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cap_ironman2008-12-27 10:06 pm
seanchai.livejournal.com) wrote in cap_ironman2008-12-27 10:06 pm
Entry tags:
When the Lights Go On Again 5b/19
Title: When the Lights Go On Again 5a/19
Authors:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
seanchai and 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're hoping to start posting once a week, eventually.
X-posted to Marvel Slash.
Warning: This chapter was too long for one post; look for part 5a below.
When the Lights Go On Again
"And how many of our supplies did you say the humans incinerated, Arch-Captain Burrukam?" Irkalla kept her voice calm and level; there was no need to shout, not when Burrukam already knew how badly he erred. She wasn't able to completely hide her displeasure, however. She wanted to snarl and lash her tail, but had to content herself with letting her tailbarb flick back and forth restlessly, the tip rustling the edges of her robe.
Burrukam was standing at attention, ears stiffly upright and tail held completely still; even in the wake of failure, he would not allow himself to appear defeated. He might be incompetent, but he was still an Argonian. "Only the power cores for the arc guns were truly irreplaceable," he said. As an evasion, it was hopelessly transparent. The losses must be high, if he couldn't bring himself to detail them outright. "The rest can be replicated with native materials."
Nergal took a step forward, his near seven-foot height towering over Irkalla, Burrukam, and Burrukam's second-in-command by half a head. "The Archon asked you a question, Arch-Captain," he said, in the same soft purr she had heard him use before slicing off one of a dueling opponent's body parts with his tailblade. "How many?"
Burrukam's subordinate cleared her throat. "If I may speak?" she asked, ears held respectfully low. The rest of her body language was anything but submissive - Burrukam had lost his previous standing as warrior through his humiliating defeat as the hands of human rebels, and Sub-Captain Kammani was clearly seizing the opportunity to go over her direct superior's head and draw the Imperator's attention to herself.
"You may speak, Sub-Captain," Nergal gave his assent with a sharp nod.
"We lost our entire stock of basic field medicine kits, several bales of spare uniforms, and most of the weaponry confiscated from the native military outpost. I have a written report listing the exact extent of the damage here, including the fire damage to the building. I had a mechanikos estimate how many hours of labor would be needed to repair it. That's in the report, too." The end of her tail swished, once, as she finished this little speech, clearly pleased with herself.
"Very efficient, Sub-Captain," Nergal said coolly.
"Thank you, Imperator." The Sub-Captain's reply was equally cool, professional. It was a distinct and favorable contrast to Burrukam's twitching ears.
"There were at least two octets of them," he burst out, abruptly. "Stopping the fire at the front entrance took first priority, and left us without sufficient warriors to hold the lower sectors of the station against the second wave of attackers."
"Sixteen natives against your entire garrison." Nergal was smiling, lips pulled back to expose his canines in a mildly threatening manner Irkalla was privately certain he practiced in a mirror. "Yes, I can see how that might have posed a problem for you." His voice was mild, but only a fool would have believed the sympathy in it.
Irkalla turned to Sub-Captain Kammani, who, judging by her careful damage report, could hopefully be relied upon to have a more certain accounting of the enemy's numbers. "And what were your impressions of the attack, Sub-Captain. Would you agree that there were two octets?"
"I would estimate closer to one octet, if that." Beside her, Burrukam twitched slightly, as she openly contradicted his word. Most Argonian warriors looked to Nergal when they delivered official reports, but Kammani's eyes were on Irkalla. "They possessed… abilities, Nin-Irkalla, beyond those of normal humans, similar to the abilities observed in some of the initial human resistance when we first arrived here. At least one was observed flying, and another was some form of energy construct made of flame."
The longer she was forced to spend on this wretched planet, the more Irkalla hated it. As if it weren't enough that the humans outnumbered them, they had a small subspecies that was, for reasons the Argonians still had yet to figure out, stronger and different from other humans, capable of physical feats far beyond those possible for their more common, lesser cousins. They had been too few in number to prevent Nergal's army from taking the humans' largest cities, but a single superior human could cause many times the damage a lesser human could.
They should have guessed that the rebel activity that had begun to spring up around the city was being led by the members of said sub-species who belonged to the human's military caste. Nergal had hoped that eliminating all the high-ranking military officers found inside the city would decimate their leadership sufficiently to prevent the humans from organizing, but obviously, his tactics had been as short-sighted as this entire endeavor.
"There was no way to predict or prepare for such an enemy," Burukkam said stiffly.
Nergal's eye narrowed. "I have no time for excuses. You have one week to complete repairs of the station and reorganize your guards to ensure that next time an attack occurs, you will be prepared. You are dismissed."
Burrukam's ears wilted. He would have been handsome if it weren't for his lack of dignity, with his long, sinuous tail and pale, almost golden fur, but as it stood… There was something subtly unappealing in his bearing, and his dark eyes lacked the gleam of a true warrior.
Whether they had held that gleam prior to today was immaterial. A true scion of Alulim was proud in defeat as well as victory, and made excuses to no one.
He turned and left the audience chamber, boots clicking on the polished stone floor. Unless he won a battle or a duel or performed some act of great valor to regain his subordinates' -- and superiors' -- respect, his career was over, and he no doubt knew it.
Kammani moved to follow him.
"Sub-Captain," Irkalla said, "I desire to speak to you further. You may remain."
Kammani halted, swiveling to face Irkalla and Nergal again. "Yes, Nin-Irkalla."
"I would hear more of these… abilities. The atypical humans proved most troublesome in our initial conquest." After the first round of successful battles, Irkalla had insisted that they seek information about the superior, more powerful humans when they interrogated captives, in addition to information on the workings of the city, but even the specimens they had taken into custody or signed on as members of their native auxiliary knew little of tactical use. They knew names, knew the abilities of specific humans, but they did not know their current locations or how to capture them; the "Avengers," the elite warrior team that had once been headquartered next to the city's largest park, had gone to ground before they could be captured, and the "Fantastic Four," the one group they did know the location of, were barricaded in the top levels of their excessively tall fortress, pinned in place by an ongoing siege effort that had yet to yield any fruit.
It was odd, the way they seemed to be dispersed throughout human society, with no regularity at all. One would think their superior physical abilities would have guaranteed them all positions of the highest standing as warriors.
"It was a grave oversight not to gather more information on them when we spoke with the creature on the moon," she finished serenely.
"Yes, Nin-Irkalla," Kammani said, still calm and professional. "'To enter battle without knowing one's enemy is to fight without a tailblade,'" she quoted. It was one of Alulim's better known sayings. "I observed only two of them myself, the fire creature and the flying human, but I have heard that there were more on the lower level."
"It does us no good to lament lost information now," Nergal snapped through gritted teeth. "We must face the battle we have before us, and forget ones already fought." His words were directed at Kammani, but Irkalla knew that he intended them for her benefit. "Did any of your warriors report seeing a human in blue leather, with a metal shield, or a human male with metal wings? A human female in red robes?" He gave the descriptions of several of the "Avengers" the captives had mentioned.
Kammani shook her head once. "Warriors stationed in the lower levels reported seeing a human male who fought with only a shield, no blades, and a human female whose strength greatly exceeded that of normal humans. But no others."
"And these attacked the station from below?" Nergal asked. "Are you certain they did not have a human male clad all in red leather with them?" There had been a series of hysteria-tinged reports from the lower end of the island, most of them from Mechanikos, involving said leather-clad human. He could apparently see in utter darkness, track his prey by the sound of their heartbeats, and subsisted entirely on blood sucked from the veins of his victims. He also strongly resembled the Creeping Horror, a cave-dwelling predator native to Argon. Well, they had been native to Argon. Now, they were doubtless extinct along with everything else that had once lived there.
"The tunnel demon?" Kammani's tone was still respectful, but her skepticism was obvious. "I doubt he exists, Imperator. He is a monster made up by warriors and mechanikos with too much time on their hands and fear in their hearts, made uneasy by this strange city and its too-bright sun."
"This city seems to make many a formerly bold warrior uneasy," Irkalla said. "I have heard rumors of an immense spider that lives in the tops of the city's towers and drops upon warriors heads out of the sunlight to feed upon them. Of a human as tall as an Argonian who is impervious to blade, barb, and claw. Of monsters in the tunnels and armed rebels across the river. The rebels in Brooklyn are real; I suspect some of these so-called monsters are as well." The Creeping Horror imitator, however, was too obviously based on the monsters of a dozen children's tales to have any bearing on reality.
"They will soon be dealt with, Archon," Nergal said, in dismissive tones. He used only the moderately respectful form of address, calling by her title, a courtesy due even to a Mechanikos, as opposed to the more formal and more respectful nin- prefix that denoted sovereignty.
Kammani seemed to pull herself up straighter, jaw set and ears upright and stiff "The Arch-Captain and I will hold Penn Station against all attackers for you, nin-Irkalla, but I fear it will require doubling the guard."
Nergal made a negative gesture, his tail swaying gently behind him. "You will have to make do with those warriors you have. Doubling the guard would require you to rely yet more heavily on native auxiliaries." He hesitated a fraction of a second, and Irkalla knew that his next words, though supposedly directed at Kammani, were again for her benefit. "The Archon mistrusts our native servants," he went on, with a flick of one ear.
Kammani did not visibly react. "Our forces are stretched thin, nin-Irkalla," she responded, expression respectfully bland. "There are so many cities to hold. Still, we will do our best. You have my word."
"Your zeal is noted, Sub-Captain," Nergal informed her. "You may go now."
Kammani turned and saluted Irkalla with her tailbarb, as one warrior to another, then saluted Nergal.
After her departure, the audience chamber was silent for a moment, before Irkalla spoke.
"One would hope you have a plan for dealing with these monstrous humans? I fear they may become an even larger problem if not dealt with swiftly."
Nergal flicked his tail dismissively. "There are but a handful of them, and they could not stop us from taking the city."
Always so confident, even in the wake of a humiliating defeat at the hands of the natives he had sworn were already cowed. As Imperator, all military defeats reflected back upon Nergal's stature as both warrior and leader, and though he was by no means disgraced by this disaster the way Burrukam was, he still had to be feeling its sting.
One would not know it to look at him, however. But then, perhaps his arrogance was so great that he truly did not feel the shame, could not admit that his short-sighted policies had a hand in this minor defeat. The Argonian retreat had left the other Imperators -- those who had not perished in combat -- broken men. The only other survivors of the Argonian military's highest command had both died within days of the final defeat, one of his wound, and the other by her own tailbarb. Nergal, however, had thrived in the aftermath of disaster, seeming to see it not as tragedy, but as opportunity.
"A handful of humans who can fly and set things on fire with a touch is a handful too many," Irkalla replied, keeping her voice cool and level. "Especially with our forces so overextended." Nergal might still have her between his blades and the tunnel wall, but in the wake of the military's loss of face, she could afford to be bolder in her opposition.
"Perhaps, but I would not presume too much knowledge of military tactics were I in your place." Nergal's lips drew back in something that was as much snarl as smile. "You were trained to rule, Archon. Leave the fighting to those who have more experience with it."
He turned sharply on his heel and left.
'And you, Imperator,' she thought, 'were trained to fight. You would do better to leave the ruling to those who have more experience with it.'
A warrior could only suffer so many defeats before his own subordinates declared him unfit to rule, and if Nergal's gamble that they could hold this entire planet long enough to re-arm did not pay off…
Much as she despised being beholden to Nergal, Irkalla could not bring herself to wish for that. With luck, a few carefully placed words here and there would be all it took to keep the memory of each of Nergal's errors alive in the minds of his lieutenants, until they loomed ever larger in their thoughts. Perhaps these human rebels might prove as much a blessing as an inconvenience.
***
Steve-
Attached is a list of answers to Hank's questions. Unfortunately, I only have data for about half of them. Re: their weapons, I could have told Hank they were plasma based. They smell like ozone when fired. Glad to hear Firestar, Justice are ok.
Clint and I are also ok. Ignore Warbird; she exaggerates.
The Argonians have both a hereditary ruler and a military commander, who seems to function something like a dictator -- that's why the Archon and Imperator confusion. They also have total gender equality. Females are distinguished by organic stingers at the ends of their tails, and can hold positions of high military authority. Males of their military class wear metallic blades to mimic the females' stingers. Non-military Argonians carry no edged weapons of any kind and have lower status.
Their weapons are predominantly plasma based. They have advanced nuclear capability, including cold fusion, but, oddly, don't seem to be able to repair or replace their nuclear reactors or warheads themselves. Let me repeat that. They use cold fusion as a power source, but can't build their own nuclear warheads. It's enough to make you want to cry.
"I'm working as fast as I can," Tony said.
The Agonian translator -- it was the same Argonian every time; Tony was sure of it now -- looked skeptical. "We were told that you were a great scientist, a weapons builder of great skill. Arch-Captain Mamitu expects great things of you. Are you certain you are no closer to being able to duplicate the device than you were yesterday?" His voice held a hopeful lilt, as if maybe Tony, reminded of how skilled he was supposed to be, would change his mind.
It was ironic, when you thought about it. Tony had tried so hard to redefine his company and distance both it and himself from his past as an arms manufacturer, and yet when aliens from the other side of the galaxy showed up, even they knew that he used to build weapons. Apparently, he was an intergalactically famous arms manufacturer.
Tony offered the Argonian what he hoped looked like a friendly smile. "Look," he said, "this missile is extremely complicated, and both the guidance system and the structure of the warhead itself are completely different from anything Earth has produced." Which didn't mean Tony hadn't figured it out. He'd cracked the computer code for the guidance system three days ago, and had had the internal structure of the missile memorized inside and out for almost two weeks. All he needed to build a perfect, functioning copy was Plutonium 239 and Tritium, to fuel the fission and fusion components of the missile's two-stage nuclear reaction. "I don't even know what kind of radioactive isotope the missile needs to power itself," he went on. "Plutonium, uranium, thorium, unstable hydrogen molecules…" he trailed off, shaking his head. "Are you sure you can't let me have a look at the radioactive material you pulled out of this missile?"
The question was a calculated gamble; he was hoping the Argonian would say "no," but banking on the fact that asking would make him look like he was eager to make progress.
Thank God he'd been able to piece together disassembled bits of some of the Argonian scientific instruments and repurposed pieces of the missile to analyze the traces of residual radiation given off by the places within the missile where the Plutonium and Tritium had once been; not knowing what kind of nuclear material the missile used had been driving him crazy.
"I'm afraid that's not possible," the Argonian said. His ears twitched slightly, and he looked almost apologetic. Then he leaned forward slightly, ears stiffly upright with what looked like interest. "Explain further about these… isotopes? Why are they important?"
Tony blinked. "You don't know?" The giant, glowing sphere on the other side of the converter room, the one the Argonians had powering their base and the entire New York City subway system, as well, contained a successful, ongoing cold fusion reaction, a nuclear physicist's equivalent of the Holy Grail, and they didn't know how it worked.
He'd been hoping he was mistaken about that. On the one hand, it was lucky for Earth that the Argonians didn't know how to use their technology to its fullest potential anymore, but on the other hand, just the idea of someone attaining that level of scientific achievement and then forgetting it all was painful.
It was a good thing Reed Richards was still free. If he were down here, he would have wept at the very concept, then built them an improved, even more powerful version of their cold fusion reactor using matter and anti-matter, just to show them how it was done.
The Argonian's ears wilted. He glanced down at the array of missile components that covered Tony's lab banch and the floor, carefully arranged in alphabetical according to the materials they were made from. The 'U for Unknown' section covered most of the work bench. "We have… forgotten much," he admitted, after a moment. "Science is not a proper pursuit for warriors. That is what slaves are for."
"But you're not a warrior," Tony pointed out.
The Argonian's ears stiffened again, and his tail, which had been swaying gently behind him, went still. "Is it that obvious?"
"You don't carry a sword, and you don't have one of those blades strapped to the end of your tail. And you're in grey, instead of black." It wasn't until Tony had finished listing the obvious that he realized he might have insulted the alien by pointing out its lack of warrior status. Maybe it was akin to questioning someone's masculinity, or, considering that the Argonian warrior ideal seemed to be female, given the male attempts to mimic female tail barbs, questioning their femininity.
"No." The Argonian expelled air through its nose; Tony guessed it was the equivalent of a sigh. "I am only a mechanikos and linguist. My contributions to the Empire are small, beside those of a true warrior."
"No, because being able to talk to the people you're conquering isn't important at all." The words were out before Tony could help himself. Sarcasm in captivity situations wasn't generally a good idea. It tended to make people hit you.
The Argonian didn't seem offended, though. He twitched one ear back, regarded Tony for a moment, and said, "You're not a warrior either. You wouldn't understand."
"No," Tony agreed. "I've spent a lot of time around warriors, but I'm not one. I just pay the bills and design things."
"And yet other humans hold you in high respect." It was a question, Tony could tell, for all that the Argonian tried to disguise it as a statement of fact.
"Clearly you didn't do as much research on Earth as I thought. Money's a lot more important here than how many fights you've won. And intelligence can be worth something, too."
"We had little time to study you," the Argonian said. Tony got a vague impression of defensiveness. "Tactical considerations were more important than culture."
As far as Tony was concerned, culture was a tactical consideration, but he wasn't about to tell the alien invader that. Let them figure it out on their own. If their astounding ability to completely forget nuclear physics transferred over in to anthropology, it would take them approximately the next sixty years.
There was a pause, and then the alien made a sort of coughing sound and said, "You were going to explain isotopes?"
"I, um…" He was talking too much, Tony realized, giving too much information away.
It had been so long since he had talked to anyone, except for an hour or so a day with Clint, when his guard shift ended. He couldn't trust the other scientists who were there willingly, wasn't sure how to approach the captive ones without giving himself away. And the Argonian looked so eager for his explanation, black eyes wide and glittering and ears pricked forwards. Even his tail looked "alert," curving up over his shoulder eagerly.
"The power cores of our ships' drives rely on nuclear reaction, but they are a different kind of reaction than the one that occurs when these missiles detonate. Is this because of isotopes?"
"Partly," Tony hedged. There couldn't be any harm in giving him just a little information. Enough for him to think Tony was helpful and cooperative, but not enough for him to be able to actually figure the weapons or the reactor out on his own. "The missiles are designed to explode, while the power core is a sustained reaction. It's stable enough to keep occurring under its own power, without outside aide."
"Because of isotopes," the Argonian repeated.
"Yes," Tony said firmly. And also because one process involved fission and the other was entirely fusion, and cold fusion at that. And a dozen other things too complicated to explain properly without delving into math equations. "The power core combines atoms with unstable numbers of neutrons into new atoms. The missile either combines them or splits them apart; I'm not sure which yet. Isotopes are atoms of the same element with differing numbers of neutrons, and different isotopes are used in different kinds of nuclear reactions." There. That was nice and informative sounding, while being so oversimplified as to be of next to no practical use.
"Ah!" The Argonian tilted its head to one side, lips pulling back in what Tony had figured out by now was a smile. The fangs made it look anything but friendly. "Thank you, Tony Stark."
Tony felt a pang of something almost like guilt. "You can call me Tony," he offered. "Humans don't usually use our entire name." Why did he feel guilty for concealing information from the alien? That was his job. It was the enemy.
He needed to remember that.
"Thank you, Tony," the Argonian repeated. "You may call me Isimud. I will tell the Arch Captain that you are making progress as quickly as you can."
It turned and left then, tail swishing contentedly behind it.
Damn it. Clearly he needed to talk to some actual humans before he proved Clint right and really did go native.
Maybe, if he was careful, talking to the other scientists wouldn't be that much of a risk. If he was careful.
Because if he wasn't careful, he was going to end up teaching Isimud nuclear physics just because the guy was nice to him.
Of course, Tony's luck being what it was, half the scientists in the room hated him to begin with, either because they were supervillains, or because they worked for competing companies, or because he'd made them look stupid at conferences, or made a massively influential breakthrough in the field of micro-circuitry before they could. The only person more widely hated by the scientific community than he was was probably Hank McCoy, and that was because the last time he'd presented his work at a medical conference, he'd opened by actively mocking the other presenters whose conclusions he'd disagreed with. Also, he made faces at geneticists he didn't like behind their backs.
Leaving his little section of the man-made cavern felt strange -- he kept glancing over his shoulder, expecting to hear a shout from one of the guards, to see someone rushing towards him, weapons raised. It wasn't until he'd gone past Octavius's work area and rounded the first converter that he realized he was being an idiot.
He wasn't a prisoner -- well, technically he was in the sense of not being allowed to leave, but he hadn't been taken captive. He'd volunteered to be here, and the Argonians gave volunteers some amount of freedom. Clint wandered all over the place, flirting with the female scientists, chatting with the other guards, exploring the station. Meanwhile, Tony had been acting like he was chained to his lab bench by the ankle, like he was pinned in place the way Octavius was.
This wasn't Afghanistan. He was allowed to walk around if he wanted. They wouldn't shoot him for it.
Tony squared his shoulder, ignoring the itching feeling between them -- the guards were not watching him; they had no reason to suspect him and didn't care who he talked to -- and made his way toward Dr. Gruenwald, the Empire State engineering professor. As far as Tony could remember, he'd never gotten into a shouting match at a technical conference with him, and he'd always respected his work in the field. His journal articles were always a model of clarity, something that was sorely lacking in many engineers' attempts at paper-writing.
Gruenwald was working on a piece of machinery that looked like it might be some form of lab equipment. Tony came to a stop in front of his work bench, examining the thing for a moment. "Is that a particle accelerator?" he asked. He shook his head. "I shouldn't be surprised, should I? Of course they can't build their own particle accelerators. How did they manage to invent faster-then-light travel to begin with?"
Gruenwald stared at him, setting the tiny blowtorch he'd been using to one side. "Is there something you want, Stark?"
Okay, not exactly friendly. But then, a little suspicion made sense under the circumstances -- after all, he'd been hiding in the corner for weeks.
"I can't stare at the same piece of tech any longer," he said, offering the older man his best talking-to-shareholders smile. The cheerful and slightly feckless-looking 'trust me' one, not the much less innocent one he used on prospective business partners and people he was trying to get into bed. "Not when they won't let me do live tests of anything. Giving me just one thing to work on is inefficient, anyway. At the very least they must have plasma guns that need maintenance or something that's not just staring at that stupid missile's guidance system and trying to crack alien computer codes."
"Go away," Gruenwald said, turning to pick up his blowtorch again. He was machining his own parts, Tony could see. "I'm busy."
Why didn't he get to build particle accelerators? It would be approximately six times more interesting than rearranging the missile components on his workspace's floor.
"Oh, come on." Tony tried the smile again. "I need someone to talk to that isn't Barton or an Argonian. Maybe I can help you with that. I'm good with machinist's work."
Gruenwald turned to face him again, pinning him with an openly contemptuous stare that made Tony want to squirm. It reminded him uncomfortably of the way his father used to look at him. "I may have no choice but to work for these things, but at least I didn't come here of my own free will," he said, voice quiet, but completely cold. "I never thought even you would sink this low, Stark. I never thought even a man as irresponsible and self-absorbed as you would volunteer to betray his entire species."
Tony took a step back, his smile freezing in place. "I… okay then. I guess you don't need help."
"No," said slightly sibilant voice from behind him. "He doesn't."
Tony turned to find Kurt Conners -- all six green, scaly feet of him -- standing a couple of feet away, his arms folded across his chest. His expression was no friendlier than Gruenwald's. "I don't blame some of the others for giving in," he said. "Some of them had never seen violence first hand before the Argonians turned up on their doorstep with guns, or they have wives and children to protect. But you…" he shook his head. "I expected more courage from you. Even Otto Octavius resisted them."
Tony shook his head, no ready defense coming to mind. What could he say? As far as they knew, Connors and Gruenwald were right: to the best of their knowledge, he had simply surrendered.
He kept his face carefully blank; he couldn't afford to display remorse, or guilt, not when he needed everyone to think he was collaborating whole-heartedly. "Right," he said. "I'll just… leave, then."
He turned and walked away, back to his work area.
"I don't need help from you, Connors," he could hear Gruenwald saying behind him. "In case you've forgotten, I was on the university ethics committee that fired you."
"Lonely, Stark?" Octavius smirked, as Tony trudged past his workbench. "Maybe your new furry friend can keep you company."
Was he actually implying that Tony was having sex with an alien, or was Tony just being paranoid?
It didn't matter. It didn't what any of them thought of him. He was here to do a job, that was all.
If Steve were in his shoes, he wouldn't start crying because everyone was mean to him. He'd raise his chin and square his shoulders and ignore them all.
Tony wasn't going to let him down over something so trivial. Other people only got in the way when he was working on a project, anyway.
He started clearing away the missile parts scattered all over his work area, stacking them neatly on the lab bench, and mentally composing an explanation of how the thing worked for his next letter to Steve.
… not that they're likely to use them against you, if they really have so few of them, but I thought you might want to know.
This place is driving me nuts, Steve. Do you know how hard it is to sit here, surrounded by technology that's an engineer's dream, and not work on it? I'm so bored that I keep wanting to ask my "handler" if he's got any routine maintenance work for me to do.
I wouldn't, don't get me wrong. I just miss having a challenge to work on, something I can really lose myself in.
How are things going out there? I don't mean just tactically, I mean, how are you? How are you really? If fighting a war like this is bringing back any old memories you'd rather forget, you know you can tell me, right? Just consider me your captive audience.
You're probably rolling your eyes now; I know it's a bad joke, but I mean it, okay?
--Tony
Part 5a
***
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
Authors:
seanchai and elspethdixonRated: 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're hoping to start posting once a week, eventually.
X-posted to Marvel Slash.
Warning: This chapter was too long for one post; look for part 5a below.
"And how many of our supplies did you say the humans incinerated, Arch-Captain Burrukam?" Irkalla kept her voice calm and level; there was no need to shout, not when Burrukam already knew how badly he erred. She wasn't able to completely hide her displeasure, however. She wanted to snarl and lash her tail, but had to content herself with letting her tailbarb flick back and forth restlessly, the tip rustling the edges of her robe.
Burrukam was standing at attention, ears stiffly upright and tail held completely still; even in the wake of failure, he would not allow himself to appear defeated. He might be incompetent, but he was still an Argonian. "Only the power cores for the arc guns were truly irreplaceable," he said. As an evasion, it was hopelessly transparent. The losses must be high, if he couldn't bring himself to detail them outright. "The rest can be replicated with native materials."
Nergal took a step forward, his near seven-foot height towering over Irkalla, Burrukam, and Burrukam's second-in-command by half a head. "The Archon asked you a question, Arch-Captain," he said, in the same soft purr she had heard him use before slicing off one of a dueling opponent's body parts with his tailblade. "How many?"
Burrukam's subordinate cleared her throat. "If I may speak?" she asked, ears held respectfully low. The rest of her body language was anything but submissive - Burrukam had lost his previous standing as warrior through his humiliating defeat as the hands of human rebels, and Sub-Captain Kammani was clearly seizing the opportunity to go over her direct superior's head and draw the Imperator's attention to herself.
"You may speak, Sub-Captain," Nergal gave his assent with a sharp nod.
"We lost our entire stock of basic field medicine kits, several bales of spare uniforms, and most of the weaponry confiscated from the native military outpost. I have a written report listing the exact extent of the damage here, including the fire damage to the building. I had a mechanikos estimate how many hours of labor would be needed to repair it. That's in the report, too." The end of her tail swished, once, as she finished this little speech, clearly pleased with herself.
"Very efficient, Sub-Captain," Nergal said coolly.
"Thank you, Imperator." The Sub-Captain's reply was equally cool, professional. It was a distinct and favorable contrast to Burrukam's twitching ears.
"There were at least two octets of them," he burst out, abruptly. "Stopping the fire at the front entrance took first priority, and left us without sufficient warriors to hold the lower sectors of the station against the second wave of attackers."
"Sixteen natives against your entire garrison." Nergal was smiling, lips pulled back to expose his canines in a mildly threatening manner Irkalla was privately certain he practiced in a mirror. "Yes, I can see how that might have posed a problem for you." His voice was mild, but only a fool would have believed the sympathy in it.
Irkalla turned to Sub-Captain Kammani, who, judging by her careful damage report, could hopefully be relied upon to have a more certain accounting of the enemy's numbers. "And what were your impressions of the attack, Sub-Captain. Would you agree that there were two octets?"
"I would estimate closer to one octet, if that." Beside her, Burrukam twitched slightly, as she openly contradicted his word. Most Argonian warriors looked to Nergal when they delivered official reports, but Kammani's eyes were on Irkalla. "They possessed… abilities, Nin-Irkalla, beyond those of normal humans, similar to the abilities observed in some of the initial human resistance when we first arrived here. At least one was observed flying, and another was some form of energy construct made of flame."
The longer she was forced to spend on this wretched planet, the more Irkalla hated it. As if it weren't enough that the humans outnumbered them, they had a small subspecies that was, for reasons the Argonians still had yet to figure out, stronger and different from other humans, capable of physical feats far beyond those possible for their more common, lesser cousins. They had been too few in number to prevent Nergal's army from taking the humans' largest cities, but a single superior human could cause many times the damage a lesser human could.
They should have guessed that the rebel activity that had begun to spring up around the city was being led by the members of said sub-species who belonged to the human's military caste. Nergal had hoped that eliminating all the high-ranking military officers found inside the city would decimate their leadership sufficiently to prevent the humans from organizing, but obviously, his tactics had been as short-sighted as this entire endeavor.
"There was no way to predict or prepare for such an enemy," Burukkam said stiffly.
Nergal's eye narrowed. "I have no time for excuses. You have one week to complete repairs of the station and reorganize your guards to ensure that next time an attack occurs, you will be prepared. You are dismissed."
Burrukam's ears wilted. He would have been handsome if it weren't for his lack of dignity, with his long, sinuous tail and pale, almost golden fur, but as it stood… There was something subtly unappealing in his bearing, and his dark eyes lacked the gleam of a true warrior.
Whether they had held that gleam prior to today was immaterial. A true scion of Alulim was proud in defeat as well as victory, and made excuses to no one.
He turned and left the audience chamber, boots clicking on the polished stone floor. Unless he won a battle or a duel or performed some act of great valor to regain his subordinates' -- and superiors' -- respect, his career was over, and he no doubt knew it.
Kammani moved to follow him.
"Sub-Captain," Irkalla said, "I desire to speak to you further. You may remain."
Kammani halted, swiveling to face Irkalla and Nergal again. "Yes, Nin-Irkalla."
"I would hear more of these… abilities. The atypical humans proved most troublesome in our initial conquest." After the first round of successful battles, Irkalla had insisted that they seek information about the superior, more powerful humans when they interrogated captives, in addition to information on the workings of the city, but even the specimens they had taken into custody or signed on as members of their native auxiliary knew little of tactical use. They knew names, knew the abilities of specific humans, but they did not know their current locations or how to capture them; the "Avengers," the elite warrior team that had once been headquartered next to the city's largest park, had gone to ground before they could be captured, and the "Fantastic Four," the one group they did know the location of, were barricaded in the top levels of their excessively tall fortress, pinned in place by an ongoing siege effort that had yet to yield any fruit.
It was odd, the way they seemed to be dispersed throughout human society, with no regularity at all. One would think their superior physical abilities would have guaranteed them all positions of the highest standing as warriors.
"It was a grave oversight not to gather more information on them when we spoke with the creature on the moon," she finished serenely.
"Yes, Nin-Irkalla," Kammani said, still calm and professional. "'To enter battle without knowing one's enemy is to fight without a tailblade,'" she quoted. It was one of Alulim's better known sayings. "I observed only two of them myself, the fire creature and the flying human, but I have heard that there were more on the lower level."
"It does us no good to lament lost information now," Nergal snapped through gritted teeth. "We must face the battle we have before us, and forget ones already fought." His words were directed at Kammani, but Irkalla knew that he intended them for her benefit. "Did any of your warriors report seeing a human in blue leather, with a metal shield, or a human male with metal wings? A human female in red robes?" He gave the descriptions of several of the "Avengers" the captives had mentioned.
Kammani shook her head once. "Warriors stationed in the lower levels reported seeing a human male who fought with only a shield, no blades, and a human female whose strength greatly exceeded that of normal humans. But no others."
"And these attacked the station from below?" Nergal asked. "Are you certain they did not have a human male clad all in red leather with them?" There had been a series of hysteria-tinged reports from the lower end of the island, most of them from Mechanikos, involving said leather-clad human. He could apparently see in utter darkness, track his prey by the sound of their heartbeats, and subsisted entirely on blood sucked from the veins of his victims. He also strongly resembled the Creeping Horror, a cave-dwelling predator native to Argon. Well, they had been native to Argon. Now, they were doubtless extinct along with everything else that had once lived there.
"The tunnel demon?" Kammani's tone was still respectful, but her skepticism was obvious. "I doubt he exists, Imperator. He is a monster made up by warriors and mechanikos with too much time on their hands and fear in their hearts, made uneasy by this strange city and its too-bright sun."
"This city seems to make many a formerly bold warrior uneasy," Irkalla said. "I have heard rumors of an immense spider that lives in the tops of the city's towers and drops upon warriors heads out of the sunlight to feed upon them. Of a human as tall as an Argonian who is impervious to blade, barb, and claw. Of monsters in the tunnels and armed rebels across the river. The rebels in Brooklyn are real; I suspect some of these so-called monsters are as well." The Creeping Horror imitator, however, was too obviously based on the monsters of a dozen children's tales to have any bearing on reality.
"They will soon be dealt with, Archon," Nergal said, in dismissive tones. He used only the moderately respectful form of address, calling by her title, a courtesy due even to a Mechanikos, as opposed to the more formal and more respectful nin- prefix that denoted sovereignty.
Kammani seemed to pull herself up straighter, jaw set and ears upright and stiff "The Arch-Captain and I will hold Penn Station against all attackers for you, nin-Irkalla, but I fear it will require doubling the guard."
Nergal made a negative gesture, his tail swaying gently behind him. "You will have to make do with those warriors you have. Doubling the guard would require you to rely yet more heavily on native auxiliaries." He hesitated a fraction of a second, and Irkalla knew that his next words, though supposedly directed at Kammani, were again for her benefit. "The Archon mistrusts our native servants," he went on, with a flick of one ear.
Kammani did not visibly react. "Our forces are stretched thin, nin-Irkalla," she responded, expression respectfully bland. "There are so many cities to hold. Still, we will do our best. You have my word."
"Your zeal is noted, Sub-Captain," Nergal informed her. "You may go now."
Kammani turned and saluted Irkalla with her tailbarb, as one warrior to another, then saluted Nergal.
After her departure, the audience chamber was silent for a moment, before Irkalla spoke.
"One would hope you have a plan for dealing with these monstrous humans? I fear they may become an even larger problem if not dealt with swiftly."
Nergal flicked his tail dismissively. "There are but a handful of them, and they could not stop us from taking the city."
Always so confident, even in the wake of a humiliating defeat at the hands of the natives he had sworn were already cowed. As Imperator, all military defeats reflected back upon Nergal's stature as both warrior and leader, and though he was by no means disgraced by this disaster the way Burrukam was, he still had to be feeling its sting.
One would not know it to look at him, however. But then, perhaps his arrogance was so great that he truly did not feel the shame, could not admit that his short-sighted policies had a hand in this minor defeat. The Argonian retreat had left the other Imperators -- those who had not perished in combat -- broken men. The only other survivors of the Argonian military's highest command had both died within days of the final defeat, one of his wound, and the other by her own tailbarb. Nergal, however, had thrived in the aftermath of disaster, seeming to see it not as tragedy, but as opportunity.
"A handful of humans who can fly and set things on fire with a touch is a handful too many," Irkalla replied, keeping her voice cool and level. "Especially with our forces so overextended." Nergal might still have her between his blades and the tunnel wall, but in the wake of the military's loss of face, she could afford to be bolder in her opposition.
"Perhaps, but I would not presume too much knowledge of military tactics were I in your place." Nergal's lips drew back in something that was as much snarl as smile. "You were trained to rule, Archon. Leave the fighting to those who have more experience with it."
He turned sharply on his heel and left.
'And you, Imperator,' she thought, 'were trained to fight. You would do better to leave the ruling to those who have more experience with it.'
A warrior could only suffer so many defeats before his own subordinates declared him unfit to rule, and if Nergal's gamble that they could hold this entire planet long enough to re-arm did not pay off…
Much as she despised being beholden to Nergal, Irkalla could not bring herself to wish for that. With luck, a few carefully placed words here and there would be all it took to keep the memory of each of Nergal's errors alive in the minds of his lieutenants, until they loomed ever larger in their thoughts. Perhaps these human rebels might prove as much a blessing as an inconvenience.
Steve-
Attached is a list of answers to Hank's questions. Unfortunately, I only have data for about half of them. Re: their weapons, I could have told Hank they were plasma based. They smell like ozone when fired. Glad to hear Firestar, Justice are ok.
Clint and I are also ok. Ignore Warbird; she exaggerates.
The Argonians have both a hereditary ruler and a military commander, who seems to function something like a dictator -- that's why the Archon and Imperator confusion. They also have total gender equality. Females are distinguished by organic stingers at the ends of their tails, and can hold positions of high military authority. Males of their military class wear metallic blades to mimic the females' stingers. Non-military Argonians carry no edged weapons of any kind and have lower status.
Their weapons are predominantly plasma based. They have advanced nuclear capability, including cold fusion, but, oddly, don't seem to be able to repair or replace their nuclear reactors or warheads themselves. Let me repeat that. They use cold fusion as a power source, but can't build their own nuclear warheads. It's enough to make you want to cry.
"I'm working as fast as I can," Tony said.
The Agonian translator -- it was the same Argonian every time; Tony was sure of it now -- looked skeptical. "We were told that you were a great scientist, a weapons builder of great skill. Arch-Captain Mamitu expects great things of you. Are you certain you are no closer to being able to duplicate the device than you were yesterday?" His voice held a hopeful lilt, as if maybe Tony, reminded of how skilled he was supposed to be, would change his mind.
It was ironic, when you thought about it. Tony had tried so hard to redefine his company and distance both it and himself from his past as an arms manufacturer, and yet when aliens from the other side of the galaxy showed up, even they knew that he used to build weapons. Apparently, he was an intergalactically famous arms manufacturer.
Tony offered the Argonian what he hoped looked like a friendly smile. "Look," he said, "this missile is extremely complicated, and both the guidance system and the structure of the warhead itself are completely different from anything Earth has produced." Which didn't mean Tony hadn't figured it out. He'd cracked the computer code for the guidance system three days ago, and had had the internal structure of the missile memorized inside and out for almost two weeks. All he needed to build a perfect, functioning copy was Plutonium 239 and Tritium, to fuel the fission and fusion components of the missile's two-stage nuclear reaction. "I don't even know what kind of radioactive isotope the missile needs to power itself," he went on. "Plutonium, uranium, thorium, unstable hydrogen molecules…" he trailed off, shaking his head. "Are you sure you can't let me have a look at the radioactive material you pulled out of this missile?"
The question was a calculated gamble; he was hoping the Argonian would say "no," but banking on the fact that asking would make him look like he was eager to make progress.
Thank God he'd been able to piece together disassembled bits of some of the Argonian scientific instruments and repurposed pieces of the missile to analyze the traces of residual radiation given off by the places within the missile where the Plutonium and Tritium had once been; not knowing what kind of nuclear material the missile used had been driving him crazy.
"I'm afraid that's not possible," the Argonian said. His ears twitched slightly, and he looked almost apologetic. Then he leaned forward slightly, ears stiffly upright with what looked like interest. "Explain further about these… isotopes? Why are they important?"
Tony blinked. "You don't know?" The giant, glowing sphere on the other side of the converter room, the one the Argonians had powering their base and the entire New York City subway system, as well, contained a successful, ongoing cold fusion reaction, a nuclear physicist's equivalent of the Holy Grail, and they didn't know how it worked.
He'd been hoping he was mistaken about that. On the one hand, it was lucky for Earth that the Argonians didn't know how to use their technology to its fullest potential anymore, but on the other hand, just the idea of someone attaining that level of scientific achievement and then forgetting it all was painful.
It was a good thing Reed Richards was still free. If he were down here, he would have wept at the very concept, then built them an improved, even more powerful version of their cold fusion reactor using matter and anti-matter, just to show them how it was done.
The Argonian's ears wilted. He glanced down at the array of missile components that covered Tony's lab banch and the floor, carefully arranged in alphabetical according to the materials they were made from. The 'U for Unknown' section covered most of the work bench. "We have… forgotten much," he admitted, after a moment. "Science is not a proper pursuit for warriors. That is what slaves are for."
"But you're not a warrior," Tony pointed out.
The Argonian's ears stiffened again, and his tail, which had been swaying gently behind him, went still. "Is it that obvious?"
"You don't carry a sword, and you don't have one of those blades strapped to the end of your tail. And you're in grey, instead of black." It wasn't until Tony had finished listing the obvious that he realized he might have insulted the alien by pointing out its lack of warrior status. Maybe it was akin to questioning someone's masculinity, or, considering that the Argonian warrior ideal seemed to be female, given the male attempts to mimic female tail barbs, questioning their femininity.
"No." The Argonian expelled air through its nose; Tony guessed it was the equivalent of a sigh. "I am only a mechanikos and linguist. My contributions to the Empire are small, beside those of a true warrior."
"No, because being able to talk to the people you're conquering isn't important at all." The words were out before Tony could help himself. Sarcasm in captivity situations wasn't generally a good idea. It tended to make people hit you.
The Argonian didn't seem offended, though. He twitched one ear back, regarded Tony for a moment, and said, "You're not a warrior either. You wouldn't understand."
"No," Tony agreed. "I've spent a lot of time around warriors, but I'm not one. I just pay the bills and design things."
"And yet other humans hold you in high respect." It was a question, Tony could tell, for all that the Argonian tried to disguise it as a statement of fact.
"Clearly you didn't do as much research on Earth as I thought. Money's a lot more important here than how many fights you've won. And intelligence can be worth something, too."
"We had little time to study you," the Argonian said. Tony got a vague impression of defensiveness. "Tactical considerations were more important than culture."
As far as Tony was concerned, culture was a tactical consideration, but he wasn't about to tell the alien invader that. Let them figure it out on their own. If their astounding ability to completely forget nuclear physics transferred over in to anthropology, it would take them approximately the next sixty years.
There was a pause, and then the alien made a sort of coughing sound and said, "You were going to explain isotopes?"
"I, um…" He was talking too much, Tony realized, giving too much information away.
It had been so long since he had talked to anyone, except for an hour or so a day with Clint, when his guard shift ended. He couldn't trust the other scientists who were there willingly, wasn't sure how to approach the captive ones without giving himself away. And the Argonian looked so eager for his explanation, black eyes wide and glittering and ears pricked forwards. Even his tail looked "alert," curving up over his shoulder eagerly.
"The power cores of our ships' drives rely on nuclear reaction, but they are a different kind of reaction than the one that occurs when these missiles detonate. Is this because of isotopes?"
"Partly," Tony hedged. There couldn't be any harm in giving him just a little information. Enough for him to think Tony was helpful and cooperative, but not enough for him to be able to actually figure the weapons or the reactor out on his own. "The missiles are designed to explode, while the power core is a sustained reaction. It's stable enough to keep occurring under its own power, without outside aide."
"Because of isotopes," the Argonian repeated.
"Yes," Tony said firmly. And also because one process involved fission and the other was entirely fusion, and cold fusion at that. And a dozen other things too complicated to explain properly without delving into math equations. "The power core combines atoms with unstable numbers of neutrons into new atoms. The missile either combines them or splits them apart; I'm not sure which yet. Isotopes are atoms of the same element with differing numbers of neutrons, and different isotopes are used in different kinds of nuclear reactions." There. That was nice and informative sounding, while being so oversimplified as to be of next to no practical use.
"Ah!" The Argonian tilted its head to one side, lips pulling back in what Tony had figured out by now was a smile. The fangs made it look anything but friendly. "Thank you, Tony Stark."
Tony felt a pang of something almost like guilt. "You can call me Tony," he offered. "Humans don't usually use our entire name." Why did he feel guilty for concealing information from the alien? That was his job. It was the enemy.
He needed to remember that.
"Thank you, Tony," the Argonian repeated. "You may call me Isimud. I will tell the Arch Captain that you are making progress as quickly as you can."
It turned and left then, tail swishing contentedly behind it.
Damn it. Clearly he needed to talk to some actual humans before he proved Clint right and really did go native.
Maybe, if he was careful, talking to the other scientists wouldn't be that much of a risk. If he was careful.
Because if he wasn't careful, he was going to end up teaching Isimud nuclear physics just because the guy was nice to him.
Of course, Tony's luck being what it was, half the scientists in the room hated him to begin with, either because they were supervillains, or because they worked for competing companies, or because he'd made them look stupid at conferences, or made a massively influential breakthrough in the field of micro-circuitry before they could. The only person more widely hated by the scientific community than he was was probably Hank McCoy, and that was because the last time he'd presented his work at a medical conference, he'd opened by actively mocking the other presenters whose conclusions he'd disagreed with. Also, he made faces at geneticists he didn't like behind their backs.
Leaving his little section of the man-made cavern felt strange -- he kept glancing over his shoulder, expecting to hear a shout from one of the guards, to see someone rushing towards him, weapons raised. It wasn't until he'd gone past Octavius's work area and rounded the first converter that he realized he was being an idiot.
He wasn't a prisoner -- well, technically he was in the sense of not being allowed to leave, but he hadn't been taken captive. He'd volunteered to be here, and the Argonians gave volunteers some amount of freedom. Clint wandered all over the place, flirting with the female scientists, chatting with the other guards, exploring the station. Meanwhile, Tony had been acting like he was chained to his lab bench by the ankle, like he was pinned in place the way Octavius was.
This wasn't Afghanistan. He was allowed to walk around if he wanted. They wouldn't shoot him for it.
Tony squared his shoulder, ignoring the itching feeling between them -- the guards were not watching him; they had no reason to suspect him and didn't care who he talked to -- and made his way toward Dr. Gruenwald, the Empire State engineering professor. As far as Tony could remember, he'd never gotten into a shouting match at a technical conference with him, and he'd always respected his work in the field. His journal articles were always a model of clarity, something that was sorely lacking in many engineers' attempts at paper-writing.
Gruenwald was working on a piece of machinery that looked like it might be some form of lab equipment. Tony came to a stop in front of his work bench, examining the thing for a moment. "Is that a particle accelerator?" he asked. He shook his head. "I shouldn't be surprised, should I? Of course they can't build their own particle accelerators. How did they manage to invent faster-then-light travel to begin with?"
Gruenwald stared at him, setting the tiny blowtorch he'd been using to one side. "Is there something you want, Stark?"
Okay, not exactly friendly. But then, a little suspicion made sense under the circumstances -- after all, he'd been hiding in the corner for weeks.
"I can't stare at the same piece of tech any longer," he said, offering the older man his best talking-to-shareholders smile. The cheerful and slightly feckless-looking 'trust me' one, not the much less innocent one he used on prospective business partners and people he was trying to get into bed. "Not when they won't let me do live tests of anything. Giving me just one thing to work on is inefficient, anyway. At the very least they must have plasma guns that need maintenance or something that's not just staring at that stupid missile's guidance system and trying to crack alien computer codes."
"Go away," Gruenwald said, turning to pick up his blowtorch again. He was machining his own parts, Tony could see. "I'm busy."
Why didn't he get to build particle accelerators? It would be approximately six times more interesting than rearranging the missile components on his workspace's floor.
"Oh, come on." Tony tried the smile again. "I need someone to talk to that isn't Barton or an Argonian. Maybe I can help you with that. I'm good with machinist's work."
Gruenwald turned to face him again, pinning him with an openly contemptuous stare that made Tony want to squirm. It reminded him uncomfortably of the way his father used to look at him. "I may have no choice but to work for these things, but at least I didn't come here of my own free will," he said, voice quiet, but completely cold. "I never thought even you would sink this low, Stark. I never thought even a man as irresponsible and self-absorbed as you would volunteer to betray his entire species."
Tony took a step back, his smile freezing in place. "I… okay then. I guess you don't need help."
"No," said slightly sibilant voice from behind him. "He doesn't."
Tony turned to find Kurt Conners -- all six green, scaly feet of him -- standing a couple of feet away, his arms folded across his chest. His expression was no friendlier than Gruenwald's. "I don't blame some of the others for giving in," he said. "Some of them had never seen violence first hand before the Argonians turned up on their doorstep with guns, or they have wives and children to protect. But you…" he shook his head. "I expected more courage from you. Even Otto Octavius resisted them."
Tony shook his head, no ready defense coming to mind. What could he say? As far as they knew, Connors and Gruenwald were right: to the best of their knowledge, he had simply surrendered.
He kept his face carefully blank; he couldn't afford to display remorse, or guilt, not when he needed everyone to think he was collaborating whole-heartedly. "Right," he said. "I'll just… leave, then."
He turned and walked away, back to his work area.
"I don't need help from you, Connors," he could hear Gruenwald saying behind him. "In case you've forgotten, I was on the university ethics committee that fired you."
"Lonely, Stark?" Octavius smirked, as Tony trudged past his workbench. "Maybe your new furry friend can keep you company."
Was he actually implying that Tony was having sex with an alien, or was Tony just being paranoid?
It didn't matter. It didn't what any of them thought of him. He was here to do a job, that was all.
If Steve were in his shoes, he wouldn't start crying because everyone was mean to him. He'd raise his chin and square his shoulders and ignore them all.
Tony wasn't going to let him down over something so trivial. Other people only got in the way when he was working on a project, anyway.
He started clearing away the missile parts scattered all over his work area, stacking them neatly on the lab bench, and mentally composing an explanation of how the thing worked for his next letter to Steve.
… not that they're likely to use them against you, if they really have so few of them, but I thought you might want to know.
This place is driving me nuts, Steve. Do you know how hard it is to sit here, surrounded by technology that's an engineer's dream, and not work on it? I'm so bored that I keep wanting to ask my "handler" if he's got any routine maintenance work for me to do.
I wouldn't, don't get me wrong. I just miss having a challenge to work on, something I can really lose myself in.
How are things going out there? I don't mean just tactically, I mean, how are you? How are you really? If fighting a war like this is bringing back any old memories you'd rather forget, you know you can tell me, right? Just consider me your captive audience.
You're probably rolling your eyes now; I know it's a bad joke, but I mean it, okay?
--Tony
Part 5a
***
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
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Quick typo: "If Steve were in his shoes, he wouldn't stark crying because everyone was mean to him."
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"If Steve were in his shoes, he wouldn't stark crying because everyone was mean to him."
*head desks* Oh God, it's not just a typo -- it's a typo that's an accidental horrible pun. Ack.
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Thanks! It's good to know that our Tony-torturing efforts are appreciated. *grins* It's like Vietghanistan, but with aliens - which means you know there's a part of Tony that's quietly convinced the aliens are going to kill Clint because of him before the whole thing is over.
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I love how this story keeps building and building. The glimpses of the alien culture are especially intriguing and well-done.
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They should just be thankful Wolverine wasn't in Manhattan when they invaded. Or the Hulk (I just had an image of Banner being hauled in, and everybody else pressing themselves into the walls in wide-eyed terror while the Argonians go, "What?"). God help some poor bunch of aliens out in Arizona or something.
Not that the collection they've got in that basement is a whole lot better. I realize all of a sudden that a disproportionate fraction of Marvel's super-people are brilliant scientists, and eventually I suspect Doc Ock and the Lizard are going to go very badly for the aliens.
Poor Tony. Going stir-crazy in the aliens' basement. He should be offended that he's been screwing off with that missile for days and nobody else has noticed he has to be faking it because Tony Stark would've figured out how a missile works by now. And that none of them remember what happened last time he was taken captive to build weapons for bad guys. My prediction: he'll turn the missile into a transforming robot with heat-beam eyeblasts, remote-controlled by inputting code word: LIBERTY.
The Afghanistan reference was great. So the stir-craziness is due to a little bit more than just boredom? (Powerful a motivator as that is, for him.) I'd noticed the similarities, and was wondering if that wasn't driving him a little bit up the wall.
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Okay, that's not actually what he's going to end up doing, but now I kind of wish it was. (I also wish we'd thought of the Bruce Banner: Alien Captive scenario).
Tony's in a tough position here, because it would be so easy to sabotage the stuff they have him working on, but as soon as he does, he'll be caught. Which means that he has only one shot at it, so he has to make it count. And liberty robots with heat-beam eyes would certainly count ^_^.
Ah Tony, you can't live down your past, eh?
I liked the Alulim proverb, and the fact that the females seem to be the deadlier of the species (with organic stinging tales) to the point of the males mimicking them.
It was a good thing Reed Richards was still free. If he were down here, he would have wept at the very concept, then built them an improved, even more powerful version of their cold fusion reactor using matter and anti-matter, just to show them how it was done.
I laughed, then sobered. This is too true. reed is more about scientific concepts than humanity at times. Yeeessshhhh.
Re: Ah Tony, you can't live down your past, eh?
This is too true. reed is more about scientific concepts than humanity at times.
*nods* He can't help it, really. It's the innate mad scientist in him (Hank and Tony have a decent amount of it, too, but nobody beats Reed Richards when it comes to getting carried away and doing unfortunate things in the name of science).
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Someone needs to provide hugs for both Hank and Tony, posthaste. Lots of them. Hugs for all!
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Tony always needs more hugs. Hank too.
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And poor Tony. Totally bored. Feels like a captive. And is obviously surrounded by idiots. It's amazing how stupid scientists can be, sometimes. For one, did nobody notice that he was barely able to walk when he surrendered? That kind of injuries don't disappear in the time it takes to travel from West to East Coast. Or that he didn't actually bring any of his own tech? Or that he pays the bills for the Avengers? Or, once upon a time, escaped those kidnappers by building a big metal combat suit? And Tony being bored before he solved a technical problem? Is so not possible. Not to mention that, by all rights, he should have been finished reverse-engineering his weapon days ago (honestly, that's something he does before breakfast), especially considering he always plays with the more unusual kind tech, working with the Avengers and SHIELD every now and then. I'd be surprised if Tony isn't going to be an emotional wreck by the time this is over.
The alien perspective is also very interesting. I'm expecting many social changes in Argonian society after this. And I'm seeing a potential ally in Irkalla, since she obviously wants a place to live for her people and no go conquering the while universe or some such nonsense. Also, it hurts from a scientific point of view that they've lost all their knowledge. Oh, the danger that lie in ignorance... Of course, I also want to hit them over the head for their arogance in assuming that any society is held up by any kind of warriors/military. They're obviously very usefull in the day to day life. *snorts*
P.S. A mistake in Tony's science babble:
It has to be: Isotopes are atoms of the same element with differing numbers in neutrons.
What you described are ions, as far as I can tell. Protons characterize the element and neutrons the isotope. Electrons are responsible for chemical characteristics and don't really belong in nuclear physics, not being part of the nucleus and all.
Thought I should tell you.
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Oh God. That would be my fault. It's been almost a decade since I took a chemistry class (since my junior year of high school) and I obviously got isotopes and valancy mixed up. Thank you so much for the correction.
*grins* Poor Tony, indeed. If they were thinking about it, the other scientists would have noticed by now that he and Clint are pretty obviously up to something, but most of the people there don't know he's Iron Man and don't like him to begin with (How dare he be significantly more brilliant and successful than they are despite being younger? And why does he have to rub it in their faces all the time?). Plus, his reputation as an alcoholic and a screw-up preceeds him.
The Argonian society is never going to be the same after they're finally kicked off of Earth -- Irkalla isn't the only potential ally out there. And Isimud's probably going to have something of a fanboy crush on Tony before this entire thing's over.
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Also, I really want to see the supervillain version of fighting back, which I sort of imagine to be something along the lines of blow lots of stuff/people up and steal valuable tech at the same time. :)
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Thanks so much! Tony *needs* approval and external validation, and he's not getting much of either down in the Scientist Basement - except, unfortunately, from the Argonians. And Steve's letters.
I really want to see the supervillain version of fighting back, which I sort of imagine to be something along the lines of blow lots of stuff/people up and steal valuable tech at the same time. :)
... which is awfully similar to the superhero version of fighting back *grins*. You're in luck; some supervillain resistance is going to show up eventually.
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I'm hurting for Tony, so hard. It must be rough, Doc Oct having higher moral ground than you. And what a note to end it on. He sounds so lonely. :c I am itching to read Steve's response although probably not as badly as Tony is, lol.
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*grins* To be fair, Daredevil's already the equivalent of the boogyman for a lot of people (Peter as a boogyman, on the other hand, is just funny). And for people like the Argonians, who live in underground tunnels, someone who can 'see' in the dark even better than they can is probably terrifying.
I'd love to see what they make of someone like the Punisher.
The Punisher is probably gunning down aliens left and right, and suppling resistance groups with items from his insanely large collection of firearms.
It must be rough, Doc Ock having higher moral ground than you.
Doc Ock doesn't take orders from anyone, let alone idiotic aliens who've forgotten how to do basic physics. As soon as somebody figures out how to get his arms working again, he's going to make them all very, very sorry.
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Thanks for the feedback, I'm glad you're enjoying this, even if I am horribly late in saying so.
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:D
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You guys rock.
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Yay for seeing the letters! I've been waiting for them. :-D
"How much damage am I supposed to be causing here? Are we talking lightly singed or three alarm fire?"
*laughs* I love Johnny. Once upon a time, he was my favorite Marvel character. The more of him I see in this fic, the more happy I am he's here. <3
Normally, flying Steve around like this would have been Tony's job
*wibbles for the boys*
I really liked seeing Steve's tactical ability in the Penn station attack, as well as his fighting ability. (And his willingness to ignore orders, including his own. :-D) Folks in the fandom are pretty good at remembering that Steve is tactically very smart as well as being big and buff and physically impressive in general, but it's good to remind us all!
An incredibly energy-inefficient lightning gun.
This is such an awesome detail. Laser guns are overused anyway. *g*
Hank had never been able to bring himself to like cockroaches. They had a nasty temperament, and no social organization to speak of.
*laughs* I love Hank!
"when I drew up the first supply list, Cap was using the orange Prismacolor marker on the target list, and I wanted this one to match."
*laughs* That's just so perfect. *g*
"Welcome back to the Avengers. Where we've all been on a team together for far too long."
*laughs more* But that's why we like them so much! <3
"There were at least two octets of them," he burst out, abruptly.
I really liked this moment because it's so completely the sort of thing any insecure and humiliated commander does, overestimating (or lying about) the forces against them because they're desperate not to appear incompetent. It makes the Argonians in general a little easier to connect with, for the reader.
I'm really interested to watch the progression of the war and to see how the Argonians will respond when they start learning more about the Avengers, and Steve in particular.
There had been a series of hysteria-tinged reports from the lower end of the island, most of them from Mechanikos, involving said leather-clad human.
[snip]
The Creeping Horror imitator, however, was too obviously based on the monsters of a dozen children's tales to have any bearing on reality.
*laughing out loud* Oh, Matt. Naturally you'd manage to pull off all your usual impressions regardless of species. *snickers* So much win. I love the different legends and tales that are building up around the superpowered folks.
Apparently, he was an intergalactically famous arms manufacturer.
Amusing, but poor Tony! *hugs him*
It was a good thing Reed Richards was still free. If he were down here, he would have wept at the very concept, then built them an improved, even more powerful version of their cold fusion reactor using matter and anti-matter, just to show them how it was done.
*laughs* It's so true. As hard as it is for Tony to hold back, Reed would forget about the need until weeks later, if he remembered at all! Science rules his brain. :-)
Why did he feel guilty for concealing information from the alien? That was his job. It was the enemy.
Because you're lonely, you dipstick! *hugs Tony* He's not going to be able to keep himself from becoming friendly with at least a couple of them, and he's so going to beat himself up over it later. Well, now and later. *wry*
"I never thought even you would sink this low, Stark. I never thought even a man as irresponsible and self-absorbed as you would volunteer to betray his entire species."
Oh, Tony. It wouldn't be a story about you if you weren't HORRIBLY MISJUDGED sometime! *g*
How are things going out there? I don't mean just tactically, I mean, how are you? How are you really? If fighting a war like this is bringing back any old memories you'd rather forget, you know you can tell me, right? Just consider me your captive audience.
<3 the ending of this part.
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Nowhere near as belated as I am in replying to feedback ><
Yay for seeing the letters! I've been waiting for them. :-D
The idea that Steve and Tony could only communicate via letters was pretty much the reason this fic exists in the first place, so I hope they lived up to the hype.
*laughs* I love Johnny. Once upon a time, he was my favorite Marvel character. The more of him I see in this fic, the more happy I am he's here. <3
Johnny was my favorite character when I used to watch the old Fantastic Four cartoon as a nine year old, along with Ben, and I still have a soft spot for both of them.
I really liked seeing Steve's tactical ability in the Penn station attack, as well as his fighting ability. (And his willingness to ignore orders, including his own. :-D) Folks in the fandom are pretty good at remembering that Steve is tactically very smart as well as being big and buff and physically impressive in general, but it's good to remind us all!
The concept of this fic relies pretty heavily on Steve's tactical smarts, so it's good to hear that we got them across there.
This is such an awesome detail. Laser guns are overused anyway. *g*
And of course, Steve refuses to think of it as anything but a ray gun, whether it's laser or lightening, any way .
*laughs* I love Hank!
Hank is awesome, more people should love him! *Secret agenda is not so secret*.
*laughs* That's just so perfect. *g*
The bit with the color coded lists is one of my favorite bits in the entire fic, so it's nice to hear that other people liked it too :).
*laughs more* But that's why we like them so much! <3
Damn skippy. Teams that end up as slightly incestuous families are the meat and bread of fandom.
I really liked this moment because it's so completely the sort of thing any insecure and humiliated commander does, overestimating (or lying about) the forces against them because they're desperate not to appear incompetent. It makes the Argonians in general a little easier to connect with, for the reader.
I'm really interested to watch the progression of the war and to see how the Argonians will respond when they start learning more about the Avengers, and Steve in particular.
We got kind of carried away with the Argonians, so it's just good that people seem to have enjoyed them, rather than wanting to stone us for spending so much time on original characters.
*laughing out loud* Oh, Matt. Naturally you'd manage to pull off all your usual impressions regardless of species. *snickers* So much win. I love the different legends and tales that are building up around the superpowered folks.
Someday, Matt will actually appear in one of our fics, rather than just being a bizarre kind of joke.
Amusing, but poor Tony! *hugs him*
Tony can go to other planets and alternate universes, and people will still know him as "That guy who used to make land mines."
*laughs* It's so true. As hard as it is for Tony to hold back, Reed would forget about the need until weeks later, if he remembered at all! Science rules his brain. :-)
::snerk:: And that's why we love him.
Because you're lonely, you dipstick! *hugs Tony* He's not going to be able to keep himself from becoming friendly with at least a couple of them, and he's so going to beat himself up over it later. Well, now and later. *wry*
Tony's not good at recognizing emotions as they apply to him; this is the cause of about half of the problems he ends up having.
Oh, Tony. It wouldn't be a story about you if you weren't HORRIBLY MISJUDGED sometime! *g*
They'd all be sorry if they knew that he was dying! But yeah, horribly misjudged is kind of Tony's default state.
<3 the ending of this part.
That part was one of the first little shippy hints we got to throw in, and it was so nice to be able to do that, afetr five chapters of plot :).
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Of course! And secretly Tony finds that incredibly cute and loves him for it, even if it is technically inaccurate.
Someday, Matt will actually appear in one of our fics, rather than just being a bizarre kind of joke.
I would totally read a fic about him, even if it wasn't a Steve/Tony fic.
Tony can go to other planets and alternate universes, and people will still know him as "That guy who used to make land mines."
It's so true. *shakes head* In fact, I'm pretty sure that has actually happened in canon.
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"Apparently, he was an intergalactically famous arms manufacturer" just cracked me up.
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I'm really impressed by your characterisation and incorporation of so many characters. That's not easy to do, and I love how many people you've got. This is such a great premise. And Tony being in-the-know about being a captive. I really love it. I'm really angry Gruenwald being snippy with him. I am kind of ridiculously protective of him, and I wish that he would stand up and tell them why they shouldn't hate him--he gave in because he was hurt, he had to protect Pepper and Happy and Iron Man and Jocasta, he figured he could do good here spying... But he won't. Because he's Tony Stark and he has to keep his secrets to himself.
I like this character you're fleshing out in Tony's 'handler'? He's kind of neat. And will hopefully be a mate for Tony. I guess I'll see though. This is good.
Anywho. Lots of neat stuff going on in this, and I'm going to get back to the next chapter and see where it goes from here! :)