell's wrong with your eyes?"
Tony blinked, immediately shutting off the Extremis, and looked up to find Clint standing in the doorway. He almost asked him not to tell Steve, but remembered just in time that that would be the best way to ensure that he would.
He hadn't had a nosebleed in weeks, and, as long as he limited the number of connections he kept open at one time, no headaches either. At this point, Steve was just being unreasonably paranoid about the Extremis; there was no longer any reason to avoid using it.
"Clint," he said, "are you looking for Steve?" He realized that he'd been unconsciously rubbing at his temples with his left hand, and halted the gesture immediately, letting his hands fall back to his lap. Apparently, he'd developed a reflexive habit, despite the fact that it didn't hurt anymore.
"Kind of," Clint started. "I don't know." He shrugged, looking oddly hesitant. "Maybe." He had one shoulder resting against the doorframe, superficially casual, but Tony could see him shifting his weight on the balls of his feet, as if prepared to defend himself or run.
"Is something wrong?" That uneasy expression was not something Tony was used to seeing on Clint.
"I don't know," Clint repeated. He frowned, then seemed to come to a decision of some sort, and stepped into the room, dropping into the chair across from Tony.
"You've had people mess with your head before," he said, after a moment. "And, well, let's just say you've gotten around."
"You could say that," Tony admitted, with a smile he didn't feel. Mind control was not something he particularly wanted to talk about right now, but Clint was clearly worried about something.
"You know how it took me a while to turn up again after I came back from the dead?" Clint started. He was picking at a loose thread on the knee of his jeans, slowly turning a small hole in the fabric into a larger one.
Tony nodded.
"I kind of went looking for Wanda, and then I found her, hiding in this little town, with amnesia, and kind of, um, left her there. After sleeping with her." Clint mumbled this last bit in a rush, still intent on the widening hole in his jeans.
Tony nodded once more, not saying anything. Clint was having enough trouble getting the words out as it was. And Tony had done more than his fair share of sleeping with people in deeply unfortunate circumstances; who was he to throw stones?
"Except, I can't really remember sleeping with her, or deciding to sleep with her. It just kind of... happened." Another pause, then, "Carol thinks maybe I was mind-controlled. That means I wasn't really taking advantage of her, right?"
"I've been told on good authority that having sex with someone when they're too drunk to say yes or no is something like assault," Tony said slowly. It wasn't a question with a clear-cut answer, particularly since he only knew what Clint had just told him, and Clint didn't know the whole story himself. "Being under mind-control is kind of like being drunk; you're not in control of your actions, so I guess it would be the same thing. If anything, if you were under some kind of mind-control, she took advantage of you."
"Great," Clint sighed. He didn't look comforted; Tony had the feeling his words hadn't been helpful. "So I'm a date-rape victim. Why does that not make me feel better?"
"Because no one likes being a victim." Tony looked away, running a hand through his hair, and thought for a second.
"How sure are you that she had amnesia?"
"Pretty sure. She wasn't acting like herself at all." Clint shook his head. "She didn't remember having powers, or even who I was. She's an omega level mutant. If she'd known who I was, and thought I was some kind of threat, she could have just wriggled her nose and winked me out of existence."
"Where was she?"
Clint started to answer, then stopped, making a face. "I... don't know. I have no freaking idea. She must have whammied that out of my head, too."
So Wanda was out there somewhere, possibly with amnesia, possibly still in full possession of her powers, and they had no idea where. Tony made a mental note to keep an eye out for any unexplained events or energy surges in Europe. "If she's not using her powers on a major scale, and she really does have amnesia, than she's not a major threat right this moment. We've got enough to deal with here without mounting a global search for someone who wants to stay lost and can use magic to keep it that way."
"Are you sure?" Clint said dubiously, raising his eyebrows slightly. "I could try getting a telepath or Dr. Strange or somebody to un-mind-whammy me."
"Right now, she's not doing anything. If we go after her, that could change. Who knows what it could provoke her into doing." Even if she truly did have amnesia, it would be risky; it was a proven fact that latent mutant powers activated when people were under stress.
"After you and Cap's stupidity, everyone here's probably pretty tired of fighting fellow Avengers," Clint offered, after a moment of silence.
If Tony was being honest with himself, that probably played a larger role in his decision that they didn't need to take on Wanda right now than he really liked to admit.
"I just wish I knew why she brought me back," Clint went on.
"Does it matter?" Tony shrugged one shoulder. "Like I told Steve, just be glad you have a second chance."
"Did that get him to stop worrying about whether Doom had sacrificed thirteen virgins to Satan to bring him back?"
"Maybe a little," Tony said. "At least, I hope so. Then I told him that evil done in the name of God is still evil, and good done in the name of the devil is still good, and his being back was good in my book." He said it with a grin, knowing that Clint had been roped into reading half the Chronicles of Narnia to Cassie when she'd been little.
"Cap asked you for advice and you quoted The Horse and His Boy?" Clint stared at him for a moment, then snickered. "And he didn't just laugh at you?"
"I didn't tell him what it was from," Tony admitted. "I said I thought it was in the Bible somewhere. Knowing C.S. Lewis, it probably is. Steve never read the whole series; he read the first book, and then Hank told him how the last one ended, so he didn't bother with the rest of them." At least Steve had been spared the experience of getting most of the way through the entire series before discovering that Narnia was all a lie. Tony had met very few fellow science fiction fans who didn't loathe The Last Battle. Thor had been particularly disgusted when he had gotten to that point and discovered that Aslan was Jesus and not Odin.
Clint shrugged. "They weren't that good after the second one, anyway. Not that I cared," he went on hastily, "since they're kids' books and I was only reading them to Cassie."
Tony smirked, not bothering to dispute the claim; maybe Clint hadn't cared about Narnia, but that didn't change the fact that he had visibly teared up at the end of The Iron Giant, which they had also only been watching because of Cassie. Tony chose to overlook the fact that he had been teary-eyed himself; the movie had had an unexpectedly sad ending for a cartoon. He remembered thinking at the time that Scott ought to have warned them.
Steve had also been secretly sucked in, though he hadn't really understood some of the jokes; there were times when it was easy to forget that he was from another time, and then there were times like that, when you remembered that he had missed the entire cold war. Steve...
"Do me a favor," Tony said, holding a hand up. "When you tell Steve that Wanda's still out there, don't bring up the 'sleeping with people while they're mind controlled, and whether or not it's assault' part."
"Why?" Clint asked, abruptly looking hunted again. "You think he'd be mad at me?"
"I just don't think that's a conversation Steve really needs to have right now." That possible interpretation of events didn't seem to have occurred to Steve, and Tony intended to keep it that way. Steve had enough to deal with in the wake of everything that had happened to him, without adding that.
"Oh," Clint said, not bothering to hide the fact that he hadn't followed that. "So, what the hell is up with your eyes?"
"Ah, don't mention that to Steve, either."
"Don't mention what to Steve?" Steve's voice came from the doorway, just as Clint, with typical bad timing, grinned, and said, "Is this connected to that thing where you can talk to computers but Cap doesn't like it because it makes your brains leak out your nose? God, you're whipped."
"Tony," Steve's blue eyes took on a wounded, plaintive look that Tony was almost certain he was largely faking. "You promised you were actually going to take today off, and not just use the Extremis to telecommute."
"You two are so married that it's sickening," Clint announced, bracing his hands against his thighs and standing. He surveyed them for a long moment, then shook his head, pulling a face. "God, I need to get laid. Jan's right. This team needs more girls."
Steve did not actually say, "Very classy, Clint," but Tony could see him thinking it loudly.
Tony watched Clint leave, then turned to Steve. "I'm not used to taking days off. I was bored." He looked up at Steve, offering him a smirk. "You said you'd stay here and distract me."
"I did, didn't I?" Steve said, grinning slowly. He crossed the room in three long strides, and then he was sitting balanced on the arm of Tony's chair, facing him, an arrangement that made him a full head taller than Tony, instead of the usual couple of inches.
Tony grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pulled him closer. Steve let himself be dragged forward, putting one big hand on the back of Tony's neck. Tony closed his eyes and tipped his head back, losing himself in the kiss. He had only been gone a week, but it felt like it had been so much longer. He gave the front of Steve's shirt another tug, leaning backwards, and Steve slid forward, off the chair's arm, until he was half in Tony's lap, not breaking the kiss.
He had been so certain that he'd lost Steve again.
Steve's other hand was on his hip now, thumb tucked inside the waistband of his jeans. "We should move this somewhere else," Steve breathed, lips still inches away from Tony's.
"Good idea," Tony said, pulling his gaze away from Steve's mouth to meet his eyes. "I promised Jarvis that you wouldn't break any more furniture."
"That wasn't my fault," Steve protested, a flush spreading across his cheekbones. "It was a very spindly bed."
Tony grinned. He'd actually been thinking of the time Steve had thrown his shield inside the front hallway of the mansion, taking out a laundry list of antiques. "The new one is wrought iron," he said, "and I built it, so I can assure you that it's anything but spindly."
"You left for DC," Steve said. He pressed an open-mouthed kiss on the corner of Tony's jaw, and slid his hand from behind Tony's neck, moving it to rest warm and solid on the center of Tony's chest. "I don't think we've thoroughly tested it."
"You're right." Tony ran one hand up Steve's thigh and hooked the other into the front of his jeans. "All Stark Enterprises products are tested to destruction."
"In that case, we'll have to be very thorough." Steve drew the fingers of his right hand down Tony's chest, across his stomach, and then stood up, pulling Tony with him. "You have a reputation to maintain."
Tony grinned even wider, and let Steve drag him down the hallway to their bedroom; he did, in fact, have a reputation to maintain.
Tony had disappeared again. If he was hiding in a corner somewhere, using the Extremis to hold a Stark Enterprises teleconference, Steve was going to physically haul him back to their room and tie him to the bed. He'd established only hours ago that the metal bed frame was very solid indeed, so it would take a long time for Tony to get himself loose.
Actually, that idea had possibilities beyond simply keeping Tony out of trouble. Not that that could actually stop him from using the Extremis, but that just meant Steve would have to put a little extra effort into distracting him.
Which was probably something best thought about when they didn't have company, Steve decided; he could hear voices coming from the living room.
"You know perfectly well I can do my own maintenance work," Rhodey was saying. "How many days did Pepper make you promise to stay out of the lab and away from your armor?"
"All I promised Pepper was that I'd stay home from work today," Tony countered. "Steve's the one who made me promise to stay out of the lab. And that I wouldn't use the Extremis to telecommute."
Steve halted in the living room doorway, torn between amusement and exasperation. Tony and Rhodey were sitting side-by-side on the long leather couch, their backs to him. Several pieces of the War Machine armor were spread out on the coffee table, and Tony, who had informed Steve mere hours ago that they had to be careful not to damage Jarvis's furniture, was poking at them absently with a tiny screwdriver. A small, pen-shaped implement that Steve recognized as a pocket acetylene torch was sitting on the polished table top, next to one of Rhodey's half-disassembled jet-boots.
Steve hadn't really expected Tony to stay away from his tech toys for a whole day. At least he was sitting down in the living room in relative comfort instead of downstairs using the armor's augmented strength to manhandle Quinjet engine blocks.
"Your cat is staring at me," Rhodey commented.
The cat was, in fact, staring at him. It was sitting on the floor a foot or so away from the couch, unblinking blue gaze fixed on Rhodey.
"It's Jarvis's cat." Tony was holding one of the boots on his lap now, poking at its sole with the screwdriver. "There's a crack in the edge of the jet propulsion unit's housing. You've got melted glass in it."
"That would be from stepping in powdered glass while I helped rescue your ass from that restaurant. The jet boots must have slagged it." Rhodey bent down and picked up the bundle of purple feathers the cat had just spat out at his feet. "Here," he said. "Go chase something."
"Dogs chase things, not cats." Tony shrugged one shoulder, and added, voice rueful, "This can't have been much of a vacation for you. Sorry."
Rhodey tossed the feathers away from him. The cat launched itself at them with a clumsy speed that Steve had learned by this point was born of insanity. "After Gyrich, Gauntlet, and Justice, stopping crazy people from jumping out tenth-story windows is a vacation," Rhodey said, cat dealt with.
Tony's shoulders, seen from behind, had a relaxed set to them, no sign of the tension that had been there this morning. For all that Steve had hoped to get him to rest and recover from AIM's poison, a chance to play with the War Machine armor would probably do him almost as much good as actual rest.
The part of Steve that wanted to snarl at Rhodey to stay away from Tony, to keep his paws off him because he'd tried to hurt him in the past, was completely irrational and motivated solely by leftover protectiveness from yesterday.
Being jealous of Rhodey because Tony used to have a crush on him was equally irrational, especially since Steve had no problem with the two dozen women Tony had slept with over the years. Well, the ones that hadn't tried to kill Tony.
"You think there's any chance Spiderman might be willing to sign on with us?" Rhodey went on. "He's been doing this since he was younger than most of those kids, and he's got actual experience as a teacher, which is more than the rest of us have."
"Honestly? I think there's about as much chance of Peter signing on for anything that's got 'Initiative' in the name as there is of Roxxon Oil suddenly deciding to sponsor Greenpeace."
"Yeah. You know, you might want to rethink 'lying to people for their own good' as a leadership strategy."
"Really? It's always worked so well until now."
Rhodey snorted. "The next time you open a conversation with 'Rhodey, old friend, can you do me a favor?' remind me to say 'hell no."
"Oh, come on. It can't be that bad."
"Oh yes it can. It's even worse than having to work with John Walker every day, with you in full-on crazy mode for a team leader."
Steve took a step forward into the room, intending to put a halt to this line of conversation before it went any further. Tony didn't need any reminders of that godawful mess with Immortus's mind control right now, not after spending most of a day in a semi-catatonic huddle because he'd been convinced that he had killed people. Steve himself preferred not to dwell on those few months either; for a brief but miserable period, they had all honestly thought that Tony had truly gone over the edge, had become a killer. He'd broken free of Immortus' hold in the end, just in time to help defeat him, but Steve had very nearly lost him forever.
"I didn't realize you hated being part of the program that much." Tony's voice was chagrined, his shoulders tensing up and his fingers halting whatever they were doing to Rhodey's boots, and Steve took another step into the room.
"Ignore me." Rhodey waved a hand dismissively. "I don't actually hate it. I think it's important. I'm just frustrated that nobody else seems to."
"Of course we all-" Tony started, clearly preparing to assure Rhodey that everyone thought turning sixteen-year-olds into a superpowered auxiliary to the U.S. military was a good idea.
"A lot of people still have reservations about the Initiative," Steve said mildly, stepping into Rhodey and Tony's line of sight. "That fact that it was originally compulsory didn't endear it to anyone."
Rhodey looked up, raised an eyebrow at Steve, and shook his head slightly, frustration visible in the set of his face for a moment. "You know, I wouldn't expect you of all people to have any issues with superheroes getting government training."
It hadn't been the source of the training he'd objected to, but that fact that they hadn't had a choice, and that there had been no way to be sure of what the government planned to use them for. And recruiting children was... Steve frowned, and shrugged, uncomfortable now. "I was twenty-one when I signed on for it. I was already an adult. I've seen what happens when you put kids in costumes and send them into war zones." He wondered sometimes what Bucky would be like if he'd had a chance to have a normal childhood - he'd had that taken away from him long before the explosion.
"You know we're not doing that anymore," Rhodey said, and the irritation was clear this time. "We were barely doing that in the first place; the trainees were only to be sent into action as a last resort." He frowned, and paused for a moment, adding, "I'm pretty sure Baron von Blitzschlag was trying to set up some kind of under the table black ops program with some of the recruits, but he's gone now, and I can personally assure you that none of those kids are going to do anything more dangerous than put out forest fires in Colorado until they're eighteen. Trust me," he looked up at Steve, meeting his eyes directly, "there's already been one lawsuit, and we don't want to give any more parents a reason to sue us."
Tony was very intently studying Rhodey's boot, as if prying tiny pieces of glass out of the mechanism required every single bit of his attention. His head was bent, wisps of hair hanging down over his eyes, and he'd already managed to acquire a thin smear of soot over one cheekbone.
Jarvis's reaction the next time he saw the top of the coffee table was going to be interesting.
On the one hand, Steve probably ought to find Rhodey's explanation reassuring. On the other hand... "Baron von Blitzschlag?" he repeated slowly. "I'm pretty sure I heard his name during the war, and I think it was in connection with Heinrich Zemo." And possibly with Red Skull's German supersoldier project as well.
Rhodey pulled a face. "That doesn't surprise me in the slightest."
Tony looked up. "I heard that Norman Osborn put in a good word for him with the hiring committee." He didn't give the words any particular inflection, as if summoning up emotion about the whole thing were beyond him at this point. Using tiny tweezers, he carefully removed another infinitesimal piece of glass from the bottom of the half-dismantled boot, setting it down amid the pile of glass pieces he was creating on top of one of Jan's fashion magazines.
If Jan wasn't done with that, she was going to be less than pleased. Steve checked the title absently, and reconsidered; no, it was Vogue. She only read that in order to mock other designers' haute couture clothing anyway.
"It's not about making superpowered soldiers," Rhodey was saying. He was leaning forward now, elbows on his knees, intent. "It's about making sure these kids have some idea of what the hell they're doing. I was an adult when I got into this game, ex-military, a trained pilot, and it was still more than I could handle. I was just lucky there weren't any serious consequences. A lot of us haven't been that lucky."
Tony gave a little half-smile. "That's my fault," he said wryly. "I tossed you into the deep end of the pool without bothering to tell you how to swim."
"Yeah," Rhodey snorted. "Because you were really in a state to give me instructions." He turned back to Steve. "It's not a choice for these kids; their powers aren't some experiment they volunteered for, or a suit of armor that they can take off if they can't handle it. If no one takes responsibility for training them, they're going to get hurt, and they're going to hurt other people."
That was actually a very good point. Steve had certainly seen the damage out-of-control superpowers could cause.
Wanda, Carol, Firestar, Jack of Hearts; all of them had struggled with their powers. Jack had had to spend hours locked in a zero chamber just to keep his powers far enough under control to avoid exploding. And then, of course, there was the Hulk.
Steve had chosen to be given the supersoldier serum, just as Tony had chosen to put on the armor, but not everyone got to choose. Some of the Avengers had been born with superpowers, and others had acquired them by accident, like Carol and Peter. Luke Cage had technically volunteered for the experiment that had given him unbreakable skin, but considering the circumstances, he really hadn't had the option of saying no. Sam hadn't chosen his powers, either.
They had all been adults, and most of them had had teammates to try and help them deal with it. All except Peter, who had handled being a fifteen-year-old solo hero far better than anyone ought to have expected him to.
"You know, Peter really would be good at that," Steve said, after a long moment. "But you'll never get him to leave New York City, anymore than you'd get Daredevil to." Not that they would want to; both the remnants of the Initiative and New York law enforcement were pretending very hard that Daredevil didn't exist these days. The unqualified disaster that their attempt to prove Matt Murdock was Daredevil had turned into wasn't something anyone was likely to forget anytime soon.
"So," Tony said conversationally, "how long were you standing there listening to us?"
"You know who else would be good at it?" Steve said, ignoring the question but feeling his ears go hot. "Delroy Garrett." Triathlon was another hero who'd had problems with his powers, although the circumstances had been a little more esoteric than simple lack of control, and he was also deeply committed both to superheroing and to the ideas of training, discipline, and self-improvement.
"He's already signed on with the Initiative," Tony said, a tiny line appearing between his eyebrows as he considered the idea. "And when he's not convinced that you're insulting the cult he belongs to, he's good with people."
"He doesn't belong to a cult anymore," Steve pointed out, in the interest of fairness. "The Triune Understanding hasn't existed in years, and Delroy's part of the reason why." He'd been deeply angry when he had learned that the religion whose tenets he'd believed in so strongly had been a front for a crazy megalomaniac's attempt to build himself a power base.
"I know, I know," Tony said, waving the little metal tweezers dismissively. "You're right; he'd be good at training people. Plus, he believes in being a part of something, like you two."
"The military is not a cult, Tony."
"This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine-"
"That's the marines," Rhodey interrupted. "They are a cult. Anyway, you're one to talk, mister I-sleep-in-my-armor."
Steve could have pointed out that the Marine Corps emphasis on esprit de corps and unit cohesion had a practical purpose, but as a former Air Force officer, Rhodey knew that perfectly well. This kind of teasing byplay with Tony was obviously something just as familiar to Rhodey as it was to him. Which made sense, he supposed. Tony did the same thing with Pepper, and with most of the other long-time Avengers.
"I've never really worked with Triathlon," Rhodey said, returning to the topic at hand. "I hear he's done a good job as a team leader for the Initiative, though." He frowned faintly, expression speculative. "I wonder if I can get him reassigned."
"I've cleaned all the glass out of you," Tony said, addressing the metal boot in his hands. "Why are you still not working? What else is wrong with you?"
Steve had always enjoyed watching Tony work; how intensely focused he got, how dexterous those long, callused fingers were... and the fact that Tony occasionally started talking to his lab equipment or to half-assembled pieces of machinery never failed to amuse him.
"Do you want us to leave you and my armor alone together?" Rhodey asked, raising his eyebrows.
"What?" Tony looked up, blinking. It wasn't an act - Steve was pretty sure he honestly had no idea what the two of them had just been talking about. "You know, I think I could get you a ten percent increase in thrust from these, if I just recalibrate a few things and add a few minor modifications."
The smear of soot made a dark streak across one prominent cheekbone. Yesterday, his eyes had been smudged with dark circles, looking almost bruised, but now only faint traces of them remained. He could easily have just emerged from a night spent in the lab, where he been too absorbed in some project or other to sleep.
Steve leaned down and curved one hand around the side of Tony's face, using his thumb to brush away the soot. Tony's eyes fluttered to half-mast, and he leaned into Steve's hand for a moment before Steve let go and drew his hand away.
The cat returned once more, Clint's arrow fletching firmly grasped in its mouth, and spat the feathers out onto Rhodey's foot. When he didn't immediately reach down to pick them up, the cat raised itself onto its haunches, placed both front paws on Rhodey's knee, and mewled demandingly.
"I can come back for my armor later," Rhodey said, regarding Steve and Tony with a blank poker face that would have done Nick Fury proud. "Sorry, cat," he added, pushing the kitten's paws off his knee. "You'll have to find someone else to play with." He scooped the feathers up for what was presumably the last time and threw them, to the cat's violent delight. It leapt into the air as the feathers drifted away, snatching at them with both paws.
"I should have it all back together in a couple of hours," Tony said. "I've got everything I need to upgrade the bootjets in my lab."
Steve gave Tony a look, which Tony didn't appear to notice. By this point, he'd probably forgotten that his lab was supposed to be off limits for the day. "Have fun," Steve sighed, giving up. He turned to Rhodey. "I'll walk you out."
The central hallway of the Avengers' living quarters had once had a painting of the original five Avengers hanging in it, but it had disappeared to the same place that all of the rest of the artwork in Stark Tower seemed to have gone to. The hallway was left looking barren, more sterile even than a hotel, which would at least have had an ugly pastel print.
Rhodey didn't comment on the stripped-down decor. Either he was doing the same thing everyone else seemed to be doing and ignoring it, or he simply didn't know that anything was missing; Steve wasn't sure if he'd been in Stark Tower prior to the Registration mess.
Whatever problem might have once existed between Rhodey and Tony, they had obviously dealt with it. Even the awkwardness that Steve was thought he'd picked up on after Tony had told Rhodey that he liked men seemed to have dissipated.
Which was all to the good, considering that Rhodey was one of the few people Tony had left outside of the Avengers at this point; he'd never had that large a support network to begin with, and now Happy Hogan was gone and things were apparently awkward with Pepper as a result, which wasn't surprising, but was unfortunate. It also meant that, old disagreements or no, Rhodey had a power to hurt Tony that few people possessed these days.
And even if it was unintentional, Tony was unlikely to defend himself. For one thing, he'd had feelings for Rhodey once, and Tony's willingness to take anything dealt out by someone he was in a relationship with was something that had periodically worried Steve, and worried him even more so now that Steve was in a relationship with him.
Steve hesistated, steps slowing, trying to think of the proper way to explain this to Rhodey, when Rhodey spoke.
"My armor's got four times the firepower of Tony's," he said, in a conversational tone. "If you hurt him, you'll get to experience it firsthand."
Steve stopped dead and stared at Rhodey, completely nonplussed. "If I..." he started.
"I'm not saying you would," Rhodey went on, "but Tony's got a pretty lousy track record where women are concerned. He lets half the women he sleeps with walk all over him, and I don't you think you being a guy is gonna make any difference there."
"This is the second time I've had this conversation this week," Steve found himself saying, more plaintively than he would have liked to. "Why would anyone think that I would hurt Tony, or that I'm not serious about him or that I don't have enough experience to keep him satisfied?" He could feel his ears turning red, remembering Pepper's comment about that.
Rhodey made a face. "I'm not touching that one." He shook his head slightly, and added, "Pepper got to you first, huh?"
"Pepper got to me first," Steve confirmed. "Trust me, the threats aren't necesary." Watching the way Tony had been hurting while under the toxin's influence had been agony. And watching and being unable to help had been nearly unbearable. There had been far too many times in the past where Tony had been hurt and Steve had found himself unable to do anything, but this time had been one of the worst, because he had so much more to lose now. "The other day, I-" He broke off, not knowing how to continue or even if he wanted to.
Rhodey nodded slowly, and smiled a little. "I know what you mean." He snorted, adding, "Thank god there's only one of him. I don't think I could take it if I had to worry about more high maintenance, self-destructive people."
"On that note," Steve said, "good luck dealing with your superpowered teenagers."
"Oh, thanks a lot." Rhodey sighed. "You're sure Spiderman wouldn't be willing to help?"
"You could ask him," Steve said, "but I doubt you'll have much luck."
Rhodey shrugged, and then grinned. "Well, this trip wasn't a total loss. At least I'm getting new jet boots out of it."
There were times that Steve wondered exactly why Tony and Rhodey were friends, and then there were the times, like now, when he was reminded that they shared a deep and abiding love for things that went very fast, exploded, or both.
The man behind the bakery counter finished ringing up her purchase and wished her a good afternoon, while she stood frozen, still clutching the loaf of bread she had just bought.
The name he had called her was not hers, and, she realized abruptly, she had no idea who he was.
In fact, Wanda realized slowly, as she wandered out of the bakery and into the narrow, cobblestone street, she had no idea who any of the people here were, people who kept smiling and nodding at her as if they knew her. She didn't even know where here was, though the old-world look of the town, with its wood and plaster buildings and gable windows suggested Europe.
Why would she expect anything else? She had never lived anywhere else. She had learned English from her Aunt, out of textbooks, and through practicing on tourists, so why did it seem strange that she and the Baker had been speaking in Rumanian?
She was thinking in English, she realized, and had been at least since that moment in the bakery, despite the fact that Rumanian was her native tongue, the language she'd spoken her whole life.
Had she really learned English at her Aunt's kitchen table? How long had she been able to think in it? Everything prior to the last few minutes was distant, almost unreal.
She'd lived in this small village, at the foot of Mount Wundgadore, for her whole life. But how could she have? It didn't make sense; she didn't know any of these people, didn't even remember the names of the streets.
Her feet kept moving automatically, without any conscious input from her.
As she walked slowly along the narrow streets, mostly empty under the early afternoon sun, she tried desperately to put a name to any of the handful of people she passed, to remember who lived in even one of the houses, remember if she'd ever eaten at that little cafe, bought anything at that shop... she couldn't.
The last clear thing she remembered was the time a month or so back when a blond tourist had rescued her, and she had kissed him and taken him home for the night. Clint. His name had been Clint. It was, Wanda realized, the only name other than her own that she knew.
Why had she slept with him? She had liked him, yes, maybe even been drawn to him; he had been very friendly, and certainly not unattractive. But somehow she didn't think of herself as the kind of person who had sex with strange men just to be friendly. She hadn't done it before, had she?
Was that why the baker had smiled at her? Why so many of the men she passed on the street nodded at her? Wanda hugged the loaf of bread against her chest and walked faster.
She kept walking until she had left town far behind, following a small, winding path right to the foot of the mountain, just where the landscape started to slope upward. Why on earth had she decided to live so far out of town? She ought to at least have a bicycle or something -- surely she didn't walk the whole mile and half every time she needed groceries.
The house at the end of the path didn't look any more familiar than the ones in town had, but Wanda found herself walking up to the door and lifting the latch. The door proved to be unlocked, swinging open easily at her touch.
The cottage was drab inside, bland cream walls undecorated. Somehow, it didn't look like the kind of place she would live in; there ought to have been... more color?
Wanda closed the heavy, wooden door behind her, and carefully set the loaf of bread down on the kitchen table, shoulders suddenly stiff. There was someone else in the house; she could feel it.
"Hello?" She turned in a slow circle, hands coming up, ready to defend herself. "Is anyone there?"
Only silence answered her.
Every nerve on edge, Wanda made a careful circuit of the house, finding no one. Everything was very clean and neat, almost sterile. She had no books, no photographs, not even so much as a vase of flowers. The house was like a cottage in a children’s picture book; one that was still waiting for someone to actually live there.
As she went from room to empty room, the conviction that she was not alone only grew. "This isn't right," she whispered to herself in growing frustration. "I shouldn't be here."
"You belong here." The whispery voice echoed through the house, faint, but seeming to come from everywhere at once.
She knew that voice. It was her aunt's voice. Aunt Agatha was dead...
"This is where you have always belonged," her aunt's voice went on, gentle but commanding. "Here. With me."
Wanda froze; everything in her wanted to turn and run, but her body wasn't listening, and she knew, suddenly, that this, this thing, whatever it was, was not only not her aunt, but evil. Evil and unimaginably ancient.
The blond American hadn't been the only person who'd come here to see her. As the thing-that-was-not-her-aunt spoke, a hazy memory tugged at the corner of her mind. There had been another visitor, a beast-man with blue fur, who had accused her her of doing something terrible, and had begged for her help. She had laughed at him. She didn't know why; she had listened to him plead, and opened her mouth to apologize, to tell him she was sorry, but she had no idea what he was talking about, but instead she had mocked him, and sent him away. She hadn't known him either, but she had the nagging feeling that she should have, and that she knew the blond American from somewhere else, too.
Who was she really? What had she done?
Whatever it was, the thing speaking to her in her dead aunt's voice was involved. Wanda tried again to run, to get as far away from this place as possible, but her body was paralyzed. How long had she been here, in this empty fairy tale cottage with no art on the walls? What had it done to her?
"Now be a good girl," the-thing-that-was-not-her-aunt told her, "and lock the door."
And she did. She wasn't sure if she was locking someone else out, or herself in.
Steve arched his body backwards and watched Tony's fist go sailing over his head. Tony had put his entire weight into the punch, which meant that he was already off balance when Steve straightened up, sidestepped Tony's attempt to rush him, and pivoted on one foot, launching a kick at Tony's head. Tony managed to block the blow with one arm, but just barely.
Steve had missed sparring like this. The two of them had practiced together on and off for over seven years now, ever since Tony had first come to him and asked for lessons on how to defend himself, since his "bodyguard" had been framed for murder and Tony had handed the armor over to SHIELD. If Steve hadn't already been almost certain that Tony himself was Iron Man before that first lesson, he'd known it without a doubt by the time it was over.
Tony had done all of his fighting in the armor before that point, and he had repeatedly left himself wide open, more so than his relative lack of experience in hand-to-hand combat could have accounted for; he'd been so used to depending on the armor's ability to absorb damage that he often hadn't bothered to dodge or block Steve's blows.
At least, that was what Steve had concluded at the time. Now, with a little more perspective on where Tony's head had been back then, he wondered if there might not have been more to it than that.
Tony was wearing sweatpants and a white undershirt that had a long smear of black motor oil across the front, right over his heart. The dark circles the toxin had left under his eyes were gone, his hair was matted to his head with sweat, and he was grinning at Steve. It was an expression Steve didn't see nearly enough of these days -- one he'd never seen as often as he would have liked.
"Okay, Captain America," he said, "now you're just showing off."
Steve was grinning back now. "Oh, that wasn't showing off," he said, and threw himself into a back handspring to dodge Tony's next blow. "That was," he finished, now on the opposite side of the room. "We should do this more often," he added, as he braced himself for Tony's next attack. "I've missed this."
"What would I do without my regular collection of bruises from being thrown into the mat?" Still grinning, Tony came at Steve, who sidestepped him easily. He blocked all but one of the flurry of blows Steve aimed at him, even managing to land one of his own in return.
"I'll have to start being more careful," Steve said, swaying sideways to let Tony's fist slide past his head. "Pepper and Rhodey have both threatened me with maiming if I ever hurt you."
Tony faltered for a moment, completely missing the opening Steve had deliberately left in his defenses in order to lure him into an attack and get him off balance again. "You would never hurt me," he protested.
"Everybody makes mistakes, Tony."
Tony sidestepped another kick, circling slowly around Steve. He was going to try and come at him from the side, Steve judged. "I guess I ought to be flattered that they think my honor's still worth defending." He shrugged one shoulder, and rubbed the back of one hand across his forehead, wiping away beads of sweat. "I shouldn't be surprised. Our first night back here after the hearing, I found a note on my pillow saying, 'I know where you sleep. James. P.S. Say hi to Steve and ask him why he has so many pansy-ass sweaters.'"
"Bucky did not say that." Steve moved with Tony, keeping the other man within his line-of-sight. He didn't doubt that Bucky was capable of sneaking into the top floor floor of the heavily secured Stark Tower and leaving Tony a threatening note, but the bit about the sweaters had to be Tony editorializing. "And you're one to talk." Tony's most hideous sweater, a shapeless, colorless mass of grey wool, had been destroyed along with one of SHIELD's flying cars in the final battle against Red Skull, but he still possessed an equally shapeless deep orange sweater.
"Steve, it took me half an hour to find the bug your ex-sidekick left in our closet. It was inside one of your sweaters."
"You searched the rest of the room, too, right?" Steve asked, the thought of Bucky overhearing some of the things he'd spent the past few weeks doing with Tony throwing him off just enough that one of Tony's blows slipped past his guard, catching him on the shoulder.
"Do you think I'd have sex with you in that room if I knew the Winter Soldier, and probably Nick Fury, were watching?"
"Yes," Steve answered, without hesitation, and threw a punch at Tony.
Tony smirked, dodging back out of range, the blow missing him by less than an inch. "And it never occurred to you and Sharon that the backseats of those flying cars are monitored?"
Actually, it hadn't. And he preferred not to think about the fact that, as a high ranking SHIELD agent, Sharon had to have known. "Most of the time I have a longer reach than whomever I'm fighting," Steve observed, as he and Tony circled one another again. "I haven't got that advantage with you."
"No," Tony said, breathing hard, the exertion obviously starting to tell on him. "Just forty pounds of extra mass. Physics, remember?"
Steve himself was nowhere near winded yet, but he had broken a sweat. He really had missed this.
Hand-to-hand practice with other people -- Sam, Clint, Sharon -- was always either simply practice, and a chance to improve one another's technique, or a competition. It was those things with Tony, too, but somehow it had always felt like a game; he could relax, have fun, even show off a little if he felt like it. It was only recently that he had realized that it had also been a form of flirting.
In their last few sparring matches, Tony had been hesitating, not taking the openings Steve had deliberately left him, not hitting with his full weight into the punches he threw. They'd only had the chance to work out together a few times since Tony's ribs and shoulder had healed, but Tony had hesitated every time, so Steve could tell it was a pattern. He wasn't sure Tony had even been aware of it, but Steve knew Tony's fighting abilities as well as he knew his own -- which wasn't surprising considering that he'd taught him -- and he could tell.
This time, Tony wasn't hesitating, and Steve allowed himself to hope that all of the misery of the past year was finally behind them. Not just Registration, but everything. The destruction of the mansion, which had been both his and Tony's home; the team breaking apart; losing Thor and Clint and Vision and Scott and Jack; losing Wanda in a different way; learning just how thoroughly he had failed to protect Bucky; Tony being used like a puppet, until he was forced to stop his own heart to put an end to it; Stamford, and the American people turning on them, and all of them turning on each other... His own death, and what it had done to Tony.
Some of the things they had lost could never be recovered, but Steve had never dared to hope that they would be able to salvage this much, to build something new out of the ashes. He'd certainly never expected anything as miraculous as Clint's return, or Thor's -- even though he might still be avoiding them, just knowing that he was alive was like having a weight that Steve hadn't even known was there lifted off his shoulders.
He had never even imagined what he had with Tony, had thought, in his very darkest moments, that their friendship had been replaced by contempt and betrayal, but now he couldn't imagine not having it. The fact that Tony could now spar with him without being half-paralyzed by his own guilt over what had happened meant, hopefully, that Tony was now able to put everything behind him as well. Which meant that they could both move on.
Tony launched a kick of his own at Steve's side, and Steve twisted out of the way and tackled Tony -- who was off balance again -- to the mat.
"That was better," Steve said, grinning at Tony, who was now flat on his back on the mat with Steve straddling him, using his ‘extra mass’ to pin him in place. "You're actually trying this time, but I still took you down pretty quickly. Come on, rich boy," he added, smirking down at Tony, "give me a real challenge."
Tony smirked back, looking surprisingly triumphant for a man who was currently pinned to the floor. "Why? I've got you right where I want you." And then his hips writhed in a way that made Steve lose all interest in sparring.
Apparently, sparring was now also foreplay.
"Um," said Steve, suddenly suspecting that he had, in fact, been outmaneuvered. He couldn't bring himself to mind.
The entrance to Stark Tower was designed to be imposing; the double doors were close to eight feet high, with a grill of decorative metalwork covering them. Beyond them, through the gaps in the ironwork, the three-story-high, marble-floored lobby was visible, the wide expanse dotted with men and women in what were probably very expensive suits.
Don was not impressed. When one had been to Asgard, very little was truly impressive.
He hadn't intended to come here. He hadn't intended to be in New York at all, but the ravens had brought Thor word of a tall, black-haired woman who had appeared in a burst of light in midtown Manhattan. The ravens declined to speak to him the majority of the time, and their counsel was not to be trusted, but the possibility that Sif was in New York was not one he could afford to overlook.
And, unfortunately, where Thor went, Don Blake went also.
"There is merit in Hawkeye's words." Thor's voice rumbled in the back of his mind. Don chose to ignore the faint scolding undertone. "I have thought much on them. The Avengers have been my comrades in arms for many years. My solitude has weighed heavily on me in Asgard," he went on, musingly.
"What solitude?" Don muttered. "There are three hundred Asgardians there now, and they're all huge. And loud." He knew what Thor meant, though, much though he didn't like admitting it. Neither of them were lonely for company; it was a different kind of loneliness. He missed having people to talk to who understood, whom he didn't have to pretend around.
None of the people in Oklahoma knew about Don Blake's connection with Thor, and none of the other Asgardians had ever really understood Thor's attachment to humans, even now, after spending time among them.
"If Captain America has forgiven Iron Man and Yellowjacket, he must have a reason, and I would hear that reason."
"It had better be a good one." He could feel Thor's agreement. Clint had said that "evil government people" were involved, but Tony and the others should have been able to stand up to them; they were Avengers.
Avengers were supposed to be the good guys, and he had trusted them. Don wasn't the one who had been cloned, whose DNA had been experimented with and used to create monsters, but the betrayal was no less personal for that.
"So," Don said, after a long moment of silence, "which one of us is going to do this?"
His only answer was silence; Thor was leaving it up to him.
Don hesitated, then slammed the end of his walking stick against the ground.
Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven
Sorry this is going up so late; I've been both sick, and swamped with finals, and didn't have a chance to edit this earlier.
I always hate to ask, but anyone want to write me fluff?
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I would list favorite things and such, but it's the entire chapter and as such would be pointless. However, extra squee for sparring-as-foreplay.
One small typo:
He'd been deeply angry when he had learned that the religion whose tenants he'd believed in...
*tenets, not tenants
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Augh, I always miss something!
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And I don't think I could manage fic for this pairing yet without panicking, because I'm not 100% caught up on the comics, but once I am, I'd be glad to write you anything. Including fluff.
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Oh god, Wanda, More Don/Thor, Rhodey! Oh god, Rhodey! I am loving this too much. I look forward for the next part in these series/universe! And I'll give a more detailed comment later. =D;;;
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I love the way Wanda have been brought back into focus and that of course Thor would finally approach the Avengers once more. Gods, the sequel is going to make me delirious with joy.
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As you might have guessed, I have a thing for sparring, so I was very happy to get two sparring scenes in this story. It's like personal fan service. ;) It was a nice touch to have Tony no longer holding back, after his experience with the fear toxin. That kind of situation can... clarify things for you, and (as the saying goes) if it doesn't break you, it makes you stronger. It was nice to see a stronger Tony emerging at the end of this story, because it's been a long, angsty road from that first fic. The healing that began in Reconstruction irrc, is starting to pay off here.
I'm kind of ambivalent about the Clint/Wanda and Thor stuff - you're obviously setting up for a future fic, so I'm in wait-and-see mode. I liked the scene where Clint spills to Carol, thinking that she's practically a guy, anyway. Cute. Very Clint.
And that's all I've got right now. I so have to go back and reread.
Anyway, I'm in the middle of a major project myself, but prompt me and I'll see if anything is forthcoming. :)
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Off to actually read it!
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Rhodey tossed the feathers away from him. The cat launched itself at them with a clumsy speed that Steve had learned by this point was born of insanity.
- Avengers kitty=love
I would like to see spidey working with the kids perhaps a side program not directly the initiative but for the kids who want training for their powers but are uncertain about heroics.
Wanda... oh noes.
Looking forward to when the next arc begins.
Great work you two- it is always a pleasure to read your stories! ^_^
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there ought to have been... more color?
Scarlet, perhaps? *smirk*
Don hesitated, then slammed the end of his walking stick against the ground.
And he's back! YES!
So, how long are you gonna keep us waiting?!
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When you find yourself involved in something run by people who do not see little blinky warning signs when they read the name "Baron von Blitzschlag" on the job application form? Time to run very far away.
Bucky! *heart* Oh, James Buchanan, be my psychotic overprotective assassin boyfriend. I can help you draft threatening notes and everything!
I dunno about the word "writhe" applied to hips. Makes me think of some sort of really athletic belly-dancing move, which would be very talented of Tony, considering that he's on the floor and being held down at the moment. (Wouldn't actually put it past him, though.)
Can't really write fluff, but if the mental image of Val Storm-Richards, DJ Cage: Power Woman!*, Mayday Parker, and Tony's mysterious daughter Stephanie-Maria having a teen teamup helps any...? (Possibly it could be a DCU crossover. They could have a Big Misunderstanding fight with Lian Harper and the other Titans' kids.)
*She insists on the "woman" part. Hey, Parker was fifteen and nobody made him call himself Spiderboy! (She also insists on the exclamation point.)
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*laughs*
There's, like, an entire series of fic bunnies involving this verse, from the X-Men finding Maria and the Pryde-Summer's spawn in Sinister's lab, to Maria's various interesting experiences with formal schooling (being created as a clone around age 11 and spending the first three months of your life in Sinister's lab do not make for good socialization), to various school teachers' bafflement when an ever-changing roster of Avengers (plus Happy and Pepper) keep showing up at parent-teacher conferences ("...so, you're Maria's parents?" "No, I'm Tony Stark's excecutive assistant/a friend of her father's/the chauffer/etc."), to the time everyone finds out that she's sleeping with both of the Storm-Richards offspring, and so on and so forth.
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I still want to swap Danielle's surnames so she can shorten Danielle Jones to DJ. It's that or Danni, and that's just asking for confusion. Luke and Jess would have to start distinguishing between "Little Danni" and
"Hideous Costume Danny""Big Danny".It was Steve who insisted on the formal schooling, wasn't it? ("It'll be good for her, Tony! She needs to learn to relate with her peers!" "...You're supposed to do that at school? I think I was disassembling the bleachers for the parts the day we covered that. You do know the school board's trying to file a formal complaint?") Also: the X-Men find her first? That must have been an awkward conversation when they dropped her off at Avengers Mansion.
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Maria: "Why can't I be home schooled like the Richards kids? Daddy could teach me engineering and you could teach me American history and Uncle James could teach me how to speak Russian."
Steve: "The Richards kids are home school because Franklin Richards was expelled from the first school he was sent to for changing his desk into a miniature stegasaurus, and none of the other schools in the city will agree to take him."
Maria: "So all I have to do to not have to go to school is get expelled?"
Tony: "I happen to know of a very expensive private bording school that I can guarantee will not expell you no matter what you do as long as I pay them enough money."
Maria: "What if I-"
Tony: "You can electrify your school supplies to keep people from stealing them, accidentally knock another student unconscious with them, and then get caught having sex with a classmate behind the bleachers in the gym, and they still will not expell you."
Maria: "Ew, ew, ew. Don't say things like that! You're old!"
Tony: "Yes, and back in the middle ages, I tried my very hardest to get kicked out of bording school. I've already thought of anything you might be considering trying."
Steve: "Here's your backpack. Happy will drive you to school."
*several hours later*
Steve, to school assistant principal: "What do you mean, Maria broke another student's nose?"
A.P.: "She's being suspended for three days for fighting. We won't tolerate this sort of behavior at [name of school]."
Maria: "I was defending justice and taking a stand against opression."
Boy-with-bloody-nose: "She kicked me in the face! With her foot!"
Steve: "Maria Sarah Rogers!"
Maria: "He said things about Daddy! And, um, you."
Steve: "... were they true?"
Maria: "Technically? Um, maybe? But it was the way he said them!"
Steve: "What did he say?"
Boy-with-broken-nose: "I didn't say anything. She just attacked me. She's some kind of crazy freak!"
Maria: *Whispers in Steve's ear*
Steve: *to A.P.* I'm taking Maria home now. This won't happen again. *to broken-nose-boy* Would you like to repeat what you said, son? Loudly? To me?"
Boy *goes pale*: "No, sir."
Steve: "Good." *to Maria, after they've left the building* "All right, let's go get ice cream, and you can explain to me which move you used to break that little snot's nose. But, um, don't tell Tony about the ice cream."
Maria: "He's going to make me go to his old bording school, isn't he?"
Steve: "He went to an all boys school. I don't think you have to worry about it."
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Boy *goes pale*: "No, sir."
I adore this little bit :)
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and the ice cream ::hugs steve:: :D
re "and they will still not expel you"
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I love Avenger-Kitty!
"I've cleaned all the glass out of you," Tony said, addressing the metal boot in his hands. "Why are you still not working? What else is wrong with you?"
Oh Tony, how much I love you^^
"My armor's got four times the firepower of Tony's," he said, in a conversational tone. "If you hurt him, you'll get to experience it firsthand."
Yay Rhodey!
'I know where you sleep. James. P.S. Say hi to Steve and ask him why he has so many pansy-ass sweaters.'
I really like how the friends of Steve threaten Tony and vice-versa^^
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I love all the little protective threats from their friends! XD
Yay, War Machine!
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I'm writing fluff! Well, sortof. Fluffy for me. XP
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If he was hiding in a corner somewhere, using the Extremis to hold a Stark Enterprises teleconference, Steve was going to physically haul him back to their room and tie him to the bed.
Um. Ohgodpleaseyes? You know Tony likes it. You know we like it.
can I write it?
Evidently I want to write everything right now except a proper review. Um. Hi!
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There were times that Steve wondered exactly why Tony and Rhodey were friends, and then there were the times, like now, when he was reminded that they shared a deep and abiding love for things that went very fast, exploded, or both.
Oh god, I love them all so much. Put them back the way you found them, Quesada! Use as many Skrulls as you have to!
And I wanna see what happens with Thor! *wahwah*
These stories are like a refreshing splash of the good old days combined with everything modern Marvel has lately failed to accomplish. Thank you SO MUCH for writing them!
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thor and wanda and character driven stories! not fighting and annoying explosions 24/7.
I cannot wait for the resolution to this!
thanks again for the next wonderful installment!! <3 <3
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I am no good at giving in-depth reviews, so I will just say: I made embarrassing noises of glee when I found this story, and I really enjoyed the hell out of it. I cannot wait to see what comes next, and how you deal with Wanda's return to sanity and Thor's comeback, and you should both know that this series has become my happy place. Thank you for writing!
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I can't wait so see how you resolve things with Wanda, the the obvious influence being exerted over her freewill, and how Thor deals with the regrouped Avengers, and whatever Sif is up to, and, and, and-
Okay, obviously I could go on but then I'd never stop and I still have so much research to do on this fandom it's not funny. D:
Anyway, thank you both for another fantastic story.
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I can't wait. ^______^
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And you've brought back THOR. I love Thor. I love Tony and Thor. I've always thought of Tony as a sort of Thor fangirl (you know he is).
There has to be angsty fighting when you write about Thor coming back. There -has- to be. Gratuitous amounts. And bruises on Tony's neck (Thor#3!!). And then righteous!Steve not taking kindly to Thor's manhandling of Tony, and shit. Goes. Down.
Heh, anyway, LOVED this piece. Meant to review when it was posted (not 20 days later), whoops, but I just wanted to let you know how much I love this. All of it.
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But anyway, yes, I loved it, of course. :-) I'm having a hard time isolating the moment of awesome in my brain! It was just one long streak of awesome. *grins* I admit to wondering whether or not Bucky's note really did make a crack about Steve's sweaters, because I can see Bucky rolling his eyes at them. *g*
And the sparring! Sparring as foreplay! Mmmmmmmm. I love that.
But the Thor appearance at the end really does cap it all off. I'm now bouncing with terrible impatience to see how that confrontation goes. *bounces*
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Okay, now that *that's* out of the way, OMG I love this.
Over the last like four days I've read this, Redemption, and Readjustment, and I think that you have just become one of my very favorite authors in any fandom, and absolutely my favorite Cap/Tony author. You just have everybody's character *down*, and not one of them sounds off, or wrong. For this many characters that's incredible; but then you go on to have really good, involving *plots*. You made a deal with some major supernatural power didn't you?
I really, really hope you write more.
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*whines some more*
I love this verse so, so much. There are so many funny and wonderful moments that I'd end up just filling my comments with quotes. :X I especially love your handling of Thor, because as unpleasant the canon is, he has a right to be righteously. Pissed. Off. He's very in character in this and it works. And Wanda! Yaaaaay. And Tony's lack of self worth. Yaaaaay. Wait... well, yeah, I'm sadistic like that. Lol.
In a weird way this makes me sad, like how the What If? issue of what if Cap won the Civil War/what if Iron Man lost. I long, long, long for Cap and Tony's friendship again. Though, this gives me hope that in a couple of years after all this Skrull and Bucky-as-Cap business is through that he'll come back and there will be delicious "How long was I gone?" and Tonyangst. Lots of Tonyangst. Really, how can Marvel resist?
Thank you two for writing this. I love this fixit universe and it all reads perfectly in character and often the subplots are just as fascinating as Steve and Tony's. I'll be keeping my eye out if you ever decide to keep going. :)
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Oh, we very much plan to keep going; this 'verse is far too much fun to give up on easily . We may already have a sequel planned. Or two ;).
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The stories themselves are incredibly enthralling as well--I just spent the past few hours reading right through the whole series! And I enjoyed myself quite thoroughly. I loved it.
Thanks very much for writing, and I hope we get to read more in this 'verse.
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Sorry this whole universe that the two of you have created is fantastic and I love it all!!! But Don Blake!!! DOOON BLAAAKE!! I was so excited to see him there and then you end it! *sobs* I need more stories with him.
*cough* sorry
I really enjoyed all of this!! and I do hope you choose to continue it.
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And also. This was pure, unadulterated AWESOMENESS. ♥ You shall, and forevermore, have my heart.
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Anyway, tons of thanks for writing stories this amazing!! Be well