When The Lights Go On Again 9/20

[seanchai.livejournal.com]

Title: When the Lights Go On Again 9/20
Authors: seanchai and elspethdixon
Rated: PG-13
Pairings: Steve/Tony, Hank/Jan, Carol/Wanda
Warnings: 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, a lot of this fic in general, and this chapter in particular owe a great deal to tavella, who helped us to shape this into something that didn't have gaping plot holes.

X-posted to Marvel Slash.


When the Lights Go On Again



The last time Jan had made contact with Tony, the Rhino had been hovering dangerously close, and she had barely had time to do more than hurriedly pass along Hank's discoveries about the poison and their dietary deficiencies, and slip him as many salt packets as she'd been able to carry. Which, unfortunately, at her present size, was about three.

It had been a week since then, and there been had any word from Tony or Clint since. Jan had waited in Grand Central's main concourse every day at noon without catching so much as a glimpse of either one of them.

Clint had been unconscious, according to Tony, feverish and desperately sick. After the third day of waiting for a contact who never showed, Jan could no longer ignore them whispering voice that kept insisting that Clint had died, succumbing to the poison despite Tony's efforts to help him. Or Tony had gotten caught on his way back to the scientists' basement and been locked up somewhere, or worse, and Clint had been left without anyone to nurse him through the effects of the poison, and had died of neglect.

If she had gone with Tony, down into the depths of the station, the way she had wanted...

She probably would have been caught right along side him, but at least she would know.

It was almost twelve thirty. If Clint wasn't there in another few minutes, it would mean he'd missed yet another rendezvous, would mean that it was time for her to leave.

Jan slowly scanned the room one more time; the Argonian structures that had replaced the old storefronts didn't even look strange anymore. The flowing copper designs that covered them looked delicate and artistic from a distance, harmonizing with the pink and gold marble of the station's walls and floor as if they belonged there.

When all of this was over, she was never going to design any clothing or jewelry that used copper again. No copper wire in earrings, no brass studs on jeans or denim jackets. And no black, she decided. Or high collars. The Van Dyne signature look was going to be pastels and low necklines for the rest of her career.

As usual, this close to midday the station was nearly empty of Argonians, filled mostly by a double handful of human guards and a group of grey-clad human laborers eating lunch in the single remaining restaurant.

As she watched, a black-uniformed guard strode out of the corridor that led to the lower level. She would know that saunter anywhere. It was something in the way Clint moved -- his stride, the way he held himself, half a dozen little things that he shared with Tony, and even Wanda, though it was less obvious on her, since women had a different center of gravity.

Put them in a potentially dangerous situation, and the three of them all moved like Steve.

Jan just managed to stop herself from shouting Clint's name. She crossed the length of the concourse in moments, diving inside his collar and pressing herself against his neck, the closest she could come to a hug at this size.

"Hey," Clint said, "don't tell me you were worried."

He sounded so cocky, just like always, not as if he'd nearly died less than a week ago.

"Are you okay? Hank said the poison wouldn't kill you, but Tony was so afraid the last time I saw him, and it's been so long..."

Clint shrugged one shoulder. "They pulled me off guard duty for a week," he said, sounding almost embarrassed. "I'm fine now, though. Kind of tired, but Tony says that's the vitamin C thing and the salt deprivation."

"About that," Jan said. "Here, reach your hand up; I have something for you." She unzipped the over-the-shoulder satchel she'd stored the salt packets in for safekeeping, and pulled one of them out.

Not for the first time, she envied Hank his ability to grow and shrink inanimate objects. Normally she felt that she had gotten the better end of the deal, with her wings and stingers, but being able to shrink supplies down small enough to smuggle more than just a handful of items in with her, and then return them to normal size without having to grow herself would have been really nice right about now.

Clint reached up and slid his hand inside his collar as if he were scratching an itch on the side of his neck, and Jan slipped the first of her three salt packets into it. "What's-" he started, then broke off and whispered, "Salt!" in tones of fierce -- if quiet -- glee.

Peering over the edge of Clint's collar, she saw him rip the packet open and pour its contents out onto his palm. What was he--

Clint bent his head forward slightly, raised his cupped hand to his mouth, and licked the salt off his palm. It would have been funny, if it hadn't been so sad.

How desperate did you have to be for your body to crave salt enough to eat it by the handful?

She must have made some kind of sound, because Clint froze, then, and lowered his hand, traces of salt still clinging to his skin.

"Christ," he said, "I probably look like a junkie."

He did, actually, but Jan wasn't going to tell him that. "I wish I'd been able to bring something with vitamin C in it, too, but I can only carry so much, and Hank thought the electrolyte imbalance was more of an immediate danger."

"That's okay." Clint grinned, cheerful again. "You brought me salt. And hey, my teeth haven't started falling out yet, so I'm probably still good in the scurvy department. Tony, though..." he shook his head, smile fading. After a moment of silence, he said, more quietly than was usual, even for their whispered conferences, "He had broken ribs when he was brought here, and he says they've started hurting again."

Scars re-opening and knitted bone fractures separating again were one of the signs they were supposed to watch for, along with bleeding, spongy gums, bruises that wouldn't heal, and a variety of other unpleasant symptoms.

"Sorry I worried you guys," Clint said, after the silence had lingered just a moment too long.

Jan patted the side of his neck. "We knew you'd be fine. You're tough. And Hank was almost completely sure the poison wasn't fatal."

"Almost?" It wasn't quite a squawk, but Jan was pretty sure that was only because of the need to keep their voices low.

"Hank's not infallible, you know."

"Gee, I never guessed," Clint muttered, and Jan suppressed the urge to smack the bare skin she was currently kneeling on.

"You might have had some kind of allergic reaction," she said, instead, "or started vomiting and thrown your electrolytes so far out of balance that you died."

Clint made a face. "Death by puking. Great. And for the record, if you ever get sick, get someone other than Tony to take care of you. 'It could be worse, Clint,'" he mimicked, in a high-pitched voice that didn't sound remotely like Tony. "'You could be hallucinating.'"

Jan snickered, then felt like a horrible person for doing so. "I... can't stay here very long," she admitted.

"I know," Clint said softly. "What's going on out there?"

Jan told him about sending Sam out through the shield, to get word out to whomever was left, and about the low reserves of food and supplies that had them raiding Argonian supply depots out of more than just a desire to be annoying now. About the way they all took turns babysitting Franklin and Valeria -- though it was mostly Angela now, because she was disturbingly out-of-control in the field these days and silent and mournful the rest of the time, and spending time with the kids was the only thing that seemed to cheer her up. About Hank's quest for an antidote to Argonian venom, so that no one else would have to go through what Clint had. About Steve, and the way he didn't talk to anyone anymore, until she was almost as worried about him as she was about Clint and Tony.

She didn't mention her worry for them outright, though. Clint didn't need to be burdened with that, or given an excuse to tease her. She didn't mention any current tactical information either, and if Clint noticed that she was leaving it out, he didn't say anything.

"Be glad Hank and Reed Richards aren't down here," he said, a few minutes later. "Hank would have gotten himself slapped around by Arch-Captain Mamitu months ago. Tony's creepily good at pretending to be their good little scientist pet; one of the mechanikos has practically adopted him."

"I'm surprised you lasted this long," Jan said, with a certain amount of amusement.

"I was good!" Clint protested. "I didn't do anything to break the rules or draw attention to myself. She just hit me because she was in a bad mood and she's a bitch."

It shouldn't have been surprising; Clint could be mature when he had to be, as new a development as that was. He'd learned responsibility out on the West Coast, she'd realized, during the year he'd spent as a team leader, and the West Coast Avengers falling apart had forced him to grow up even more.

"I wish the two of you didn't have to do this," she admitted. For a few brief and unworthy moments at the very beginning, she'd just been glad it wasn't Hank who was stuck at the Argonians' less than tender mercies, but after months spent witnessing the misery Clint only thought he was successfully hiding, Jan hated the idea of any of her teammates spending another minute in this place.

"Yeah," Clint said. "So do I."

"It probably is a good thing Reed Richards isn't down here," she said, trying to lighten the mood. She had mere minutes before she'd have to leave, and she didn't want to fly away and leave Clint behind when he was visibly downcast. "He would have gone native and built them a brand new cold fusion reactor by now. Or upgraded them to anti-matter."

She could feel the muscles underneath her shift as Clint shrugged uncomfortably. "Not because of that." He shook his head once, slowly. "The physicists are all kept in a different location, but one of the other guards gets sent to bring them meals, and... They're all dying, Jan. The Argonians have them working with radioactive stuff without any shielding or anything."

Jan tightened her grip on Clint's collar, clutching the fabric in both fists. If Hank had gone under the way he'd wanted to -- still wanted to -- he might very likely have ended up there. Pym particles involved as much physics as they did biochemistry, with all the mass transfers and pocket dimensions and... Hank could have been dying of radiation poisoning as they spoke. Tony could have, if they'd decided to put him to work on a different aspect of building nuclear missiles. Or Clint, if the Argonians moved him to a different guard shift.

"You don't-" Clint whispered, voice barely audible, "you don't know how scared I was. I was sure they were going to throw me out on the street if they realized I was sick, or just kill me so that I'd stop taking up Tony's valuable time."

Jan hugged as much of his neck and shoulder as she could reach her arms around, leaning her whole weight into Clint and wishing she were full size so that she could actually put her arms around him. She found pressing herself against someone's skin like this when she was small intensely intimate -- this close, with Clint so big, her every sense was completely filled up by him, the way he smelled, the feel of his skin, the sound of his heartbeat -- but most people who weren't her and Hank didn't understand that. Clint would have found a real hug more comforting.

"How much longer do you think we're going to be down here?" Clint's voice sounded strained, like he was making an effort to keep it from cracking.

"I don't know," Jan admitted. "I don't know."

***

"--Sub-Captain Kammani thought you would want to know."

"The sub-captain is correct," Irkalla said, careful to keep all signs of irritation from her voice. Breaking and running from the rebel forces at the docks had been an inexcusable show of cowardice and lack of discipline, more than deserving of punishment, but Nergal's method of dealing with it had been needlessly wasteful.

Burrukam stood stiffly before her, ears erect and quivering, full of a desperate eagerness to please that, while an understandable result of his demotion, was still pathetic to behold. "Permission to depart, nin-Irkalla?"

"Yes," she said. "Go. Go to the Imperator and tell him that I wish to see him."

Burrukam left obediently.

Irkalla stared at the hall's closed doors, awaiting the moment when Nergal would stride arrogantly into the room. Her tail twitched back and forth irritably as the minutes dragged onward.

Protocol should have dictated that Nergal respond to her summons immediately, unless some vital emergency demanded his attention; by delaying his entrance, he was not just insulting her, but implying, not very subtly, that her commands were beneath his notice.

Protocol should also have dictated that he at the very least inform her of his intention to have the survivors of the botched ambush on the docks executed before carrying the sentence out.

The fact that she had had to learn of it because one of Nergal's subordinates had sent her a message after the fact -- of her own initiative -- was perhaps the worst insult of all. Nergal clearly did not even consider her important enough to merit the knowledge that the execution had taken place.

A summons to appear before the Archon herself should have been an occasion of great solemnity, but when Nergal finally strolled into the room, his manner displayed no deference at all. If anything, he appeared impatient.

"You summoned me, Archon?" His tone was bored, and his tail swayed lazily as he spoke; the threat of her displeasure affected him not at all.

"And I appreciate your promptness, Imperator," Irkalla said, showing him a smile that bared just the tiniest flash of fangs. "I would also have appreciated being informed of your plans for the survivors of your unsuccessful attempt to lay an ambush for the rebels before you had them executed."

"Such cowardice had to be punished," Nergal said, one ear flicking back. "Warriors that lack the will to stand and fight are of no use to me."

Not 'to us,' she thought. Not 'to Argon.' 'To me.'

"They are a drain on our resources, and a weak point in our defenses," he went on. "An army is only as good as its lowliest soldier. Weakness cannot be tolerated."

"Indeed?" Irkalla held her tail still by force of will, resisting the impulse to lash it angrily. "The survivors of such a shameful defeat would done anything to redeem themselves. You could have set them to guarding the human physicists, so that human guards who have proven themselves worthy of being trusted can be put to better use, instead of being wasted. You could have sent them on a suicide mission; surely any warrior under your command would leap at the chance to die with honor. Our people are a shattered remnant of what we once were. Argonian lives are too precious to waste."

Nergal shrugged, the end of his tail giving a dismissive flick. "The lives of cowards are worth nothing. They were more valuable as an example than they would have been alive."

That might have been true once, but every Argonian life had worth now. Until they could find a place of safety -- real safety, not a barely adequate source of temporary shelter like this planet -- and start rebuilding, they had to husband their resources, and no resource was more precious or more irreplaceable than their terribly depleted population.

There would be no Argonian empire to rebuild, without Argonians to populate it.

There was a long moment of silence, while Nergal stared off into the middle distance as if he were thinking of something else entirely. Behind him, Arch-Captain Mamitu's ears were stiff, rotated back the tiniest fraction, as if she wanted to flatten them, and one hands rested on the hilt of one of her swords. She had just enough presence of mind, though, to remember herself in front of her queen, no matter how angry criticism of her commander made her.

Sub-Captain Kammani, flanking Nergal's other side, looked angry as well, though her hands were properly at her sides. "Permission to speak, nin-Irkalla?" she said mildly.

At least one of the warriors present had the respect to call her by her proper title, Irkalla reflected. "You may speak, Sub-Captain."

"I don't wish to presume," Kammani began, "but there is a tactical matter that has been concerning me. You reminded me of it just now, nin-Irkalla, when you spoke of setting disgraced warriors to guard the human physicists as penance. Where ought we to acquire more human physicists, once the ones we currently possess are dead?"

It was an excellent question, and one Irkalla herself ought to have thought of. Sub-Captain Kammani was proving to be a talented officer indeed, and an intelligent one. Warriors under her command had successfully laid a trap for an entire cell of human insurgents in the sector of the city known as 'the Bronx' last octnight. The Sub-Captain had had members of their human auxiliaries spread rumors that a stockpile of food existed at a specific location, when in actual fact, the building had been occupied by a detachment of Argonian troops.

When Irkalla had bestowed her official congratulations on her, she claimed that she had given the orders to the human auxiliaries personally, without the need to employ a mechanikos or use one of their handful of precious translator devices. A warrior so loyal to Argon that she was willing to degrade herself by speaking the tongue of a lesser species in order to better serve the empire was a valuable asset indeed.

Nergal shook his head once, frowning. "It should not be difficult. The humans are as numerous as the stars."

"Yes," Irkalla said. "So were we, once. Now, our control is complete in only a handful of their cities, from which we have already taken the most skilled scientists to be found." And human scientists were not the only resource they might find themselves running out of in the foreseeable future. Food supplies inside the shield had been exhausted, requiring them to ship in food from outside the shield, not only to feed the humans, but also, now that the original shipboard stores had been exhausted, themselves. When the time and resources needed to process Earth's foodstuff in order to make them palatable, non-poisonous, and nutritionally complete was factored in, the situation became even more untenable.

As if their hold over this miserable planet wasn't already shaky enough.

"We have made great progress in replenishing our weapons stocks and recreating our power cores," Nergal said smoothly. "Within a year, possibly less, our fleet will be rebuilt and we will be in a position to leave this place and return to retake Argon. Surely you want that, Archon." He leaned forward, his dark, glittering eyes fixed on her intently. "Surely you don't wish us to remain a collection of miserable refugees, wandering the stars forever, mourning our vanished glory and lost home."

He truly believed what he said, Irkalla realized. Nergal's eyes held the light of true conviction, his voice the fervor of a true child of Alulim. Ruthless and murderous he might be, ambitious and arrogant he certainly was, but he truly did wish to see Argon returned to them.

"No," she said. "I do not wish for that." Argon was their home. The tunnels through this island's bedrock were extensive, but they could not approach the scope and beauty of the caverns of Argon. The soft, blue-green light of star-of-the-depths moss, the inky waters of Alulim's Well and the other, lesser underground lakes, the brilliant colors of stalactites... The tunnels here were all artificial -- they were not even dead, for they had never been alive to begin with.

Perhaps someday she and her people would see Argon's red sun set once more, would walk through those caves again, but not so soon as Nergal believed. Not within a year, dearly as they all wished it. Perhaps not even within twenty years. Even if their fleet could indeed be rebuilt so quickly, which was doubtful in the extreme -- they had made great progress, but not enough, and not quickly enough -- they did not have warriors enough to defeat the usurpers.

Even if they were to commit blasphemy upon blasphemy and put a blade into the hand of every mechanikos, as well as every warrior, they would still lack the numbers needed to retake Argon. Rebuilding their fleet would not take years; it would take a generation. And there was no conceivable way that they could hold Earth that long.

"I do not wish for it," she repeated, "but neither do I agree that killing our own warriors is the way to hasten the day of our return. We have few enough women and men to carry blades for Argon as it is! Los Angeles and Moscow have already fallen into the humans' hands once more. More cities that lack shields will soon follow, if the human resistance continues to gain strength."

Nergal's ears went flat, not in submission, but with rage. "You are the Archon, but I am Imperator. The army follows me. It is mine to command, and I will enforce discipline as I see fit. You have never been a soldier, Archon. I cannot expect you to understand." Beside him, Arch-Captain Mamitu nodded fiercely.

One day, she was going to take great pleasure in making him eat those words. Whenever Nergal wished to dismiss her council as irrelevant, he mentioned her lack of formal military experience. It was true, she had not served in the army, but she had been trained in both combat and tactic, and even if she had not been, she would still have been Archon, and his ruler by custom and law alike.

"The army may follow you, but both you and your men owe your allegiance to me," Irkalla informed him, her voice as cool as she could make it. She deliberately cast her gaze over his shoulder, meeting Sub-Captain Kammani's eyes. "I expect you to honor that. In the future, you will discuss all punishments of this nature with me before carrying them out. Remember, a warrior is remembered by the outcome of his most recent battle, and your men have been losing quite few of those lately."

***

By the time Carol had remembered that Wanda had no way to get back to the hotel or any of the safehouses on her own and flown back to fetch her, Wanda had already left. For a moment, Carol was certain that the Argonians had come back and taken her, that she had abandoned Wanda to the enemy, and then she saw the missing boat.

Wanda had found her own way out of there.

Carol took a deep breath, more relieved than she wanted to admit, and looked around at the destruction. The ground was littered with burned rubble and dead Argonians.

Hank had spent the past two months all but begging for someone to bring him an Argonian to dissect. In all their previous battles, they had been too busy running away moments ahead of Argonian pursuit to even bring the bodies of their own dead back, let alone the enemy's; Carol would likely never get a better chance. Chances were that nobody else would either.

The docks were deserted right now, but it was probably a matter of minutes before the Argonians returned with reinforcements. The warehouse first, she decided, to pick up all the food supplies she could carry, and then she would collect one of the Argonians. It wasn't as if they were going anywhere.

Barely twenty minutes later, Carol was in the Waldorf-Astoria's bar, the food having been delivered to Ig Guara, once the head chef for Peacock Alley, the largest of the hotel's numerous restaurants, and now the Resistance's de facto supply officer, and the dead Argonian -- a female, so that Hank would finally get his chance to study their stingers -- had been safely deposited in Hank's basement lab.

Hank had been so thrilled that Carol had half expected him to kiss her. He'd been nearly bouncing off the walls when she left him, happier than anyone should ever be about performing an autopsy.

It was disturbing as hell, she decided, taking another sip of her drink. Peacock Alley's bar was running short on alcohol after two months without any restocking, and the selection was limited, so she'd had to resort to gin, rather than the whisky, tequila, or vodka she would have preferred.

Hank wasn't usually so... enthusiastic. That wasn't the disturbing part, though. The truly disturbing part was that she had just hauled the corpse of one of her enemies home as a trophy and given it to her teammate as a gift. What was next, cutting off Argonian ears and collecting them?

Carol drained her drink and set the empty glass on the bar, waving at the bartender to bring her another one. Her fingers had left dark, greasy smudges all over the glass; as soon as she picked up the new one, it would be covered in smeared fingerprints, too.

She hadn't bothered to change or clean up before coming here, was still covered in brick dust and ash and blood -- Argonian and her own -- her collection of burns and bruises clearly visible beneath the grime, but the bartender hadn't batted an eyelash. He was used to it by now; she had been coming here after missions for almost two months. To unwind, to relax, to get the taste of plasma-gun ozone and Argonian fur and blood out of her mouth.

Not tonight, though. Tonight, she was trying to get the taste of Wanda out of her mouth.

Wanda had kissed her. On the lips, in a way that left no room for doubt about what she had meant by it. Carol should have been searching her soul over the levels she and the rest of the resistance were stooping too -- turning dead Argonians into science projects, stealing food that was supposed to go toward the city's civilian population -- but no matter how much she tried to distract herself with morbid speculations, all she could really think about was how Wanda's mouth had tasted, how Wanda had touched her, how fucking high-handed and interfering Wanda was, always trying to 'help' where it wasn't needed, and how relieved she had been when she realized that Wanda had escaped capture.

Once upon a time, she would have been able to handle the entire Argonian squad herself, no problem. Even with most of her powers gone, she had still had a semi-automatic weapon and military combat training. She shouldn't have needed help.

She hadn't needed help. She'd only been stunned, not actually unconscious. If Wanda had given her another thirty seconds, she would have been out of that pile of rubble and in the fight again. If Wanda had just given her a little credit for being the warrior she was, rather than rushing in to try and 'save' her...

She could still feel the texture of Wanda's thick, curly hair under her fingers.

Carol scrubbed her hand against the battered remnants of her jeans, wiping off the soot, and picked up her glass again. The gin should have been relaxing her, but it wasn't working.

She had been worried about Wanda, afraid for her -- the plasma bolt had hit her, and she'd gone down hard, and then Carol had been pinned under the wreckage of the warehouse, unable to defend her or to see what was really happening, and everything had been engulfed in a giant firestorm. And then Wanda had helped pull her out of the rubble, and seeing her relatively intact had made Carol giddy with relief.

Wanda had taken advantage of that. Not content with forcing her help on Carol, she'd decided to force her affections on her, too.

With each shot of gin, she could remember the feel of Wanda's hands on her body more vividly. Remembered the way her slim, softly curved frame had felt in her arms, the sensation of her tongue running along Carol's bottom lip, and the way--

Damn it. She was supposed to be forgetting about it, not obsessing over it.

Just thinking about it made her lips tingle, made things inside her body tighten and heat, and...

She hadn't enjoyed it. She hadn't. She had just been off-balance from the fight and being hit with a half-ton of bricks, full of adrenaline and not thinking clearly.

Her glass was empty again. Carol looked up, trying to catch the bartender's eye to order herself another shot, and saw Steve reflected in the long mirror behind bar, bearing down on her like an angry blond tank.

Her stomach sinking, Carol set down her glass and turned around to face the music.

If Steve was this visibly angry, it meant that he'd found out that she'd abandoned Wanda next to the East River, a sitting duck for the Argonians. The fact that she'd been able to find a boat to escape in had been pure luck; she could just as easily have been captured or killed.

You never left your team behind for the enemy, no matter what they'd done to you. But Wanda had kissed her, and all she'd been able to think about was a driving need to get away. To put some space between the two of them, before she did something else she would regret.

If their luck were a little worse, Wanda could very well have been dead right now, and it would have been Carol's fault.

"I see Wanda's come back," she said, as Steve came to a stop in front of her bar stool, glaring down at her, one hand resting lightlyon the bar; not an actual threat, but a reminder that Carol was going to have to sit there and take it. "She has come back, hasn't she?" She hadn't actually checked to make sure that Wanda had gotten out safely. She had just seen the boat missing and assumed. She ought to have checked.

"Yes," Steve said, his voice flat and very calm. "She returned ten minutes ago. With a bag full of supplies for Mr. Guara."

"If you're here to tell me I shouldn't have left her there, I already know," Carol snapped. She folded her own arms across her chest and glared up at him. "I wasn't thinking clearly," she spat. "Okay? So why don't you just get all the lecturing out of your system and then leave me alone?"

"To drink?" Steve raised his eyebrows. "Because that worked so well the last time I did it to someone."

"Oh, for the love of God!" Carol shouted. The sole other hotel resident sitting at the bar got up abruptly and left. The bartender had retreated to the far side of the long, wooden bar by this point, having made his own retreat as soon as Steve appeared. "I'm not Tony, all right? I am actually capable of taking care of myself. Can the rest of you honestly not tell the difference between liking to have a drink now and then and being suicidally depressed?"

'We just want to help you, Carol,' she quoted to herself. 'We don't want to see what happened to Tony happening to you, Carol. We all feel so fucking guilty for ignoring the fact that he was apparently trying to drink himself to death that we're all going to overcompensate by freaking out every time you want a goddamn drink.'

Steve flinched visibly, his lip tightening to a thin line. "That's not what I'm here to talk about." He glanced away, eyes going to the bar behind her, and then he drew in a deep breath and she was pinned under his gaze again. "Why, exactly, did you decided to leave Wanda behind?"

"I-" Carol started. "Because she-" there was no way to explain that wasn't humiliating, that didn't make her look either bad, or weak, or stupid. Or like a freak. "You weren't there. You don't know what she did to me."

"No," Steve said. "I don't. Which is why you're going to tell me."

"She came on to me," she blurted out, feeling her face burn with angry embarrassment. "She grabbed me, and stuck her tongue in my goddamn mouth, and, and- I'm not like that. Just because I'm tough, because I was in the military, doesn't mean I'm a lesbian, no matter what my father thinks."

"Carol-"

"It's sick It's sick and disgusting and I don't know what she did to make me enjoy it. And if she used her powers on me, then I'm not sorry I left here there."

Steve blinked. He was staring at her, she realized belatedly, his eyes wide with a sort of shell-shocked astonishment. "Wanda's powers don't work like that," he said. "She uses chaos magic to alter probability. She's not a telepath or an enchantress."

"She did something!" Carol insisted. "I couldn't have liked it if she hadn't done something! I told you; I'm not like that. I, I don't even know anyone like that. Except Wanda, obviously," she added bitterly.

"I like men."

"It's not natural," she went on, "it... what the hell did you just say?"

Steve's face had gone bright red. Even his ears were red. Either he was violently embarrassed or he was so angry that he was about to kill her. Carol honestly wasn't sure which. "I like men. Women, too, but... so, you do know 'someone like that.'"

There was a long, painful silence, because what the hell were you supposed to say to that? He was definitely about to kill her. Or at the very least kick her off the team again. Carol tried desperately to remember everything she'd just said. How badly had she just insulted Steve? The words 'sick' and 'disgusting' had figured in there somewhere, and so had 'unnatural.'

It was just... it... this was Steve. It couldn't possibly be true. Surely he was making this up in order to teach her some kind of pompous lesson about tolerance.

"I've, um, never told anyone but Sam about that before," Steve said, after the silence had become acutely uncomfortable.

"You can't be gay!" she managed to splutter, after another painfully long moment trying to make her voice work.

Steve raised his eyebrows. "Why not?" There was a distinct element of offended challenge in his tone.

"Because," she said, waving a hand at Steve and the costume he wasn't wearing, "you're Captain America. You were in the military too. You were... you know how it is."

"No. I don't. Why don't you explain 'how it is?'"

How had she ended up on the defensive? She wasn't the one who'd just announced that she was gay. "They frown on it pretty heavily in the Army, the last I heard."

Steve heaved an irritated sigh, and shook his head. "They never asked us about sexual orientation when I joined up; they added that later, when I'd already been wearing the costume for a year. Nobody ever asked me during the war. People didn't talk about it, and as long as you kept things quiet... well. No one talked about it." Steve frowned, folding his arms. "And they certainly wouldn't have abandoned me in enemy territory over it."

"I told you, I know I screwed up." Carol sighed, looking down at her hands. The burns from the exploding gun were already healing, but they were raw and red, and they stung. And her hip throbbed in time with her pulse, as if it were still being seared by plasma fire. She would heal just fine, given a couple of days, but- "Wanda... she is okay, right? She got hit in the shoulder by a plasma bolt. Someone should take a look at it."

"You knew she was hurt and you left here there?" It was nearly a shout, and somehow, that made it less intimidating than his earlier calm. Carol had been yelled at by the best of them, from her father to boot camp drill instructors.

"I fucked up, all right? I shouldn't have left her there. I know that. Excuse me for freaking out when another woman kisses me."

Steve looked away, his jaw set so tightly it was probably making his teeth hurt. "Fine," he said. "You obviously know you did the wrong thing, and how serious the consequences could have been, so I'll let it go."

"Don't do me any favors," Carol muttered.

"Oh, I'm not." Steve unfolded his arms, rubbing at the back of his neck with one hand. "I'm doing Wanda a favor. She asked me to drop it and leave you alone."

She had? Carol was torn between irritation that Wanda was once again trying to protect her and confusion over the fact that she was. Wanda would be completely within her rights to demand that Carol be somehow disciplined for ditching her and jeopardizing the mission. Why hadn't she? It was no more than Carol would have expected from any of the Avengers. And why did she care why Wanda had tried to intervene on her behalf?

"But you came down here to yell at me anyway?" Carol made an effort to keep the irritation and anger out of her voice, smiling at him a little. The two of them screaming at each other in the hotel lobby wasn't going to accomplish anything, except for scaring the hotel staff.

"You didn't show up for your debriefing," Steve muttered. Then, a little louder, "I had to hear that you were back from Hank. You made him happier than I've seen him since this whole mess started, you know."

Carol shook her head, staring down at her hands again, and wishing she hadn't been so quick to set down her drink. "When did we start collecting our enemies' bodies as trophies? We're not supposed to be those people."

"When we were attacked by aliens whose physiology we still know next-to-nothing about," he said. Then, more softly, "Wars aren't pretty. You do what you have to do to win, and you pay the price for it later." His jaw tightened again, and he went on, "Letting Hank dissect an Argonian doesn't bother me nearly as much as the fact that we're letting kids die for us."

He was staring straight ahead, not really looking at her. He looked like he could use a drink even more than Carol could, but under the circumstances she wasn't about to say so.

"Justice volunteered for this," she pointed out, instead.

"He didn't really understand what he was volunteering for. Most of them didn't. Johnny, Clint... Tony had some idea, I think, and Sam, but..."

Carol raised her eyebrows and snorted. "Johnny Storm is barely out of college and I'm not sure Spiderman's actually old enough to shave, and they've both been superheroes longer than I have." Did Steve really think he was the only person who'd ever seen a nineteen-year-old enlisted kid get killed in the line of duty? You couldn't fight a war without casualties, anymore than you could fight one without getting your hands dirty. "Tony definitely knew what he was letting himself in for. So did I. You have to give the rest of us some credit, Cap. We all know what we're up against by this point."

"I know that, but-" Steve broke off, shaking his head. "I came down here to give you a warning, not to spill my guts about my personal life and the things that keep me awake at night. Look, whatever's going on between you and Wanda, work it out; we can't afford to be fighting each other right now." His eyes flicked to the bar behind her, then away again. "And if you're going to drink, consider missions the same thing as flying."

Carol looked at him blankly. "I can fly just fine after a couple of drinks. It's not actually any harder than walking."

"As flying a plane," Steve clarified. "And not the FAA eight-hour rule, either. Air Force regulations."

Which meant no consumption of alcohol in the twelve-hour period before a flight. And, considering that she ran missions on a nearly daily basis, was almost the same as a complete moratorium on drinking. But arguing would just make her look unreasonable, despite the fact that her body metabolized alcohol faster than a normal human's. "Why do you even know that?"

Steve shrugged. "Tony. It applies to everybody flying the Quinjets."

She wasn't even going to comment on the hypocrisy of that. And she didn't have to, because Steve's next words were,

"I think its one of the reasons it took me so long to notice how bad things had gotten. He never showed up at the Mansion drunk. And you're not going to show up here drunk. I have enough to worry about already, Carol. Can you please just give me this?" He sounded so tired -- it wasn't obvious, but Carol knew him just well enough to hear the exhaustion in his voice. He was responsible for much, much more than just the Avengers now, given the way the Resistance had grown. He felt guilty about Justice, was still worried about Tony and Clint. Was apparently bisexual, which added a whole new dimension to his very obvious misery over Tony's absence, not to mention his almost-as-obvious worry about whatever might be happening to the Falcon outside the Argonian's shield.

She sighed. "Fine. Air Force regulations. And I'll stay out of Wanda's way." That part of Steve's rules, she'd be more than happy to follow.

***

Once, Vanderbilt Hall had seemed small and unimpressive compared to the grandeur of the imperial throne room on Argon, with its great, vaulted ceiling. Now, Irkalla thought she might eventually grow to like its smaller dimensions.

On Argon, the promotion ceremony for a high-ranking military officer would have been performed before thousands of soldiers, enough to pack the throne room with warriors from one end of the cavern to the other. Irkalla would not have cared to surround herself with that many of Nergal's people. Here, the limited space allowed her to pick and choose who was invited to attend, and she could ensure that the warriors loyal to Nergal were balanced by warriors she knew to be loyal to her.

The most important of said warriors now stood before Irkalla and Nergal on the blue-draped platform that normally housed Irkalla's throne, the copper trim of her dress blacks gleaming in the light of the hall's golden chandeliers.

"We are gathered," Nergal began solemnly, "to recognize the valor and skill displayed by Sub-Captain Kammani in the service of the Argonian Empire, and bestow upon her the honor her stature as a warrior has won her."

He was perfectly dignified and composed, as befitted the occasion, but Irkalla, who knew him better than she could have wished, knew how deeply it must gall him to elevate to greater rank a warrior who had, if not outright criticized his leadership and tactical decisions, at least failed to openly support them. However, Sub-Captain Burrukam's former position required filling, and Kammani had more than amply demonstrated her ability to perform his former duties significantly better than he had, and though Nergal had put off her inevitable promotion as long as possible, he had finally been able to stall no longer.

Today, Kammani would assume full control of the suppression of resistance in the city, along with a rank that would make her the equal of Arch-Captain Mamitu, her authority surpassed only by Mamitu and Nergal themselves.

With the other imperators dead in the destruction of Argon, that would put her only two heartbeats away from control of the entire army.

Nergal turned to face Kammani, who stood rigidly at attention before him, ears and tail stiffly erect, not a strand of her russet fur out of place. "Sub-Captain Kammani," he intoned, "you have been invited to assume the rank of Arch-Captain in the armies of Argon, to lead your fellow warriors in the defense of Argon, for the honor and glory of the children of Alulim. Know that to accept this honor, you must be prepared to defend your authority against all challengers of equal or lesser rank, even unto death. Are you prepared to accept these challenges?"

"I am, Imperator Nergal," Kammani declared, with equal solemnity. Both she and Nergal spoke the words of the ceremony from memory; the words of the warriors' oath were a time-honored ritual, one that everyone present knew by heart, for every one of them had sworn it at least once, when they were inducted into the army, or in Irkalla's case, when she had assumed the mantle of Archon.

Nergal turned slightly to address the assembled warriors. "Let the record show that the candidate has so spoken." He was met with silence, as tradition called for. The warriors present were there to bear witness not just for Kammani's sake, but for their own; the oath was always sworn in front of a gathering of warriors, not just so that the swearer's pledge would be witnessed, but because the administering of another's oath was a time for all present to reflect on their own vows and obligations.

Nergal turned back to Kammani. "Know that as Arch-Captain, you will be held accountable for the victories and defeats of all forces under your command. Their honor is your honor, and the punishment for failure may fall upon your shoulders. Are you prepared to accept that punishment?"

"I am, Imperator Nergal."

"Let the record show that the candidate has so spoken. Know that as a warrior of Argon, you are the tailbarb of Alulim, the last defense between our people and all our enemies. This is a sacred duty, besides which all personal glory is but a shadow." It was remarkable, Irkalla reflected, how he could utter those words with a straight face, considering Nergal's own confirmed history of valuing his own power above the common good of her people, but Nergal had always been capable of lying with his face, tail, and ears as well as his tongue. Sometimes she suspected that he even believed himself.

"Do you assume this duty freely," he continued, "and of your own will, and swear to carry it out until all strength of blood and breath of life has left you?"

"I do, Imperator Nergal." Kammani drew in a long breath, and took a step forward, making herself the focus of attention on the dais rather than Nergal. "I am a warrior of Argon," she recited, beginning the passage that was the ancient core of the oath, "and on this day my duty begins. I will defend my authority against all challenges, bear the honor and shame of my command upon my own shoulders, and fight to the death against any who would seek to destroy Argon. I am the blade in the dark, the guard in the tunnels, the tailbarb of Alulim. I assume this sacred duty freely and of my own will, and swear never to falter until all strength of blood and breath of life has left me."

And thus it was done. Nergal held out one hand, and a lower-ranking soldier stepped forward to place a thick rope of braided copper in it. Before the eyes of the assembled warriors, he affixed the aiguillette to the right shoulder of Kammani's uniform. "As Imperator of the armies of Argon, acting with the approval of the Archon, Alulim's heir, and the guidance of the ruling council, I hereby place my trust in the honor, valor, integrity, and skill of Sub-Captain Kammani, and in view of these qualities, and her demonstration of the potential to serve the empire in a higher capacity, Sub-Captain Kammani is hereby raised to the office of Arch-Captain." He turned to address the crowd once more, gesturing at Kammani with hands and tail. "Warriors, I give you Arch-Captain Kammani. Is there any who would challenge her?"

There was silence, though Irkalla observed Arch-Captain Mamitu's ear flick backwards in irritation. In theory, any warrior present had the right to step forward at this point and challenge the newly promoted arch-captain to single combat, to prove her fitness for her new command by force of arms. In practice, such a right was rarely invoked these days. Mamitu was doubtless wishing with all her heart that she dared risk threatening her own -- and by association, Nergal's -- standing within the army by doing so, but even allowing for her short tempter and well-known dislike of her new fellow arch-captain, she was not so poor a tactician as to actually do so. If she lost, she would shame herself utterly, and even if she won, to challenge one's subordinates to a duel was to lower oneself to their level, and to bring a challenge against another officer in order to prevent them from being promoted to her own rank would be to reveal to all that she considered Kammani to be a threat, and would in itself be an admission of weakness.

After observing the prescribed period of silence to wait for a challenge that did not come, Nergal turned to face Irkalla. "Nin-Irkalla," he began, and she could not help feeling a moment's satisfaction that he was, for once, compelled by ceremony and ritual to address her properly, "I give you Arch-Captain Kammani. May she serve you and the empire well."

There were a few more formalities, but the heart of the ceremony was over. Irkalla simply stood there on the dais and observed, as she had through all of it, like some copper-decked doll. Her presence was of vital symbolic importance -- by attending Arch-Captain Kammani's promotion ceremony, she publicly demonstrated her support of Kammani, letting it be know to all that the arch-captain had her favor and approval -- but she had no practical role to play. The warriors' oath was older than the Archon, older than Alulim himself, though his name had been added to it.

It had first been sworn in a time when the word 'Imperator' had indicated a tribal warlord rather than the highest rank in the Argonian army. When warriors pledged themselves to fight until their last breath not in the defense all Argonians, but for the sake of their own kin, tribe, and collection of tunnels.

Alulim had lived long after that, when the empire had first begun to form out of the patchwork of warring tribes they had once been. He had been a warrior before he became the first Archon, one Imperator among the many who had united to attempt to create a unified Argon, who had assumed control of the imperial army after a crushing defeat, when all hope of the fledgling empire's survival seemed lost, and led them to victory. It was in remembrance of that legacy that every new Archon swore the warriors' oath, even though they had not been military officers themselves in generations.

The ceremony was swiftly concluded, and the audience began to file out in order of rank, those of least importance departing first. As the hall emptied out, the illusion of small size created by the press of so many in one place dissipated, and it became a large, empty room again, if still nothing when compared to the vast space of the real throne room.

Nergal and Mamitu were the last to depart, both of them eyeing Kammani askance while pretending not to do so. By tradition, all newly-promoted Arch-Captains and Imperators received a private audience with the Archon, a holdover from the days when the Archon and the commander of the army had been one and the same.

The door closed with a hollow thud, and Irkalla was left alone with Kammani.

"Nin-Irkalla," Kammani began.

"My congratulations, Arch-Captain," Irkalla interrupted. "Your promotion was long over-due. You have already shown yourself far more fit for the position than Sub-Captain Burrukam."

"Thank you, nin-Irkalla," she said, with only a hint of stiffness. "You do me great honor."

"This is a difficult time for the empire," Irkalla continued, her eye tuned to Kammani's expression and body language, trying to sound our as she spoke how much it might be politic for her to say. "Officers of ability and intelligence are sorely needed, perhaps more than ever before, particularly those with a grasp of our limited resources and the precariousness of our position."

"Yes, nin-Irkalla. Is it your belief that there are, perhaps, officers who lack sufficient grasp of these things?" She did not name names, or specify in any way whom these officers were, but in the momentary silence that followed, Irkalla knew that they were both thinking of the same individuals.

She did not name them either. "Our continued failure to gain proper control of this world and its inhabitants speaks for itself. Failure is not a luxury we have, arch-captain. We are all that remains of Argon; we cannot afford to throw away what is left of us trying to rule this planet without success."

"No, nin-Irkalla. Were it my decision, I would guard and cultivate our resources carefully." She hesitated for a moment, then, "Nin-Irkalla, the human scientists are not within my command, but I have seen the condition some of them appear to be in, and the mechanikos tell me that only half of the physicists originally captured remain, and that some of those are no longer in a condition to be useful. If the last of them dies before they have completed their work..."

"If that occurs, we shall do what we have always done. We shall find another way to accomplish our goals." If there was another way. They had left Argon and come to the only planet they could reach weak enough that they could take its scientists as their own, and such was their reduced state that even a world like Earth, with no global government and no orbital defenses, was still managing to resist them.

Perhaps, she thought, wincing away inwardly from the slow feeling of dread it evoked, they would be better served by simply cutting their losses and running, leaving this forsaken planet to its original inhabitants and finding some new, more hospitable world to make their own.

Moving to yet another planet meant starting the rebuilding process all over again, but she had already determined that Nergal's fantasies of completely rebuilding their fleet in a few years were just that, fantasies. And the longer they spent here, the more of their resources they wasted trying to fulfill them.

Even with a new fleet, even with all of the technological weapons the empire had possessed at its height, they still might not be able to retake Argon. Those who held the planet now might easily destroy the second fleet as they had the first. They had not been able to hold Argon against them when they had had the tactical high ground, and an attack took greater numbers than a defense.

Returning to Argon could not happen within their lifetimes. It might never happen at all.

She did not want to believe that Argon was truly lost to them.

"The humans are an industrious and clever species," Kammani observed, her voice calm and thoughtful. She did not, obviously, have any idea of the path Irkalla's thoughts had taken; if she had, she could not have kept so composed. "And some of them possess great courage, and even a certain level of skill in combat. Nin-Irkalla, I would like to offer some of the best of my human axillaries citizenship. I believe that, given the proper incentive, they would be a great asset."

It was painful to think that they had fallen so far that one of their warriors would be suggesting this as an alternative to utter defeat, but the practice was not completely unheard of. It was simply... very rare.

She had hoped to dispense with the need to use other species' skills and labor as a crutch; it was part of what had caused their downfall to begin with. Still, in their current situation... better that the empire be diluted by the inclusion of other species than that it perish altogether. "You may present me with a list of names. They will be evaluated, and those found worthy will be offered the opportunity to swear the warriors' oath and enter the army's lowest rank."

Arch-Captain Kammani smiled, the first expression other than solemn stoicism that Irkalla had seen from her. "Thank you, nin-Irkalla. I will prepare a list."

Irkalla sighed through her nose, letting her tail droop to the floor, and coiling it around her feet. It was a nervous gesture from childhood that she had never been able to shake, one she dared not indulge in around Nergal, who knew only too well what it meant and would take it for the sign of weakness that it was. "If our population continues to decline, you may be making a longer list than either of us would wish."

"We have not been here long." The tip of Kammani's tail flicked back and forth, uncomfortably. "And all of my warriors are overworked, tired. When the tunnels here become more familiar, when the resistance dies down and the female warriors can be excused from serving extra shifts, then there will be more children. I know how much is at stake if I cannot stem the humans' violence, but until we can, none of my warriors are willing to leave their posts."

As was only right and natural. No Argonian would willingly deprive the empire of her blade or her labor as a mechanikos under these circumstances. However, if all of them continued to stay at their posts to the last, there would continue to be no new births, no new growth to replenish their decimated population. They had been on this planet for nearly a third of its solar year, and in that time not a single female Argonian had become pregnant, not even among the mechanikos.

Yet one more problem among many to contend with.

"You are not to be blamed, Arch-Captain. None of the military is. Not for this. You are only doing as you must."

"Nin-Irkalla," she broke off, her ears suddenly low and submissive. "There is currently no Archon-in-waiting, and no Imperial Consort. You are not in the military."

And she did not have an heir. It was a topic no one had yet dared to broach in her presence, though she had no doubt it was discussed extensively behind her back.

There had been several warriors she had considered taking as a consort on Argon, but now... none of them had survived the fall and the evacuation. She strongly suspected that Nergal had had Imperator Ilshubani killed, or at least had carefully done nothing to prevent his death, one more in a long line of thing for which she would never forgive him.

"No," Irkalla acknowledged. "There is not. It is a matter of state which requires great deliberation, but not as vital a one as our tactical situation."

Arch-Captain Kammani was a good officer, but she was trained only in matters of military tactics and nothing more. The fact that Irkalla didn't carry a plasma gun did not mean that she didn't have her own post to stand fast at. If anything, she was less able to spare a moment of time for things tangential to her duties than any soldier; the soldiers, even those as highly ranked as Kammani or Mamitu -- or Nergal -- could be replaced, their positions filled by others. She could not. With the entire council dead, there was no one to stand in for her even on a temporary basis.

Nergal had mentioned her lack of an heir as well, with the same implied suggestion that it would be wise to acquire one. In his case, however, it had been a transparent attempt to remove her from the picture at least temporarily, while pregnancy and childbirth distracted her, leaving him free to pursue his own agenda without fear of her interference.

She supposed she ought to be grateful he hadn't suggested himself for the role of the hypothetical child's father. Both male and female Imperial Consorts had taken that path to power before, assassinating or otherwise ridding themselves of an Archon once they had produced an heir together, and then ruling through their child.

"No, nin-Irkalla." Kammani lowered her eyes, her ears respectfully tucking down even lower. Then she raised her chin again, ears lifting. "I will have a list of deserving humans prepared for you within an octnight," she said. "Shall I present the list to Imperator Nergal as well?"

Irkalla pulled one ear back just a fraction. "No," she said. "That will not be necessary. Inducting new warriors into the army is normally within an Imperator's purview, yes. However, granting citizenship to non-Argonians is the sole privilege of the archon."

"Yes, nin-Irkalla."

Irkalla smiled, rotating her ears forward and letting her tail curl up over her shoulder. It felt odd, stiff -- for so long now, all of her smiles had been false, expressions assumed to placate Nergal or hide the fact that he had succeeded in angering her, or worn in public o encourage good moral. Now, when she wanted to offer someone a real smile, it felt forced and strange. "You have done very well in your former position, Arch-Captain Kammani. May you serve the empire just as well in your new one. You may return to your duties now, if you wish. I will await your suggestions."

Kammani saluted with hand and tail, and departed, and Irkalla was left alone.

***


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

Comments

[crimsonquills.livejournal.com]

Ahh, Carol, not feeling nearly so certain about things as you seem from the outside, are you? I really liked her conversation with Steve about Wanda and being gay/lesbian/bisexual. It's so like Steve to come out to the second person ever in order to make them question their assumptions and face their unconscious prejudices. And I loved that moment a little later when Carol was all, "Steve is bixsexual. Steve is miserable with missing Tony. Hmmmmmmmmmm." *g*

I'm completely cheering on Irkalla and Kammani, even though the two of them being in control would have/might still lead to a much more solid hold over Earth. Hopefully they're more inclined to leave, find a mostly deserted planet, put their tech into storage, and concentrate on breeding up their numbers. Although then I'd worry about Earth's future in ten or twenty years...

I want so much for Steve and Tony to have some time actually in each other's presence. I get the feeling it would do them a ridiculous amount of good just to curl up together.

[empty-splendor.livejournal.com]

Ouch Carol. Ouch.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for the review ^_^.

Ouch Carol. Ouch.

I know! Carol will come around, though. Otherwise she and Wanda couldn't have a happy, femslashy ending.

[runenklinge.livejournal.com]

wonderful chapter!

the humans in the Argonians´prison are really miserable - defeated by bad nutrition is a really sucky way to go.

Also the Carol-Wanda storyline gets depth -and Steve has come out.
And now the "I miss poor miserable Tony *this* much"- makes more sense to her.

I wonder when Reed will show up....and I kinda wonder what Earth´s other supervillains are doing

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

wonderful chapter!

Thanks so much! *dances*

the humans in the Argonians´prison are really miserable - defeated by bad nutrition is a really sucky way to go.

Don't forget the poisonous tail barbs! And the poor physicists dying of radiation poisoning! (Tony would probably be miserable even without all of that, though, given his many, many issues and how - deliberately - similar it is to his Vietqhanistan experience).

Also the Carol-Wanda storyline gets depth -and Steve has come out.
And now the "I miss poor miserable Tony *this* much"- makes more sense to her.

*grins* From "Steve likes guys" to "Steve loves Tony" really isn't that much of a stretch, is it?

I wonder when Reed will show up....and I kinda wonder what Earth´s other supervillains are doing.

Reed is still stuck inside the Baxter Building with Sue, because we have too many characters to keep track of already (he's probably busy building a portal to an alternate dimension that the two of them will somehow use to escape, only to end up going back in time to fight Doom in the Middle Ages again, or something).

[runenklinge.livejournal.com]

From "Steve likes guys" to "Steve loves Tony" really isn't that much of a stretch, is it?
you´re right - as soon as you swing that way and see Tony - it´s over: you have to fall for him. Law of Nature: something about gravity, things attracted to each other....and everyone is attratced to Tony Stark^^

only to end up going back in time to fight Doom in the Middle Ages
isn´t that what Tony usually does?
I don´t really follow FF, but I´m pretty sure that Tony has been into Arthurian times fighting Doom at least twice

Wow, Carol, way to go there. Really.

[jazzypom.livejournal.com]

But I can't hate.

I'm digging the antagonists. I don't know why. I mean, I should hate them because they are our evil overlords and such... but I like the intrigue amongst them.

Re: Wow, Carol, way to go there. Really.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

Review! Yay!

Wow, Carol, way to go there. Really.
But I can't hate.
I occasionally feel that I should personally thank slash and yaoi fandoms for making it possible for me to *not* have ever been Carol in this situation.

I'm digging the antagonists. I don't know why. I mean, I should hate them because they are our evil overlords and such... but I like the intrigue amongst them.

*grins* Thanks! Everyone is supposed to love our new, furry overlords the Argonians. They're our furry alien Sues. (seriously - they weren't initially going to have such a large role and so many scenes dedicated to just Argonians interacting with no humans, but then they grew on us).

[amonitrate.livejournal.com]

I think I forgot to say before this, but I think this is the first story I've seen the nutrition angle used, and it's really brilliant.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

Thanks! *grins* It gives us yet one more way to torture Tony and set up for h/c later (Steve: Tony! ILU and will give you lots of orange juice!)

[smilingskull.livejournal.com]

I think that describing Steve as an 'angry blond tank' is just about the most apt description I've ever heard of him. :D Also, a very amusing one.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

grins* That was a favorite line of ours, too. (also: Yay review!)

[simmysim.livejournal.com]

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I love how very, very unimportant earth is to the Argonians. Like obviously they need it at the moment, but their main goal is their home and they couldn't care less about earth, really, and that makes it seem much more real. I really enjoyed how formal and well thought out the promotion ceremony was, it felt very genuine.

I was laughing at Carol pretty hard, I admire you guys for having the balls to have her say what she did. It's pretty easy to sugarcoat this kind of thing in homoerotic fanfictions on the internet, but a lot of time feelings are not so "everyone is open minded and politically correct~ :D" easy. And it makes sense for her to be so defensive, I was, heh, distracted last chapter by the kiss, but her surging off, my immediate guess of what was in her head was pretty much exactly, Just because I'm tough, because I was in the military, doesn't mean I'm a lesbian. Oh Carol :C I am sure it is hard work to be so insecure that you have to immediately construe every action taken toward you as an insult. If a guy had done the same I'm sure she would've been off about how she's not an easy lay either, instead of possibly considering how someone could actually like her. Oh, poor Wanda. I was kinda ":(" about them not having missions together anymore but I am sure you've got some other way for them to end up interacting.

Yay for Hank getting a body! :D I was hoping Carol or Wanda would remember that.

The hypocrisy of the Argonians class system feels very real as well. Both in calling the ~mechanikos~ weak and the humans ~*inferior*~ despite you know. needing them to live. Just like humans :D

Awwwsnap I can't wait to see Steve's reaction to human beans fighting along side the invaders.

[kbk]

Steve coming out to Carol is totally enough to make up for lack of on-screen Tony. (Actually, the references to Tony are probably enough, especially 'suicidally depressed' and the Quinjet rule, but I *loved* that bit. Surely he was making this up in order to teach her some kind of pompous lesson about tolerance. Hah!)

I nipped over to the comm a good half-dozen times hoping the new part would be up. This is, um, fourth time of reading? I like, I look forward to next, I quote a few lines I like:

The Van Dyne signature look was going to be pastels and low necklines for the rest of her career.

Put them in a potentially dangerous situation, and the three of them all moved like Steve.

Even if they were to commit blasphemy upon blasphemy and put a blade into the hand of every mechanikos, as well as every warrior, they would still lack the numbers needed to retake Argon.

He'd been nearly bouncing off the walls when she left him, happier than anyone should ever be about performing an autopsy.

The sole other hotel resident sitting at the bar got up abruptly and left. The bartender had retreated to the far side of the long, wooden bar by this point, having made his own retreat as soon as Steve appeared.

Just because I'm tough, because I was in the military, doesn't mean I'm a lesbian, no matter what my father thinks.

Steve's face had gone bright red. Even his ears were red. Either he was violently embarrassed or he was so angry that he was about to kill her. Carol honestly wasn't sure which.

Was apparently bisexual, which added a whole new dimension to his very obvious misery over Tony's absence, not to mention his almost-as-obvious worry about whatever might be happening to the Falcon outside the Argonian's shield.

Nergal had always been capable of lying with his face, tail, and ears as well as his tongue.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

Steve coming out to Carol is totally enough to make up for lack of on-screen Tony. (Actually, the references to Tony are probably enough, especially 'suicidally depressed' and the Quinjet rule, but I *loved* that bit. Surely he was making this up in order to teach her some kind of pompous lesson about tolerance. Hah!)

*grins* See, the thing is, Steve probably would do something like say "You do realize I might be gay" to someone ranting on like that just to teach them a lesson, even if it weren't also the truth.

I nipped over to the comm a good half-dozen times hoping the new part would be up. This is, um, fourth time of reading?

Yay! Thanks you so much ^_^. You don't know how thrilled it makes us to hear that you like our endless fic enough to read it *mutiple times*

Put them in a potentially dangerous situation, and the three of them all moved like Steve.

Yay! That was one of my personal faorite detals we stuck in (Wanda, Clint, and Tony all moving like Steve because Steve is the one who taught them to fight), so I'm really glad someone noticed it/liked it.

He'd been nearly bouncing off the walls when she left him, happier than anyone should ever be about performing an autopsy.

Hank isn't creepy. He's just... very enthusiastic about science. And bugs.

Nergal had always been capable of lying with his face, tail, and ears as well as his tongue.

It is so much fun to write characters with twitchable, movable ears and prehensile tails, you have no idea.

[marinarusalka.livejournal.com]

Loved the conversation between Steve and Carol. It was sort of hilarious and mortifying at the same time, watching Carol spill out all her internalized homophobia, then going "Oh fuck, I just insulted Captain America to his face six ways from Sunday, didn't I?"

The Argonian culture and the logistics of invasion continue to fascinate. It reads like a well-thought out SF novel, the world-building is that good.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

Loved the conversation between Steve and Carol. It was sort of hilarious and mortifying at the same time, watching Carol spill out all her internalized homophobia, then going "Oh fuck, I just insulted Captain America to his face six ways from Sunday, didn't I?"

The Steve & Carol conversation is one of our favorite parts so far, actually. Carol: "Woe! I shall now freak out over my sexuality!" Steve: "I like guys. Get over yourself." Carol: 0.0 "You're Captain America! You can't be gay!" Steve: "Well I am. Very gay. Also I love Tony."

The Argonian culture and the logistics of invasion continue to fascinate. It reads like a well-thought out SF novel, the world-building is that good.

Thanks so much! I think we've put more work into them than any other part of the fic (we seriously need to write some kind of original fic space opera someday just so we can use them again).

[droolfangrrl.livejournal.com]

I keep thinking, "Just tell the aliens to get you all a mess of vitamins and salt."