ext_34821 ([identity profile] seanchai.livejournal.com) wrote in [community profile] cap_ironman2008-08-02 07:20 pm
Entry tags:

Classic-verse 1.5 - Tony Stark - Murderer?

Title: Classic-verse 1.5 - Tony Stark - Murderer?
Authors: [livejournal.com profile] seanchai and [livejournal.com profile] elspethdixon
Rated: PG
Pairings: Hank/Jan. Eventually Steve/Tony.
Warnings: This fic is not quite so fluffy as the previous ones. The general PG-level rating is probably closer to PG-13 on this one. No slash yet, although hints are starting to show through.
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.
Author's Note: Plot blatantly stolen from Iron Man volume 1, issue #124-128. Yes, we're compressing timelines kind of a lot introducing this arc while the Heinrich Zemo storyline is still going on, but come on, you knew it was coming from the first moment Justin Hammer showed up.
Summary: The Avengers' trust in a team member and in their financial sponsor is tested when Iron Man is accused of murder.

As always, our thanks to [livejournal.com profile] tavella for the great beta job; this would be full of hideously embarrassing spelling errors if not for her.



Chapter One



Steve had told himself that he needed to move on, get over it, stop dwelling on things that would only upset him, that there was nothing he could do to change the past. When he was awake, he even believed it. Unfortunately, his subconscious hadn't gotten with the program yet, and all of the things he could mostly ignore during the day came creeping out at night.

He had been jerked out of sleep by yet another dream of the German airplane exploding. This time he'd woken just as he hit the water, Bucky's cries for help ringing in his ears, to find the clock reading 4:30 a.m. He wasn't sure if that was better or worse than the times he dreamed of being frozen, and woke to find himself tangled in the blankets, unable to get warm.

After lying in bed for another half hour, futilely trying to get back to sleep, he had surrendered to the inevitable and gotten up; he was normally out of bed by five-thirty anyway.

Maybe this time he'd be able to figure out how to work the ridiculously complicated coffee-maker. Iron Man, Hank, Jan, and Jarvis had all attempted to explain how to operate it, but there were so many damn buttons. The coffee-maker could do at least twelve different things, including possibly think for itself. It seemed excessive when all he wanted was a simple cup of coffee.

He was in luck; Tony Stark was in the kitchen. He'd certainly know how to work the coffee machine; he'd built the Iron Man armor, and the coffee-maker was at marginally less complicated.

Stark was wearing a crumpled white dress shirt, his collar unbuttoned and his tie draped over the back of the chair beside him. He was resting his chin on one hand, staring intently at a sheaf of papers he'd spread out on the table in front of him. From the look of him, Steve suspected that he hadn't actually been to bed yet.

Most people, after a night without sleep, looked worn and tired. Stark also looked worn and tired, but somehow managed to appear slightly debauched as well. Steve wondered if he'd actually been doing anything to merit that impression, or if it was simply an innate skill.

He stood there for a moment, surveying the table, trying to find a spot that was clear of papers. There was none.

Steve cleared his throat, and Stark looked up, blinking, looking slightly dazed.

"Good morning," Steve said. "I'm not interrupting you, am I?"

"Oh. Cap." Stark rubbed at his eyes with one hand, then started collecting his papers back into a single pile. "Let me just move this. I hadn't realized it was morning already."

"I get up early," Steve said, pulling out a chair and sitting down. "Army training."

Stark nodded, his attention already reclaimed by the papers.

After a minute, Steve got up again, and went over to the coffee-maker. It crouched on the countertop, a mass of black plastic and silver metal, its little red light blinking at him mockingly. Steve inspected the panel of buttons, more of them than the most complicated radio he'd ever used. He selected one, pressed it, and the machine began to make a hissing noise. He pressed several more buttons, all of which failed to make the hissing stop.

"Here." Stark elbowed him out of the way, moving to stand in front of the machine. He pushed a single button, and all was silent again. "You take your coffee black, right? With two spoonfuls of sugar?"

"Um, yes," Steve managed after a moment, once he'd overcome his surprise at the fact that Stark actually knew that. How did he know that? Steve had eaten breakfast with the other Avengers before, but never with Stark.

Only a couple of minutes later, Stark was presenting him with a cup of hot coffee fixed just the way Steve liked it. Steve took his coffee, and the two of them returned to the table, Steve resuming his seat in the cleared space opposite Stark.

"What are you reading?" Steve asked, nodding at the papers. He took a sip of his coffee, which was perfect.

"Everything I can about Carñelia. My bodyguard and I have a meeting with the Carñelian Ambassador early this afternoon, and I'm not as up to date as I should be on countries that maintain a policy of neutrality in global conflicts," he said, offering Steve a rueful smile. "Now that SI's branching out from weapons into medical and communications technology, Carñelia's interested in what we've got to offer them. They've got a lot of mineral resources, but they don't have the infrastructure to capitalize on them on their own," he went on, gesturing towards the papers with his silver pen. "They've seen the disaster Vespugia's made of their ecosystem with open pit mining and slash and burn logging, and they don't want to repeat their neighbors' mistakes."

"What exactly does your company do, other than not make land mines anymore?" Steve hated to ask and reveal his ignorance, but he'd been living in Stark's house for a month, and he still didn't really know.

Stark's lips twitched. "I just wish the stockholders were as interested in all the things we make that aren't weapons." He sighed, laying his pen down. "On my end, I mostly spend hours in meetings with men who used to work with my father and still think I'm twelve, the majority of whom still haven't forgiven me for the fifty-some points our stock dropped after I shut down weapons production."

"Oh," Steve said. He took another sip of his coffee. The mug had "Stark Industries" printed on its side, along with the corporate logo. "But what do you actually make?"

"We still have a lot of defense contracts, mostly aircraft systems work and targeting systems. And we make commercial communications technology and medical equipment. The same technology that I designed for the articulated joints in the armor turned out to be really useful in artificial limbs. It picks up on the electrical impulses in your muscles and nerves and translates them into movements, and we've managed to eliminate the lag time most of our competitors' technologies still suffer from."

Steve, listening to Stark's obvious enthusiasm, found himself smiling. It reminded him of Iron Man, right down the hand gestures Stark was now making to illustrate how his company's prosthetics worked. Iron Man had made similar hand gestures while explaining how the Avengers communications equipment worked.

It was easy to see why Iron Man and Stark were friends, and also obvious that they spent a lot of time around one another.

The thought brought home to him once again just how little he really knew about Iron Man. Stark had spent enough time around him for them to pick up one another's speech patterns, while Steve didn't even know Iron Man's real name. Steve glanced down at his coffee, his smile fading for a moment, then looked back up at Stark.

Stark ran a hand through his hair, leaving it even more disheveled than before, then shook his head. "That's not what's paying the bills, though," he went on. "Right now we're building something big for SHIELD. Technically it's classified, but if I can't tell Captain America about it, who can I tell?" He grinned. "It's a flying aircraft carrier."

A flying... "That was Nick's idea, wasn't it?"

Stark shook his head, still grinning. "No, the flying cars were Fury's idea. The Helicarrier is a group effort."

"Meaning you, Nick, and Dum-Dum?" Steve guessed. Flying cars? That sounded like something out of Buck Rogers. Just when he thought he'd adjusted to being in the future, he'd run into something else straight out of a comic book.

"Reed Richards from the Fantastic Four is helping, too. He's the one who figured out the math for the anti-matter units that power it. The flying cars were all mine, though."

Dr. Reed Richards, whom Hank regarded with something approaching awe, was a Nobel prize winning physicist whose entire family were apparently superheroes. The entire thing sounded a little odd to Steve; from what he'd heard, Richards had given them all superpowers by mistake. By going into space. That was the point at which Hank's explanation had stopped making sense.

Steve set his empty coffee down and got up to rummage through Jarvis's refrigerator. Stark was still talking.

"Their wheels double as rotor blades; they rotate sideways and provide lift and angled thrust..."

Steve listened with half an ear as he pulled eggs and milk out of the refrigerator and found a frying pan in one of the cupboards. "I'm making scrambled eggs," he interrupted. "Would you like any?"

"No," Stark said, a mildly horrified expression on his face. "I'm... not really a breakfast person." He stood, collecting an empty mug from a corner of the table, and poured himself what Steve suspected was by no means his first cup of coffee. He leaned back against the counter, mug cradled in one hand, and watched as Steve got down a bowl to beat the eggs in. "If you want to wait, I'm sure Jarvis will be making breakfast later."

"Yes," Steve agreed; he was already looking forward to another of Jarvis's breakfasts, "but I'm hungry now."

Stark watched as Steve poured the beaten egg and milk mixture into the pan, then sat down and resumed reading.

A few minutes later, the eggs were ready. Steve divided them between two plates, one for himself and one for Stark, and took them over to the table.

Stark didn't look up when Steve set his plate and a fork in font of him.

Steve sat down and began to eat his eggs, watching Stark as he continued to read. Early morning light was beginning to spill in through the kitchen windows, making the room feel cheerful and banishing the last shreds of his dreams.

Stark was playing idly with his pen while he read, absent-mindedly twirling it through his fingers. He had long, slender fingers, Steve noted. There was a shiny burn mark on left index finger; Iron Man had said that he was going to make the Mansion's new wrought iron gates personally. Steve wondered if he had already started, if that was where the burn had come from.

After a minute or so, Stark set down the pen and turned over a page. Then he reached out and, rather than picking up the pen again, picked up the fork. Then, apparently automatically, since he never once glanced up from his reading, he started to eat.

Steve smiled to himself and put his empty plate in the dishwasher. The he left the kitchen to go and get ready for morning run, feeling oddly satisfied and not quite knowing why.


***



The Carñelian Ambassador had specifically requested Iron Man's presence at the opening round of talks about a potential US-Carñelian trade agreement. Stark Industries was, of course, going to be playing a large role in this agreement, since there were tentative plans for a mine and refinery jointly owned and operated by SI and Industrias Nacionales, Carñelia's largest manufacturing company. Carñelia's economy had a strong socialist influence, and all of their heavy industry was owned by the government.

Which meant that Iron Man was there more as a walking advertisement for SI than anything else. Tony always felt a little silly when he was playing games for the media like this, like a walking billboard. And today was going an especially tricky masquerade, because Iron Man was going to be escorting the Carñelian Ambassador in and out of the building, while Tony Stark had to show up at the meeting as himself.

The plaza in front of the UN building was filled with cameramen and reporters, and of course, the usual complement of security people. Numerous cameras flashed as he walked toward the building, its smoothly reflective surface throwing the glare back at him.

There were a handful of protestors with signs denouncing the World Trade Organization, and a number of tourists and sightseers in the crowd as well, which made him feel even more like some exhibit on display. They must be here to catch a glimpse of the politicians and foreign dignitaries; Iron Man wasn't newsworthy unless he was fighting something.

"No!" he heard a child in the crowd wail piercingly. "Don't want to see the robot! I don't like the robot!"

Tony winced. Well that was a good omen; he was starting the meeting off by frightening small children.

He paused at the broad double doors and waited as the Ambassador's car approached.

The camera flashes increased exponentially as the car door opened and the ambassador climbed out. He was shorter than Tony, and somewhat heavyset, his dark hair going thin on top. Even from his station by the doors, Tony could see the man's cheerful smile. The bodyguard who accompanied him, nearly a head taller than Tony despite the extra height the armor leant him, didn't look as if he'd ever smiled in his life.

"Iron Man!" the ambassador called out, stepped forward with his hand outstretched. "It is a pleasure to meet you."

Tony shook his hand, careful not to grip it too hard, "I'm honored that you asked for me, Mr. Ambassador. I'm sure the boss would have been more than willing to come out and meet you himself."

"We have no superheroes in Carñelia, so this is very exciting for me." The ambassador hesitated for a moment, then offered Tony a slightly embarrassed smile, and produced a piece of paper and a pen from one of his suit pockets. "In fact, would you mind signing an autograph? For my niece."

"Of course," Tony said, taking the paper and pen. At least not all children were afraid of him. "What's your niece's name?"

"Ah," the ambassador looked somewhat more embarrassed. "Sergio," he muttered.

Inside the helmet, Tony grinned. "Sergio" as in "Sergio Larocca, Carñelian ambassador to the United States." "Right," he said, still smiling to himself, and signed the piece of paper "to Sergio."

Ambassador Larocca accepted the autographed paper back, folded it, and put it in his pocket with a pleased smile. "So, you are an ordinary man inside your suit, correct?"

"I'm just a guy in a tin suit, Ambassador," Tony agreed. "Mr. Stark's circuitry does all the real work." He ushered the ambassador through the doors, into the building's spacious lobby and away from the reporters.

"I must admit, since you first turned up on the international news last year, I've wondered what it would be like to wear such a suit."

"There's nothing like it in the world," Tony told him, dropping the corporate shill act for a moment in favor of honest enthusiasm. He'd always loved flying, and flying in the armor was even better. It was a no-holds-barred, total immersion kind of flying, one of the only times he was able to block everything else out and just enjoy something. "It's better than having your own private jet."

"It must be like being Superman."

"I guess so." Tony shrugged, the armor making a faint whirring sound as he did so. "I never really thought about that way." He'd always preferred Batman; Batman won by being smarter than his opponents, not by super-strength.

The two of them -- and the entourage of security people and aides -- reached the entrance to the conference room where the talks were being held, and Tony came to stop, gesturing at the door. "This is where I leave you," he said. "I had to get all kinds of special permission just to get this far into the UN building, what with all the weapons in my suit. The boss will be with you shortly."

"Ah." Ambassador Larocca nodded. "I had wondered about that. Will I be seeing you later? I had hoped to get some photos with you, for the newspapers back home."

Tony agreed that he would be available for photographs later, then quickly departed for the privacy of a secluded corner, where Iron Man could turn back into Tony Stark; thank God he'd been able to make the armor compact enough that it could be discreetly tucked away inside a briefcase.

The talks went surprisingly well, better than Tony had expected. Aside from Ambassador Larocca's momentary look of surprise upon meeting him, no one commented on the fact that Tony was at least a decade younger than anyone else in the room.

Carñelia was very enthusiastic about opening trade with the US, and was far more amenable to the conditions that State Department had insisted upon than Tony had dared to hope for. The ambassador countered with two conditions of his own; that Carñelia would own all the infrastructure for the NIC/SI mine and manufacturing plant, and that all operations would abide by Carñelia's strict environmental laws.

The stricter emissions laws were a plus, actually. Tony was almost certain that not only could he reduce the factory's greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption while still making a profit, but that he could actually save money by doing so. Then, when it came time to discuss making modification to SI main plant with the board of directors, he could wave the statistics in their faces.

Ambassador Larocca had also pushed for the US to join Carñelia's trade embargo against Vespugia. Tony -- and the various politicians in attendance -- had made noncommittal noises, but given that Nick Fury had cited Hammer Industry's connection with Vespugia as one of the reasons the other company had lost its contract with SHIELD, Tony foresaw a breakdown of US-Vespugian relations on the horizon anyway. Vespugia had recently signed a trade agreement of their own with Latveria, with didn't work in their favor in the eyes of most of the UN, even if Latveria was technically a member of the UN as well. Fury had hinted strongly that Hammer Industries-made adamantium was being funneled into Latveria via Vespugia.

Nothing had actually been signed yet, but everybody from Washington had looked pleased, so Tony could only assume that they had made progress.

Tony made his excuses as soon as they all had all had left the conference room, and ducked out of sight to change into Iron Man again. He met the ambassador at the front door.

"I think the photograph would be best outside," the photographer who had accompanied the Carñelian delegation said, hefting a massive, fancy digital camera. He had a heavier accent than the ambassador, and, refreshingly, looked only a little older than Tony. It made Tony feel slightly less like a kid playing dress-up amongst the real adults, something he was starting to get a little sick of, to be honest.

At least in the armor, no one could tell that he was twenty-four.

Tony and the ambassador obediently went outside, everyone else following them. They then had to undergo several minutes of being positioned to the photographer's satisfaction, with the portion of the row of flagpoles that included Carñelia's flag to the best advantage in the background.

"Now stand next to one another," the photographer directed. "And you, Iron Man, put your hand on his back. We want this to look friendly."

"Senor Guice is new," Ambassador Larocca whispered to Tony. "He joined us just before we left Carñelia. I've been assured that he's quite good."

Tony put his left gauntlet on Larocca's shoulder, angling his body slightly so that he appeared to be looking at Larocca, but was still facing the camera. "Well, at least I won't have to worry about whether or not I'm smiling or if I've got my eyes closed," Tony joked.

The ambassador laughed, and then the photographer held up his camera and said, "Smile, gentlemen."

As the flash went off, Tony felt his left hand vibrate, almost as if his repulsors were being fired. The ambassador staggered forward, and Tony grabbed at him to keep him from falling, and then his helmet was filled with the smell of burning flesh.

He hadn't turned his air filters on. Not for a publicity appearance.

People were screaming, all around him.

There was a perfect hole burned through the ambassador's chest, still smoking slightly, and an almost incongruous lack of blood. Everything had been cauterized, of course.

The ambassador's gigantic bodyguard snatched Larocca's body away from him, lowering him to the ground. Then he had his gun out, and aimed squarely at Tony. All the security officers had their guns aimed at Tony.

"You killed him!" the bodyguard yelled.

"No," Tony stuttered, taking a step back. "I-"

"You killed him!" someone else shouted.

He couldn't have. He hadn't fired the repulsor. He hadn't done anything. He hadn't--

"Grab him. Don't let him blast anyone else!"

He had to get away, away from Sergio's body, away from all of these people shouting at him. Away from everything.

Tony fired his boot jets, and was gone.


***



Law enforcement officers and reporters were practically laying siege to Stark Industries. This wasn't the first time something like that had had happened, but it was about the worst Happy had ever seen. Everyone wanted to get their hands on Iron Man, everyone wanted to talk to Tony Stark, and nobody had seen a scrap of the boss in half a hour.

Pepper had been handling the cops and the media so far, but she was starting to get desperate, and when Pepper got desperate, Happy was the one she took it out on. It didn't help that she had privately decided that the boss had gone missing because Iron Man had turned criminal and kidnapped him. Happy had tried to reassure her that that wasn't the case, but it wasn't like there was much he could say to that without giving away the boss's secret.

But her worrying had set Happy worrying. Obviously, the boss hadn't kidnapped himself, but there was no way he'd killed that ambassador guy either, which meant that somebody else must've done it, and maybe that somebody had gotten his hands on Tony.

It could have been the Chameleon, shape-shifted to make himself look like the armor. That was the best option, probably. If it wasn't him, then some bastard had taken the boss out and stolen his armor, and for all Happy knew, Tony might be tied up in a broom closet somewhere, completely helpless without his armor.

If that was so, Happy needed to find him before his batteries ran down, and that bum ticker of his stopped.

Pepper had finally sent Happy off with a flea in his ear and orders not to come back without the boss. He'd decided to make Tony's office his first stop, just in case the boss had left some kind of a clue there. If not, he was going to have to call the Avengers and ask them for help, and Happy was never entirely sure he trusted the Avengers, for all that he'd heard the boss sing Captain America's praises. He definitely didn't trust them to know to take care of Tony; they were as in the dark on Iron Man's true identity as anyone else, so who knew what they were thinking about him right now.

The office was empty, as Happy had expected, but the door to the boss's workroom in back was open a crack. Tony was super-paranoid about his armor, and that workroom was where he did his tinkering on it; you needed all kinds of passwords and finger-print clearances and other security mumbo-jumbo to get in there. There was no way the boss would ever just leave it open like that.

Happy nudged the door open and edged in sideways, to make a smaller target for anybody that might be waiting to jump on him, his right hand already bunched into a fist.

Nothing happened. The room was dark and, as far as Happy could see, empty.

He reached around behind him and flicked on the light switch.

The boss was huddled in a ball in the far corner of the lab, not moving. He was wearing the armor's red breastplate, and the right gauntlet; the rest of the armor was scattered around him on the floor, except for the left gauntlet, which was lying in the middle of the floor, a couple of feet away.

All right, so, it looked like the boss wasn't tied up in a broom closet somewhere after all, but Happy wasn't sure this was an improvement.

Happy went over and put a hand on the boss's shoulder. Tony jerked a little, and looked up at him, face blank. Something about his eyes made Happy guess that the boss wasn't really seeing him.

"There wasn't any blood," Tony said, voice a hoarse whisper. "He's dead, and there wasn't even any blood."

Happy crouched down in front of him, one hand still on his shoulder. "Look, Boss," he said, trying to make his voice gentle, "you know and I know that you didn't kill that guy." He had no idea what had actually happened, but he knew that much had to be true.

Tony shook his head, but Happy ignored that and pressed on; they didn't have time for the boss to fall apart right now. Happy needed to get him up and moving. He was always better when he was doing something. "Pep's out there on her own trying to keep the sharks away, but you gotta get out there and help. She can't hold them off forever. You're not going to let whoever did kill him get away with it, are ya?"

"No, you're right." Tony shook his head once, hard, as if trying to clear it. "I can't hide in here." He started to stand, and Happy grabbed him by the elbow and pulled him to his feet.

The boss pulled away from him immediately and began pacing back and forth, somehow managing to avoid stepping on or tripping over any of the pieces of armor on the floor. "You're right. Iron Man can't stay missing forever, or the authorities will never leave us alone. I've got to call Fury."

"You're not going to turn yourself in, are you, boss?" Happy blurted out, appalled at the idea. "You didn't do it!"

Tony winced, shaking his head again. "No, I can't turn myself in. The company would go to pieces. I'll turn a set of the armor over to SHIELD and tell them Iron Man left it with me, and that I don't know where he is."

"Fury's not going to like that," Happy observed glumly.

Tony smiled wryly, an expression with no real humor in it. "He'll like it even less when he figures out that the armor I'm going to give him is an old suit with all the essential circuitry stripped out, but it'll take SHIELD at least a day to figure that out and that'll give me time to start working on what happened."

Happy hadn't actually thought the boss would hand his real suit of armor over, but it was still good to hear it. And it was good to know he'd come up with some kind of a plan, but... "How are you gonna do that if Iron Man's stuck 'in hiding?'"

"What ever went wrong-" the boss broke off, looking down at the gauntlet he was still wearing, face closed. "Whatever went wrong, it had something to do with the armor." He pulled the gauntlet off, setting it gently on one of the workbenches, then reached for the fastenings on the breastplate. "I need to tear it down, go over it piece by piece to see what the problem is."

"And when you find out who was messing with it..." Someone must have sabotaged it; it was the only other explanation that made sense, now that Happy knew it hadn't been the Chameleon or something. The boss wasn't careless enough to make mistakes with his armor, not mistakes like that, anyway.

The boss gave him a smile that looked a little wobbly around the edges. "If I find out that someone sabotaged it," he said, "then I'll see to it that they're brought to justice."

Happy nodded, and took hold of the boss's arm, tugging him toward the door. "Good," he said. "Now come on. Pep's already looking for you, and you know how she hates being kept waiting."

"Thanks for coming to get me, Hap," the boss said, pulling away and straightening his shirt and tie. "Sorry I left you two in the lurch."

The two of them walked out into Tony's office, and Happy closed the door behind them, hearing the click of the locks reengaging. "Hey, no problem, boss." Neither of them was ever going to bring this up again, he knew, anymore then they'd ever talked about the times Happy had found the boss unconscious on the floor of his office and had to carry him into the workroom to get plugged in and recharged. "Just part of the job."


***



"This must all be some foul trick," Thor insisted forcefully, "meant to make us doubt our fellow Avenger. Or perhaps some villain was controlling him against his will."

Steve hoped that was true; he hated to contemplate the alternative. He tried to ignore the insistent voice of logic that pointed out that two Avengers being mind-controlled inside a month strained credulity.

"It must be some kind of mistake," Jan said, shaking her head. She was sitting on the couch, full size for once in deference to the gravity of the situation.

Without anyone mentioning it aloud, they had all unanimously decided not to discuss the situation in the conference room. It would have felt too much like passing judgment on Iron Man in his absence. As long as they were in the living room, they could at least keep the illusion that this was just a casual discussion.

"Whatever happened, it's going to be a disaster for Stark Industries," Jan went on. She paused for a moment, frowning thoughtfully. "Iron Man is Tony's friend, not just his bodyguard; he would never cause that much trouble for the company on purpose."

If one were willing to murder an innocent man in cold blood, causing trouble for one's employer's company probably wasn't much of a sticking point. Steve shifted his weight from one foot to the other, uncomfortably.

The rest of the team looked like they felt just as ill at ease as he did. Thor was standing with his arms folded across his chest, glowering as if already contemplating the punishment he would deal out to whomever had caused this mess. Jan's shoulders were slumped, her palms flat to the couch, fingers digging into the fabric. Hank, sitting on the couch across from her, was frowning, his chin resting on his uninjured hand. The splint had been removed from his right index finger, but his index and middle fingers were still bound together with tape to restrict movement; Steve suspected that all of the continued growing and shrinking might be causing it to heal more slowly than it otherwise might have.

"We have to consider the possibility that it was Tony Stark's mistake, not Iron Man's," Hank said gloomily. "There may be some design flaw in the armor, equipment failure instead of pilot error."

If that was the case, if it had been Stark's mistake, Iron Man was blameless. The fact that he was currently standing in Tony Stark's living room just made Steve feel like even more of a heel for hoping Hank was right.

No one had mentioned the worst possibility yet, at least, not outright. Steve sighed, and then said what he knew they were all thinking. "Or it might be exactly what it looked like, and Iron Man might have murdered the Carñelian ambassador, for some reason we don't know about."

The rest of the team was silent, staring at Steve mournfully. Well, Thor looked mournful. Hank and Jan looked... guilty?

Steve glanced back over his shoulder, and with a sinking stomach, beheld Tony Stark standing in the doorway.

He was wearing the same shirt he'd had on yesterday at breakfast, now wrinkled past repair, and he had clearly neither slept nor shaved since the last time Steve had seen him. His eyes were red, and there was a general air of brittle exhaustion about him. "Next you're going to suggest that maybe he was acting on my orders, right?"

Steve wished miserably that the floor would open up and swallow him, or maybe that he was back in France facing a German panzer brigade. For half a second, he contemplated lying and denying this, but Stark's feeling aside, it was a possibility that they needed to address. "Well, was he?" he asked.

Stark winced, looking away. Steve wasn't sure if that was a positive sign, or a negative one.

The suddenly leaden silence was broken by Jarvis, who swept into the room with his normal unflappable demeanor, as if they weren't all standing around trying to find a polite way to accuse his boss of murder.

"The... gentleman from SHIELD is here to see you, sir," he said, with a slight stress on the word 'gentleman' that implied that he thought Fury was anything but.

"Thanks, Jarvis," Stark said. "Tell him I'll be with him in a minute." He gave Jarvis a strained smile that was painful to look at. "I've asked Nick Fury to meet me here. I'm going to turn the armor over to him, so SHIELD can examine it," he explained to the rest of them.

That was when Steve registered the briefcase Stark was clutching in one hand, his grip so tight that his knuckles were a bloodless white. Presumably, it held the armor.

Steve hadn't thought it would fit into such a comparatively small container. He hadn't thought that Iron Man was able to take it off at all.

If he had been wrong about the armor serving as some sort of life-support system, what else might he have been wrong about?

Nick Fury was waiting in the front hallway, leaning against the wall, an unlit cigar dangling from the corner of his mouth. Unsurprisingly, Dum Dum Dugan was with him, as was a large blond man Steve didn't know, who was also wearing a SHIELD uniform.

Steve, Thor, Jan, and Hank had followed Stark in, though whether they were there for moral support or as an armed escort was anybody's guess.

"Where's your bodyguard, Stark?" Nick said, glancing lazily around the front hall in a way that Steve knew was not as casual as it looked. "I'm supposed to take him into custody."

"I don't know," Stark said, voice flat. "He's disappeared. He left me the armor to give to you." He held the briefcase out toward Nick. The blond agent stepped forward and took it.

He glanced down at the briefcase in mild surprise as Stark relinquished it, his arm sagging as he took its full weight. "This thing weighs a ton. What's in it?"

"The armor," Dum Dum told him, in a tone of voice that implied that the agent was not going to be getting a promotion any time soon. "That case isn't going to explode when he opens it to make sure you're not putting one over on us, is it?"

Stark shook his head. "That's the other briefcase." He attempted another smile, with even less success, and flexed the fingers of the hand that had been holding the briefcase, as if trying to work the stiffness out of them.

"Well now," Nick drawled. "So ya don't know where he is. That's mighty convenient."

Stark didn't acknowledge the insinuation, staring levelly at Nick. "We both want to know how this could have happened."

"As do we all," Thor rumbled. He was watching the three SHIELD agents closely, his arms folded across his chest in a way that managed to make him look even bigger than usual -- and he was already one of the few people Steve had to look up at.

Nick raised his good eyebrow at Thor. "I don't suppose the rest of ya know where Iron Man is?"

"No," Thor said, in tones that discouraged further inquiries. "We do not."

Hank opened his mouth as if about to speak, then shut it and looked down, starting to fiddle with the tape on his fingers.

If Steve were Nick, he would now be convinced that the Avengers knew exactly where Iron Man was, and were deliberately stonewalling him. As it was, if Steve hadn't known for a fact that none of the team knew, he would have been suspicious himself.

"I've been going over it all night," Stark said, nodding at the briefcase, "and I can't figure out what happened. Maybe your people will have better luck." He shook his head. "I don't know what went wrong," he went on, words picking up speed as he went. "None of the wires are corroded, none of the connections are broken, all of the electronic elements are working properly, the code is error free, all of the moving parts are fine -- there isn't even any metal fatigue in the joints." He punctuated this speech with short, sharp hand gestures, voice getting more and more emotional. "There isn't so much as an improperly threaded screw!" Stark threw up his hands, then let them fall, turning away and running a hand through his hair, eyes closing for a second. "I have no idea what I did wrong," he said softly.

Steve had never seen Stark this upset; his misery was too obviously raw to be faked. Was he upset because he believed what he said, that Iron Man was innocent and that the flaw was in the armor, and he was in some way responsible for a man's death, or was he upset because he knew Iron Man had betrayed him and committed murder but for some reason wasn't willing to turn him over to the authorities? Or maybe Stark was just a very, very good actor, and had orchestrated the whole thing himself, setting Steve's teammate up to take the fall for him. Or maybe they were in it together.

He didn't know what to think anymore, and the frustration made him want to grind his teeth. "Maybe there isn't anything wrong with the armor," he said, doing his best to keep his voice even.

Stark actually flinched. "This is my fault," he said, meeting Steve's eyes for the first time since he'd walked in on the Avengers' discussion. "I killed him," he went on, dully, "not Iron Man. I'm the one who screwed up."

"Believe me," Nick said dryly, "if I find out he was acting on your orders, I'll be back for you. Consider this your warning not to leave the country."

"Don't worry. I'm not going anywhere." Stark's shoulders were slumped now, his voice completely empty of animation, as if he'd run out of energy.

Jan stepped forward and laid a hand on Stark's arm. "SHIELD's going to have their best people working on it. Maybe one of them will be able to see something you couldn't." She cocked her head to one side, peering up at him, and wrinkled her nose. "Tony, have you actually slept in the past twenty-four hours? Or eaten anything?"

"No," Hank said promptly. Stark blinked at him, frowning, and he added, "What? I never take breaks when I'm working on something important. I bet he doesn't, either."

Stark rubbed at his face with one hand, and shook his head. "I haven't had time for that."

Maybe it really was the armor. Maybe Stark had been upset and tired enough to miss something.

The man Steve knew, the one he'd fought beside, the one he'd spent all those nights with, talking about everything and nothing, wouldn't have murdered an innocent man. The person who'd told Steve that he had been given a second chance and wanted to prove himself worthy of it by saving people, who'd confessed after Thor had been controlled by the Enchantress that the idea of being used as a weapon gave him the creeps ("The armor could have caused a lot of damage,"); that man would never have done this.

Steve turned to Nick. "If Iron Man shows up here, we'll contact you." He hoped Iron Man had the sense to stay far away. He didn't want to have to be the one to turn him in.

"You do that," Nick said, giving Steve a look that conveyed his doubt that the Avengers would do any such thing. Then he left, Dum Dum and subordinate in tow.

The door closed behind them, and for a long moment, no one spoke.

"There's nothing else you can do at this point," Steve told Stark. "Why don't you go get some rest?"

"You guys know this isn't what it looks like, right?" Stark asked, once again meeting Steve's eyes directly, as if the answer were too important to risk misreading Steve's expression when he gave it.

"We know this is not Iron Man's doing," Thor assured him, sounding almost offended that Stark could think otherwise. "The fault lies neither with your liegeman, nor with your armor. Some enemy who wishes you ill must have influenced him, as the Enchantress did to me. We know both of you are blameless."

Stark smiled at him, a real smile this time, though the tiredness did not leave his eyes. "Thanks, buddy. I'll tell old Shellhead you said that."

"If you see him," Hank put in.

Jan jabbed him in the side with an elbow; Steve wondered what that was about.

"Go rest, Mr. Stark," Steve said. "We'll call you if SHIELD tells us anything."

He just hoped that their next contact with SHIELD wasn't going to be request to help Nick take down Iron Man.

***






Chapter One * Chapter Two * Chapter Three

[identity profile] lilpocketninja.livejournal.com 2008-08-03 12:27 am (UTC)(link)
SO. MUCH. SILVER AGE GOODNESS. *dies*

After a minute, Steve got up again, and went over to the coffee-maker. It crouched on the countertop, a mass of black plastic and silver metal, its little red light blinking at him mockingly.
Captain America's true nemesis: the coffee-maker!

It reminded him of Iron Man, right down the hand gestures Stark was now making to illustrate how his company's prosthetics worked. Iron Man had made similar hand gestures while explaining how the Avengers communications equipment worked.

It was easy to see why Iron Man and Stark were friends, and also obvious that they spent a lot of time around one another.


How thick can he beeeeee? Steve, you lummox!

Then he left the kitchen to go and get ready for morning run, feeling oddly satisfied and not quite knowing why.

Love the slow way this romance is building. Love love love.

He'd always preferred Batman; Batman won by being smarter than his opponents, not by super-strength.
Of course Tony prefers Batman. Of course. <3

and Happy was never entirely sure he trusted the Avengers,
Why doesn't Happy trust the Avengers?


The boss was huddled in a ball in the far corner of the lab, not moving. He was wearing the armor's red breastplate, and the right gauntlet; the rest of the armor was scattered around him on the floor, except for the left gauntlet, which was lying in the middle of the floor, a couple of feet away.

Guh. Must... draw...

the whole scene with the avengers
You guys just love beating up Tony, don't ya? Not that I mind...

Anyhow, at this point I think I suspect the camera man, possibly being directed by Justin Hammer.

[identity profile] elspethdixon.livejournal.com 2008-08-19 12:15 am (UTC)(link)
SO. MUCH. SILVER AGE GOODNESS. *dies*

The Silver Age is an age of happy, cracky glory.

Love the slow way this romance is building. Love love love.

Thanks! We're trying to slowly increase the slashiness levels as time goes by, until we finally get to the openly shippy parts.

Of course Tony prefers Batman. Of course. <3

Batman manages to be one of the heavy hitter of the Justice League despite have no super-powers other than money and obsessiveness - there's probably a little identification there (plus, mini!Tony probably wanted a utility belt and his own Batmobile desperately, to the point of drawing designs for them).

Why doesn't Happy trust the Avengers?

Happy thinks Tony needs to be protected from all the numerous unscrupulous people out there who are probably out to take advantage of him - kind of like a big brother (he kind of resents Iron Man at first in the early comics because protecting Tony is supposed to be his job, so what does Tony need a bodyguard for? Then he and Pepper decide Iron Man clearly has some creepy, sinister hold over Tony and that they need to save Tony from him. This is, obviously, before they figure out Iron Man is Tony).

You guys just love beating up Tony, don't ya? Not that I mind...

*laughs* I don't know about [livejournal.com profile] seanchai, but I think that's my favorite scene in the whole fic. I can see Tony huddled in the corner so clearly in my head - possibly because we may have stolen it from Execute Program (though I seem to recall us getting into a painful argument about some minor dialogue detail or other - or maybe it was a detail in the Tony pov brooding scene in part two).

Anyhow, at this point I think I suspect the camera man, possibly being directed by Justin Hammer.

I guess we weren't that subtle, were we?

[identity profile] mercy-slays.livejournal.com 2008-08-03 12:28 am (UTC)(link)
Yay~ And OH NO! Tony! -huggles Tony- It wasn't your fault! Someone... manipulated you! D=

-snickers at Hank- Oh Hank. You know but don't know and you don't know what to do and you almost slipped in telling everyone your assumption of Tony is Iron Man.

Yay for Reed mention. =)

[identity profile] elspethdixon.livejournal.com 2008-08-19 12:19 am (UTC)(link)
Yay~ And OH NO! Tony! -huggles Tony- It wasn't your fault! Someone... manipulated you! D=

Tony will be vindicated eventually, after sufficienrt angsting. *grins*

-snickers at Hank- Oh Hank. You know but don't know and you don't know what to do and you almost slipped in telling everyone your assumption of Tony is Iron Man.

The identity pr0n secrets are getting difficult for everyone to keep straight. They're also one of the most fun parts of this whole thing to do, so we're glad people arestill amused by them after something like 80 pages.

bradygirl_12: (bruce (shirt))

[personal profile] bradygirl_12 2008-08-03 03:57 am (UTC)(link)
Excellent!

Yes, of course Tony is more 'into' Batman. Fellow billionaires and all. ;)

Ah ha, so Jan and Hank suspect!

And Steve is adorably clueless, but I bet he'll be a staunch backer down the line.

Thor is just fantastic!

Loved Happy in this, too.

[identity profile] elspethdixon.livejournal.com 2008-08-19 12:25 am (UTC)(link)
Yes, of course Tony is more 'into' Batman. Fellow billionaires and all. ;)

Plus, Batman always has the coolest tech in the DCU (with the possible exception of Lex, but Tony probably tries very hard not to compare himself to Lex Luthor).

Ah ha, so Jan and Hank suspect!

There's actually a gen/het ficlet in the series where the two of them figure it out/reveal to one another that they know, but it's only up on the site -- we never posted it here because it's not slash and I've lost the link to it on marvel_fic.

And Steve is adorably clueless, but I bet he'll be a staunch backer down the line.

Steve is one of the handful of people who always believe in Tony, or at least, he always wants to. It's one of the reasons (I think) that he was so angry/hurt by Tony siding with Registration in CW.

Thor is just fantastic!

Thor believes in loyalty to his teammates! Alo, he's very sympathetic to the whole "they mind-controlled me and made me do it" concept after the Enchantress did her number on him.

Loved Happy in this, too.

Yay! Happy's inclusion was a bit of pure Tales of Suspense Iron Man fangirling on our part, because we love him.
(deleted comment)

[identity profile] elspethdixon.livejournal.com 2008-08-19 12:29 am (UTC)(link)
*icon twins*

I have a feeling Jan and Hank might know that Tony and Iron Man are the same person.

Yep, they know. *points at mention of Hank/Jan tie-in ficlet above* Hank knew Tony Stark from the scientific community before the team formed, and Jan and Tony grew up in the same social circles, so they had some extra background knowledge on him that Steve & Thor don't.

And I loved the subtle slash-- the mirroring of Steve looking at Tony/Iron Man's hands.

Yay! Someone noticed! We were worried that detail might be small enough to slip past readers.

And I LOOOOVE Thor's loyalty. It's so endearing. :]

Thor is always endearing. I have an Old Norse Thor's hammer necklace that I got for my birthday, and it somehow manages to be cute, too, despite being heavily stylized and made out of metal.

[identity profile] johanirae.livejournal.com 2008-08-03 05:30 am (UTC)(link)
Argh, I can't wait to see what happens next~!!! :O The morning moment with Steve and Tony was quite cute :D

[identity profile] elspethdixon.livejournal.com 2008-08-19 12:31 am (UTC)(link)
Of course, I'm reply (as usual) late enough that the fic is already all posted.

The morning moment with Steve and Tony was quite cute :

Thanks! We're glad you liked it (especially since it was at least partly written to satisfy our domestiticy kink).

[identity profile] demon-faith.livejournal.com 2008-08-03 11:27 am (UTC)(link)
Oh, boys! REALLY!

Steve wondered if he'd actually been doing anything to merit that impression, or if it was simply an innate skill.

I love that Tony always looks a little debauched. It's just perfect, and is clearly Steve projecting his own thoughts about debauching Tony. ;)

It reminded him of Iron Man, right down the hand gestures Stark was now making to illustrate how his company's prosthetics worked.

STEVE! BUY A CLUE!

The entire thing sounded a little odd to Steve; from what he'd heard, Richards had given them all superpowers by mistake. By going into space. That was the point at which Hank's explanation had stopped making sense.

*snort* More people should ridicule comics origins.

Steve is SO BLIND! I'm glad Hank and Jan have worked it out, at least, but Tony needs to trust Steve RIGHT NOW!

Brilliant, as always. Waiting impatiently on more!

[identity profile] elspethdixon.livejournal.com 2008-08-19 12:37 am (UTC)(link)
I love that Tony always looks a little debauched. It's just perfect, and is clearly Steve projecting his own thoughts about debauching Tony. ;)

Tony's reputation works against him there ^_~. If you see, say, Peter Parker with rumpled clothes and tousled hair and heavy-lidded eyes, you think he's obviously either stayed up all night working on something or slept in his clothes and just gotten up. But Tony Stark, billionaire playboy... he's obviously just rolled out of somebody else's bed (after doing anything but sleep) and put on yesterday's clothing before coming back to the mansion for breakfast with the smell of some woman's perfume still on him. Not that Steve's envious of said woman or anything.

STEVE! BUY A CLUE!

But if he did, the identity pr0n would have to end!

Steve is SO BLIND! I'm glad Hank and Jan have worked it out, at least, but Tony needs to trust Steve RIGHT NOW!

Alas, trust and Tony are not alway concepts that go together well ^_^.

liliaeth: (Default)

[personal profile] liliaeth 2008-08-03 05:22 pm (UTC)(link)
I just love your versions of Steve and Tony :-)

[identity profile] elspethdixon.livejournal.com 2008-08-19 12:37 am (UTC)(link)
Thanks so much!

[identity profile] crimsonquills.livejournal.com 2008-08-03 06:24 pm (UTC)(link)
*fails* It stopped! Need more! Mooooore. Especially since I'm absolutely on tenterhooks waiting for the "Steve trains Tony Stark in hand to hand combat" scene that is a part of this storyline. *g*

The identity porn continues to be awesome, and I love Hank being all confused about what to do about the fact that he's pretty sure he knows exactly where Iron Man is. *g* Poor Steve is a bit out of the loop at this point!

I felt so bad for both Steve and Tony when Tony walked in on Steve speculating about what if it was Iron Man who killed the ambassador. He doesn't really believe it, but he has to consider the possibility (any decent tactician would), but Tony doesn't know that. :-( :-(

My favorite moment, though, has to be Steve deriving such satisfaction from feeding Tony. :-D I loved it. Steve is such a caretaker. *hugs him*

[identity profile] elspethdixon.livejournal.com 2008-08-19 12:43 am (UTC)(link)
I'm absolutely on tenterhooks waiting for the "Steve trains Tony Stark in hand to hand combat" scene that is a part of this storyline. *g*

So were we, apparently -- that scene is the single longest scene in Classic-verse thus far (with the possible exception of the "Steve finally confronts Zemo" scene in the currently-in-progress fic). We had to make sure we did proper justice to it, though -- it's a classic.

The identity porn continues to be awesome, and I love Hank being all confused about what to do about the fact that he's pretty sure he knows exactly where Iron Man is. *g* Poor Steve is a bit out of the loop at this point!

Subterfuge does not come naturally to Hank. *grins* The identity pr0n is totally half the reason this verse exists (the other half being because Ultimates needed a fixit almost as badly as CW).

I felt so bad for both Steve and Tony when Tony walked in on Steve speculating about what if it was Iron Man who killed the ambassador. He doesn't really believe it, but he has to consider the possibility (any decent tactician would), but Tony doesn't know that. :-( :-(

No, Tony (of course) thinks that Steve suspects either Tony Stark or Iron Man (or both) of being a cold-blooded killer. Because it's a longstanding fictional tradition that people always walk in on conversations about themselves at the worst possible moment.

My favorite moment, though, has to be Steve deriving such satisfaction from feeding Tony. :-D I loved it. Steve is such a caretaker. *hugs him*

Domesticity kink FTW!
bradygirl_12: (captain america sunburst)

[personal profile] bradygirl_12 2008-08-19 01:21 am (UTC)(link)
So were we, apparently -- that scene is the single longest scene in Classic-verse thus far (with the possible exception of the "Steve finally confronts Zemo" scene in the currently-in-progress fic).

I think the word 'heartwrenching' is going to describe the Zemo scene. :(

[identity profile] crimsonquills.livejournal.com 2008-08-20 05:24 pm (UTC)(link)
the other half being because Ultimates needed a fixit almost as badly as CW

*blinks* You know, I think it says a lot about Ultimates that it didn't even occur to me that this could be considered a fixit for Ultimates. I mean, yeah, technically Ultimates is a modern update of the Avengers, but it doesn't feel like that. (Rather, Ultimates feels like a bastardization of the universe, and I thank goodness every day that it's firmly established as a totally different reality.)

True modern update for the win! \o/

[identity profile] elspethdixon.livejournal.com 2008-08-21 12:10 am (UTC)(link)
My personal mental "advertising tagline" for this storyline is "Classicverse: because Ultimates sucked." However, since there are a tiny handful of people out there who inexplicably like Ultimates, I get a feeling it would be an impolitic kind of thing to, say, put on a icon and use every time I posted about the 'verse (though I've contemplated making a Mullet-verse-style "I reject Marvel's reality and substitute my own" Icon to use for Resurrection-verse).

The original genesis of the AU was the two of us talking about how much we wished Marvel had done a Bruce Timm/Paul Dini-style Toonverse instead of Ultimates for their modern continuity reboot -- because Toonverse is also sort of a simplified reboot for DCU canon, except that instead being a bastardization of the canon, it's the kind of the distilled essence of the good parts of the DCU, with all the bad stuff taken out. That's why the fics are numbered 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, etc., like a tv series' episodes.

[identity profile] crimsonquills.livejournal.com 2008-08-24 06:34 pm (UTC)(link)
My personal mental "advertising tagline" for this storyline is "Classicverse: because Ultimates sucked."

*laughing* Awesome. *g*

However, since there are a tiny handful of people out there who inexplicably like Ultimates, I get a feeling it would be an impolitic kind of thing to, say, put on a icon and use every time I posted about the 'verse

Diplomacy is the wise route, alas. At least there are only a handful of Ultimates fans in the Steve/Tony fandom, though. I'm aware that the universe is, in the general sense, very, very popular. I keep having to remind myself that my opinion is not, in fact, the majority opinion. I don't understand why the general public likes thing that are depressing and painful and morally or emotionally ugly, but they do. *sighs*

(though I've contemplated making a Mullet-verse-style "I reject Marvel's reality and substitute my own" Icon to use for Resurrection-verse).

That one you should totally make. *g* Even if there are folks out there who like the current reality, I'm certain that all comics fans have been forced to exist in a state of denial at one point or another in their favored title's history. If nothing else, there was the 90's. *g*

The original genesis of the AU was the two of us talking about how much we wished Marvel had done a Bruce Timm/Paul Dini-style Toonverse instead of Ultimates for their modern continuity reboot

*wistful* Oh, that would have been awesome. *cuddles Classic!Verse* I'm really glad you guys are writing it for us! :-)

[identity profile] runenklinge.livejournal.com 2008-08-03 07:09 pm (UTC)(link)
Wow! Simply...wow!

Unsuspecting Steve...when will he finally notice?
or do we get Molecular Man action? (which would be....32 flavors of awesome)

The Happy-interaction was great, I´d love to see more of him

[identity profile] elspethdixon.livejournal.com 2008-08-19 12:46 am (UTC)(link)
Thanks so much for the review!

Unsuspecting Steve...when will he finally notice?
or do we get Molecular Man action? (which would be....32 flavors of awesome)


Alas, no red thong in this verse (which is why I had to do the thong ficlet for my alphabet prompt, to make up for it). Hopeful the identity reveal we've got planned instead will still be fun/good (though probably nothing could beat the glorious crack of naked Iron Man in a thong).

The Happy-interaction was great, I´d love to see more of him

Happy was a completely gratuitous inclusion because we like him. And because we sadly can't use him anywhere in Resurrection-verse.

[identity profile] axolotl-lan.livejournal.com 2008-08-04 01:23 am (UTC)(link)
Yay! Classic verse! Oh Steve coffee makers are the evil.
Nick Fury was behind the heli-carrier- nope group effort and even reed <3 Steve making the eggs and even after the no leaving them there for Tony when tony had said no. Poor ambassador I'd liked him. You made him all personable so Tony and us would especially regret his death didn't you?

Love this chapter and hopefully Poor Tony figures this all out soon. Great chapter!

[identity profile] elspethdixon.livejournal.com 2008-08-19 12:48 am (UTC)(link)
Yay! We're glad you liked!

Poor ambassador I'd liked him. You made him all personable so Tony and us would especially regret his death didn't you?

The comics did it for us, actually -- that bit where he asks for Iron Man's autograph comes straight from Iron Man #124. It's good to know we succeeded in imitating the,, though ^_^.

[identity profile] elspethdixon.livejournal.com 2008-08-19 12:48 am (UTC)(link)
Them. In imitating them.