ext_34821 ([identity profile] seanchai.livejournal.com) wrote in [community profile] cap_ironman2008-11-01 01:19 am

When The Lights Go On Again 1/19

Title: When the Lights Go On Again 1/19
Authors: [livejournal.com profile] seanchai and [livejournal.com profile] elspethdixon
Rated: PG-13
Pairings: Steve/Tony, Hank/Jan, Carol/Wanda
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: Aliens have invaded earth, and the Avengers are scattered. While Steve leads the resistance, Tony once again finds himself playing captive scientist. In the midst of a violent alien regime, separated by seemingly insurmountable boundaries, Steve and Tony have nothing to keep themselves going but each other.
Author's Note:The point in volume three that we're branching off from was originally published around '98-'99, but since Marvel time runs at a slower speed than real world time, early volume three is probably four or so years ago in canon time. Hence 2004 and troops in Iraq. Also, just a heads up; this fic is really, really long. Like, over two hundred pages long. We'll start by posting every other week, though we may move to posting once a week, eventually.
A/N 2: Wow, this holiday has brought out the angst in people. Anyone else ready for some fluff?

X-posted to Marvel Slash.

Thanks to [livejournal.com profile] dallin_dae and [livejournal.com profile] tavella for helping us shape this into something that's hopefully good.


When the Lights Go On Again




Excerpt from an unfinished article by Ben Urich, originally intended for publication in the (never published) September 22nd edition of the Daily Bugle:

The American military is swiftly being overwhelmed by the massive weight of airborne attacks that were launched against seven of our world's major cities yesterday. Spread thin across the mountains of Afghanistan and deserts of Iraq, the bulk of the army's forces are stranded thousands of miles away from the crisis zones, while U.S. Air Force fighters have been heavily outclassed by the alien assault craft. Tokyo and London have already fallen to invading forces, and sources in the Kremlin say that unless outside aid arrives, the Russian defenses around Moscow are only hours away from being breached.

The President and several key members of his cabinet have been evacuated from Washington D.C. and flown to an undisclosed location in the nation's interior. The Pentagon could not be reached for comment, but is presumably also planning an evacuation.

New York City has been especially hard hit today, with fighting between Army and National Guard units and alien invaders ongoing in the streets of Manhattan. Even with assistance from the NYPD and the Avengers, alien forces appear to be winning. From the top floor windows of the Daily Bugle's offices, one can see no fewer than half a dozen fires burning in surrounding buildings, while overworked fire fighters struggle to extinguish the flames.

Smoke and ash fills the air, suffocatingly reminiscent of just a few short years ago, when the aftermath of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center filled the city's skies with ash for weeks. This time, the debris comes from far more than two buildings.

Communications for the entire metropolitan area have been down for several hours; there is no information on when -- or if -- they will resume.

The alien force is clearly massive in size and scope. The last reports received had attacks occurring simultaneously in New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Seattle, London, Paris, Doomstadt, Tokyo, Beijing, Moscow, and Wakanda. The aliens' objectives, whatever they might be, are still unknown, leading to much frightened speculation among New Yorkers.

The centers of government and major cities of the world's military superpowers have been the main focus of alien attacks, but alien forces have also launched attacks against major centers of the world's scientific community, including major universities in Tokyo and California, military testing centers, and the central facility of military contractor and communications giant Stark Solutions.

New York City's Empire University was the subject of an alien raid early this morning that took much of the engineering and physics faculty hostage, and in downtown Manhattan, the top floors of the Baxter Building are completely ringed by alien aircraft, trapping the Fantastic Four inside...


***


You could see Seattle burning on the horizon, thick, dark smoke under-lit by an eerie, reddish glow. Tony's house was a good five miles outside of town, but he could smell the smoke in the air.

It would take just under a minute to fly there in the armor, but that was assuming Tony was capable of making it all the way there without passing out. Stark Solution's labs and offices were probably already on fire -- they were one of the largest military-related targets in the Seattle area, second only to Boeing's corporate headquarters.

It was possible that the aliens had bombed the city with the specific goal of destroying them, which laid all of that destruction on Tony's shoulders.

"Pepper, I don't have a choice," he protested again. "People are dying. I have to help."

Pepper was glaring at him, arms folded across her chest. "And who's going to help you when you pass out cold and fall out of the sky again? Look at you -- you can't even stay on your feet without holding onto the furniture for support." She looked pointedly at Tony's hands, which he'd wrapped around the back of a chair in order to keep himself upright. "They're killing people, Tony. If you go back out there, they'll kill you. We need to get out of here and find somewhere safe, somewhere they won't find us."

Once he was inside the armor, the fact that his legs didn't seem to want to hold him up wouldn't matter. The armor could compensate for a wide variety of weaknesses, including the still-unhealed damage from the repeated beatings he'd taken lately.

The last two weeks had been one long gauntlet of physical misery, starting with the group of hired thugs who'd ambushed him in an alley, continuing merrily through a showdown between the Avengers and a group of zombies in Central Park and a desperate fight against the Mandarin that had nearly killed Tony and had hopefully cost the Mandarin his life, and culminating in an ill-fated attempt to stop a saboteur posing as War Machine from destroying a block of downtown Seattle.

He was supposed to be resting right now, letting the broken ribs and assorted other blunt-trauma injuries heal, but that was before the dozens of alien spaceships had materialized just outside of Earth's orbit and started attacking everything in sight.

People were dying. The National Guard troops the governor had sent into Seattle were being slaughtered, and the F-16s from McChord had been shot down in minutes. He couldn't just sit here doing nothing.

His first attempt to try and help had been useless -- he'd wasn't even sure what he'd been trying to do, on his own against three alien fighter craft. Provide a distraction? Buy the guys in the Falcons some time to escape? Be the air support for the guardsmen that the Air Force had never been able to send?

Whatever his goals, it hadn't mattered - the EMP blast that had taken out all the electronics in the bay area had killed half the internal systems in his armor before throwing him a quarter of a mile. He'd woken up an hour later to the smell of smoke from the city he hadn't been able to save, and nursed his barely functional armor home, intending to swap it for a back-up suit.

It should have been simple - fifteen minutes to extricate himself from the warped, fused-together metal of the old suit, five minutes to re-tape his ribs and knee, and a matter of moments to get into the new suit.

As long as he could keep from blacking out from the strain of the g-forces when he maneuvered at high speeds, he'd be fine. He'd been fine the other day in the fight with Carol until he'd had to pull up out of the steep dive, and he'd held it together during the Avengers' fight in Central Park until that one big guy had hit him in the wrong spot.

He'd already explained all of this to Pepper, loudly and at length. She hadn't looked impressed. When Pepper got scared, she got angry, and while the aliens weren't here for her to focus her ire on -- yet -- Tony was, and he was apparently an acceptable substitute.

"Boss," Happy said, "I think you should sit down." The 'before you fall down' part was left unsaid, but Tony heard it anyway.

"I'm fine," he snapped, pointedly letting go of the chair. He straightened, forcing himself not to wince as the movement pulled at his broken ribs, and locked his knees. With luck, the intermittent waves of dizziness that had been plaguing him for the past couple of days would hold off until he'd gotten through this conversation and was safely in the armor.

"Tony," Jocasta's voice broke in on Tony's attempts to look like he hadn't been beaten literally within an inch of his life just over a week ago. "Several of the alien craft are approaching. At their present rate of speed, they will reach the house in less than twenty minutes." The silver, mask-like face that Jocasta used as her avatar materialized on the main monitor screen. His lab-slash-workroom was full of LED screens of all sizes and configurations, but Jocasta preferred to appear on the largest one, the three foot by four foot screen Tony used for conference calls with the Avengers and computer-assisted drafting (his employees had always been irritatingly insistent on having blueprints and exploded drawings to work from, not just lists of design specs). She claimed the large screen made her feel powerful.

"How many alien craft are we talking about?" Tony asked. He had known they'd come looking for him -- he was probably the third biggest target in the Seattle-Tacoma area, his strategic value surpassed only by McChord Air Force Base and Boeing Aviation. No one else around here had actually fought aliens. No one else had his kind of tech, or his level of weaponry.

He had known they would come looking for him, but he'd expected to have more time. And he'd expected to be in the armor and halfway to Seattle by now, which would have removed the alien's main reason for wanting to attack the house and bought Pepper and Happy some time to escape.

Jocasta was part of the computer mainframe. Jocasta couldn't leave.

"Sixteen of them. Four of them are troop carriers, and the rest are fighter and assault aircraft."

Which meant at least twelve craft with onboard weapons systems, not to mention dozens of alien soldiers.

"Get out of the house," Tony ordered. "Both of you." Pepper and Happy both drew breath to protest, but Tony didn't give them the opportunity. "I'll try to hold them off until you're clear. Jocasta, what the hell did they do to the lock on my armor cabinet?"

"Neither of them did anything," she said informed him coolly. "I changed the pass-codes after the first time you ignored the doctor's order to rest."

"Well, change them back!" Tony rounded on her, sudden anger making his skin feel too tight. A military force of unknown origin was burning half the world's major cities to the ground, and was coming to storm his home and either capture or kill him and anyone else
who happened to get in their way. The Avengers' communications channel had been down for hours, leaving him with no way to call for help and no idea whether the other Avengers were even still alive. And people kept wanting him to "sit down," and "remember what kind of condition he was in." "Get me access to my armor now or you'll be looking for a new hard-drive to call home after I smash this one." He slammed his hand down on top of the digital drafting board for emphasis, and the impact sent a stab of pain through his ribs. Sound went hollow and distant for a second, and the edges of his vision went grey.

"Boss." Happy laid one hand on Tony's arm -- well, technically, he put a hand under Tony's elbow and steadied him, not quite holding him up, but coming close to it, but Tony was fine and didn't need Happy or anyone else to help keep him upright, so it was a meaningless gesture.

"I'll be fine once I'm in the armor," Tony started.

"You're right that someone's gotta do something," Happy was saying, completely ignoring Tony's attempt to tug his arm free. "They're-- they're everywhere, boss. And they're destroying the city." He drew a deep breath, and underneath his usual glum expression, Tony could tell that he was scared. "I've worn the armor before. I can't do anything fancy in it, nothing like you, but I could--"

Tony cut him off before he could finish. "It's a lot more complicated now. You wouldn't be able to operate it." He shook his head, trying to shake off the dizziness. "You and Pepper need to get out," he repeated. Every minute they spent standing here arguing, the aliens grew closer and the window left for their escape grew smaller. "I'm probably the one they want, which means that if I go with you, they'll just come after us, and we don't have anything here that can outrun their aircraft."

"You always have to play the hero, don't you?" Pepper's eyes were narrowed, her voice harsh. "If you think we're going to let you nobly martyr yourself-"

Surprisingly, it was Jocasta who came to his defense. "He can't let them seize control of the house. There's too much sensitive information and machinery in here."

Tony had always known there was a reason he liked her. "There's enough information on the Avengers alone in my computer system to give them complete access to everything in the mansion." If the mansion was still standing.

"There's also the Ultron protocols." Jocasta's "face" was as expressionless as always, but her voice was more serious than usual. "If they got ahold of those, the results could be disastrous. The house has to be destroyed."

"No it doesn't," Tony shook his head, the movement causing the ache behind his eyes to flare up again. "I can draw them away from here, I'm the one they want-"

"Yes it does. They can't be allowed to have access to my programming." She sounded even more grave now, determined. There was a whirring sound from across the room, then a click, and the doors to the cabinet where the armor was being stored slid open. "Take the armor and go. It needs to stay out of their hands, too. I can wipe myself from the mainframe-"

"No one in this house is killing themselves!" Pepper shouted, stamping her foot.

"No," Tony said, the anger gone as abruptly as it had come, "she's right." Jocasta was right. He couldn't let the armor fall into the aliens' hands, couldn't afford to let any of his tech be compromised.

He'd seen what happened when the wrong people got their hands on what he'd built, and anyone who had caused that cloud of smoke on the horizon was definitely the wrong people.

"How much longer 'til they get here?" he asked Jocasta, suddenly glad that Happy was still holding him by the arm. When the anger had gone, his energy had gone with it, and his legs were starting to feel wobbly.

Pepper was right. He wasn't going to be able to pilot the armor. Not without getting swatted out of the sky and captured within minutes.

He wasn't going to be able to run, either. The aliens were after him specifically. They had attacked his business, they were about to attack his house, they probably knew his name; if he tried to escape with the others, chances were they would follow him. But maybe there was still something he could do.

"Sixteen minutes and twelve seconds," Jocasta announced grimly.

"Damn," Tony muttered. That wasn't enough time to download all of Jocasta's memories from the mainframe, but he ought to be able to download her operating parameters and at least a handful of the most important memory files. "There's an external hard drive under that table over there," he told Pepper, nodding at it. "Go get it and plug it in to the main server."

She stared at him blankly. "Tony, we don't have time for this. They'll be here any minute." She was doing it anyway, though. He could hear the strain in her voice, and her movements as she connected the cable were sharp and jerky. "We're leaving," she went on, "and you're coming with us."

"No," Tony said. "I'm not. It's the only way I can be sure you three will get away."

"Two," Happy corrected him. He was staring at Jocasta's blank, silver face with an even more mournful expression than he usually wore.

"Three." Tony hit the final set of keystrokes necessary to initiate the download, and nodded at the external again. "Take that with you when you leave, and give it to Hank Pym. He'll be able to reconstruct Jocasta from it." She wouldn't be entirely the same, just the way Vision hadn't been entirely the same after Hank had rebuilt him from scratch, but the core of what made Jocasta herself would still be there -- the Ultron protocols overlaid with Jan's brain patterns.

He took a deep breath. "Take the armor, too. Don't let them get their hands on it. Give it-- Find Rhodey and give it to him. Tell him, when his armor gets damaged fighting these things, he can cannibalize mine for spare parts."

"Boss..." Happy shook his head, and then Tony was abruptly enveloped in a surprisingly gentle hug. "It's been an honor working for you."

Tony started to say something, then coughed once and blinked suddenly hot eyes. He wanted to say that he was the one who was honored, that Happy had been his first true friend, but the words wouldn't come.

Pepper did not hug him. She just stood there; the external hard drive with Jocasta's data on it cradled in the crook of one arm, and stared steadily at him, her eyes fixed on his.

"Tony, promise me you will not blow up the house until you are no longer inside it."

"Actually," Tony said slowly, "I have something else in mind."

He hadn't -- Pepper knew him far too well by this point, well enough to know that his last minute, last-resort plans always involved explosions -- but as he spoke, the outline of a plan was starting to come together.

Pepper and Happy left minutes later in one of Tony's faster but least ostentatious cars, the armor hidden away inside its trunk. Tony didn't know where they were going -- he wasn't sure what destination was safe anymore, or where Rhodey or the Avengers might be -- but that might be for the best. What he didn't know, he couldn't be made to tell.

Jocasta's voice broke in on his thoughts. "If you're planning to give yourself up to save Happy and Pepper, you need to go outside now. I'm starting the self-destruct sequence."

Tony traced one hand gently over the top of his drafting table, ran a thumb over the handle of the welding torch he'd left out on one of the benches. "How did you know?"

"It was that, or you were staying behind in a romantic attempt to make sure I didn't die alone, and you're not that sentimental."

"You'll be fine." He felt scraped raw, outside and in, and getting the words out hurt. He knew what he had to do, but he was so tired; it took all the energy he had just to stand up again. Staying with Jocasta would have been easier. "Hank and I will rebuild you."

"If you survive."

"If I survive," Tony agreed.

Neither of them said goodbye.

Tony didn't take anything with him. He was standing in the driveway when the aliens arrived, the house a smoking ruin behind him. It was not the first time someone had died to protect Tony or his secrets.

He had never said goodbye to Yinsen, either.

The aliens were not what he had expected. Not Skrull, not Kree, not Shi-ar; they were both more and less human than he had imagined them.

They wore black uniforms, glittering with indecipherable copper insignia, and if their oddly delicate faces held any emotion, he couldn't perceive it. The visible portions of their bodies were covered in fine, short fur, which didn't help.

There were, as Jocasta had said, a lot of them.

All of them were taller than him.

Tony stood very still, arms at his sides, his fingers spread to show that he wasn't holding anything. The sound of the explosion was still ringing in his ears.

The smell of smoke was much stronger now, and the ash that was landing on his shirt wasn't from Seattle.

One of the aliens barked some thing at him in its own language. Tony didn't move. The aliens were all heavily armed, not just with the high-powered energy weapons they wore as sidearms, but with an assortment of bladed weaponry as well.

Another alien stepped forward, edging carefully around the one who had spoken. This one was shorter than the rest, though it was still several inches taller than Tony, and dressed in grey. Unlike the others, it had no weapons.

"The captain has ordered you to come peacefully. He wises to know why you did not destroy yourself along with your dwelling place."

Its voice was accented - slightly guttural, with a hint of a lisp because of the fangs - but it spoke in perfect, grammatical English. Some kind of translator technology, maybe? Surely they hadn't been secretly spying on Earth long enough to learn its languages; American and Wakandan military satellites had only picked up their ships last week.

"My bodyguard wasn't thrilled at the idea of surrendering." Tony looked back over his shoulder at the burning wreck of his house. Long columns of smoke rose up from it, blending with the overcast sky. He made sure his expression was appropriately angry and disgusted before he turned back to face the aliens again. "He destroyed everything and took off."

"But you are surrendering." The grey-uniformed alien's face still wore no identifiable expression, but even through whatever mechanism they were using to translate, its voice sounded skeptical.

Tony shrugged, ignoring the way it pulled at his damaged ribs. "I'm a realist."

The same black-clad alien who had spoken earlier -- the one with the largest amount of copper glittering on its chest and shoulders -- said something to the translator in an imperious tone.

The translator ducked its head, lowering its eyes and letting its tail droop, and replied in the same language. Then it turned back to Tony. "You surprise us, Anthony Stark. It was thought that the commander of Iron Man would put up more of a resistance."

Tony gestured at his rumpled and soot-stained business attire. "With what? I'm just a man. I'm not a superhero like Iron Man or any of the others."

The head alien stepped forward, into Tony's personal space, and stared intently down at Tony's face. Tony kept his eyes fixed straight ahead; he refused to give it the satisfaction of craning his neck up to look at it.

Its fur had a faintly sweet scent, not exactly musky, but close. The fur on the right side of its face was seamed by two long, parallel scars. Tony was no expert on aliens, but he did know a lot about scars, and even on unfamiliar alien flesh, these scars looked old, long healed.

It reached up and poked at the bandage on Tony's right cheekbone.

Pain flared in the still-unhealed cut beneath it, and Tony flinched, swaying back from the alien's touch.

The scars on its face crinkled as its lips pulled back from a set of extremely sharp looking teeth. More things were snapped at the translator.

"You appear injured," the translator said. "Why?"

"There's a reason I have a bodyguard. Had," he corrected himself. "I was attacked by hired assassins. I don't know who hired them." Tony could feel a slow thread of blood seeping from the cut on his face; the alien's touch hadn't been gentle. He resisted the impulse to reach up and rub at his face. "I guess I'll never find out now. It doesn't seem important anymore."

It was, he thought, feeling a completely irrational impulse to smile, the first thing he'd told the aliens that was actually true.

The head alien's tail lashed once, and Tony tried not to stare at the wicked-looking spike on the end of it. It was three inches long, curved like a scorpion's stinger, and looked like either horn or exposed bone.

The alien uttered a handful of words, before turning on its heel and striding away towards the nearest of the troop carrier, barbed tail swaying through the air behind it.

"The Imperator requires your scientific knowledge," the translator informed him, while two massive alien soldiers seized Tony's arms. "You will be given the opportunity to serve the Argonian people. If you co-operate, you will be treated well." It cocked it’s head slightly to one side, tail rising to form an S-curve behind it, with the tip--unbarbed--peeking up over its shoulder. "Who knows? In time you may even be granted Argonian citizenship."

Tony wasn't sure, but he had the feeling it was smiling at him.

That fact completely failed to make Tony feel any better.

Half the world's major cities were under attack, Seattle was burning, Jocasta was effectively dead, the rest of the Avengers had been unreachable for hours, and the alien that had clearly been charged with ensuring Tony's obedience was smiling at him.

They had smiled at him in Afghanistan, too, when he'd agreed to build weapons for them. It had made Tony’s skin crawl then, too.

If the aliens believed him, he would be able observe them up close, have access to first-hand information on their technology. If he was lucky, he might be able to get out of this situation the way he'd gotten out of that one, or at least insert himself into a position where he could cause some serious damage before they caught on to what he was doing.

It was a good plan, a smart plan -- or at least, a better plan than going down in flames with his house or throwing himself at them in a suicide charge that would accomplish nothing.

Tony had told himself that as he watched the house blow up, the explosion beginning in the lab and sending flames rolling thought the rest of the house. He repeated it to himself again now, as the aliens marched him toward the troop carrier, their fingers digging into his arms.

He felt clumsy, heavy, like trying to walk when you were drunk enough that all your co-ordination was gone.

This way was better than dying. This way, he might still have a chance to help stop the invasion.

Tony repeated it to himself as the aliens led him through the aircraft's hatch, one of them dragging him upright again when he stumbled over edge the metal ramp. Like the translator's smile, it didn't make him feel any better.

***


By the end of the first day of the invasion, Clint knew two important things about the aliens: they called themselves "Argonians," and they were really, really good at killing things. Arrows were next to useless against laser guns that could melt metal, so Clint had instead spent hours pulling people out of burning buildings, trying to help put out fires, and getting injured people to LA's painfully over-crowded hospitals. He tried to call for back-up, but the Avengers communicator had gone dead as soon as the ships had appeared in the sky over the Los Angeles Basin. Clint was trying hard not to think about what that might mean.

The second day after their arrival, when it became clear that the US military was well and truly fucked when it came to fighting these guys, people started surrendering. Those that weren't trying desperately to get out of the city, anyway; the freeway was clogged solid with cars, many of them abandoned in place where drivers frantic to escape the metropolitan area as quickly as they could had gotten out and walked. Some of them stayed and tried to fight back. Most of those died, sometimes on the way to the hospital, bleeding out from massive, slashing wounds.

Who used both laser guns and swords? Definite overkill, in Clint's opinion.

The third day after their arrival, a day after the Argonians had finished taking over LA and set up Argonian military rule in place of the city government, they put out a city-wide announcement asking for human volunteers for "service sectors jobs, lab assistants to aid in conducting scientific research, and enlistment in the 'native auxiliary' of the glorious Argonian army."

Basically? Janitors, test-tube washers, and canon fodder.

When the recruitment office opened, Clint was one of the first in line.

Not because he was surrendering or collaborating or was some kind of Benedict Arnold or anything like that. Signing up to be a grunt in the alien army sounded like a damn good way to spy on them, at least, until he could get in touch with the other Avengers.

The aliens were sending most of the scientists they'd kidnapped to New York, and when Clint had casually asked grey-uniformed Argonian who'd been entering people's names and information in some kind of PDA where he could expect to be stationed, he'd been told that the 'natives found suitable for guard duty' were being sent to New York, too.

The Argonians weren't letting humans travel; Clint didn't have a snowball's chance in Hell of getting back to the East Coast on his own. But as a newly sworn in member of the Argonian military, he'd get an all-expenses paid trip back to New York City, where he'd be able to desert and hook up with whatever resistance Cap and the others had going.

The subdermal ID chip they'd implanted under the skin of his forearm was going to bleed like a bitch when he cut it out, but removing it wouldn't give him too much trouble. Then all he'd have to do was find some way to get in touch with the rest of the Avengers.

His trip might be all expenses paid, but he wasn't exactly being sent first class. The inside of the Argonian transport vehicle was bare metal, with rows of metal and plastic seats, and no windows.

The interior was dimly lit, enough so that Clint found himself having to squint as he looked around for a seat in the half-filled cabin. The seats by the doors were already occupied by Argonians in black uniforms, with the copper pins on the shoulders that Clint had realized marked them as low-level officers. They were either the officers-in-command for the new recruits on the transport, or they were guards.

Both, probably, Clint decided, as he edged his way down the aisle between the seats, looking for a place to sit. Most of the people he passed were wearing the black armband that marked them out as Argonian recruits over their clothes, but a handful weren't; future servants or scientists who'd signed up to do lab work for their new furry overlords.

Maybe he could sit next to the dark-skinned woman in the lab coat and low-cut shirt? She might not actually be a traitor -- the Argonians had probably captured her, Clint decided, noticing the way the shirt clung to her curves.

There was another empty spot just beyond her, next to a dark-haired man in a crumpled and stained white dress shirt, but he wasn't nearly as nice to look at and--

He was Tony Stark.

Clint was across the rows of seating and in the chair next to Tony before he had a chance to think about it and realize that maybe it would have been smarter for them to pretend not to know each other.

There were no prisoners on this transport -- all the scientists here had either surrendered or willingly signed up to work for the Argonians -- which meant that Tony had... No, he couldn't have. Tony might have problems with alcohol and some seriously annoying control issues, but he was a founding Avenger.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Clint hissed, leaning forward into Tony's space so that he could keep his voice as quiet as possible. With the way things had been going thus far, the aliens probably had super-hearing.

Tony lifted his head slightly, regarding Clint with no evidence of surprise. His eyes were bloodshot, and there was a shadow of dark stubble on his jaw, blurring the edges of his goatee. "The same thing you're doing, Clint." His voice was flat, slightly hoarse, like all the emotion had been beaten out of him.

"Oh," Clint said stupidly. Right. He was spying on the Argonians. Of course he was spying.

Clint relaxed back into his seat, shifting a little until he found a position where the metal seat back wasn't digging into his spine. Argonians were taller than humans; once Clint was no longer perched on the edge of his seat, his feet dangled an inch above the floor.

Now that he looked at Tony more closely, he could see the bruises darkening his face, the black eye, the white gauze bandages on his forehead and cheekbone, one of them spotted brown where blood had soaked through. He was slumped oddly in his seat, one arm loosely wrapped around his rib cage. Clint recognized that position; he'd had cracked and broken ribs a few times himself -- there were very few non-powered superheroes who hadn't.

Tony wasn't just psychologically screwed up. Someone had beaten the ever-living hell out of him. And it hadn't been the aliens, either, because those bruises were too dark and swollen to be less than a day old.

"What the hell happened to you?"

Tony's lips twitched, almost a smile. "It's a long story. It doesn't matter now anyway."

"You look really rough. Should you even be here?"

Tony shrugged one shoulder a fraction. "Trying to fight them in this shape would have gotten me killed without accomplishing anything. This way, maybe I can still get something done. We don't even know what they want."

Clint had assumed that was obvious. Aliens, in his experience, all wanted the same thing. "To conquer Earth and make it their new home world."

"Just because the Skrull wanted that doesn't mean these guys do." Tony had that tone in his voice, the one Clint recognized from his stint with the West Coast Avengers. The "why is everyone around me so stupid?" tone. He was almost as good at it as Hank Pym was. "I don't know if you've noticed, but they don't seem too fond of sunlight. I don’t think this is their ideal environment."

Clint didn't particularly care what the Argonians' ideal environment was. "Have you heard anything from Cap?"

Tony's face went still, and Clint knew immediately that the answer wasn't good. "Not since yesterday."

"Neither have I," he admitted. "My communicator went down yesterday morning. But once we're in New York, getting back into contact should be a piece of cake. Maybe it's only the satellite-based network that down," he went on. "Maybe the close-range communications will still work. Once we get back into the Manhattan area, we'll be able to pick everybody's communicators' up again." It had sounded more convincing this morning, when he'd been signing the equivalent of alien draft papers. Now, faced with Tony's obvious worry, Clint was starting to feel a little bit less confident.

Tony shook his head. "I'll be buried in their 'primary military research facility.' There's no way I'll have a chance to get word out to anyone."

"I can carry messages to them for both of us." And then they could bust Tony out of there, if they had to. The Argonians couldn't have as tight a grip on New York as they did on LA, not with the number of superheroes there. Cap wouldn't surrender the city easily; he was probably leading all of capes there in an armed resistance.

Cap had fought in World War II; he had experience with this kind of thing.

Clint had fought monsters, robots, time-traveling dictators bent on galactic domination, and a whole string of various kinds of criminals. Hell, he'd even fought gods.

But the thing was, all of those guys had always lost. Even Kang the Conqueror had never been all that successful at actually conquering Earth. Fucking with them all extensively, yes, but actually conquering? Not really. Not like this.

Clint had never fought an occupying army before.

Cap had, though. He'd helped defeat the Nazis. If you believed him, he'd actually punched Hitler in the jaw once.

Once Clint and Tony met up with the others, Cap would know what to do. In the meantime, he and Tony would just have to keep their eyes open and learn as much about the Argonians as they could. Anything they could find out might be useful.

"You know," Tony said softly, "I was supposed to be on my way to some stupid private resort Pepper and Happy were going to pack me off to today." His lips curved in something that wasn't actually a smile. "To recover."

"Hey, you never know. Maybe our new furry overlords are going to put us up in the Plaza."

"I don't even know where they are now," Tony went on. "If they even got away."

"They got away," Clint told him. "They're fine."

The transport shuddered ever so slightly, and then Clint felt a sinking sensation in his stomach as it started to take off. It was some kind of hovercraft, but it moved more smoothly than any helicopter he'd ever been in.

"They're fine," Clint repeated. And so was Cap, and Wanda, and Jan, and Hank. All of them were fine. He refused to consider anything else.

They'd get to New York, and the others would be there, and everything would be fine.

***




Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five (a) | Chapter Five (b) | Chapter Six (a) | Chapter Six (b) | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight | Chapter Nine | Chapter Ten | Chapter Eleven | Chapter Twelve | Chapter Thirteen | Chapter Fourteen | Chapter Fifteen | Chapter Sixteen | Chapter Seventeen | Chapter Eighteen | Chapter Nineteen | Chapter Twenty (a) | Chapter Twenty (b) | Chapter Twenty One

[identity profile] crimsonquills.livejournal.com 2008-11-01 06:26 am (UTC)(link)
*flails* But I want more!

The whole scene where Tony surrenders to the Argonians was very, very well done. I loved all the references to Tony's time in Afghanistan and the drinking arc and such. One of the best things about your fics is that they're so solidly grounded in canon.

Also, I forsee significant Clint and Tony interaction! That's not common in fic. I look forward to it, if I'm right. :-)

*settles in to wait for the next chapter*

[identity profile] elspethdixon.livejournal.com 2008-11-03 11:41 pm (UTC)(link)
The whole scene where Tony surrenders to the Argonians was very, very well done. I loved all the references to Tony's time in Afghanistan and the drinking arc and such. One of the best things about your fics is that they're so solidly grounded in canon.

To be honest, it's one of my favorite scenes in the fic so far (well, until the slashy parts start much later), so that's especially good to hear. Ditto on the canon thing: We were worried that the begining of this might be a little too canon dependant, since it branches off from such a specific point in Iron Man canon.

[identity profile] 20thcenturyvole.livejournal.com 2008-11-01 08:01 am (UTC)(link)
Ooh, I am so excited about this!

[identity profile] elspethdixon.livejournal.com 2008-11-03 11:31 pm (UTC)(link)
Yay, thanks!
dorothy1901: OTW hugo (Default)

Whee!

[personal profile] dorothy1901 2008-11-01 12:22 pm (UTC)(link)
Yay, you've started posting it! Let's see, 19 installments, posting every other week, that's approximately 38 weeks, which is... next July. ::settles in::

This chapter is very, very good. The part with Jocasta was unexpected, and unexpectedly good. Naturally Tony is going to be determined and self-sacrificing, and naturally Clint is going to be stubborn and instinctively right, but Jocasta being supportive and slightly acerbic came as a complete surprise. I like her more here than I ever did in the comics.

Re: Whee!

[identity profile] elspethdixon.livejournal.com 2008-11-03 11:37 pm (UTC)(link)
Yay, you've started posting it! Let's see, 19 installments, posting every other week, that's approximately 38 weeks, which is... next July. ::settles in::

Yeah -- we'll probably switch to a weekly schedule once we really get into the swing of things and have a decent amount of the fic back from beta (we didn't/don't want posting to get ahead of betaing). Otherwise, we'll be posting this fic for the rest of forever.

This chapter is very, very good. The part with Jocasta was unexpected, and unexpectedly good. Naturally Tony is going to be determined and self-sacrificing, and naturally Clint is going to be stubborn and instinctively right, but Jocasta being supportive and slightly acerbic came as a complete surprise. I like her more here than I ever did in the comics.

Thanks so much! Jocasta was added after we finished the first/second draft of the outline, when we remembered that at the point in canon we were branching off from, she's kind of, um in the house Tony was going to blow up. and she's probably got a little movie-verse AI!Jarvis mixed in here, since AI!Jarvis is kind of like a cross between real Jarvis and Jocasta with Paul Bettany's voice.

Jocasta is far preferably to Friday, about whom the less said, the better. (die, Friday, die, and take the art from volume 3 #41-47 with you).

[identity profile] jynx.livejournal.com 2008-11-01 01:42 pm (UTC)(link)
*is one very happy fangirl* 200 pages? 19 installments? Yeaaaaah, you totally just made my morning~ And Tony~ *pets the poor, beatup boy* I'm looking forward to where this is headed.

[identity profile] elspethdixon.livejournal.com 2008-11-03 11:31 pm (UTC)(link)
Yay! It's always great to here that people are enjoying our stuff ^_^.

(no subject)

[identity profile] jynx.livejournal.com - 2008-11-03 23:32 (UTC) - Expand

[identity profile] demon-faith.livejournal.com 2008-11-01 01:51 pm (UTC)(link)
Eeeee! Poor beaten-up Tony - but at least he has Clint for company!

Wow, guys, another epic? You are completely awesome-sauce! *hugs*

[identity profile] elspethdixon.livejournal.com 2008-11-03 11:31 pm (UTC)(link)
Thanks! (And oh, God, yes, this thing is epic. The first five chapters alone are longer than King of Infinite Space).
effex: default (Why yes)

[personal profile] effex 2008-11-01 02:57 pm (UTC)(link)
[cheers wildly] Yes! I love epic, plotty fic and thought of getting a bi-monthly fix if this makes my day. Aliens! Massive earth-wide destruction! Spy!Tony! Hurray!

[identity profile] elspethdixon.livejournal.com 2008-11-03 11:30 pm (UTC)(link)
Yay! Thanks ^_^. We can promise much more aliens and Spy!Tony to come. *grins* Aliens and massive destruction are always awesome (Secret Invasion excepted, because storylines that don't have Steve in them are forever banned from awesome status, and askdjfihew, I want to know where the real Hank Pym and Jarvis are).

BTW, awesome icon

[identity profile] runenklinge.livejournal.com 2008-11-01 03:24 pm (UTC)(link)
1 of 19? Alien Invasion?
this will turn out so much better than Skrull Invasion

Steve and Tony have nothing to keep themselves going but each other.
I´m so looking forward to that^^

every other week you say?....something to look forward in the long run^^

[identity profile] elspethdixon.livejournal.com 2008-11-03 11:30 pm (UTC)(link)
1 of 19? Alien Invasion?
this will turn out so much better than Skrull Invasion


*grins* Thanks! Oddly, we weren't thinking of Secret Invasion at all when we started working on this, largely because [livejournal.com profile] seanchai is boycotting it and everything else that ought to have Steve in it but doesn't.

Steve and Tony have nothing to keep themselves going but each other.
I´m so looking forward to that^^


Then... I probably shouldn't say how many pages of fic there are before the slash starts. *looks shifty*

(no subject)

[identity profile] runenklinge.livejournal.com - 2008-11-04 21:31 (UTC) - Expand

[identity profile] amf-wip.livejournal.com 2008-11-01 03:28 pm (UTC)(link)
19 installments? Every other week?

*bribes for more now*

*whimpers*

[identity profile] elspethdixon.livejournal.com 2008-11-03 11:28 pm (UTC)(link)
*grins* The every-other-week will probably be just for the first few chapters. We're planning to switch to a weekly posting schedule once we have more of the fic completely edited and out of beta (on the one hand, we didn't want posting installments to get ahead of betaing, but on the other hand, we're impatient after forever of writing and wanted to start putting fic out there now).

[identity profile] mechanicaljewel.livejournal.com 2008-11-01 04:31 pm (UTC)(link)
w00t! New Elspethchai epic! And I am loving it so far!

[identity profile] elspethdixon.livejournal.com 2008-11-03 11:29 pm (UTC)(link)
*grins* Yay! I like the name "Elspethchai." *grins* I do occasionally wonder if anyone out there thinks we're the same person (co-write fics, interchangeable IP addresses because we share the same apartment, etc.)

[identity profile] geuna.livejournal.com 2008-11-01 05:38 pm (UTC)(link)
Epic-epic-epic! No one does epic for this fandom than you guys! XD AWESOME!!!

[identity profile] elspethdixon.livejournal.com 2008-11-03 11:27 pm (UTC)(link)
Thanks! I don't know about us being the only epic-writers, though. Panda and axolitl_lan are closing in there with Moth -- and "All that Remains" is getting pretty long, too (I look forward to the day when it is finished and I can have someone check the ending for me to assure me it is indeed a permenant fixit with Steve alive and well at the end and that they all live happily ever after, and then I can read the whole gloriously over-30k thing in one sitting).

(no subject)

[identity profile] geuna.livejournal.com - 2008-11-04 02:55 (UTC) - Expand

[identity profile] winkekatze.livejournal.com 2008-11-01 06:05 pm (UTC)(link)
I love you guys!
Haven't read it yet, that will be my highlight for tomorrow,
but I know it will be awesome.

Thank you so much!

[identity profile] elspethdixon.livejournal.com 2008-11-03 11:26 pm (UTC)(link)
No, no, see, we're the one's who are suppoed to thank you (for reviewing) *grins* So thank you!

[identity profile] gestalt1.livejournal.com 2008-11-01 07:43 pm (UTC)(link)
Hooray! More long!fic from you guys! :D :D :D

This is a really awesome set-up, can't wait for more!

[identity profile] elspethdixon.livejournal.com 2008-11-03 11:25 pm (UTC)(link)
Yay! Review! Thanks so much (and don't worry, there's much, much more. We weren't kidding when we said this one was really long).

[identity profile] mollyoftheshore.livejournal.com 2008-11-02 12:12 am (UTC)(link)
Y'all totally dove-tailed your story into one of my favorite IM arcs (even better, it's taking place right before Tony gets sent to the stress clinic which, while still interesting, looses a bit of its story-telling momentum, in my opinion). I can't describe how happy this makes me.

Anyway, this chapter was absolutely amazing and I can't wait to see where this is going!

(btw, in which issue did the zombie fight in central park happen? I totally want to read it!)
dorothy1901: OTW hugo (Default)

Zombie Avengers

[personal profile] dorothy1901 2008-11-02 12:28 am (UTC)(link)
(btw, in which issue did the zombie fight in central park happen? I totally want to read it!)

Avengers volume 3, number 10 (November, 1998) and Avengers volume 3, number 11 (December, 1998).
ext_18328: (Default)

Jocasta, that's a blast from the past

[identity profile] jazzypom.livejournal.com 2008-11-02 01:27 am (UTC)(link)
Like... way back in the past. I rather like the full bodied canon feel to this story so far. Erstwhile heroes in the thick of danger, the reader settles in and BOOM! Here we are.

Am looking forward to it - and wonder how you guys sit down and write such involved multi chaptered fanfic - and I know what I'm talking about, because I used to be in HP fandom.

Re: Jocasta, that's a blast from the past

[identity profile] elspethdixon.livejournal.com 2008-11-03 11:25 pm (UTC)(link)
Like... way back in the past. I rather like the full bodied canon feel to this story so far. Erstwhile heroes in the thick of danger, the reader settles in and BOOM! Here we are.

We're really glad you're enjoying it. After three post-Civil War fics and two New Avengers fics, we thought it was time to do something pre-Disassembled. And since early-volume 3 Iron Man is so awesome...

Am looking forward to it - and wonder how you guys sit down and write such involved multi chaptered fanfic - and I know what I'm talking about, because I used to be in HP fandom.

I started out writing fic in HP fandom, way back in 2002. It's completely warped my ideas of size when it comes to fannish things (how you define a BNF, when a pairing has enough fic and fans to be really "big," what's just regular old wank and what's true craziness, etc.). If you look, you can still find my probably-painful early attempts at slash/yaoi up on FictionAlley & ff.net -- along with the then-requisate 5th-year fic.

Oy.

[identity profile] jazzypom.livejournal.com - 2008-11-04 01:37 (UTC) - Expand

[identity profile] jwaneeta.livejournal.com 2008-11-02 04:12 am (UTC)(link)
Liking this intensely. :D

[identity profile] elspethdixon.livejournal.com 2008-11-03 11:24 pm (UTC)(link)
Thanks! ^_^

[identity profile] youngest-one.livejournal.com 2008-11-02 06:08 am (UTC)(link)
I'm loving this so far - the aliens are interesting, and I can't wait to see how the rest of Earth's heroes are dealing with them.

[identity profile] elspethdixon.livejournal.com 2008-11-03 11:24 pm (UTC)(link)
Yay! We're glad you're enjoying it. *grins* You don't want to know how much brainstorming time has gone into the Argonians (down to arguments about what titles they should use for their leaders).

[identity profile] simmysim.livejournal.com 2008-11-02 07:27 am (UTC)(link)
Holy freeholies, I JUST started reading this arc today. Now I'm wondering if should hold off and read the installments side by side with this fic xD

I'm over the moon that you two have started another series. There's a strong sense of urgency in this that's incredibly grabbing. The discussion at the beginning about blowing up Tony's place definitely set a disarming tone, and oh man as Pepper and Happy drove away with Jocasta, leaving Tony to just.. limp out and meet the aliens. Mahh.

I can't wait to read more :)))

[identity profile] elspethdixon.livejournal.com 2008-11-03 11:23 pm (UTC)(link)
Yay review!

Holy freeholies, I JUST started reading this arc today. Now I'm wondering if should hold off and read the installments side by side with this fic xD

Go ahead and read the entire thing! We're taking a sharp left turn from canon from here on out (since there, um, aren't any massive alien invasion in early volume three).

I'm over the moon that you two have started another series. There's a strong sense of urgency in this that's incredibly grabbing. The discussion at the beginning about blowing up Tony's place definitely set a disarming tone, and oh man as Pepper and Happy drove away with Jocasta, leaving Tony to just.. limp out and meet the aliens. Mahh.

I can't wait to read more :)))


Thanks so much! It's really good to know that people are liking this so far, because it's something of a long-haul project.
velithya: (out of the sunset [Steve/Tony])

[personal profile] velithya 2008-11-02 08:28 am (UTC)(link)
oh my god, this is going to be awesome. Fortnightly, though? That's gonna kill me! ;P HOW ARE WE GOING TO COPE YOU MEANIES ;_;

Okay, jokes aside! This was awesome, Tony's struggle to keep upright and focused when he's had the shit kicked out of him, Clint knowing that Steve is okay and will what to do, even though he has no proof, and even the slight thought that maybe Tony was working for the other guys for no reason-

IT'S GOING TO BE A LONG FORTNIGHT

[identity profile] elspethdixon.livejournal.com 2008-11-03 11:23 pm (UTC)(link)
oh my god, this is going to be awesome. Fortnightly, though? That's gonna kill me! ;P HOW ARE WE GOING TO COPE YOU MEANIES ;_;

Once we get a larger amount of the fic back from beta, we're planning to switch to weekly -- we're starting out with less frequent posting than usual so that we don't completely overrun our betas with a zillion pages of fic and a deadline.

Okay, jokes aside! This was awesome, Tony's struggle to keep upright and focused when he's had the shit kicked out of him, Clint knowing that Steve is okay and will what to do, even though he has no proof, and even the slight thought that maybe Tony was working for the other guys for no reason-

Yay, thanks! We were trying to show a least a little contrast between Tony's fatalism and Clint's determined optimism, so we're really glad that came through ^_^.

As for the moment of suspicion... Tony never seems to get the benefit of the doubt even from his fellow Avengers (witness everyone but Steve immediately accusing him of drinking in Disassembled, and how quick everyone was to villainize him during Civil War -- almost nobody stopped to say, "You know, maybe he thinks he's doing the right thing/has a reason for what he's doing"). But then, he often seems to go out of his way to make it easy for people to doubt him.

(no subject)

[personal profile] velithya - 2008-11-03 23:30 (UTC) - Expand

[identity profile] cellared.livejournal.com 2008-11-03 02:35 am (UTC)(link)
SO looking forward to this.

[identity profile] elspethdixon.livejournal.com 2008-11-03 11:23 pm (UTC)(link)
Yay, thanks!

[identity profile] caduceus03.livejournal.com 2008-11-04 11:01 pm (UTC)(link)
...damn. I saw the biweekly posting schedule and promised myself that I was going to wait to read this because waiting two weeks for a new chapter would surely drive me nuts. But the entry was just sitting there staring at me every time I popped by the comm *sigh* and I caved. Evil temptresses, you!

Ahem, that said, this was absolutely phenomenal. The story is really shaping up to be amazing. Not that I'm surprised. You two are like the goddesses of this fandom, IMO ^_^

The sheer tension that was running all throughout this chapter was truly intense. You have me firmly convinced of the gravity of the situation. And Tony was just... *wibbly sigh* gorgeous. He's all hurt and desperate and remembering Afghanistan in the very definition of a shitty situation and missing Steve and, and! *flaily hands* Such love and awe for this. Seriously.

Might I ask if the next chapter continues to follow Tony or will we be getting some Steve?

[identity profile] ellyr-in-ink.livejournal.com 2008-12-21 12:27 am (UTC)(link)
I always want to bind these stories, make some coffee, and curl up in a chair with them. They would be so much better than the current Greg Cox Avengers novels I'm reading. They're the type of stories you get lost in. I love it!

I'm really looking forward to this story, and since I'm so far behind in reading, I should have a lot out to catch up on. ^_^

[identity profile] elspethdixon.livejournal.com 2008-12-21 02:48 am (UTC)(link)
Yay, thanks!

There are Greg Cox Avengers novels? I don't know whether to run out and buy them, or be afraid.

[identity profile] amonitrate.livejournal.com 2009-01-17 10:33 pm (UTC)(link)
aw man, this is great so far.