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cap_ironman2009-09-12 03:56 am
seanchai.livejournal.com) wrote in cap_ironman2009-09-12 03:56 am
Entry tags:
When the Lights Go On Again 19/20
Title: When the Lights Go On Again 19/21
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: Depictions of torture, and general 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.
A/N #1: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.
When the Lights Go On Again
Jan stared out the window at the Helicarrier silhouetted against the blue sky, and blinked suddenly wet eyes, fighting the urge to laugh with relief. It was over. It was finally, blessedly over.
No more hiding. No more sneaking into the enemy's bases again and again, knowing that capture meant probably torture and certain death and having to walk out and leave Clint and Tony in their hands over and over. No more watching people die. No more watching Hank drive himself half-crazy under a de facto house arrest because the aliens had put a price on his head.
The fact that the shield was down now meant that he was all right. It had to.
Hank was smart, was cautious when he wasn't being horrifyingly, stupidly reckless. He would have stayed small, stayed hidden, waited for them to come for him. Tony hadn't given him up. They Argonians had no idea he was even there.
"There's something I have to do," Steve said, and turned away from the radio before Sam had even answered.
He was going after Tony, Jan knew, without even having to ask.
"Ben and I will take the prisoners to the lobby and put them under armed guard," she said, either to Steve or Sam and Fury, whichever was listening.
"Good," Steve said. "Do that. You." He pointed at the Argonian soldier -- she wore the shoulder epaulettes of an Arch-Captain, which meant that this was either Arch-Captain Mamitu, or Arch-Captain Kammani. "Come with me. You're going to take me to the scientist you captured."
The Arch-Captain darted a glance at the Archon, gesturing from Steve, to herself, to the door, and the Archon inclined her head, and said something in Argonian.
Jan stepped forward and took hold of her arm, determinedly ignoring the fact that the Archon towered over her by nearly a foot. The fabric of her blue robe was heavy but soft, made from some fiber Jan didn't recognize, probably of alien origin. The copper beadwork that covered it had obviously been done by hand.
"We're taking you to into protective custody," she said. "Please don't stab me."
The Archon had stiffened at her touch, but the Arch-Captain, now being marched toward the door by Steve, stopped in her tracks and said something, and the alien woman relaxed and let Jan guide her over to where Ben stood.
"Steve?" Fury's voice cracked over the radio link. "Rogers, damnit, where did you go?"
"He's busy," Jan told him, as Steve nearly dragged the Arch-Captain out of the room. "We can't stay here; we have prisoners and casualties to deal with. You'll need to send someone down."
"War Machine and I will meet you in the grand concourse," Sam said, in tones that dared Fury to contradict him.
Jan supressed the half-hysterical urge to laugh; it seemed like she was always meeting people in that damned lobby. "By the clock," she said. "Of course. You'll meet me by the clock."
The lobby was still every bit as much of a bloodbath, the chaos augmented by the addition of several dozen humans in grey labcoats, most of them pale and gaunt. The captive scientists.
Several of them were laid out on the floor, while Resistance members tended their wounds. Spiderman was bent over one of them, spraying a huge laceration in her thigh with web fluid.
Clever. If the goo that came out of his web cartridges was anything at all like real spider webbing, it would be ideal for packing wounds with. And why did she know these things when Hank, despite having spent nearly a decade in her company, still didn't know what a bias cut was or that you weren't supposed to wear white shoes after Labor Day?
Jan crossed the room to where he knelt, Ben and the Archon in tow. "Does anyone here speak Argonian?" she asked.
Jan wouldn't have recognized the scientist who raised his hand as Dr. Octavius if it weren't for the tentacles sprouting from his back. His normally stocky frame was thin, and he was as pale and ill-looking as all the others. His awful bowl-cut was gone, too, and the standard grey labcoat looked much better on him, really, than green spandex ever had. "I have no idea whether the rest of the idiots I was imprisoned with have managed to learn it, but I am fluent."
"Does anyone else speak Argonian?" Spiderman asked.
Another scientist, this one a woman whose dark skin looked almost as grey as her clothing from exhaustion and malnutrition, tentatively raised her hand.
"Great," Ben said. "You can come with me. Her highness here is going to broadcast a general surrender, and we need you to listen to what she says and make sure she doesn't try anything funny."
"They're surrendering? Really?" Somehow, Spiderman's mask managed to convey shock and delight.
"I can barely believe it either," Jan admitted. "Cap defeated their head general in single combat, and then the shield came down and the Helicarrier showed up, and-"
Spiderman's shout of glee cut her off mid-sentence.
There was a minor commotion by the entrance way, and Jan turned to see a handful of men in SHIELD uniforms entering the building.
For one frozen, joyful moment, she thought the armored figure that accompanied them was Tony. Then logic kicked in, and she recognized War Machine, his black and grey armor now a patchwork of his and Tony's colors, pieces of red and gold metal replacing nearly a quarter of the original War Machine suit.
It had obviously been a long five months outside New York, too.
"Where's Hank?" she asked Spiderman, not taking her eyes away from the blessed sight of reinforcements pouring into the room. "Is he still downstairs with Clint and the others?"
"I... don't know." His voice was suddenly much less gleeful. "We never saw him. He gave Dr. Connors the chip Tony built to reactive Doc Ock's tentacles yesterday, and then he just... disappeared. I'm, um, sure they didn't catch him, though. He didn't call for help, and he could have, you know, with the helmet. I would have heard it. And he couldn't have sent me the signal for the attack if they'd caught him."
"You... never saw him?" The sick, hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach was an over-reaction, she told herself. Hank was fine. He was probably hiding somewhere, waiting for the commotion to be over before he came out. That was... a completely plausible thing for Hank to do.
Jan winced. Of course it wasn't. Hank would never sit on the sidelines in a fight like this, not after the way he'd been chaffing to get in on the action for months.
Something had happened to him.
"You deal with SHIELD," Jan said. "I'm going to go find him."
"Me?" Spiderman yelped.
Jan turned and walked away, not waiting for the panicked babbling about how he couldn't possibly do this that was sure to follow. She heard enough of that from Hank.
The sodium ascorbate had been delivered and taken effect, which meant that, if nothing else, Hank had to have been at the water filtration system. She would start there.
She would find him, and he would be fine. Tony hadn't given him up. He would be fine.
She was trying not to think about Tony too hard, because there was a very strong possibility that he was dead, and Steve was not going to handle that well.
She wasn't going to handle that well, when she had time to think about it and let it sink in. She'd known Tony since she was twenty years old. She couldn't really imagine him being gone, anymore than she could imagine losing Steve or Clint or Thor.
If he was dead, she thought, the team might not survive it.
The hallway that lead to Metro North platform was empty of anything living. There were bodies lying crumpled on the floor, human and Argonian, but only a few. The main fighting had all taken place in the grand concourse.
She thought he was just another body at first, until she saw the bright blue and gold of his costume.
Everything around her seemed to freeze. She couldn't feel the ground under her feet anymore, and walking over to where Hank lay curled in on himself, in a bloody heap against the wall, felt weirdly like flying.
Hank was the one who had given her wings.
'Please,' she begged silently, dropping to her knees beside him. The floor around him was tacky with blood; the knees of her costume were going to be covered with it.
She'd worn this costume for months. It needed to go anyway.
Hank didn't stir when she touched him. His skin was cool, clammy, and his lips were bloodlessly pale, and--
"Hank," she said, shaking him. Oh God, there was blood all over him. So much blood. And the right sleeve of his costume was singed brown, and-- "Hank, wake up!"
She touched his throat, feeling for a pulse, and closed her eyes when she felt a fluttery beat under her fingers, then another, and another, rapid and faint. Still alive. He was still alive.
He needed help, right now, before any more of his blood ended up outside his body rather than inside it. "I need help out here!" Jan shouted, her voice coming out high and shrill.
Hank twitched slightly at the sound, and Jan reached down to brush his hair out of his face. The dark blond strands were soft under her fingers. It was too long. He always let it grow too long before she reminded him to cut it.
How long had he been here? Lying here on the cold marble, bleeding out, so painfully, horribly close to help.
He had tried to tell her goodbye before he left, tried to tell her he loved her. She hadn't let him. She'd insisted that they could talk when he came back, wanted to put off explaining that stupid kiss with Clint as long as possible, been angry at him for leaving, for putting himself in danger.
If he died...
He had to know she loved him, had to know she'd forgiven him.
"I hate you," she whispered, her throat so tight and raw that she could barely get the words out. "You think you're invincible. You think you always know better than everyone else. You stupid, brave, stupid jerk."
Hank groaned faintly, eyelids flickering open. "Jannie?" He stared up at her with unfocused eyes, pupils dilated wide.
"Live," Jan said, "or I'll kill you."
Hank smiled slightly, his eyes sliding closed again. "You're pretty when you're mad, Jannie."
Jan sniffed, blinking hot tears out of her eyes. "Don't call me that, Hank. I hate that nickname."
She was pressing both hands against the stab wound in Hank's thigh, trying to use the torn-off sleeve of her costume to staunch the bloodflow, when Clint came skidding around the corner.
"Jan? I heard you-" He broke off, staring at Hank. "Damn it. First Pietro and now--" his voice caught, and he shook his head, hard, as if trying to jar himself back into some kind of composure.
Then he was kneeling next to Jan, peering at Hank's leg -- it was still bleeding, a slow trickle of red staining the blue silk in her hands black. Clint swore again. "He's been stabbed by one of their scorpion tails. A sword or knife wound wouldn't be-- wouldn’t be all ragged like that. We need to get him to a doctor." He hesitated, looking back up at Jan.
She knew what she must look like, her face tear-streaked and her costume half-ripped away. Clint didn't seem to really see her, though; his eyes seemed to stare right through her, focused on something an indefinable distance away.
"Oh fuck, and they're poisonous. Did he have any of his own antidote on him, or can't he even do that right?"
"Shut up, Clint!" Jan snapped. Anger felt good; it drove the sick, shaky fear that seemed to permeate her entire body away.
Clint blinked, suddenly looking like a wounded puppy. "I didn't mean it like that, I..."
"Go get help," she snarled, and leaned more of her weight onto her hands. Hank made a faint sound when she did so; she was probably hurting him. She didn't have any other choice.
Clint stood, his movements tired and slow. He put one hand on Jan's shoulder for a second, his palm hot against her bare skin, and then he was gone.
She didn't look up, all of her attention focused on Hank's face, pale and tense with pain.
"You are going to be all right, do you hear me?" she said, her voice shaking. The anger at Clint had gone as quickly as it had come, and she didn't bother trying to hold back tears anymore. "You're going to be all right."
***
From the corner of your eye, SHIELD uniforms looked an awful lot like Argonian uniforms, until Clint turned -- his hand going to the hilt of his sword or the butt of his plasma gun every time -- and saw that the person who'd moved at the corner of his vision was wearing black spandex and Kevlar instead of the high-collared, copper-decorated steampunk-Nazi outfits he'd spent what felt like half his life surrounded by.
The main hall of Grand Central was full of SHIELD agents now, as well as soldiers and marines in fatigues, all of them armed and organized and occasionally visibly disappointed or relieved that there were no enemies left to fight.
Cap had somehow gotten the entire Argonian Empire to surrender to him. Because he was Captain America, and he did things like that.
Convincing the cavalry that the fight was actually over, though, was taking a while. Clint didn't blame them; he couldn't really believe it either.
"I think you guys interrupted some kind of military coup," Rhodes was saying, nodding at the Archon, who was currently speaking to Fury via Isimud's efforts as translator. "She doesn't seem very upset that her head general just got killed."
"Well, no," Clint said, without thinking. "We all hated him. His right-hand woman was a nasty-tempered bitch who liked to slap her subordinates around." Only half of his attention was really on their conversation; beyond Rhodes's armored shoulder, two army medics were loading Pietro onto a stretcher.
He was pale and bloody, and still looked nearly as dead as he had in that cell, except for the addition of what looked like an entire roll of gauze bandaging around his chest. Wanda was following a step behind the stretcher, not-quite-hovering and obviously trying to stay out of the medics' way. She looked reassuringly non-crazy.
He still didn't know how Carol had snapped her out of it; for a few moments, Clint had thought that he was about to lose both of his oldest teammates, and probably die himself moments later in some kind of magic-fueled explosion.
They had hacked Pietro up bad, bad enough that it was a miracle he was still alive.
Like the guard they'd executed. Like the soldiers in Times Square. If he'd died, would they have displayed his body in pieces, like the others?
Clint had thought he'd seen a lot of horrible things during his career as Hawkeye, but even the Kree-Skrull war hadn't prepared him for what a real war was like. He'd seen teammates die before (Bobbi, convulsing in his arms as Mephisto's fireball struck her, and God, he'd been able to smell her skin and costume burning, just like the Argonians' plasma guns...) but not like this, not so many people at once.
They'd still been clearing the dead bodies out of the entrance hall when he and Jan had brought Hank in. Some of them were people Clint had killed himself, men and Argonians he had trained with and served with, lying through his teeth while he made nice and saluted and pretended to respect them.
He could have shot to injure rather than to kill. He had perfect aim, after all. He never missed.
He'd never thought killing would be this easy, and now he was shooting people with guns that burned holes through them and he'd held a sword to the throat of someone he knew, someone he liked, and threatened to cut their throat if they didn't do what he wanted.
"What was it like?" Rhodes asked, "Working for them?"
"It sucked," Clint said flatly.
Rhodes's black and silver helmet nodded. It was strange, talking to someone in full armor again; he hadn't seen Tony wearing his in months, and the red and gold pieces patched into War Machine's familiar black and silver suit were disconcerting, like talking to someone who was wearing the wrong costume. "I figured. It was bad enough fighting them. A shoulder-mounted anti-tank rifle will take out just about anything, including some of your less powerful demons, if you load the right kind of ammo, but it didn't even make a dent in their energy shields."
Clint's lips twitched, and he fought down a sudden urge to grin. It wouldn't be right, not when the blood hadn't even finished drying on the station's marble floor. "Tony spent months trying to figure out how to take that thing down. He's going to be livid when he hears that Wanda finally did it with magic."
"Tony's... okay? I thought..." Rhodes's voice sounded strained, even through the helmet's voice filters. "Hogan and Pepper brought me his armor. They said he wanted me to use it for spare parts. The aliens said he was working for them, but- He gave his armor to me. Again."
"Tony's..." Clint started, and then his throat closed up again. "I don't know," he managed. "He went back under, so that we could get Hank inside." He nodded to where Hank lay stretched out on the floor, a saline drip running into one arm; they were taking the most seriously wounded up to the Helicarrier first. Hank had had an antidote on him when one of the Argonians had stabbed him. The scientists hadn't had access to the anti-venom. "They've got Tony locked up somewhere, I don't know where." His throat felt tight, and his eyes were hot; Clint realized with horror that he was on the verge of tears, and blinked hard, swallowing. "Cap's looking for him," he finished.
And he was going to find him. Tony couldn't be dead, not after all of this. Not after Clint had spent so long trying to keep him alive.
Damn it, he didn't have time to break down now. What the hell was wrong with him?
It was over. They'd won. Everything was going to be okay now. They were all going to be safe, and it was okay, and there was no reason for him to fall apart like an idiot.
"That... doesn't sound good," Rhodes said, carefully.
"No," Clint agreed.
The disturbance at the far end of the room was small, just a few people turning to look, a conversation falling silent, but Clint's nerves were on edge as it was, and after months of trying to avoid setting off Argonian suspicious, anything Argonians did that was out of the ordinary was nerve-wracking.
It took a moment for him to recognize the Argonian officer who had just entered the room as Arch-Captain Kammani; her uniform was torn and bloody, she was limping, and one of her ears was bandaged.
The sense of relief he felt upon seeing her was... fucked up, that's what it was. She'd essentially been his jailer for months, one of them, anyway.
She crossed the room toward Clint, her bootheels ringing on the marble, and he stiffened, his heartrate speeding up. 'Stay calm,' he told himself. 'Be respectful. Don't let her-' He cut the thought off, and forced himself not to come to attention as she drew nearer.
When she stopped in front of Isimud, still standing awkwardly with bound hands by the dispirited huddle of captive mechanikos, Clint felt his muscles slowly relax, breathing an inward sigh of relief, and then kicked himself for it.
She leaned forward, rubbing her cheek against the other Argonian's. Isimud went stiff, his ears springing upright in surprise, then relaxed as she said, in Argonian, "I am glad that you live, mechanikos Isimud."
"I am... also glad," Isimud stammered out.
How long had that been going on, Clint wondered; could he have used it to their advantage if he'd known about it before? He hadn't realized that warriors and mechanikos could be involved with one another. Maybe they couldn't. Maybe this was some kind of forbidden romance.
That could also have been useful. 'Sloppy, Barton,'. He really should have noticed it before now.
The she straightened, turning away from Isimud, and began walking towards Clint again.
Beside him, he could hear the whine of War Machine's shoulder canon powering up. As threats went, it wasn't particularly subtle, but it tended to be effective.
Clint put a hand on the hilt of his plasma gun, shifting his weight to the balls of his feet in preparation for an attack. She could probably mop the floor with him, but not before Rhodes shot her full of large holes.
"Your commander requires assistance," she said, coming to a halt several non-threatening feet away.
Clint stared at her blankly for a moment, before releasing that she probably meant Cap.
"What do you-" he started, and then, from the corner of his eye, he caught a flash of bright red and blue entering the room.
Cap. He was walking slowly, carefully, Tony cradled in his arms, bloody and unmoving.
***
"You must understand," Arch-Captain Kammani was saying as she led Steve away from the Archon's apartments -- she had insisted on introducing herself; Steve wondered if Argonians learned the same protocols for dealing with hostage situations that humans did -- "I took no pleasure in the treatment we were forced to subject him to. To treat a mechanikos thus..." her ears pulled back, like a cat telegraphing distaste. "It is not right. They are gentle, not warriors. But the circumstances-"
"Let me guess," Steve interrupted, reminding himself that if he cold-cocked her before they got there, it would take him longer to find Tony. "You were just following orders."
She blinked at him, then inclined her head. "Of course," she said. "You are a warrior also. You understand. Sometimes personal honor must be sacrificed for the good of the empire."
"On this planet," Steve snarled, "we execute people for that."
She didn't try to speak to him after that. Steve was glad of it; he didn't want to see her as a person, not when he knew she had watched Tony being tortured, probably participated in it.
Just thinking about that, and knowing that she was only a few feet away, close enough that he could smell her fur and her the clicking of her boots on the marble floor, close enough to hit, for him to be able to reach out and grab hold of her before she would have a chance to react, made him feel sick.
He would probably be able to break her neck before she nailed him with her tail barb. The fact that he could imagine doing it so easily made him feel sick, too.
He didn't like feeling this kind of anger; it made him feel violent, out of control, his chest and stomach aching with it.
"The platform is just ahead," Kammani said, sounding as if she were giving him a tour, not as if she was about to show him where her commanding officer had had a human being imprisoned and tortured. "The Imperator wanted him kept separate from the other rebels, just in case."
She didn't say in case of what. Steve didn't ask.
The subway platform was nearly unrecognizable; the last time Steve had been here, or in some other platform under Grand Central that was indistinguishable from it, the black paint on the ceiling of the subway tunnel had been peeling away in patches from years of humidity, and long streaks of discoloration had decorated the tile walls at irregular intervals, left by seeping water and grime. Now, the paint was fresh and perfect, the walls were so clean they gleamed, and the concrete floor had been sandblasted cleaner than Steve had ever imagined it could become.
Somehow, that was almost as disturbing as the row metal prison cells that marched ominously down the middle of the platform.
"I have not seen Tony Stark for several hours." Kammani's harshly accented voice was tentative, uneasy. "The Imperator performed the final portion of the interrogation alone."
"He didn't speak English!" The protest was automatic, but Steve knew as soon as the words left his mouth that asking questions probably hadn't been the Imperator's main interest at that point. It was getting more and more difficult to feel any guilt over killing him.
"The Imperator was angry," she said flatly. "This is the cell." She typed a sequence of incomprehensible symbols into the keypad on the door, and opened it.
Too late, Steve thought, with a cold, sharp-edged pain in his chest. He was too late.
Tony lay motionless on the ground at far end of the cell. Most of his clothing had been cut away, and there was blood all over him, so much that Steve couldn't even begin to see what injuries lay underneath it. The metallic smell of it was thick in the air.
The concrete was hard under his knees as he knelt next to him.
Tony was covered in so many bruises, cuts, and burns that Steve could no longer tell which marks he had put on him himself.
He hadn't wanted to let him go, had had no other choice. It had been their best chance for success, the surest way of getting Hank inside the station and distracting the Argonians while his poison did its work. The Argonian surrender, the shield falling, all of it would have been impossible if Hank and Tony hadn't been willing to sacrifice themselves for.
He had traded Tony for victory, for humanity's freedom.
Steve knelt on the cold concrete floor, next to what remained of his closest friend, and tried to tell himself that it was worth it, that Tony had known this might happen and had chosen it willingly, that the fate of the world was more important than either of them.
He couldn't make himself believe it.
The Argonian was saying something, behind him. He ignored it.
It didn't matter. Nothing mattered but the long gash that ran down Tony's right side, straight and thin and precise as a surgical cut; the rough, cracked pallor of his lips; the way the tangled mess of his hair fell over his eyes in a sick parody of the way it had two days ago, when he had been asleep in Steve's arms; the dark rings of bruises and raw flesh around his wrists.
They had put him in chains, while they hurt him. And Steve had sat in their headquarters and studied maps of Grand Central and waited for Hank's signal. Tony had hung here, in this dark, metal cell, and endured torture without breaking, and Steve had gone after the Archon and the Imperator first.
Steve reached out and brushed the hair back from Tony's face, tracing his gloved fingers over the bruise on Tony's cheekbone. The one he'd put there.
It was cold in here, so cold it made his teeth chatter and his bones hurt.
They had kept Tony in here for two days, in the dark, where his screams would echo off the metal walls and no one would hear them.
Tony was supposed to be there next to him, the way he'd drawn them. To help him rebuild the Mansion and what was left of the Avengers, to remind him that he was more than just a soldier. To sleep next to him at night and spar with him and argue tactics with him and always support the rational, efficient option even when it conflicted with his ideals.
He had only had Tony for one night. Surely they had deserved more than that, after all they'd been through, all they'd given?
The air was like ice, so cold it made his eyes sting and his lungs burn. Steve curled forward, feeling the cut in his side split open again -- the same side of his ribcage as the gash they had left on Tony, probably made by the same blade -- and a thin trickle of blood ooze from it, the only warm thing he could feel.
He closed his eyes and rested his forehead on Tony's chest, feeling the fading warmth of Tony's body against his skin.
He felt rather than heard the heartbeat, slow, but still there.
Steve made a rough, inarticulate sound, feeling it strangle in his throat. Not too late after all.
The relief hurt almost as much as the loss had.
All the energy seemed to drain out of him, the pain of bruised ribs and knife wounds and exhaustion coming back with a rush. Steve couldn’t think what to do next, suddenly at more of a loss than he had been in since the Argonian ship had first appeared in the sky over New York.
Steve turned his head, rubbing his face against Tony's skin, not caring about the warm, sticky blood and serum from the burns that he was smearing across his face, and laid his cheek against Tony's breastbone, listening to his heart.
His hair brushed across the raw burns that covered the center of Tony's chest, and Tony made a very faint, pained sound.
"It's all right," Steve said. "It's over. I'm getting you out of here."
"Steve?" Tony breathed, his voice a hoarse thread. Steve opened his eyes, something in his chest twisting painfully. Tony's eyes were open a fraction, but they were unfocused, and Steve wasn't sure if Tony was really seeing him or not.
"We won," he heard himself saying. "You and Hank did it. We won."
"Steve?" Tony sounded confused, slurring Steve's name a little as his eyes drifted closed again.
"You're going to be okay," Steve said, sitting up with an effort. He stroked Tony's hair, the strands very dark against the red of his gloves, and tried to make himself believe it. "I've got you now. You're going to be okay."
***
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: Depictions of torture, and general 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.
A/N #1: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.Jan stared out the window at the Helicarrier silhouetted against the blue sky, and blinked suddenly wet eyes, fighting the urge to laugh with relief. It was over. It was finally, blessedly over.
No more hiding. No more sneaking into the enemy's bases again and again, knowing that capture meant probably torture and certain death and having to walk out and leave Clint and Tony in their hands over and over. No more watching people die. No more watching Hank drive himself half-crazy under a de facto house arrest because the aliens had put a price on his head.
The fact that the shield was down now meant that he was all right. It had to.
Hank was smart, was cautious when he wasn't being horrifyingly, stupidly reckless. He would have stayed small, stayed hidden, waited for them to come for him. Tony hadn't given him up. They Argonians had no idea he was even there.
"There's something I have to do," Steve said, and turned away from the radio before Sam had even answered.
He was going after Tony, Jan knew, without even having to ask.
"Ben and I will take the prisoners to the lobby and put them under armed guard," she said, either to Steve or Sam and Fury, whichever was listening.
"Good," Steve said. "Do that. You." He pointed at the Argonian soldier -- she wore the shoulder epaulettes of an Arch-Captain, which meant that this was either Arch-Captain Mamitu, or Arch-Captain Kammani. "Come with me. You're going to take me to the scientist you captured."
The Arch-Captain darted a glance at the Archon, gesturing from Steve, to herself, to the door, and the Archon inclined her head, and said something in Argonian.
Jan stepped forward and took hold of her arm, determinedly ignoring the fact that the Archon towered over her by nearly a foot. The fabric of her blue robe was heavy but soft, made from some fiber Jan didn't recognize, probably of alien origin. The copper beadwork that covered it had obviously been done by hand.
"We're taking you to into protective custody," she said. "Please don't stab me."
The Archon had stiffened at her touch, but the Arch-Captain, now being marched toward the door by Steve, stopped in her tracks and said something, and the alien woman relaxed and let Jan guide her over to where Ben stood.
"Steve?" Fury's voice cracked over the radio link. "Rogers, damnit, where did you go?"
"He's busy," Jan told him, as Steve nearly dragged the Arch-Captain out of the room. "We can't stay here; we have prisoners and casualties to deal with. You'll need to send someone down."
"War Machine and I will meet you in the grand concourse," Sam said, in tones that dared Fury to contradict him.
Jan supressed the half-hysterical urge to laugh; it seemed like she was always meeting people in that damned lobby. "By the clock," she said. "Of course. You'll meet me by the clock."
The lobby was still every bit as much of a bloodbath, the chaos augmented by the addition of several dozen humans in grey labcoats, most of them pale and gaunt. The captive scientists.
Several of them were laid out on the floor, while Resistance members tended their wounds. Spiderman was bent over one of them, spraying a huge laceration in her thigh with web fluid.
Clever. If the goo that came out of his web cartridges was anything at all like real spider webbing, it would be ideal for packing wounds with. And why did she know these things when Hank, despite having spent nearly a decade in her company, still didn't know what a bias cut was or that you weren't supposed to wear white shoes after Labor Day?
Jan crossed the room to where he knelt, Ben and the Archon in tow. "Does anyone here speak Argonian?" she asked.
Jan wouldn't have recognized the scientist who raised his hand as Dr. Octavius if it weren't for the tentacles sprouting from his back. His normally stocky frame was thin, and he was as pale and ill-looking as all the others. His awful bowl-cut was gone, too, and the standard grey labcoat looked much better on him, really, than green spandex ever had. "I have no idea whether the rest of the idiots I was imprisoned with have managed to learn it, but I am fluent."
"Does anyone else speak Argonian?" Spiderman asked.
Another scientist, this one a woman whose dark skin looked almost as grey as her clothing from exhaustion and malnutrition, tentatively raised her hand.
"Great," Ben said. "You can come with me. Her highness here is going to broadcast a general surrender, and we need you to listen to what she says and make sure she doesn't try anything funny."
"They're surrendering? Really?" Somehow, Spiderman's mask managed to convey shock and delight.
"I can barely believe it either," Jan admitted. "Cap defeated their head general in single combat, and then the shield came down and the Helicarrier showed up, and-"
Spiderman's shout of glee cut her off mid-sentence.
There was a minor commotion by the entrance way, and Jan turned to see a handful of men in SHIELD uniforms entering the building.
For one frozen, joyful moment, she thought the armored figure that accompanied them was Tony. Then logic kicked in, and she recognized War Machine, his black and grey armor now a patchwork of his and Tony's colors, pieces of red and gold metal replacing nearly a quarter of the original War Machine suit.
It had obviously been a long five months outside New York, too.
"Where's Hank?" she asked Spiderman, not taking her eyes away from the blessed sight of reinforcements pouring into the room. "Is he still downstairs with Clint and the others?"
"I... don't know." His voice was suddenly much less gleeful. "We never saw him. He gave Dr. Connors the chip Tony built to reactive Doc Ock's tentacles yesterday, and then he just... disappeared. I'm, um, sure they didn't catch him, though. He didn't call for help, and he could have, you know, with the helmet. I would have heard it. And he couldn't have sent me the signal for the attack if they'd caught him."
"You... never saw him?" The sick, hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach was an over-reaction, she told herself. Hank was fine. He was probably hiding somewhere, waiting for the commotion to be over before he came out. That was... a completely plausible thing for Hank to do.
Jan winced. Of course it wasn't. Hank would never sit on the sidelines in a fight like this, not after the way he'd been chaffing to get in on the action for months.
Something had happened to him.
"You deal with SHIELD," Jan said. "I'm going to go find him."
"Me?" Spiderman yelped.
Jan turned and walked away, not waiting for the panicked babbling about how he couldn't possibly do this that was sure to follow. She heard enough of that from Hank.
The sodium ascorbate had been delivered and taken effect, which meant that, if nothing else, Hank had to have been at the water filtration system. She would start there.
She would find him, and he would be fine. Tony hadn't given him up. He would be fine.
She was trying not to think about Tony too hard, because there was a very strong possibility that he was dead, and Steve was not going to handle that well.
She wasn't going to handle that well, when she had time to think about it and let it sink in. She'd known Tony since she was twenty years old. She couldn't really imagine him being gone, anymore than she could imagine losing Steve or Clint or Thor.
If he was dead, she thought, the team might not survive it.
The hallway that lead to Metro North platform was empty of anything living. There were bodies lying crumpled on the floor, human and Argonian, but only a few. The main fighting had all taken place in the grand concourse.
She thought he was just another body at first, until she saw the bright blue and gold of his costume.
Everything around her seemed to freeze. She couldn't feel the ground under her feet anymore, and walking over to where Hank lay curled in on himself, in a bloody heap against the wall, felt weirdly like flying.
Hank was the one who had given her wings.
'Please,' she begged silently, dropping to her knees beside him. The floor around him was tacky with blood; the knees of her costume were going to be covered with it.
She'd worn this costume for months. It needed to go anyway.
Hank didn't stir when she touched him. His skin was cool, clammy, and his lips were bloodlessly pale, and--
"Hank," she said, shaking him. Oh God, there was blood all over him. So much blood. And the right sleeve of his costume was singed brown, and-- "Hank, wake up!"
She touched his throat, feeling for a pulse, and closed her eyes when she felt a fluttery beat under her fingers, then another, and another, rapid and faint. Still alive. He was still alive.
He needed help, right now, before any more of his blood ended up outside his body rather than inside it. "I need help out here!" Jan shouted, her voice coming out high and shrill.
Hank twitched slightly at the sound, and Jan reached down to brush his hair out of his face. The dark blond strands were soft under her fingers. It was too long. He always let it grow too long before she reminded him to cut it.
How long had he been here? Lying here on the cold marble, bleeding out, so painfully, horribly close to help.
He had tried to tell her goodbye before he left, tried to tell her he loved her. She hadn't let him. She'd insisted that they could talk when he came back, wanted to put off explaining that stupid kiss with Clint as long as possible, been angry at him for leaving, for putting himself in danger.
If he died...
He had to know she loved him, had to know she'd forgiven him.
"I hate you," she whispered, her throat so tight and raw that she could barely get the words out. "You think you're invincible. You think you always know better than everyone else. You stupid, brave, stupid jerk."
Hank groaned faintly, eyelids flickering open. "Jannie?" He stared up at her with unfocused eyes, pupils dilated wide.
"Live," Jan said, "or I'll kill you."
Hank smiled slightly, his eyes sliding closed again. "You're pretty when you're mad, Jannie."
Jan sniffed, blinking hot tears out of her eyes. "Don't call me that, Hank. I hate that nickname."
She was pressing both hands against the stab wound in Hank's thigh, trying to use the torn-off sleeve of her costume to staunch the bloodflow, when Clint came skidding around the corner.
"Jan? I heard you-" He broke off, staring at Hank. "Damn it. First Pietro and now--" his voice caught, and he shook his head, hard, as if trying to jar himself back into some kind of composure.
Then he was kneeling next to Jan, peering at Hank's leg -- it was still bleeding, a slow trickle of red staining the blue silk in her hands black. Clint swore again. "He's been stabbed by one of their scorpion tails. A sword or knife wound wouldn't be-- wouldn’t be all ragged like that. We need to get him to a doctor." He hesitated, looking back up at Jan.
She knew what she must look like, her face tear-streaked and her costume half-ripped away. Clint didn't seem to really see her, though; his eyes seemed to stare right through her, focused on something an indefinable distance away.
"Oh fuck, and they're poisonous. Did he have any of his own antidote on him, or can't he even do that right?"
"Shut up, Clint!" Jan snapped. Anger felt good; it drove the sick, shaky fear that seemed to permeate her entire body away.
Clint blinked, suddenly looking like a wounded puppy. "I didn't mean it like that, I..."
"Go get help," she snarled, and leaned more of her weight onto her hands. Hank made a faint sound when she did so; she was probably hurting him. She didn't have any other choice.
Clint stood, his movements tired and slow. He put one hand on Jan's shoulder for a second, his palm hot against her bare skin, and then he was gone.
She didn't look up, all of her attention focused on Hank's face, pale and tense with pain.
"You are going to be all right, do you hear me?" she said, her voice shaking. The anger at Clint had gone as quickly as it had come, and she didn't bother trying to hold back tears anymore. "You're going to be all right."
From the corner of your eye, SHIELD uniforms looked an awful lot like Argonian uniforms, until Clint turned -- his hand going to the hilt of his sword or the butt of his plasma gun every time -- and saw that the person who'd moved at the corner of his vision was wearing black spandex and Kevlar instead of the high-collared, copper-decorated steampunk-Nazi outfits he'd spent what felt like half his life surrounded by.
The main hall of Grand Central was full of SHIELD agents now, as well as soldiers and marines in fatigues, all of them armed and organized and occasionally visibly disappointed or relieved that there were no enemies left to fight.
Cap had somehow gotten the entire Argonian Empire to surrender to him. Because he was Captain America, and he did things like that.
Convincing the cavalry that the fight was actually over, though, was taking a while. Clint didn't blame them; he couldn't really believe it either.
"I think you guys interrupted some kind of military coup," Rhodes was saying, nodding at the Archon, who was currently speaking to Fury via Isimud's efforts as translator. "She doesn't seem very upset that her head general just got killed."
"Well, no," Clint said, without thinking. "We all hated him. His right-hand woman was a nasty-tempered bitch who liked to slap her subordinates around." Only half of his attention was really on their conversation; beyond Rhodes's armored shoulder, two army medics were loading Pietro onto a stretcher.
He was pale and bloody, and still looked nearly as dead as he had in that cell, except for the addition of what looked like an entire roll of gauze bandaging around his chest. Wanda was following a step behind the stretcher, not-quite-hovering and obviously trying to stay out of the medics' way. She looked reassuringly non-crazy.
He still didn't know how Carol had snapped her out of it; for a few moments, Clint had thought that he was about to lose both of his oldest teammates, and probably die himself moments later in some kind of magic-fueled explosion.
They had hacked Pietro up bad, bad enough that it was a miracle he was still alive.
Like the guard they'd executed. Like the soldiers in Times Square. If he'd died, would they have displayed his body in pieces, like the others?
Clint had thought he'd seen a lot of horrible things during his career as Hawkeye, but even the Kree-Skrull war hadn't prepared him for what a real war was like. He'd seen teammates die before (Bobbi, convulsing in his arms as Mephisto's fireball struck her, and God, he'd been able to smell her skin and costume burning, just like the Argonians' plasma guns...) but not like this, not so many people at once.
They'd still been clearing the dead bodies out of the entrance hall when he and Jan had brought Hank in. Some of them were people Clint had killed himself, men and Argonians he had trained with and served with, lying through his teeth while he made nice and saluted and pretended to respect them.
He could have shot to injure rather than to kill. He had perfect aim, after all. He never missed.
He'd never thought killing would be this easy, and now he was shooting people with guns that burned holes through them and he'd held a sword to the throat of someone he knew, someone he liked, and threatened to cut their throat if they didn't do what he wanted.
"What was it like?" Rhodes asked, "Working for them?"
"It sucked," Clint said flatly.
Rhodes's black and silver helmet nodded. It was strange, talking to someone in full armor again; he hadn't seen Tony wearing his in months, and the red and gold pieces patched into War Machine's familiar black and silver suit were disconcerting, like talking to someone who was wearing the wrong costume. "I figured. It was bad enough fighting them. A shoulder-mounted anti-tank rifle will take out just about anything, including some of your less powerful demons, if you load the right kind of ammo, but it didn't even make a dent in their energy shields."
Clint's lips twitched, and he fought down a sudden urge to grin. It wouldn't be right, not when the blood hadn't even finished drying on the station's marble floor. "Tony spent months trying to figure out how to take that thing down. He's going to be livid when he hears that Wanda finally did it with magic."
"Tony's... okay? I thought..." Rhodes's voice sounded strained, even through the helmet's voice filters. "Hogan and Pepper brought me his armor. They said he wanted me to use it for spare parts. The aliens said he was working for them, but- He gave his armor to me. Again."
"Tony's..." Clint started, and then his throat closed up again. "I don't know," he managed. "He went back under, so that we could get Hank inside." He nodded to where Hank lay stretched out on the floor, a saline drip running into one arm; they were taking the most seriously wounded up to the Helicarrier first. Hank had had an antidote on him when one of the Argonians had stabbed him. The scientists hadn't had access to the anti-venom. "They've got Tony locked up somewhere, I don't know where." His throat felt tight, and his eyes were hot; Clint realized with horror that he was on the verge of tears, and blinked hard, swallowing. "Cap's looking for him," he finished.
And he was going to find him. Tony couldn't be dead, not after all of this. Not after Clint had spent so long trying to keep him alive.
Damn it, he didn't have time to break down now. What the hell was wrong with him?
It was over. They'd won. Everything was going to be okay now. They were all going to be safe, and it was okay, and there was no reason for him to fall apart like an idiot.
"That... doesn't sound good," Rhodes said, carefully.
"No," Clint agreed.
The disturbance at the far end of the room was small, just a few people turning to look, a conversation falling silent, but Clint's nerves were on edge as it was, and after months of trying to avoid setting off Argonian suspicious, anything Argonians did that was out of the ordinary was nerve-wracking.
It took a moment for him to recognize the Argonian officer who had just entered the room as Arch-Captain Kammani; her uniform was torn and bloody, she was limping, and one of her ears was bandaged.
The sense of relief he felt upon seeing her was... fucked up, that's what it was. She'd essentially been his jailer for months, one of them, anyway.
She crossed the room toward Clint, her bootheels ringing on the marble, and he stiffened, his heartrate speeding up. 'Stay calm,' he told himself. 'Be respectful. Don't let her-' He cut the thought off, and forced himself not to come to attention as she drew nearer.
When she stopped in front of Isimud, still standing awkwardly with bound hands by the dispirited huddle of captive mechanikos, Clint felt his muscles slowly relax, breathing an inward sigh of relief, and then kicked himself for it.
She leaned forward, rubbing her cheek against the other Argonian's. Isimud went stiff, his ears springing upright in surprise, then relaxed as she said, in Argonian, "I am glad that you live, mechanikos Isimud."
"I am... also glad," Isimud stammered out.
How long had that been going on, Clint wondered; could he have used it to their advantage if he'd known about it before? He hadn't realized that warriors and mechanikos could be involved with one another. Maybe they couldn't. Maybe this was some kind of forbidden romance.
That could also have been useful. 'Sloppy, Barton,'. He really should have noticed it before now.
The she straightened, turning away from Isimud, and began walking towards Clint again.
Beside him, he could hear the whine of War Machine's shoulder canon powering up. As threats went, it wasn't particularly subtle, but it tended to be effective.
Clint put a hand on the hilt of his plasma gun, shifting his weight to the balls of his feet in preparation for an attack. She could probably mop the floor with him, but not before Rhodes shot her full of large holes.
"Your commander requires assistance," she said, coming to a halt several non-threatening feet away.
Clint stared at her blankly for a moment, before releasing that she probably meant Cap.
"What do you-" he started, and then, from the corner of his eye, he caught a flash of bright red and blue entering the room.
Cap. He was walking slowly, carefully, Tony cradled in his arms, bloody and unmoving.
"You must understand," Arch-Captain Kammani was saying as she led Steve away from the Archon's apartments -- she had insisted on introducing herself; Steve wondered if Argonians learned the same protocols for dealing with hostage situations that humans did -- "I took no pleasure in the treatment we were forced to subject him to. To treat a mechanikos thus..." her ears pulled back, like a cat telegraphing distaste. "It is not right. They are gentle, not warriors. But the circumstances-"
"Let me guess," Steve interrupted, reminding himself that if he cold-cocked her before they got there, it would take him longer to find Tony. "You were just following orders."
She blinked at him, then inclined her head. "Of course," she said. "You are a warrior also. You understand. Sometimes personal honor must be sacrificed for the good of the empire."
"On this planet," Steve snarled, "we execute people for that."
She didn't try to speak to him after that. Steve was glad of it; he didn't want to see her as a person, not when he knew she had watched Tony being tortured, probably participated in it.
Just thinking about that, and knowing that she was only a few feet away, close enough that he could smell her fur and her the clicking of her boots on the marble floor, close enough to hit, for him to be able to reach out and grab hold of her before she would have a chance to react, made him feel sick.
He would probably be able to break her neck before she nailed him with her tail barb. The fact that he could imagine doing it so easily made him feel sick, too.
He didn't like feeling this kind of anger; it made him feel violent, out of control, his chest and stomach aching with it.
"The platform is just ahead," Kammani said, sounding as if she were giving him a tour, not as if she was about to show him where her commanding officer had had a human being imprisoned and tortured. "The Imperator wanted him kept separate from the other rebels, just in case."
She didn't say in case of what. Steve didn't ask.
The subway platform was nearly unrecognizable; the last time Steve had been here, or in some other platform under Grand Central that was indistinguishable from it, the black paint on the ceiling of the subway tunnel had been peeling away in patches from years of humidity, and long streaks of discoloration had decorated the tile walls at irregular intervals, left by seeping water and grime. Now, the paint was fresh and perfect, the walls were so clean they gleamed, and the concrete floor had been sandblasted cleaner than Steve had ever imagined it could become.
Somehow, that was almost as disturbing as the row metal prison cells that marched ominously down the middle of the platform.
"I have not seen Tony Stark for several hours." Kammani's harshly accented voice was tentative, uneasy. "The Imperator performed the final portion of the interrogation alone."
"He didn't speak English!" The protest was automatic, but Steve knew as soon as the words left his mouth that asking questions probably hadn't been the Imperator's main interest at that point. It was getting more and more difficult to feel any guilt over killing him.
"The Imperator was angry," she said flatly. "This is the cell." She typed a sequence of incomprehensible symbols into the keypad on the door, and opened it.
Too late, Steve thought, with a cold, sharp-edged pain in his chest. He was too late.
Tony lay motionless on the ground at far end of the cell. Most of his clothing had been cut away, and there was blood all over him, so much that Steve couldn't even begin to see what injuries lay underneath it. The metallic smell of it was thick in the air.
The concrete was hard under his knees as he knelt next to him.
Tony was covered in so many bruises, cuts, and burns that Steve could no longer tell which marks he had put on him himself.
He hadn't wanted to let him go, had had no other choice. It had been their best chance for success, the surest way of getting Hank inside the station and distracting the Argonians while his poison did its work. The Argonian surrender, the shield falling, all of it would have been impossible if Hank and Tony hadn't been willing to sacrifice themselves for.
He had traded Tony for victory, for humanity's freedom.
Steve knelt on the cold concrete floor, next to what remained of his closest friend, and tried to tell himself that it was worth it, that Tony had known this might happen and had chosen it willingly, that the fate of the world was more important than either of them.
He couldn't make himself believe it.
The Argonian was saying something, behind him. He ignored it.
It didn't matter. Nothing mattered but the long gash that ran down Tony's right side, straight and thin and precise as a surgical cut; the rough, cracked pallor of his lips; the way the tangled mess of his hair fell over his eyes in a sick parody of the way it had two days ago, when he had been asleep in Steve's arms; the dark rings of bruises and raw flesh around his wrists.
They had put him in chains, while they hurt him. And Steve had sat in their headquarters and studied maps of Grand Central and waited for Hank's signal. Tony had hung here, in this dark, metal cell, and endured torture without breaking, and Steve had gone after the Archon and the Imperator first.
Steve reached out and brushed the hair back from Tony's face, tracing his gloved fingers over the bruise on Tony's cheekbone. The one he'd put there.
It was cold in here, so cold it made his teeth chatter and his bones hurt.
They had kept Tony in here for two days, in the dark, where his screams would echo off the metal walls and no one would hear them.
Tony was supposed to be there next to him, the way he'd drawn them. To help him rebuild the Mansion and what was left of the Avengers, to remind him that he was more than just a soldier. To sleep next to him at night and spar with him and argue tactics with him and always support the rational, efficient option even when it conflicted with his ideals.
He had only had Tony for one night. Surely they had deserved more than that, after all they'd been through, all they'd given?
The air was like ice, so cold it made his eyes sting and his lungs burn. Steve curled forward, feeling the cut in his side split open again -- the same side of his ribcage as the gash they had left on Tony, probably made by the same blade -- and a thin trickle of blood ooze from it, the only warm thing he could feel.
He closed his eyes and rested his forehead on Tony's chest, feeling the fading warmth of Tony's body against his skin.
He felt rather than heard the heartbeat, slow, but still there.
Steve made a rough, inarticulate sound, feeling it strangle in his throat. Not too late after all.
The relief hurt almost as much as the loss had.
All the energy seemed to drain out of him, the pain of bruised ribs and knife wounds and exhaustion coming back with a rush. Steve couldn’t think what to do next, suddenly at more of a loss than he had been in since the Argonian ship had first appeared in the sky over New York.
Steve turned his head, rubbing his face against Tony's skin, not caring about the warm, sticky blood and serum from the burns that he was smearing across his face, and laid his cheek against Tony's breastbone, listening to his heart.
His hair brushed across the raw burns that covered the center of Tony's chest, and Tony made a very faint, pained sound.
"It's all right," Steve said. "It's over. I'm getting you out of here."
"Steve?" Tony breathed, his voice a hoarse thread. Steve opened his eyes, something in his chest twisting painfully. Tony's eyes were open a fraction, but they were unfocused, and Steve wasn't sure if Tony was really seeing him or not.
"We won," he heard himself saying. "You and Hank did it. We won."
"Steve?" Tony sounded confused, slurring Steve's name a little as his eyes drifted closed again.
"You're going to be okay," Steve said, sitting up with an effort. He stroked Tony's hair, the strands very dark against the red of his gloves, and tried to make himself believe it. "I've got you now. You're going to be okay."
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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I was just about to go to sleep when this popped up, I feel really good about that final check of the comms.
Clint! I thought his POV-section was gorgeous, that sudden lost feeling when everything changes. Also the Kammani/Isimud doesn't hurt. And her line to Cap, about mechanikos being gentle... I really like the tension there, especially because in another life they could have got on pretty well, I think.
And Tony. I didn't think you would kill him, but that scene had me worried all the same. But now Steve has him and they can go home and start putting Steve's plans into action. *happy sigh*
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the Kammani/Isimud doesn't hurt. And her line to Cap, about mechanikos being gentle...
That pairing sort of snuck into the fic while we were writing it *grins* Mechanikos are kind of coded like traditional Victorian women in Kammani's head, I think. They're gentle and fragile and need warriors to protect them. Which is progress from Mamitu kind of thinking they're vermin.
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Oh man, I
knewhoped you wouldn't kill Tony off,but I was still at the edge of my seat for this whole chapter.
Can it be broken Tony woobie time now?
And I loved the fact that not only did Isimud survive,
but he gets some love too. *draws hearts around you*
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Can it be broken Tony woobie time now?
Broken Tony woobie time is kind of shorted in favor of woobie Steve and Clint the the next chapter, but we promise woobie Tony in chapter 21 ^_^.
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This invasions has not been kind to him (but then, come to think of it, what invasion has been?) I just hope he actually pulls through.
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I loved it!
All the strands are together now, scientists, Wanda, Hank&Jan, Steve&Tony - and we have Warmachine!
YEAH!
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The semi-gratuitous Warmachine cameo is brought to you by the fact that LeVar Burton is going to be voicing him in the Superhero Squad cartoon (so much squee -- he's been my favorite Star Trek actor since I was about five). In our heads, Rhodey, Happy, Pepper, Sam, and Nick Fury fought this whole epic battle against the Argonians outside the bubble, possibly with a whole bunch of LMDs (which would make perfect shock troops -- can't be injured or feel pain, totally expendable, and who wouldn't want to run away from an army of Nick Furys? Or would it be Nick Furies?).
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that´s the best way to end any alien invasion - send Nick Fury...all of them^^
Nick Furies?
like the Greek Goddesses of Fury and Vengeance?
^^
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So happy to see the new chapter, this one is great, even if I was really nervous about Hand and Tony.
Now, I want next chapter!
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Am looking forward to some C to go with your H though.
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*flail*
And only one chapter to go!! I can't wrap my mind around the idea! It seems like there should be so much more! I have so many questions concerning what's going on in the heads of the defeated invaders that my brain is melting! I'm particularly curious about what the Kammani is thinking about Steve and Tony's interactions and I'd really love to see how the lot of them would react to finding out that Tony isn't just a simple little mechanikos.I love turning peoples worlds upside down and shattering their class structure is wrecking havok on my imagination while I await your last instalment!
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We did kind of pile on the "ZOMG, everybody almost dies!" angst in the past couple of chapters here, didn't we?
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I love the way you turned the canon Tony "It wasn't worth it" moment around on Steve. So painful, but it's so much a part of what makes them a hero. Putting the world ahead of themselves is a hero's job, but putting the world ahead of your colleagues and loved ones is the job of a leader of heroes. Even knowing the price, I can't see that either of them would choose differently...
...that moment rather reminds me of the Discworld series, in which at least two characters observe (separately) that personal's not the same as important (Captain Carrot and Granny Weatherwax, I believe).
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Steve's probably not letting him out of his sight for the rest of his life.
*grins* Not that Tony would mind all that much, at least at first.
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serious writer jujitsu there. wow.
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The amount of Hurt you put on can only be followed by an epic amount of Comfort I hope poor Tony, and Steve, get. And Clint. And Jan and Hank. Everybody needs a hug.
Great job.
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CLINT! His PoV is so... well, messed up, but in a good-to-read way. His time playing spy really worked a number on him. ;-; And then we got the Isimud/Kammani moment and that was just made of awwwh. D: I hope they get their own happy ending, and maybe the Argonians as a whole have learned a lesson.
Finally, the POV we've all been waiting for... Steeeeeeeeeeve. D: On one hand, I sort of feel sorry for Kammani. You can tell just because she's explaining herself that she's not happy with what she had to do. And then this:
"You are a warrior also. You understand. Sometimes personal honor must be sacrificed for the good of the empire."
(WINCE) That's just... (flail) We've all heard those arguments before, and then Steve nails it with the not-too-subtle reference to WWII war criminals. AND THEN TOOOOONY D: D: D: D: Omg you guys almost had me there! I can't help but wonder what Kammeni was thinking just then.
One chapter left! One! Is it next Saturday yet? (eyes the calendar)
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Thank you for catching me! ♥
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