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cap_ironman2009-03-14 06:12 am
seanchai.livejournal.com) wrote in cap_ironman2009-03-14 06:12 am
Entry tags:
When the Lights Go On Again 13/20
Title: When the Lights Go On Again 13/20
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: 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, this fic owes a great deal totavella, 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
There were no ants in the Waldorf-Astoria's basement; if there had been any to begin with, Hank had spent enough time down here playing with chemicals to drive them away.
It felt strange to wear the helmet and have nothing to talk to. He missed them, sometimes. They weren't just tools -- ants had a social order, a society as complex as anything humans had come up with. They had division of labor, could problem solve, could communicate with one another, even teach one another. People thought social insects were hive-minds, like the Borg, but they were anything but; they might be so heavily interdependent on one another that they couldn't survive outside the colony, but they were all individuals. Very organized individuals, who all knew their place in the world with utmost certainty, and were willing to give him a place there, too, whenever he had the helmet on. No one but Scott Lang had ever really understood the appeal of that; most people looked at Hank strangely when he tried to explain.
He had built the Ant-Man helmet to talk to them, initially, and only begun using it to fight crime after he'd realized that it could also control them. He had never anticipated other uses for it until the Argonian occupation had forced him to work closely with Spiderman, and he realized that Spiderman's "spider trackers" -- little transmitters he stuck to people or things in order to track them down with his "spider sense" -- worked on the same principle. Both the spider trackers and his helmet used electronic signals to mimic the effects of arthropod pheromones.
With only a few tweaks, Hank could probably use the helmet to communicate with Spiderman as easily as he could with an insect, though spiders not having a hive or colony instinct meant that he wouldn't be able to control his behavior with it. That wasn't on the agenda for today, though. Today all he needed to do was send a signal to the spider-trackers Spiderman had attached to the detonators at Madison Square Garden, to remote-trigger the bombs.
He was, Spiderman had told him cheerfully, "way better than a timer."
Hank glanced down at his watch. The requisite fifteen minutes had passed since Jan and the others had left for One Police Plaza. It was time.
The helmet responded to his thought patterns, translating them into electrochemical impulses, so Hank closed his eyes and thought 'explode.'
It was like sending a signal out into a void. The ants always answered, responding to him and transmitting his instructions amongst themselves. The spider-trackers weren't alive, though, and couldn't answer back. Hank had no way of knowing whether they had heard him, if the explosives really had gone off.
He hoped so. This was the first real role he'd played in a field operation, and the success of Clint and Tony's rescue depended on it.
What if it hadn't worked? If the charges hadn't gone off, Jan and Steve and the others would be walking into a death-trap, filled with too many guards for them to ever overcome.
He wasn't going to think about it, Hank decided. He was going to trust that his science had worked, and focus on something else.
The echoing silence around him made the basement even lonelier than it usually was. Hank pulled the Ant-Man helmet off and laid it aside, smoothing one hand over the silver metal.
Then he turned back to the never-ending project that was the Argonian autopsy reports. So much data, and none of it save the venom composition had proved to be of any real use. He was missing something; he knew it. There had to be something useful here. He knew there was.
It made him want to bang his head against the table. He never missed things.
He'd at least managed to solve the mystery of why the food Tony and Clint were given had no vitamin C or salt in it -- neither substance had been present in the Argonian's body, and both were irritants to it. For all the good that knowledge would do.
Hank glared at his lab notes, resisting the urge to tear them up or ball them up and throw them at the wall. Missing something, damnit. Missing something. What was it?
He threw the notes down on his lab bench and ran his fingers through his hair, sighing. This wasn't helping. He couldn't think right when he was frustrated, nd sitting still was making him feel twitchy.
The other good thing about ants was that they were always nice and calming.
Hank gave up trying to pretend to be calm and jumped to his feet, pacing the length of the room and back again. The salt and vitamin C were important; he knew that, even if he hadn't figured out how yet. Argonians didn't need to eat them, but neither substance would kill them, either, so why were they letting a valuable resource like their human scientists die slowly for want of them?
Did they just not realize humans needed them? Surely not. If they knew English, they had to know that people needed vitamin C. They knew, and yet they were deliberately letting their captives die of scurvy.
Why?
Hank made another circuit of the room, listening to the dull sounds his footsteps made on the concrete floor. He stared blankly at his workbench as he paced, absently cataloging its contents. Helmet. Disassembled spider tracker. Argonian tail barb. Aqua fortis. A rack of empty test tubes. Home-made explosives, ready for use and stored as safely as possible, which wasn't very. Batteries. Hydrogen peroxide. Windex. Clorox.
He'd stuck the last to next to one another on purpose, rolling his eyes defiantly at Jan as he let her see him setting the ammonia and bleach down side-by-side.
Ammonia and bleach. Both of them were poisonous on their own if ingested, but together, they produced chlorine gas, the first deadly airborne toxin ever deployed in chemical warfare. It hadn't killed as many people as phosgene, but it was probably far more famous, not least because it could be made by combining two common household chemicals.
Combining.
Hank raced back to the lab bench and snatched up his notes again, frantically scanning them until he got to the data he'd put together on the Argonians' metabolism and central nervous systems.
Salt and citric acid alone would irritate them, make them sick. Together...
Human cells and the human nervous system required sodium and citric acid to function properly. Argonians' bodies used different chemicals for those purposes, heavy metals. Metals that would bond with chelating substances and become metabolically useless to them.
Sodium and citric acid combined to form sodium ascorbate, which was a chelating substance.
The Argonians were depriving their human prisoners of vitamin C and salt for the same reason that humans -- at least, halfway intelligent humans -- didn't try to wash something with ammonia and bleach-based products simultaneously: because vitamin C and salt together produced a deadly poison.
A deadly poison that was colorless, odorless, and completely soluble in water.
Hank forgot all about his worry over the rescue attempt.
He had more important things to think about right now, like how much sodium he had on hand, and how much of the vitamin C he had stockpiled for when the scientists were rescued he would need to mix it with.
He didn't know exactly how high a concentration of sodium ascorbate it would take to kill an Argonian, and it was always better, when in doubt, to err on the side of caution. After all, it might be deadly to Argonians, but it was harmless to humans.
Deadly to their enemies. Harmless to them. Easy to make.
Hank started pacing again, a wide grin spreading across his face. It was the perfect weapon. Now he just had to get Steve to agree to it.
As soon as Steve -- and Jan -- came back.
***
The feel of Argonian bones cracking underneath her fists was immensely satisfying. Carol ducked a slash from an Argonian's sword, blocked a blow from its tail with her forearm, and kicked it in the stomach. It folded up the same way a human would have, and she slugged it on the jaw, snapped its head back with a sharp cracking sound.
Another Argonian lunged at her, sword extended, and Steve's shield caught it dead center, knocking it to the ground, where it lay unmoving. It was still breathing, she was fairly sure, but it wouldn't be getting up any time soon.
Steve bent and scooped up his shield in one smooth motion, swinging it up just in time to block a plasma bolt. "You take the back door," he told Carol. "You four," he nodded at a quartet of non-powered resistance fighters, all in NYPD or military flack jackets and carrying submachine guns, "go with her. Ben, Firestar, and I will take the front. Simon, Jan, Spiderman, find a window and go in from above."
He said nothing about the Argonian Carol had just killed, and even after months of lethal fighting with guns, bombs, and powers, that still felt strange. Once, he would have pulled her from a fight in a heartbeat if it even looked like she was getting 'too rough,' or would at the very least have kept here where he could keep an eye one her, like he was doing with Angie.
Instead, he was sending her off on her own, with her own mini team to oversee. "This way," Carol snapped, drawing her own gun -- she hadn't needed it for the first round of Argonian guards, not at close range -- and setting off through the sparse cover of the ornamental trees in a wide circle that would take her around to the back of the building. "I'll take point."
The four men followed close behind her. At least two of them were ex-National Guard, veterans of the battle at George Washington Bridge, and the Argonian invasion before that. They had experience with this kind of fighting, which hopefully meant that they wouldn't hesitate to shoot if they ran into human guards.
It was one of the biggest problems with the ex-policemen. Most of them could barely bring themselves to shoot other humans, and that could be dangerous in a firefight.
It was too bad they hadn't been able to bring some of the infantry guys over from Brooklyn for this. The Argonian weapons factory was proving to be every bit as well defended as expected, even with the explosions at Madison Square Garden keeping reinforcements from arriving.
Wanda's team had done their job there after all; they'd managed to set most of their explosives before being caught.
They should never have sent a team with so little firepower to run a mission that dangerous. Ben Grimm should have gone, or Angie. Or Carol.
Watching Wanda's back had been her job, before she'd fucked it up.
Getting in to the old police headquarters building would have been nearly impossible, save for the fact that half the guards had run to the front entrance, drawn there by the firefight outside. The three Argonians that remained at the door went down in a hail of gunfire, and Carol kicked the door in. It was reinforced, bullet-proof glass, so it took two kicks.
The Argonians had gotten seriously overconfident if they honestly thought they could successfully keep people out of this place.
The back door opened onto a drab maintenance corridor, which took a sharp turn to the left several feet in. Carol held up a hand to signal her men to halt, and edged slowly forward, ducking low and peering around the corner. The corridor beyond was, unsurprisingly, filled with Argonian soldiers and human guards, all of them armed with swords, and the Argonian all with plasma guns drawn.
She yanked her head back, not quite quickly enough to entirely avoid the plasma bolt that seared a painful line across her right cheekbone.
"Grenades would be really nice right now," one of the ex-National Guard guys observed. He was around Carol's age, a short, stocky black guy with a scar through one eyebrow that had probably come from an Argonian blade. His fellow guardsman, white, redheaded, and painfully young, was clutching his submachine gun with white-knuckled hands.
"We should have gotten some from the crazy bug guy in the basement," the kid muttered. "Or the Fahrenheit guys. They always have explosives."
There was a moment of silence that felt much longer than it was, and then one of the ex-policemen said, "Who's going to go first?"
"I will," Carol said. "I'm a lot harder to hurt than you guys."
She dove around the corner, keeping low to offer as small a target as possible, and rolled to her knees with her gun already aimed and her finger on the trigger. One Argonian went down, then a second, and the air around her was filled with streaks of plasma. They left holes, pits, and black scorch marks wherever they struck the walls or the floor, but miraculously, none of them hit her.
She could hear gunfire from behind her, and knew the other four were at her back now. Once, she would have thrown herself at the Argonians in order to take them on hand-to-hand, knowing that her team's bullets would simply bounce off of her, but she wasn't quite as invulnerable these days, and the four men behind her weren't bullet or plasma proof at all, so she stayed where she was and emptied her magazine into the guards -- aliens and humans alike -- until none of them were moving anymore.
The good guys weren't supposed to kill people, but this had stopped being about good guys and bad guys a long time ago.
The firefight was brutal, but brief; it was probably only a few minutes later when Carol lowered her weapon and turned to survey her team.
The two NYPD guys were still standing, looking completely untouched, but the younger soldier, the redheaded one, was barely on his feet, one arm draped over his fellow guardsman's shoulder and a horrific-looking plasma burn on his thigh.
"Take him back outside," Carol told the older soldier. "Back to the rendezvous point." She forced herself not to wonder whether or not the kid would get to keep that leg.
The older soldier nodded, and started to steer the kid back toward the exit, and that was when the lights went out.
It was daylight outside, so even given the dark, tinted glass in the windows, there was still enough light to see by. If this was some Argonian defense mechanism, it wasn't very effective. Maybe it was designed to work at night, when turning the lights off and plunging the building into darkness would give the Argonians a significant advantage.
Carol took a deep breath. "Right," she said. "So, it looks like they know we're here. What a surprise."
"What do you think tipped them off?" one of the policemen asked. "The gunfire or the explosions out front?"
"I'm putting my money on the explosions," the un-injured National Guard guy said. Then he and the injured kid resumed their slow progress toward the exit, the kid limping heavily and wincing with every step.
The next several sections of corridor were clear, as was the stairwell at the end of them. The door to the stairwell had an intimidatingly large electronic lock on it, but opened easily at Carol's touch. It wasn't just the lights; the electricity for the whole building was out. Wanda must have -- She winced inwardly, and corrected herself. Firestar must have done something to it.
The door to the second floor was equally easy to open, but a second group of Argonian guards awaited them outside the stairwell. Carol and her men nearly walked straight into them, and it was yet another stroke of good luck that she was the one taking point. An ordinary human would have been beheaded by the sword-stroke she walked into; Carol herself only just managed to dodge it.
She grabbed the Argonian by the wrist and punched it in the face, feeling bone break under her knuckles, and nearly lost both her footing and her grip on her still astoundingly conscious opponent when the ground under her feet shook and the loud rumble of a very close explosion filled the air.
What the hell was that? Simon? Firestar? Simon didn't do explosions. Not inside buildings that could all too easily come down around them. Had they accidentally set off some kind of self-destruct countdown? Considering that the building was full of human hostages, the death toll could be enormous.
The Argonian slashed at her with its tail, the nasty poisonous barb on the end scratching harmlessly against her skin -- Kree DNA conferred total immunity to Argonian venom, according to Hank's tests, which according to Jan, had just spared her a world of pain. Carol grinned at the alien, showing all her teeth. "This is for kidnapping my teammates," she told it, and punched it again.
Then the wall fell on her.
The Argonian's body shielded her from the worst of the impact. Carol shoved it and about a fifty pounds of rubble off her, shook chunks of crumbling grey plaster and concrete out of her hair, and looked up to see the Rhino, standing in the middle of a gaping breach in the wall, a chunk of plaster pinned ridiculously on the end of his horn.
He had a man in a grey lab coat tossed over one shoulder, and Tony and Clint were standing behind him.
"I could have gotten the wall," the man in the lab coat protested. "Now put me the hell down and get out of my way."
"Carol!" Clint said brightly, grinning broadly at her and hefting a blood-stained sword. "Great! You're just in time to help us escape." He looked like hell, with dark circles under his eyes, a huge, purple bruise spreading across the side of his face, and a pair of bloody gashes along his forearm, but it was Clint.
Carol should have felt relieved; half the point of the mission, beyond destroying the Argonians' weapons-production facility, was to rescue Clint and Tony. Instead, there was a sort of sinking feeling in her stomach. It had been silly, but she hadn't been able to quell the hope that when -- if -- they found Clint and Tony, Wanda would be with them.
Stupid. Wanda and Pietro were probably in cells deep underneath Grand Central, if they weren't dead already.
"You can help us get the others out," Tony was saying. He was shockingly pale, looking almost as bad as he had the last time she'd seen him, when he'd just finished being beaten within an inch of his life. He was wearing what looked like jury-rigged repulsor gauntlets on both hands. "There are more scientists back there," he nodded back over his shoulder, "and some of them are too sick to walk on their own anymore."
The Rhino's passenger -- on his feet now, if not entirely steadily -- gaped at Tony. "There are a zillion Argonians back there and you want us to go back?" he demanded.
"Shut up and do it, Schultz," Tony snapped. "You're being paid for this, and if I know the Kingpin, he's paying you damn well."
The Kingpin had people inside the Argonians' weapons factory? Carol wasn't sure why she was surprised by that; he had people everywhere else, so why not with the Argonians.
"Not well enough," Schultz muttered. He scrubbed the back of one forearm under his nose, wiping away a thin trail of blood, and straightened his shoulders. "Great." He raised his hands, which were covered in a pair of clunky metal gauntlets, and smiled, revealing bloodstained teeth. "It's time to shake, rattle, and roll."
Carol glared at him. "The next person who utters a stupid supervillain catchphrase," she said, "gets to stay here with the aliens."
Shultz obediently shut up.
"You. Rhino." Carol stabbed a finger at the Rhino's hulking grey form. "You have point."
"Why me?"
"Because you’re bulletproof."
The Rhino's face twitched for a second, as if he were trying to think of an appropriate rebuttal for that, and then he shrugged and took the lead, lowering his head and squaring his shoulders as if preparing to impale or trample anything -- or anyone -- in his way.
Clint returned his sword to its sheath, not bothering to clean it, and bent over the unconscious Argonian who had served as Carol's alien shield when the wall had come down, removing the plasma gun from its limp, clawed hand. He held it out at arm's length, sighting along its barrel, and smiled. "I've wanted to use one of these things for months."
"Be careful," Tony told him, his lips twitching into the faintest of smirks. "If that's one of the ones I repaired, it has a ten percent chance of blowing up when you fire it."
Clint regarded the weapon for a moment, dropped it, and turned to address the two ex-policemen, both of whom were staring at the Rhino with visible trepidation. "Either of you guys have an extra gun?"
"Here," the taller of the two said. He unsnapped the holster on his belt and pulled out a handgun, holding it out to Clint. "I don't have any extra clips for it, though, so make your shots count."
"I'm Hawkeye," Clint informed him, with a pale shadow of his usual cocky grin. "I never miss."
At Carol's signal, they moved further into the building, back the way Clint and Tony had come. They met two more groups of Argonians before they finally reached the place where the bulk of the scientist were being held.
Clint wasn't lying; he didn’t miss. Neither did Tony.
Repulsor gauntlets, Carol discovered, could burn holes straight through flesh at close range, leaving wounds even more gruesome than the plasma guns.
The fact that Tony was willing to use his favorite toys that way didn’t surprise her as much as it should have.
Some of the scientists looked so bad that they made Tony and Clint seem healthy. On the way out, Carol carried one woman in her arms, and the Rhino had a scientist draped over each shoulder -- though, granted, one of them was the Shocker, who had passed out after using his vibrational gauntlets to turn two Argonians into bloody pulp.
"We're not going that way," Carol said, as her motley collection of soldiers started toward the Rhino-sized hole in the wall that they had used to enter the room where the scientists were housed. "We're far enough into the building that it'll be quicker to go out the front. Just head toward the sound of the explosions. Maybe we'll meet Cap's team in the middle."
Tony turned abruptly, staring at her with an indecipherable look on his face. "He's here?" he breathed, his eyes widening.
For some reason, Carol was suddenly reminded of Wanda, of the way Wanda had stared up at her when she had broken their kiss and shoved her away, awed, hungry, and a little bit afraid.
"Yeah," she said. "He's here."
***
"Ah, Arch-Captain," Irkalla said, pleasantly, but with a carefully calculated note of impatience in her voice. "There you are. I require your assistance."
"You do, nin-Ikalla?" Kammani asked, voice mild. Listening to her, one would never guess that she had been dragged out of bed in the middle of the day to respond to Irkalla's summons. Her uniform was, as always, perfect.
Beside her, Arch-Captain Mamitu looked distinctly less orderly -- her black tunic was equally impeccable, but her fur was still rumpled from sleep. She had arrived on Kammani's heels, having clearly followed her from the officers' quarters, and was now regarding her and Irkalla suspiciously, clearly curious as to why her fellow officer had been summoned to the Archon's quarters during the brightest hours of the day.
"Yes," Irkalla told Kammani, ignoring Mamitu as if she were not present. "I have heard that you play the lyre. I find myself unable to sleep, and would appreciate it greatly were you to play for me." It was not a request, and she did not phrase it as one.
Mamitu looked smug, her ears relaxing and her tail curving lazily with satisfaction, clearly amused that her rival had been summoned to perform a task that would normally have been relegated to a slave or low-level mechanikos.
Kammani inclined her head respectfully. "I would be honored, nin-Irkalla." She turned to the nearest guard and ordered him to fetch her instrument. He hastened to obey, and returned remarkably quickly with a cloth-wrapped bundle that was, presumably, the arch-captain's instrument.
As Kammani took the lyre in her arms and began to unwrap it, Irkalla turned to the still faintly-smirking Mamitu. "You may return to bed, Arch-Captain," she said crisply. "Your work is too vital for you to be poorly rested."
Mamitu saluted sharply and departed, tail swaying jauntily behind her. Irkalla watched her go, then turned to Kammani, gesturing for the officer to precede her into her chambers. "This way, Arch-Captain."
Kammani's steps slowed as she entered the royal apartments -- she had never been in here before, and was no doubt as struck by the beauty of the ornate woodwork and painted ceiling beams as Irkalla had been.
The massive window set into one wall had been hung with the heaviest draperies they had been able to find, the blue velvet completely blocking the sunlight and rendering the rooms comfortably dim. The place had been an eating or drinking establishment of some sort before the Argonians' arrival, but when all the tables and chairs had been removed, the comfortably large room made an ideal dwelling place.
There was even a balcony area perfectly sized and positioned to serve as a bedchamber, and it was here that Irkalla led Kammani, gesturing for her to take a seat on one of the couches, while she herself sat down on the edge of her bed, curling her tail around her feet for warmth.
Kammani fiddled with the pegs on her lyre for a moment, and then began to play.
It was a classic piece, a century-old ballad about the last stand of two lovers who had died together in one of the final space battles against the Scandians. The lyrics, which Kammani did not sing, were ridiculously sentimental, but the tune itself was both haunting and subtly triumphant -- the battle had been a great Argonian victory.
For a moment, Irkalla simply listened, enjoying the music; Kammani might not be as skilled as a professional musician, but her playing was serviceable, and she only rarely missed a note. She must have known that Irkalla had summoned her here for a reason, and that said reason was hardly likely to be something as frivolous as music, but she did not ask any questions, focusing all her attention on the lyre instead.
"You play very well," Irkalla commented, after the second verse.
"Thank you, nin-Irkalla."
Kammani finished the song, then began a second one, a purely instrumental composition this time, and one that Irkalla was somewhat less familiar with. When the final chords of the piece had died away, she said, into the silence, "Nin-Irkalla, is this truly why you summoned me?"
So. Patient, but not as meek as she sometimes appeared. "Do you believe I brought you here under false pretenses?" Irkalla asked.
"No, nin-Irkalla, merely that you must surely have a purpose beyond the obvious. My music is not so skillful as to be worth playing before the Archon herself."
"You sell yourself short, Arch-Captain," Irkalla said, "but you are otherwise correct. I wished to speak to you in private."
"About," she hesitated for a fraction of a second, then, "tactics, perhaps? And how I may best serve the empire?" It was a bold question, one many would have done more than hesitate over. It seemed Irkalla had made a wise choice in co-conspirators.
"Yes," Irkalla said, smiling in spite of herself, "one might call it tactics. If some," she paused for just an instant for emphasis, flicking the end of her tail gently back and forth, "terrible tragedy were to befall Imperator Nergal, do you believe Arch-Captain Mamitu would be a fit replacement for him?"
"No, nin-Irkalla. I do not." Decisive and to the point. "Her policies and strategies would be no different from his, but her skill at politics is less, and her temper more... uncertain. She is quick to anger, and less inclined to think of the future than the Imperator is."
Irkalla bowed her head in agreement. "If the Imperator were killed or injured, we would find ourselves in the middle of a terrible crisis, in need of skilled leadership. If Arch-Captain Mamitu were for some reason to find herself unable to assume control of the army, would you feel yourself capable, Arch-Captain?"
There was silence for a moment. They both knew that Irkalla was not speaking of a hypothetical worst case scenario, or indulging in idle speculation; her words were an open offer of power and influence, in return for Kammani's aid in arranging for Nergal and Mamitu to meet with the aforementioned tragedies.
The silence had become strained before Kammani said, ears lowering, "I fear I have not the experience." Her voice was apologetic, and Irkalla could see the shame admitting such a thing cost her in every line of her body. "I have been an arch-captain for less than a month. I was only promoted to sub-captain a year before the evacuation."
A valid concern, but unfortunately not one they could afford to take into account under the current circumstances. "There is no one else," Irkalla said simply. "You would not be doing the job alone, rest assured. I would assist you, as would the advisory council, once it can be formed again." Which, if Nergal was out of the way, would be a straightforward matter. As things stood now, appointing a new council would be tantamount to sentencing those she chose to death.
"If I were called to serve, nin-Irkalla..." Kammani trailed off, then her ears stiffened, and she said, "I am the tailbarb of Alulim. I swore never to falter."
It was agreement, and of more than just her willingness to take on the duties of Imperator should it become necessary.
"You have my thanks, Arch-Captain," Irkalla said formally. "You are a true warrior." She paused, then went on, "If something were to happen to Nergal, Mamitu is poised to take his place, to ensure that his policies are continued." Which was, of course, the very last thing Irkalla wanted, and, she suspected, not an outcome Kammani desired either. "If she were to lose her position, whether to a challenge or to some unfortunate accident, then only Nergal himself would be left to ensure that our commitment to the occupation of this planet remains firm."
Kammani's ears swiveled forward alert and hopeful. "Might it not be conquered more completely and ruled more efficiently with different tactics?"
Irkalla shook her head. "The humans are as countless as grains of sand, while we are few, and their spirit is stronger than we had anticipated. We did not take into account how dangerous these powers some of them have would be -- even eliminating the largest stronghold of empowered humans has, I fear, done little but buy us time." The destruction of the island of Madripoor had been yet another of Nergal's plans, costly and time-consuming and ultimately, she felt, not worth the Argonian casualties it had cost them. "And for what? Even this city slips through our fingers. And even if our rule were uncontested, we cannot thrive here. The light is too bright. Many of the plants humans consider edible are full of acid, impossible to eat without searing one's mouth. The mechanikos tell me that there are vital nutrients missing from those few fruits and vegetables that are edible, and that so long as we remain here, eating only meat and grain, our women will not conceive."
Kammani looked startled, her ears stiffening and her tail going still. "Is that true? But there are already so few of us, and with the losses we take, the number grows fewer every day."
Irkalla inclined her head in agreement. "You see, then, why we must leave." She had long ago come to the conclusion that their position on Earth was untenable, but learning this had driven home exactly how vital it wad that they withdraw from this wretched planet before it began killing them by inches. "The creature on the moon told us much about this planet. With the proper persuasion, he may be induced to tell us about more hospitable ones."
Kammani was frowning, her tail twitching uneasily now. "If we found a new planet, we would have to start over there, begin rebuilding our fleet all over again. It would take a great deal of time."
"Time, Arch-Captain, is something we have in abundance. Perhaps the only thing we have an abundance of. By the time our population returns to a level capable of supporting a military assault large enough to retake Argon, you and I may very well have grandchildren. Or be dead. That is, if we can find a world where children are even possible."
Kammai stared at her blankly, her expression utterly appalled. It was a terrible thing to have to come to grips with, Irkalla knew; the knowledge that she would never see Argon again was a weight upon her shoulder even now, long after she had accepted it as the inevitable truth. "I... can see that, nin-Irkalla," Kammani stammered, after a moment. She drew in a deep breath, her ears, which had been pulled back in shock and disgust, swiveling forwards again. "Arch-Captain Mamitu has insulted me several times of late," she said, with great precision, "and I tire of it. If I were to seek satisfaction for the offenses she has offered me, what are the chances that Imperator Nergal might meet with some... misfortune?"
If I kill Mamitu, she was asking, will you be able to rid us of Nergal?
Irkalla thought of the liquid speed of Mamitu's movements as she defeated the last warrior to challenge her, striking so quickly that Irkalla herself had barely been able to follow her blows. "Are you sure you can face her without suffering defeat?" she asked. It was rude, terribly so, to cast doubt upon another warrior's prowess in such a manner, especially so directly, but it had to be asked. They could not afford to risk showing their hand only to suffer defeat. "She is one of the most skilled duelists I have ever seen."
"Yes," Kammani said, "but she leads with her right foot and relies heavily on her tailblade. And she fights with less care when she is angered. If I can defeat her?"
"I would say, Arch-Captain, that, should you succeed in obtaining satisfaction, the Imperator's luck may prove most unfortunate indeed." Irkalla smiled, and said, loudly enough for it to carry through the door to guard waiting in the corridor outside, "You may resume playing, Arch-Captain. Something more cheerful this time, if you please."
***
They found the scientists' workstations before they found any scientists -- or maybe 'factory floor' would have been a better term for it. Several massive engines in various stages of competition were arrayed in a rough circle, making the most of the room's space, and tools and machine parts were arranged neatly on workbenches.
Steve wouldn't help but stare at the collections of tools and half-assembled weaponry, wondering which had been Tony's work station. None of them looked messy enough to belong to Tony. Tony's workspace always had at least three different projects in various stages of completion covering everything, along with random pieces of various models of the Iron Man armor, empty coffee mugs, papers he'd brought in from his office and forgotten about, open engineering journals with snide comments written in the margins... this place looked much too neat and sterile to be somewhere Tony had lived and worked.
"I don't know what any of this stuff is," Ben Grimm said, glancing around the room, "but it looks important. I say we do something about that." He cracked his knuckles, and the room was filled with the sound of grinding rock.
"Work quickly," Steve ordered. "They'll be on us again in just a few minutes." They had taken out two squads of Argonians in order to get this far, and with all the noise they had been making, more had to be on their way.
Ben threw himself into the task of smashing the alien machinery with considerably more enthusiasm than he showed for smashing living opponents. Firestar raised both hands toward one of the engines and sent a wave of power surging at it, metal warping and heating to a cherry-red glow.
The explosion happened without any warning. One moment, Steve was standing there impatiently, watching Ben and Firestar destroy everything mechanical or technological in sight while he ached to hurry onward and find Tony and Clint, and the next, the overheated engine was flying apart with an earsplitting bang.
Steve went to his knees, shield up to block the flying shrapnel, then shook his head, trying to drive away the ringing in his ears.
"Sorry," Firestar said, not sounding particularly apologetic. "It, um, wasn't supposed to do that."
"We're done here." Steve shoved himself to his feet again, not bothering to dust his scorched and soot-stained uniform off. He could hear the distinct sound of sub-automatic weapons fire from deeper within the building -- Carol's team had obviously made it inside and run into resistance. He nodded in the direction of the sound. "This way."
The hallway was dark, visibility made even wore by the smoke from the explosion. The light had gone off several minutes ago, and the only illumination came from the windows, which were filled with some kind of darkened glass that barely let any light through. The air was thick with the smell of burning, and the smoke made the lining of his throat hurt. The enemy would be at an advantage in these conditions; their night vision was far better than a human's.
Steve took point, every nerve wired with anticipation as he listened for the sound of Argonian footsteps, or the faint clink of those metal decorations they wore.
What he heard, instead, were human voices, and he froze, trying to determine whether that meant ally or enemy.
His ears were still ringing from the last explosion, and in the dark, with smoke everywhere, it was difficult to place exactly where sounds were coming from. One moment, he could hear distant voices, and the next, the sounds were right on top of them.
Steve tensed, readying his shield, but still wasn't prepared for the person who came around the corner.
Clint rounded the corner ahead of them and came to a skidding halt when he registered that this section of the corridor wasn't empty, and Steve found himself staring down the barrel of a .38. It was a good thing he had his shield up, because he was pretty sure Clint came within inches of shooting him.
Clint stared at him with wide eyes for a second. The he shouted, "Cap!" and flung himself at Steve with enthusiastic abandon, hugging him tightly.
Steve was frozen with surprise for a moment. Then, when it penetrated that this really was Clint, that he was here and alive and okay, he hugged back, as hard as he could.
Then he remembered that Clint was holding a loaded handgun with the safety off. A handgun Steve could currently feel pressed into his back.
"Clint," he said, very calmly, "I don't care if it's by accident; if you shoot me, you are off the team."
"You're here!" Clint exclaimed gleefully, though he obediently let go of Steve and stepped back, lowering the gun. "You guys have good timing. We decided not to wait for you to rescue us, but just when we started to bust ourselves out, here you are." He grinned, seemingly oblivious to the huge, black bruise on the side of his face and the drying blood that covered his left sleeve. "I defeated an Argonian warrior in single combat. Then his buddy threw me into the wall, but the important part is that I won fair and square even with this stupid sword and its screwy balance." He slapped the hilt of the Argonian short-sword he wore slung at his hip. "Who's the weaker species now?"
Steve felt his own face breaking into a grin, despite the situation. Clint, at least, was all right. Maybe a little battered, but all right. "Is-" he started to say, about to ask where Tony was -- he had to be with Clint, had to be all right.
A huge, dark shape loomed up out of the smoke, and Steve broke off mid-sentence, his shield arm automatically coming up again as he recognized the Rhino. Then he made out the limp forms in grey lab coats slung over each of the supervillain's shoulders, and relaxed again.
"I can’t believe I'm about to say this," Clint said, "but the big guy is on our side. For now, anyway."
Beside the Rhino was Carol, his grey bulk making her look small even in a combat vest and with a gun in her hands. Only two of the men he'd sent in with her were with her now. Where were the others? Where was Tony?
"Any casualties?" he asked, forcing himself to think of his men first, to deal with the mission first.
"One man down," she said. "But no fatalities."
Steve didn’t let himself sigh in relief, but he felt some of the tension leave his shoulders anyway, even though they were still in the middle of enemy territory. This was an important mission, a tactically justifiable one -- they had struck a major blow to the Argonians' munitions supplies and taken out at least a dozen new engines for their aircraft -- but deep down, he couldn’t shake the feeling that the entire affair was an exercise in selfishness on his part, risking the lives of over a dozen people just to save two men. Just because they were people he loved.
Only some of the tension left him, though. He couldn't completely relax until they were safely out of here, and until he found-- "Is Tony with you?" he demanded.
Carol waved impatiently at the rag-tag collection off scientists standing behind the Rhino. "We're all here. Mission objective achieved. Tony has the tail-end Charlie position; he has the most firepower."
Steve squinted trying to see through the dim, smoky hallway. The scientists were bunched together in a pathetic-looking huddle, several of them supporting ill or injured companions. Behind them, barely visible in the shadows, was a tall, thin silhouette in what looked like yet another lab coat; his hands and forearms looked distorted and disproportionately large, as if he were wearing a pair of heavy metal gauntlets.
"Tony," Steve said in a hoarse whisper, his throat suddenly tight and raw from the smoke.
"Steve." Tony's voice was low, rough, and he sounded almost wondering as he said Steve's name, as if he couldn't believe that Steve was really there. He took a step forward, into the weak light that was filtering in from the closest of the tinted windows, and Steve's breath caught.
He was gaunt, hollow-eyed, and something about the way he moved telegraphed some hidden injury to Steve. He looked sick, beaten down, like a man pushed very close to the breaking point, and Steve was painfully reminded of the last time he'd seen Tony look this bad. There had been smoke everywhere then, too.
"Are you-" he started, and then the hallway was abruptly filled with the sounds of shouting and running feet, and the whine of a ray gun being fired.
"Incoming!" Spiderman yelped, throwing himself around the corner and into their midst. "Go, go, go! Giant, angry aliens with swords! Run!" Jan was clinging to the shoulder of his costume, and Simon was only a few feet behind them, flying just under the ceiling, his ionic form filling the hallway with a weird, purple glow.
Everyone was instantly on the move again, even the scientists, running for all they were worth. Simon solidified and dropped to the floor, grabbing one of the slower moving scientists and picking him up in a fireman's carry, and Ben had one prisoner tossed over each shoulder now, like the Rhino.
Steve fell back to the group's rear, shield up to guard both himself and Clint -- who was busy emptying the clip of his .38 into the pursuing Argonians -- from plasma bolts. He knew the exact second when Tony fell in at his other side, not from the whine of his repulsor gauntlets charging up, but because the presence he sensed next to him felt so right, so familiar. Tony had his back again.
The next few minutes were a blur of noise, gunfire, and motion, as Steve and everyone else with a projectile weapon kept up a running firefight with the Argonians, guarding the scientists' rear as they made their retreat.
Steve found himself wishing desperately for Wanda, who could have jammed the Argonians' ray guns, brought one of the damaged walls down on top of them, or hidden them all behind a lucky cloud of smoke. They were supposed to have Murphy's Law working for them on this mission, not against them.
When they burst out of the building and into clear air again, the bright sunlight was like a slap in the face. Beside him, Tony staggered to a halt, one hand up in front of his eyes; it was, Steve realized, with a sick jolt in his stomach, probably the first time he had seen the sun in months.
They didn't have time for him to be dazzled by it, though. Steve grabbed Tony by the wrist and yanked him into motion again. "Keep moving!" he yelled, as their ragged little band of resistance fighters and escaping prisoners ran hell for leather toward the park, where they would be able to find at least a little cover. Spiderman was the one bringing up the rear now, putting some of his precious, limited supply of web cartridges to good use. When the Argonians followed them, which they undoubtedly would, they would run straight into massive spiderwebs right out of the Hobbit, and would hopefully end up tangled in them like so many flies.
Maybe luck was one their side anyway, even without Wanda helping it along, because the Argonians didn't follow them through the park. Possibly it was because of Spiderman's webs, possibly because large parts of One Police Plaza were now on fire and well on their way to becoming a raging inferno, or possibly because they had simply taken too many casualties to pursue a heavily armed enemy out into broad daylight. Probably the second, Steve reflected; Argonians didn’t seem to fear facing negative odds.
Tony stumbled, nearly going down, and the metal of his repulsor gauntlet was hard under Steve's fingers as he pulled him to his feet again. "Just keep moving," Steve told him. "We'll be safe soon." 'You'll be safe,' he wanted to say. 'I got you out, and now you'll be safe.'
Tony nodded silently, and they kept ran, the Argonian compound burning behind them.
***
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: 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, this fic owes 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.
There were no ants in the Waldorf-Astoria's basement; if there had been any to begin with, Hank had spent enough time down here playing with chemicals to drive them away.
It felt strange to wear the helmet and have nothing to talk to. He missed them, sometimes. They weren't just tools -- ants had a social order, a society as complex as anything humans had come up with. They had division of labor, could problem solve, could communicate with one another, even teach one another. People thought social insects were hive-minds, like the Borg, but they were anything but; they might be so heavily interdependent on one another that they couldn't survive outside the colony, but they were all individuals. Very organized individuals, who all knew their place in the world with utmost certainty, and were willing to give him a place there, too, whenever he had the helmet on. No one but Scott Lang had ever really understood the appeal of that; most people looked at Hank strangely when he tried to explain.
He had built the Ant-Man helmet to talk to them, initially, and only begun using it to fight crime after he'd realized that it could also control them. He had never anticipated other uses for it until the Argonian occupation had forced him to work closely with Spiderman, and he realized that Spiderman's "spider trackers" -- little transmitters he stuck to people or things in order to track them down with his "spider sense" -- worked on the same principle. Both the spider trackers and his helmet used electronic signals to mimic the effects of arthropod pheromones.
With only a few tweaks, Hank could probably use the helmet to communicate with Spiderman as easily as he could with an insect, though spiders not having a hive or colony instinct meant that he wouldn't be able to control his behavior with it. That wasn't on the agenda for today, though. Today all he needed to do was send a signal to the spider-trackers Spiderman had attached to the detonators at Madison Square Garden, to remote-trigger the bombs.
He was, Spiderman had told him cheerfully, "way better than a timer."
Hank glanced down at his watch. The requisite fifteen minutes had passed since Jan and the others had left for One Police Plaza. It was time.
The helmet responded to his thought patterns, translating them into electrochemical impulses, so Hank closed his eyes and thought 'explode.'
It was like sending a signal out into a void. The ants always answered, responding to him and transmitting his instructions amongst themselves. The spider-trackers weren't alive, though, and couldn't answer back. Hank had no way of knowing whether they had heard him, if the explosives really had gone off.
He hoped so. This was the first real role he'd played in a field operation, and the success of Clint and Tony's rescue depended on it.
What if it hadn't worked? If the charges hadn't gone off, Jan and Steve and the others would be walking into a death-trap, filled with too many guards for them to ever overcome.
He wasn't going to think about it, Hank decided. He was going to trust that his science had worked, and focus on something else.
The echoing silence around him made the basement even lonelier than it usually was. Hank pulled the Ant-Man helmet off and laid it aside, smoothing one hand over the silver metal.
Then he turned back to the never-ending project that was the Argonian autopsy reports. So much data, and none of it save the venom composition had proved to be of any real use. He was missing something; he knew it. There had to be something useful here. He knew there was.
It made him want to bang his head against the table. He never missed things.
He'd at least managed to solve the mystery of why the food Tony and Clint were given had no vitamin C or salt in it -- neither substance had been present in the Argonian's body, and both were irritants to it. For all the good that knowledge would do.
Hank glared at his lab notes, resisting the urge to tear them up or ball them up and throw them at the wall. Missing something, damnit. Missing something. What was it?
He threw the notes down on his lab bench and ran his fingers through his hair, sighing. This wasn't helping. He couldn't think right when he was frustrated, nd sitting still was making him feel twitchy.
The other good thing about ants was that they were always nice and calming.
Hank gave up trying to pretend to be calm and jumped to his feet, pacing the length of the room and back again. The salt and vitamin C were important; he knew that, even if he hadn't figured out how yet. Argonians didn't need to eat them, but neither substance would kill them, either, so why were they letting a valuable resource like their human scientists die slowly for want of them?
Did they just not realize humans needed them? Surely not. If they knew English, they had to know that people needed vitamin C. They knew, and yet they were deliberately letting their captives die of scurvy.
Why?
Hank made another circuit of the room, listening to the dull sounds his footsteps made on the concrete floor. He stared blankly at his workbench as he paced, absently cataloging its contents. Helmet. Disassembled spider tracker. Argonian tail barb. Aqua fortis. A rack of empty test tubes. Home-made explosives, ready for use and stored as safely as possible, which wasn't very. Batteries. Hydrogen peroxide. Windex. Clorox.
He'd stuck the last to next to one another on purpose, rolling his eyes defiantly at Jan as he let her see him setting the ammonia and bleach down side-by-side.
Ammonia and bleach. Both of them were poisonous on their own if ingested, but together, they produced chlorine gas, the first deadly airborne toxin ever deployed in chemical warfare. It hadn't killed as many people as phosgene, but it was probably far more famous, not least because it could be made by combining two common household chemicals.
Combining.
Hank raced back to the lab bench and snatched up his notes again, frantically scanning them until he got to the data he'd put together on the Argonians' metabolism and central nervous systems.
Salt and citric acid alone would irritate them, make them sick. Together...
Human cells and the human nervous system required sodium and citric acid to function properly. Argonians' bodies used different chemicals for those purposes, heavy metals. Metals that would bond with chelating substances and become metabolically useless to them.
Sodium and citric acid combined to form sodium ascorbate, which was a chelating substance.
The Argonians were depriving their human prisoners of vitamin C and salt for the same reason that humans -- at least, halfway intelligent humans -- didn't try to wash something with ammonia and bleach-based products simultaneously: because vitamin C and salt together produced a deadly poison.
A deadly poison that was colorless, odorless, and completely soluble in water.
Hank forgot all about his worry over the rescue attempt.
He had more important things to think about right now, like how much sodium he had on hand, and how much of the vitamin C he had stockpiled for when the scientists were rescued he would need to mix it with.
He didn't know exactly how high a concentration of sodium ascorbate it would take to kill an Argonian, and it was always better, when in doubt, to err on the side of caution. After all, it might be deadly to Argonians, but it was harmless to humans.
Deadly to their enemies. Harmless to them. Easy to make.
Hank started pacing again, a wide grin spreading across his face. It was the perfect weapon. Now he just had to get Steve to agree to it.
As soon as Steve -- and Jan -- came back.
The feel of Argonian bones cracking underneath her fists was immensely satisfying. Carol ducked a slash from an Argonian's sword, blocked a blow from its tail with her forearm, and kicked it in the stomach. It folded up the same way a human would have, and she slugged it on the jaw, snapped its head back with a sharp cracking sound.
Another Argonian lunged at her, sword extended, and Steve's shield caught it dead center, knocking it to the ground, where it lay unmoving. It was still breathing, she was fairly sure, but it wouldn't be getting up any time soon.
Steve bent and scooped up his shield in one smooth motion, swinging it up just in time to block a plasma bolt. "You take the back door," he told Carol. "You four," he nodded at a quartet of non-powered resistance fighters, all in NYPD or military flack jackets and carrying submachine guns, "go with her. Ben, Firestar, and I will take the front. Simon, Jan, Spiderman, find a window and go in from above."
He said nothing about the Argonian Carol had just killed, and even after months of lethal fighting with guns, bombs, and powers, that still felt strange. Once, he would have pulled her from a fight in a heartbeat if it even looked like she was getting 'too rough,' or would at the very least have kept here where he could keep an eye one her, like he was doing with Angie.
Instead, he was sending her off on her own, with her own mini team to oversee. "This way," Carol snapped, drawing her own gun -- she hadn't needed it for the first round of Argonian guards, not at close range -- and setting off through the sparse cover of the ornamental trees in a wide circle that would take her around to the back of the building. "I'll take point."
The four men followed close behind her. At least two of them were ex-National Guard, veterans of the battle at George Washington Bridge, and the Argonian invasion before that. They had experience with this kind of fighting, which hopefully meant that they wouldn't hesitate to shoot if they ran into human guards.
It was one of the biggest problems with the ex-policemen. Most of them could barely bring themselves to shoot other humans, and that could be dangerous in a firefight.
It was too bad they hadn't been able to bring some of the infantry guys over from Brooklyn for this. The Argonian weapons factory was proving to be every bit as well defended as expected, even with the explosions at Madison Square Garden keeping reinforcements from arriving.
Wanda's team had done their job there after all; they'd managed to set most of their explosives before being caught.
They should never have sent a team with so little firepower to run a mission that dangerous. Ben Grimm should have gone, or Angie. Or Carol.
Watching Wanda's back had been her job, before she'd fucked it up.
Getting in to the old police headquarters building would have been nearly impossible, save for the fact that half the guards had run to the front entrance, drawn there by the firefight outside. The three Argonians that remained at the door went down in a hail of gunfire, and Carol kicked the door in. It was reinforced, bullet-proof glass, so it took two kicks.
The Argonians had gotten seriously overconfident if they honestly thought they could successfully keep people out of this place.
The back door opened onto a drab maintenance corridor, which took a sharp turn to the left several feet in. Carol held up a hand to signal her men to halt, and edged slowly forward, ducking low and peering around the corner. The corridor beyond was, unsurprisingly, filled with Argonian soldiers and human guards, all of them armed with swords, and the Argonian all with plasma guns drawn.
She yanked her head back, not quite quickly enough to entirely avoid the plasma bolt that seared a painful line across her right cheekbone.
"Grenades would be really nice right now," one of the ex-National Guard guys observed. He was around Carol's age, a short, stocky black guy with a scar through one eyebrow that had probably come from an Argonian blade. His fellow guardsman, white, redheaded, and painfully young, was clutching his submachine gun with white-knuckled hands.
"We should have gotten some from the crazy bug guy in the basement," the kid muttered. "Or the Fahrenheit guys. They always have explosives."
There was a moment of silence that felt much longer than it was, and then one of the ex-policemen said, "Who's going to go first?"
"I will," Carol said. "I'm a lot harder to hurt than you guys."
She dove around the corner, keeping low to offer as small a target as possible, and rolled to her knees with her gun already aimed and her finger on the trigger. One Argonian went down, then a second, and the air around her was filled with streaks of plasma. They left holes, pits, and black scorch marks wherever they struck the walls or the floor, but miraculously, none of them hit her.
She could hear gunfire from behind her, and knew the other four were at her back now. Once, she would have thrown herself at the Argonians in order to take them on hand-to-hand, knowing that her team's bullets would simply bounce off of her, but she wasn't quite as invulnerable these days, and the four men behind her weren't bullet or plasma proof at all, so she stayed where she was and emptied her magazine into the guards -- aliens and humans alike -- until none of them were moving anymore.
The good guys weren't supposed to kill people, but this had stopped being about good guys and bad guys a long time ago.
The firefight was brutal, but brief; it was probably only a few minutes later when Carol lowered her weapon and turned to survey her team.
The two NYPD guys were still standing, looking completely untouched, but the younger soldier, the redheaded one, was barely on his feet, one arm draped over his fellow guardsman's shoulder and a horrific-looking plasma burn on his thigh.
"Take him back outside," Carol told the older soldier. "Back to the rendezvous point." She forced herself not to wonder whether or not the kid would get to keep that leg.
The older soldier nodded, and started to steer the kid back toward the exit, and that was when the lights went out.
It was daylight outside, so even given the dark, tinted glass in the windows, there was still enough light to see by. If this was some Argonian defense mechanism, it wasn't very effective. Maybe it was designed to work at night, when turning the lights off and plunging the building into darkness would give the Argonians a significant advantage.
Carol took a deep breath. "Right," she said. "So, it looks like they know we're here. What a surprise."
"What do you think tipped them off?" one of the policemen asked. "The gunfire or the explosions out front?"
"I'm putting my money on the explosions," the un-injured National Guard guy said. Then he and the injured kid resumed their slow progress toward the exit, the kid limping heavily and wincing with every step.
The next several sections of corridor were clear, as was the stairwell at the end of them. The door to the stairwell had an intimidatingly large electronic lock on it, but opened easily at Carol's touch. It wasn't just the lights; the electricity for the whole building was out. Wanda must have -- She winced inwardly, and corrected herself. Firestar must have done something to it.
The door to the second floor was equally easy to open, but a second group of Argonian guards awaited them outside the stairwell. Carol and her men nearly walked straight into them, and it was yet another stroke of good luck that she was the one taking point. An ordinary human would have been beheaded by the sword-stroke she walked into; Carol herself only just managed to dodge it.
She grabbed the Argonian by the wrist and punched it in the face, feeling bone break under her knuckles, and nearly lost both her footing and her grip on her still astoundingly conscious opponent when the ground under her feet shook and the loud rumble of a very close explosion filled the air.
What the hell was that? Simon? Firestar? Simon didn't do explosions. Not inside buildings that could all too easily come down around them. Had they accidentally set off some kind of self-destruct countdown? Considering that the building was full of human hostages, the death toll could be enormous.
The Argonian slashed at her with its tail, the nasty poisonous barb on the end scratching harmlessly against her skin -- Kree DNA conferred total immunity to Argonian venom, according to Hank's tests, which according to Jan, had just spared her a world of pain. Carol grinned at the alien, showing all her teeth. "This is for kidnapping my teammates," she told it, and punched it again.
Then the wall fell on her.
The Argonian's body shielded her from the worst of the impact. Carol shoved it and about a fifty pounds of rubble off her, shook chunks of crumbling grey plaster and concrete out of her hair, and looked up to see the Rhino, standing in the middle of a gaping breach in the wall, a chunk of plaster pinned ridiculously on the end of his horn.
He had a man in a grey lab coat tossed over one shoulder, and Tony and Clint were standing behind him.
"I could have gotten the wall," the man in the lab coat protested. "Now put me the hell down and get out of my way."
"Carol!" Clint said brightly, grinning broadly at her and hefting a blood-stained sword. "Great! You're just in time to help us escape." He looked like hell, with dark circles under his eyes, a huge, purple bruise spreading across the side of his face, and a pair of bloody gashes along his forearm, but it was Clint.
Carol should have felt relieved; half the point of the mission, beyond destroying the Argonians' weapons-production facility, was to rescue Clint and Tony. Instead, there was a sort of sinking feeling in her stomach. It had been silly, but she hadn't been able to quell the hope that when -- if -- they found Clint and Tony, Wanda would be with them.
Stupid. Wanda and Pietro were probably in cells deep underneath Grand Central, if they weren't dead already.
"You can help us get the others out," Tony was saying. He was shockingly pale, looking almost as bad as he had the last time she'd seen him, when he'd just finished being beaten within an inch of his life. He was wearing what looked like jury-rigged repulsor gauntlets on both hands. "There are more scientists back there," he nodded back over his shoulder, "and some of them are too sick to walk on their own anymore."
The Rhino's passenger -- on his feet now, if not entirely steadily -- gaped at Tony. "There are a zillion Argonians back there and you want us to go back?" he demanded.
"Shut up and do it, Schultz," Tony snapped. "You're being paid for this, and if I know the Kingpin, he's paying you damn well."
The Kingpin had people inside the Argonians' weapons factory? Carol wasn't sure why she was surprised by that; he had people everywhere else, so why not with the Argonians.
"Not well enough," Schultz muttered. He scrubbed the back of one forearm under his nose, wiping away a thin trail of blood, and straightened his shoulders. "Great." He raised his hands, which were covered in a pair of clunky metal gauntlets, and smiled, revealing bloodstained teeth. "It's time to shake, rattle, and roll."
Carol glared at him. "The next person who utters a stupid supervillain catchphrase," she said, "gets to stay here with the aliens."
Shultz obediently shut up.
"You. Rhino." Carol stabbed a finger at the Rhino's hulking grey form. "You have point."
"Why me?"
"Because you’re bulletproof."
The Rhino's face twitched for a second, as if he were trying to think of an appropriate rebuttal for that, and then he shrugged and took the lead, lowering his head and squaring his shoulders as if preparing to impale or trample anything -- or anyone -- in his way.
Clint returned his sword to its sheath, not bothering to clean it, and bent over the unconscious Argonian who had served as Carol's alien shield when the wall had come down, removing the plasma gun from its limp, clawed hand. He held it out at arm's length, sighting along its barrel, and smiled. "I've wanted to use one of these things for months."
"Be careful," Tony told him, his lips twitching into the faintest of smirks. "If that's one of the ones I repaired, it has a ten percent chance of blowing up when you fire it."
Clint regarded the weapon for a moment, dropped it, and turned to address the two ex-policemen, both of whom were staring at the Rhino with visible trepidation. "Either of you guys have an extra gun?"
"Here," the taller of the two said. He unsnapped the holster on his belt and pulled out a handgun, holding it out to Clint. "I don't have any extra clips for it, though, so make your shots count."
"I'm Hawkeye," Clint informed him, with a pale shadow of his usual cocky grin. "I never miss."
At Carol's signal, they moved further into the building, back the way Clint and Tony had come. They met two more groups of Argonians before they finally reached the place where the bulk of the scientist were being held.
Clint wasn't lying; he didn’t miss. Neither did Tony.
Repulsor gauntlets, Carol discovered, could burn holes straight through flesh at close range, leaving wounds even more gruesome than the plasma guns.
The fact that Tony was willing to use his favorite toys that way didn’t surprise her as much as it should have.
Some of the scientists looked so bad that they made Tony and Clint seem healthy. On the way out, Carol carried one woman in her arms, and the Rhino had a scientist draped over each shoulder -- though, granted, one of them was the Shocker, who had passed out after using his vibrational gauntlets to turn two Argonians into bloody pulp.
"We're not going that way," Carol said, as her motley collection of soldiers started toward the Rhino-sized hole in the wall that they had used to enter the room where the scientists were housed. "We're far enough into the building that it'll be quicker to go out the front. Just head toward the sound of the explosions. Maybe we'll meet Cap's team in the middle."
Tony turned abruptly, staring at her with an indecipherable look on his face. "He's here?" he breathed, his eyes widening.
For some reason, Carol was suddenly reminded of Wanda, of the way Wanda had stared up at her when she had broken their kiss and shoved her away, awed, hungry, and a little bit afraid.
"Yeah," she said. "He's here."
"Ah, Arch-Captain," Irkalla said, pleasantly, but with a carefully calculated note of impatience in her voice. "There you are. I require your assistance."
"You do, nin-Ikalla?" Kammani asked, voice mild. Listening to her, one would never guess that she had been dragged out of bed in the middle of the day to respond to Irkalla's summons. Her uniform was, as always, perfect.
Beside her, Arch-Captain Mamitu looked distinctly less orderly -- her black tunic was equally impeccable, but her fur was still rumpled from sleep. She had arrived on Kammani's heels, having clearly followed her from the officers' quarters, and was now regarding her and Irkalla suspiciously, clearly curious as to why her fellow officer had been summoned to the Archon's quarters during the brightest hours of the day.
"Yes," Irkalla told Kammani, ignoring Mamitu as if she were not present. "I have heard that you play the lyre. I find myself unable to sleep, and would appreciate it greatly were you to play for me." It was not a request, and she did not phrase it as one.
Mamitu looked smug, her ears relaxing and her tail curving lazily with satisfaction, clearly amused that her rival had been summoned to perform a task that would normally have been relegated to a slave or low-level mechanikos.
Kammani inclined her head respectfully. "I would be honored, nin-Irkalla." She turned to the nearest guard and ordered him to fetch her instrument. He hastened to obey, and returned remarkably quickly with a cloth-wrapped bundle that was, presumably, the arch-captain's instrument.
As Kammani took the lyre in her arms and began to unwrap it, Irkalla turned to the still faintly-smirking Mamitu. "You may return to bed, Arch-Captain," she said crisply. "Your work is too vital for you to be poorly rested."
Mamitu saluted sharply and departed, tail swaying jauntily behind her. Irkalla watched her go, then turned to Kammani, gesturing for the officer to precede her into her chambers. "This way, Arch-Captain."
Kammani's steps slowed as she entered the royal apartments -- she had never been in here before, and was no doubt as struck by the beauty of the ornate woodwork and painted ceiling beams as Irkalla had been.
The massive window set into one wall had been hung with the heaviest draperies they had been able to find, the blue velvet completely blocking the sunlight and rendering the rooms comfortably dim. The place had been an eating or drinking establishment of some sort before the Argonians' arrival, but when all the tables and chairs had been removed, the comfortably large room made an ideal dwelling place.
There was even a balcony area perfectly sized and positioned to serve as a bedchamber, and it was here that Irkalla led Kammani, gesturing for her to take a seat on one of the couches, while she herself sat down on the edge of her bed, curling her tail around her feet for warmth.
Kammani fiddled with the pegs on her lyre for a moment, and then began to play.
It was a classic piece, a century-old ballad about the last stand of two lovers who had died together in one of the final space battles against the Scandians. The lyrics, which Kammani did not sing, were ridiculously sentimental, but the tune itself was both haunting and subtly triumphant -- the battle had been a great Argonian victory.
For a moment, Irkalla simply listened, enjoying the music; Kammani might not be as skilled as a professional musician, but her playing was serviceable, and she only rarely missed a note. She must have known that Irkalla had summoned her here for a reason, and that said reason was hardly likely to be something as frivolous as music, but she did not ask any questions, focusing all her attention on the lyre instead.
"You play very well," Irkalla commented, after the second verse.
"Thank you, nin-Irkalla."
Kammani finished the song, then began a second one, a purely instrumental composition this time, and one that Irkalla was somewhat less familiar with. When the final chords of the piece had died away, she said, into the silence, "Nin-Irkalla, is this truly why you summoned me?"
So. Patient, but not as meek as she sometimes appeared. "Do you believe I brought you here under false pretenses?" Irkalla asked.
"No, nin-Irkalla, merely that you must surely have a purpose beyond the obvious. My music is not so skillful as to be worth playing before the Archon herself."
"You sell yourself short, Arch-Captain," Irkalla said, "but you are otherwise correct. I wished to speak to you in private."
"About," she hesitated for a fraction of a second, then, "tactics, perhaps? And how I may best serve the empire?" It was a bold question, one many would have done more than hesitate over. It seemed Irkalla had made a wise choice in co-conspirators.
"Yes," Irkalla said, smiling in spite of herself, "one might call it tactics. If some," she paused for just an instant for emphasis, flicking the end of her tail gently back and forth, "terrible tragedy were to befall Imperator Nergal, do you believe Arch-Captain Mamitu would be a fit replacement for him?"
"No, nin-Irkalla. I do not." Decisive and to the point. "Her policies and strategies would be no different from his, but her skill at politics is less, and her temper more... uncertain. She is quick to anger, and less inclined to think of the future than the Imperator is."
Irkalla bowed her head in agreement. "If the Imperator were killed or injured, we would find ourselves in the middle of a terrible crisis, in need of skilled leadership. If Arch-Captain Mamitu were for some reason to find herself unable to assume control of the army, would you feel yourself capable, Arch-Captain?"
There was silence for a moment. They both knew that Irkalla was not speaking of a hypothetical worst case scenario, or indulging in idle speculation; her words were an open offer of power and influence, in return for Kammani's aid in arranging for Nergal and Mamitu to meet with the aforementioned tragedies.
The silence had become strained before Kammani said, ears lowering, "I fear I have not the experience." Her voice was apologetic, and Irkalla could see the shame admitting such a thing cost her in every line of her body. "I have been an arch-captain for less than a month. I was only promoted to sub-captain a year before the evacuation."
A valid concern, but unfortunately not one they could afford to take into account under the current circumstances. "There is no one else," Irkalla said simply. "You would not be doing the job alone, rest assured. I would assist you, as would the advisory council, once it can be formed again." Which, if Nergal was out of the way, would be a straightforward matter. As things stood now, appointing a new council would be tantamount to sentencing those she chose to death.
"If I were called to serve, nin-Irkalla..." Kammani trailed off, then her ears stiffened, and she said, "I am the tailbarb of Alulim. I swore never to falter."
It was agreement, and of more than just her willingness to take on the duties of Imperator should it become necessary.
"You have my thanks, Arch-Captain," Irkalla said formally. "You are a true warrior." She paused, then went on, "If something were to happen to Nergal, Mamitu is poised to take his place, to ensure that his policies are continued." Which was, of course, the very last thing Irkalla wanted, and, she suspected, not an outcome Kammani desired either. "If she were to lose her position, whether to a challenge or to some unfortunate accident, then only Nergal himself would be left to ensure that our commitment to the occupation of this planet remains firm."
Kammani's ears swiveled forward alert and hopeful. "Might it not be conquered more completely and ruled more efficiently with different tactics?"
Irkalla shook her head. "The humans are as countless as grains of sand, while we are few, and their spirit is stronger than we had anticipated. We did not take into account how dangerous these powers some of them have would be -- even eliminating the largest stronghold of empowered humans has, I fear, done little but buy us time." The destruction of the island of Madripoor had been yet another of Nergal's plans, costly and time-consuming and ultimately, she felt, not worth the Argonian casualties it had cost them. "And for what? Even this city slips through our fingers. And even if our rule were uncontested, we cannot thrive here. The light is too bright. Many of the plants humans consider edible are full of acid, impossible to eat without searing one's mouth. The mechanikos tell me that there are vital nutrients missing from those few fruits and vegetables that are edible, and that so long as we remain here, eating only meat and grain, our women will not conceive."
Kammani looked startled, her ears stiffening and her tail going still. "Is that true? But there are already so few of us, and with the losses we take, the number grows fewer every day."
Irkalla inclined her head in agreement. "You see, then, why we must leave." She had long ago come to the conclusion that their position on Earth was untenable, but learning this had driven home exactly how vital it wad that they withdraw from this wretched planet before it began killing them by inches. "The creature on the moon told us much about this planet. With the proper persuasion, he may be induced to tell us about more hospitable ones."
Kammani was frowning, her tail twitching uneasily now. "If we found a new planet, we would have to start over there, begin rebuilding our fleet all over again. It would take a great deal of time."
"Time, Arch-Captain, is something we have in abundance. Perhaps the only thing we have an abundance of. By the time our population returns to a level capable of supporting a military assault large enough to retake Argon, you and I may very well have grandchildren. Or be dead. That is, if we can find a world where children are even possible."
Kammai stared at her blankly, her expression utterly appalled. It was a terrible thing to have to come to grips with, Irkalla knew; the knowledge that she would never see Argon again was a weight upon her shoulder even now, long after she had accepted it as the inevitable truth. "I... can see that, nin-Irkalla," Kammani stammered, after a moment. She drew in a deep breath, her ears, which had been pulled back in shock and disgust, swiveling forwards again. "Arch-Captain Mamitu has insulted me several times of late," she said, with great precision, "and I tire of it. If I were to seek satisfaction for the offenses she has offered me, what are the chances that Imperator Nergal might meet with some... misfortune?"
If I kill Mamitu, she was asking, will you be able to rid us of Nergal?
Irkalla thought of the liquid speed of Mamitu's movements as she defeated the last warrior to challenge her, striking so quickly that Irkalla herself had barely been able to follow her blows. "Are you sure you can face her without suffering defeat?" she asked. It was rude, terribly so, to cast doubt upon another warrior's prowess in such a manner, especially so directly, but it had to be asked. They could not afford to risk showing their hand only to suffer defeat. "She is one of the most skilled duelists I have ever seen."
"Yes," Kammani said, "but she leads with her right foot and relies heavily on her tailblade. And she fights with less care when she is angered. If I can defeat her?"
"I would say, Arch-Captain, that, should you succeed in obtaining satisfaction, the Imperator's luck may prove most unfortunate indeed." Irkalla smiled, and said, loudly enough for it to carry through the door to guard waiting in the corridor outside, "You may resume playing, Arch-Captain. Something more cheerful this time, if you please."
They found the scientists' workstations before they found any scientists -- or maybe 'factory floor' would have been a better term for it. Several massive engines in various stages of competition were arrayed in a rough circle, making the most of the room's space, and tools and machine parts were arranged neatly on workbenches.
Steve wouldn't help but stare at the collections of tools and half-assembled weaponry, wondering which had been Tony's work station. None of them looked messy enough to belong to Tony. Tony's workspace always had at least three different projects in various stages of completion covering everything, along with random pieces of various models of the Iron Man armor, empty coffee mugs, papers he'd brought in from his office and forgotten about, open engineering journals with snide comments written in the margins... this place looked much too neat and sterile to be somewhere Tony had lived and worked.
"I don't know what any of this stuff is," Ben Grimm said, glancing around the room, "but it looks important. I say we do something about that." He cracked his knuckles, and the room was filled with the sound of grinding rock.
"Work quickly," Steve ordered. "They'll be on us again in just a few minutes." They had taken out two squads of Argonians in order to get this far, and with all the noise they had been making, more had to be on their way.
Ben threw himself into the task of smashing the alien machinery with considerably more enthusiasm than he showed for smashing living opponents. Firestar raised both hands toward one of the engines and sent a wave of power surging at it, metal warping and heating to a cherry-red glow.
The explosion happened without any warning. One moment, Steve was standing there impatiently, watching Ben and Firestar destroy everything mechanical or technological in sight while he ached to hurry onward and find Tony and Clint, and the next, the overheated engine was flying apart with an earsplitting bang.
Steve went to his knees, shield up to block the flying shrapnel, then shook his head, trying to drive away the ringing in his ears.
"Sorry," Firestar said, not sounding particularly apologetic. "It, um, wasn't supposed to do that."
"We're done here." Steve shoved himself to his feet again, not bothering to dust his scorched and soot-stained uniform off. He could hear the distinct sound of sub-automatic weapons fire from deeper within the building -- Carol's team had obviously made it inside and run into resistance. He nodded in the direction of the sound. "This way."
The hallway was dark, visibility made even wore by the smoke from the explosion. The light had gone off several minutes ago, and the only illumination came from the windows, which were filled with some kind of darkened glass that barely let any light through. The air was thick with the smell of burning, and the smoke made the lining of his throat hurt. The enemy would be at an advantage in these conditions; their night vision was far better than a human's.
Steve took point, every nerve wired with anticipation as he listened for the sound of Argonian footsteps, or the faint clink of those metal decorations they wore.
What he heard, instead, were human voices, and he froze, trying to determine whether that meant ally or enemy.
His ears were still ringing from the last explosion, and in the dark, with smoke everywhere, it was difficult to place exactly where sounds were coming from. One moment, he could hear distant voices, and the next, the sounds were right on top of them.
Steve tensed, readying his shield, but still wasn't prepared for the person who came around the corner.
Clint rounded the corner ahead of them and came to a skidding halt when he registered that this section of the corridor wasn't empty, and Steve found himself staring down the barrel of a .38. It was a good thing he had his shield up, because he was pretty sure Clint came within inches of shooting him.
Clint stared at him with wide eyes for a second. The he shouted, "Cap!" and flung himself at Steve with enthusiastic abandon, hugging him tightly.
Steve was frozen with surprise for a moment. Then, when it penetrated that this really was Clint, that he was here and alive and okay, he hugged back, as hard as he could.
Then he remembered that Clint was holding a loaded handgun with the safety off. A handgun Steve could currently feel pressed into his back.
"Clint," he said, very calmly, "I don't care if it's by accident; if you shoot me, you are off the team."
"You're here!" Clint exclaimed gleefully, though he obediently let go of Steve and stepped back, lowering the gun. "You guys have good timing. We decided not to wait for you to rescue us, but just when we started to bust ourselves out, here you are." He grinned, seemingly oblivious to the huge, black bruise on the side of his face and the drying blood that covered his left sleeve. "I defeated an Argonian warrior in single combat. Then his buddy threw me into the wall, but the important part is that I won fair and square even with this stupid sword and its screwy balance." He slapped the hilt of the Argonian short-sword he wore slung at his hip. "Who's the weaker species now?"
Steve felt his own face breaking into a grin, despite the situation. Clint, at least, was all right. Maybe a little battered, but all right. "Is-" he started to say, about to ask where Tony was -- he had to be with Clint, had to be all right.
A huge, dark shape loomed up out of the smoke, and Steve broke off mid-sentence, his shield arm automatically coming up again as he recognized the Rhino. Then he made out the limp forms in grey lab coats slung over each of the supervillain's shoulders, and relaxed again.
"I can’t believe I'm about to say this," Clint said, "but the big guy is on our side. For now, anyway."
Beside the Rhino was Carol, his grey bulk making her look small even in a combat vest and with a gun in her hands. Only two of the men he'd sent in with her were with her now. Where were the others? Where was Tony?
"Any casualties?" he asked, forcing himself to think of his men first, to deal with the mission first.
"One man down," she said. "But no fatalities."
Steve didn’t let himself sigh in relief, but he felt some of the tension leave his shoulders anyway, even though they were still in the middle of enemy territory. This was an important mission, a tactically justifiable one -- they had struck a major blow to the Argonians' munitions supplies and taken out at least a dozen new engines for their aircraft -- but deep down, he couldn’t shake the feeling that the entire affair was an exercise in selfishness on his part, risking the lives of over a dozen people just to save two men. Just because they were people he loved.
Only some of the tension left him, though. He couldn't completely relax until they were safely out of here, and until he found-- "Is Tony with you?" he demanded.
Carol waved impatiently at the rag-tag collection off scientists standing behind the Rhino. "We're all here. Mission objective achieved. Tony has the tail-end Charlie position; he has the most firepower."
Steve squinted trying to see through the dim, smoky hallway. The scientists were bunched together in a pathetic-looking huddle, several of them supporting ill or injured companions. Behind them, barely visible in the shadows, was a tall, thin silhouette in what looked like yet another lab coat; his hands and forearms looked distorted and disproportionately large, as if he were wearing a pair of heavy metal gauntlets.
"Tony," Steve said in a hoarse whisper, his throat suddenly tight and raw from the smoke.
"Steve." Tony's voice was low, rough, and he sounded almost wondering as he said Steve's name, as if he couldn't believe that Steve was really there. He took a step forward, into the weak light that was filtering in from the closest of the tinted windows, and Steve's breath caught.
He was gaunt, hollow-eyed, and something about the way he moved telegraphed some hidden injury to Steve. He looked sick, beaten down, like a man pushed very close to the breaking point, and Steve was painfully reminded of the last time he'd seen Tony look this bad. There had been smoke everywhere then, too.
"Are you-" he started, and then the hallway was abruptly filled with the sounds of shouting and running feet, and the whine of a ray gun being fired.
"Incoming!" Spiderman yelped, throwing himself around the corner and into their midst. "Go, go, go! Giant, angry aliens with swords! Run!" Jan was clinging to the shoulder of his costume, and Simon was only a few feet behind them, flying just under the ceiling, his ionic form filling the hallway with a weird, purple glow.
Everyone was instantly on the move again, even the scientists, running for all they were worth. Simon solidified and dropped to the floor, grabbing one of the slower moving scientists and picking him up in a fireman's carry, and Ben had one prisoner tossed over each shoulder now, like the Rhino.
Steve fell back to the group's rear, shield up to guard both himself and Clint -- who was busy emptying the clip of his .38 into the pursuing Argonians -- from plasma bolts. He knew the exact second when Tony fell in at his other side, not from the whine of his repulsor gauntlets charging up, but because the presence he sensed next to him felt so right, so familiar. Tony had his back again.
The next few minutes were a blur of noise, gunfire, and motion, as Steve and everyone else with a projectile weapon kept up a running firefight with the Argonians, guarding the scientists' rear as they made their retreat.
Steve found himself wishing desperately for Wanda, who could have jammed the Argonians' ray guns, brought one of the damaged walls down on top of them, or hidden them all behind a lucky cloud of smoke. They were supposed to have Murphy's Law working for them on this mission, not against them.
When they burst out of the building and into clear air again, the bright sunlight was like a slap in the face. Beside him, Tony staggered to a halt, one hand up in front of his eyes; it was, Steve realized, with a sick jolt in his stomach, probably the first time he had seen the sun in months.
They didn't have time for him to be dazzled by it, though. Steve grabbed Tony by the wrist and yanked him into motion again. "Keep moving!" he yelled, as their ragged little band of resistance fighters and escaping prisoners ran hell for leather toward the park, where they would be able to find at least a little cover. Spiderman was the one bringing up the rear now, putting some of his precious, limited supply of web cartridges to good use. When the Argonians followed them, which they undoubtedly would, they would run straight into massive spiderwebs right out of the Hobbit, and would hopefully end up tangled in them like so many flies.
Maybe luck was one their side anyway, even without Wanda helping it along, because the Argonians didn't follow them through the park. Possibly it was because of Spiderman's webs, possibly because large parts of One Police Plaza were now on fire and well on their way to becoming a raging inferno, or possibly because they had simply taken too many casualties to pursue a heavily armed enemy out into broad daylight. Probably the second, Steve reflected; Argonians didn’t seem to fear facing negative odds.
Tony stumbled, nearly going down, and the metal of his repulsor gauntlet was hard under Steve's fingers as he pulled him to his feet again. "Just keep moving," Steve told him. "We'll be safe soon." 'You'll be safe,' he wanted to say. 'I got you out, and now you'll be safe.'
Tony nodded silently, and they kept ran, the Argonian compound burning behind them.
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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Hooray, they're out! That was so good to read. I can't wait to see Clint and Tony getting better (and eee, to see Tony's side of the reunion), and how Hank's poison and the Archon's machinations play out. Plus, ack, what's happened to Wanda?!
Man, you guys know how to keep a reader on the edge of her seat. :D
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*cheers at review*
Hooray, they're out! That was so good to read. I can't wait to see Clint and Tony getting better (and eee, to see Tony's side of the reunion), and how Hank's poison and the Archon's machinations play out. Plus, ack, what's happened to Wanda?!
More reunion-ness is coming next chapter *grins* We've pretty much been building up to "Steve and Tony are finally re-united" for the entire fic, so it would be deeply remiss of us not to have Steve
sexfade-to-black Tony better now.Man, you guys know how to keep a reader on the edge of her seat. :D
Yay, thanks! Don't worry - we generally can't bring ourselve to do anything too permenantly horrible to characters.
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things are looking up, the big escape takes place, the re-uniting of Steve and Tony, Clint hugging Steve
They were supposed to have Murphy's Law working for them
and isn´t that the best description of Wanda´s powers ever?
^^
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isn´t that the best description of Wanda´s powers ever?
Wanda's powers are screwy and hard to pin down (for example, they seem to be completely different during Disassembled/House of M than in the entire rest of canon, because she's doing Franklin Richards-style reality altering there instead of probability manipulating), but I kind of like that description. The improbably extreme bad luck she used to hex opponents with in classic Avengers was always fun.
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LOL, yes the guys rescuing themselves! And now I want to see how Spidey reacts to the fact that all of his villains are sort of good guys for the moment.
"Tony," Steve said in a hoarse whisper, his throat suddenly tight and raw from the smoke.
"Steve." Tony's voice was low, rough, and he sounded almost wondering as he said Steve's name, as if he couldn't believe that Steve was really there. He took a step forward, into the weak light that was filtering in from the closest of the tinted windows, and Steve's breath caught.
Cue music, close shots of their eyes and then slow motion as they run towards each other and-- Damn those aliens, they were about to have a moment.
As always, good work, and I'll be over here eagerly waiting for the next one like an addict waiting for a fix.
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I am totally digging the parts with the aliens too, it's cool to see the perspective of the other side. It helps it feel like it's really a comic book. :)
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Thanks so much for the complimnt on the action sequence -- I think this fic has more action than anything we've written thus far *grins*
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Go Hank, get your chemical warfare on!
Woot, Hank!
Re: Go Hank, get your chemical warfare on!
Hank's chemical warfare eureka moment has probably had more set-up dedicated to it than anything else we've written to date (don't look at the hand-wavey science for exactly how it poisons them! Don't look!). Hopefully it's not too gimicky (or too creepy Ender's Game-style "it's okay to massacre them because they're not human"-esque).
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For some reason, that mental image is sticking in my head. Damn not having any artistic talent!
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They're saved! saved all over!
this made me grin like mad: He held it out at arm's length, sighting along its barrel, and smiled. "I've wanted to use one of these things for months."
"Be careful," Tony told him, his lips twitching into the faintest of smirks. "If that's one of the ones I repaired, it has a ten percent chance of blowing up when you fire it."
as did this: "Clint," he said, very calmly, "I don't care if it's by accident; if you shoot me, you are off the team."
and this made me smile sappily (as did the reunion itself, of course, and Steve's thoughts at the end): He knew the exact second when Tony fell in at his other side, not from the whine of his repulsor gauntlets charging up, but because the presence he sensed next to him felt so right, so familiar. Tony had his back again.
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I'm enjoying the hell out of this, you are both such talented writers. :D
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I'm enjoying the hell out of this, you are both such talented writers. :D
Thanks so much - you have ni idea how happy it makes us to know people are still enjoying this ^_^.
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There were two sentences in particular that made me happy, For some reason, Carol was suddenly reminded of Wanda, of the way Wanda had stared up at her when she had broken their kiss and shoved her away, awed, hungry, and a little bit afraid. neatly filled both the Steve/Tony and Carol/Wanda quota even with the lack of actual Wanda in this chapter, and is just a perfect visual. And 'You'll be safe,' he wanted to say. 'I got you out, and now you'll be safe.' nfjkgjkh.
Also it's a small thing but it made me happy that Tony actually got to use the gauntlets and help with the break out, the description of him sliding right back into place at Steve's side was <3
Oh this has been done the entire time, but I don't think I've mentioned it, I love how casually and well done and like, crisp your military lingo is with Steve and Carol, "We're all here. Mission objective achieved. Tony has the tail-end Charlie position; he has the most firepower."
Oh, uh. Ismund isn't gonna get like in trouble for this right. like he did kind of say that Tony was more trustworthy :||
Jeez, seriously that second to last sentence this really got me. What a perfectly satisfying end for this chapter.
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Yes, this! Iron Man is always good, but Iron Man being badass WITH SCIENCE! is sexy! :D
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Yay! That's exactly the reaction we were hoping for (I think my favorite moment out of this, aside from Tony & Steve's reunion, is the part where the Rhino crashes through the wall with the Shocker tossed over one shoulder and Tony & Clint behind him).
'You'll be safe,' he wanted to say. 'I got you out, and now you'll be safe.' nfjkgjkh.
*grins* Ah, the irony *pets Steve and poor, soon-to-be-tortured Tony*
I love how casually and well done and like, crisp your military lingo is with Steve and Carol
We steal copiously from the many military fiction novels I read and from friends and relatives in the army/navy/air force.
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But I also just like seeing Hank the hero: Gears always grinding, being insecure or appreciating the kinship of ant societies-- no matter how weird somebody else might find that to be. I never liked Shooter turning him into a wife-abusing psycho, but I did like Stern (?) bringing him back from the depths and reviving his determination to carve his own place in the world-- in costume or not.
[munches popcorn]
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Yay! Glee is good. We always aim for glee ^_^.
The suspense was probably as much a result of narrative necessity as anything else -- the Irkalla and Kammani scene had to fit in this chapter, and putting it after Steve & Tony's reunion would have been too anticlimactic, so instead we had the dramatic fight scene break in the middle for some alien politics.
I'm a total sucker for the sense of rightness,
*grins* So are we. The cool kids apparently don't have OTPs these days, but then, we never claimed to be cool (theirloveispureandtrueOMG).
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sexcomfort to follow up all that hurt.I love Clint's manic glee at finally getting a chance to do some violence, and Cap being all "you're off the team if you shoot me." That's just so them.
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Yes... comfort. Lots of PG-13-rated comfort. There may be some further plot/action/angst/mortal peril to follow, though, given that the Argonians still have to be defeated.
I love Clint's manic glee at finally getting a chance to do some violence, and Cap being all "you're off the team if you shoot me." That's just so them.
Thanks! *glee* Clint had to put up with four months of Argonians pushing him around and accidentally poisoning him. Now that he has a chance to fight back, he's going to enjoy it *grins*
Steve and Clint's older brother/bratty younger brother relationship is all kinds of cute when the canon writers focus on it (there's a sequence in late volume 3 Avengers where Clint is doing an impression of Steve trying to flirt with women that's among my favorite moments in comics. "Gosh, golly, gee, I'm Captain America!" *poses*).
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Oh Hank, I love you! It's not that he's evil or even morally challenged. He just thinks of this stuff in his dorky, scientific stream of consciousness. I know good Hank characterization when it makes me say, "You're a good man, Hank, but O_O"
Did they just not realize humans needed them? Surely not. If they knew English, they had to know that people needed vitamin C. They knew, and yet they were deliberately letting their captives die of scurvy.
I WONDERED ABOUT THIS AND NOW YOU HAVE ADDRESSED IT YOU GENIUSES.
I always wondered how Hawkeye would stack up to Bullseye. And the reunion scene is d'aaaaaaw. The mingling of the non-powered and superpowered resistance members really puts the heroes' sheer power into a perspective that I think we often forget, but also is a good reminder that normal men and women can be just as badass in their own way.
But I don't think anybody has really complimented you on the Argonians themselves. It's always awesome to see our favorite superpeople, of course, but the fact that the aliens themselves are compelling people with their own storyline and things going on has not escaped my notice. Irkalla and Kammani are appealingly ruthless, intelligent, competent women...er, females (it still hasn't gotten old for me to see women being awesome, even alien women). I love the fact that both sides are sympathetic, and that it's mainly desperation that has driven both sides to make bad or hard choices...except for Nergal, who is just as much of a jackass as any villain we love to hate. I'm really going to enjoy seeing him get his comeuppance.
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Oh, Hank. *hugs* I loved this paragraph so much, because it's such a beautiful, clear articulation of why Hank loves ants, and how his own issues are a part of that. And it's oddly sweet, too.
Also, the sodium ascorbate revelation was a total "OHHHH!" moment. I didn't see it coming, but the moment you said it, a gazillion things fell into place. And it made me feel better about the Argonians, weirdly, because they weren't practically killing their human slaves with nutritional deprivation just because they were careless, or didn't notice, or wanted them weak or dead. It was, for the Argonians, a national security issue.
Also, yay, rescue! *jumps up and down cheering*
"We should have gotten some from the crazy bug guy in the basement," the kid muttered.
I LOL'd. I couldn't help it. *g*
"Carol!" Clint said brightly, grinning broadly at her and hefting a blood-stained sword. "Great! You're just in time to help us escape."
And I LOL'd more! *laughs* Go Clint! Rescue? Nah, you're just back up. *chortles*
"Maybe we'll meet Cap's team in the middle."
Tony turned abruptly, staring at her with an indecipherable look on his face. "He's here?" he breathed, his eyes widening.
God, I loved this moment. Not my favorite--that's coming up, I bet you know the one *g*--but it was still awesome. You can just tell that Tony is hungry for Steve. In an emotional way more than anything else. For now. :-D
The whole scene with Irkalla and Kammani made me hopeful that they can get out of this mess without their species being devastated below replacement levels. Because despite what they're doing to humanity, I don't want them to die out as a species.
"Sorry," Firestar said, not sounding particularly apologetic. "It, um, wasn't supposed to do that."
Heh. Yes it was, because Tony was sabotaging that engine. :-D
Clint stared at him with wide eyes for a second. The he shouted, "Cap!" and flung himself at Steve with enthusiastic abandon, hugging him tightly.
YAY! Clint needed a hug, too.
"I defeated an Argonian warrior in single combat. Then his buddy threw me into the wall, but the important part is that I won fair and square even with this stupid sword and its screwy balance." He slapped the hilt of the Argonian short-sword he wore slung at his hip. "Who's the weaker species now?"
WHOOT! I cheered so hard. This is so awesome, and so Clint. :-D
I loved Steve trying so hard to keep his head in the game, but his thoughts keep slipping to Tony. And then...
Behind them, barely visible in the shadows, was a tall, thin silhouette in what looked like yet another lab coat; his hands and forearms looked distorted and disproportionately large, as if he were wearing a pair of heavy metal gauntlets.
"Tony," Steve said in a hoarse whisper, his throat suddenly tight and raw from the smoke.
"Steve." Tony's voice was low, rough, and he sounded almost wondering as he said Steve's name, as if he couldn't believe that Steve was really there. He took a step forward, into the weak light that was filtering in from the closest of the tinted windows, and Steve's breath caught.
God, please, someone do art of this scene! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 Definitely my favorite, in case you couldn't tell. :-D
He knew the exact second when Tony fell in at his other side, not from the whine of his repulsor gauntlets charging up, but because the presence he sensed next to him felt so right, so familiar. Tony had his back again.
Although this one came damned close to beating it!
When the Argonians followed them, which they undoubtedly would, they would run straight into massive spiderwebs right out of the Hobbit, and would hopefully end up tangled in them like so many flies.
That was just an awesome mental image, too. Go Peter!
And I'm writing this one Friday night, so... *impatiently awaiting next chapter*
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Spiderman was the one bringing up the rear now, putting some of his precious, limited supply of web cartridges to good use. When the Argonians followed them, which they undoubtedly would, they would run straight into massive spiderwebs right out of the Hobbit, and would hopefully end up tangled in them like so many flies.
made this Tolkien-fan-since-the-age-of-twelve fangirl squee like you wouldn't believe.
Now on to the next chapter! Thank God I don't have to wait a week or a fortnight like the original readers did...
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Sorry. I've been reading this for HOURS and I just had to stop here and cheer! AAH!!!
Also, you are ridiculously spot-on with Spiderman's voice. It's incredible.
Anyway, YAY! Continuing on!