cap_ironman | When the Lights Go On Again 21/21

Title: When the Lights Go On Again 21/21
Authors:

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.
A/N #2: For those who are interested, an mp3 of the song we stole the title from and a .pdf of the whole fic prettified in one file can be found here.

Also, this fic owes a great deal to

tavella, who helped us to shape this into something that didn't have gaping plot holes.

When the Lights Go On Again

"Debate continues among world leaders over whether or not to accept the peace terms offered by the defeated Argonians. The massacre of several thousand mutants in the former nation of Madripoor remains a sore point in the talks despite official Argonian appologies, and Russia continues to push for reparations for the destruction of Moscow and Petersburg, despite efforts by Wakandan crown prince T'Challa to seek a swift and unanimous adoption of the Grand Central treaty.

"In Latveria, the bitter fighting between government forces and Argonian loyalists has finally begun to die down. Victor Von Doom spoke briefly with Bugle reporters during his appearance at the treaty negotiations, but refused to answer questions about the rumors of human rights violations carried out by Latverian troops.

"My people are angry," he said, dodging the topic of former Argonian collaborators executed without trials. "America has ignored our suffering at the hands of the aliens because they lack the will to face further confrontation. They seek a swift end to the fighting. Latveria seeks only justice."

"When asked about announcements made by the Argonians early during the war that Doom had surrendered to them willingly in exchange for a position of power within the Argonian occupation, Doom declined to answer and declared the interview at an end.

"This concludes out national news segment for the night. For more on these stories and others, you can read the Sunday edition of the Daily Bugle, appearing in print for the first time in five months.

"It's been a long and difficult road back to normal operations for us, and Jonah would like to thank Robbie Robertson, Peter Parker, and Johnny Storm for their tireless work in keeping the Daily Bugle's Free New York radio on the air. He hasn't said anything, guys, but deep down, he's proud of you."

"That's the standard expected and demanded of my reporters, Urich. I won't compliment people for doing their damn jobs."

"We're on the air, Jonah."

"I can curse if I want to. It's my paper and my radio station."

"From New York City, this is Ben Urich signing off. Thank you for listening, and good night."

***

In the past octnight, Isimud had found over two dozen different structural flaws in the newly repaired portions of the empire's remaining starships, as well as ten fighter craft engines which had been pushed to the limit of their tolerances and which would have exploded when they over-heated.

Every piece of work that Tony Stark had ever done for them had had to be re-evaluated, and the nagging fear that there was something Tony had worked on or advised him on that he'd forgotten or overlooked, or simply not known enough about to notice the sabotage kept him up at night.

He didn't want to, but he found himself almost admiring the subtlety of some of the damage and misdirection. The engines in particular were almost a work of art; they had lost three aircraft in the past six octnights and everyone had assumed that the explosions were simply bad luck. Isimud wouldn't even have noticed the sabotage in the remaining engines if he hadn't already known it was there.

Tony had been very, very good.

Acknowledging that didn't make him feel any better.

Isimud had trusted him, had liked him, had mourned for him when he had thought him dead in the destruction at the secondary research site. He had helped torture one of the rebel prisoners because he had wanted to avenge Tony -- that was how thoroughly taken in he'd been. The fact that Arch-Captain Kammai had been fooled as well was little comfort.

And the fact that Reed Richards, the human scientist who had eluded capture behind a forcefield so unlike anything created by Argonian technology that they hadn't been able to breach it in half a year, had already half-completed a duplicate of one of their power cores only added insult to injury.

Isimud had spent countless octnights struggling to reverse engineer the power core in order to build a new one, each breakthrough bringing him only a fraction closer to their goal. If human scientists could accomplish it in a mere handful of days... how much faster could he have worked in Tony had been honest with him, had actually been working for the good of Argon, had told Isimud everything he knew?

Isimud wiped a spray of violet-tinted hydraulic fluid off his cheek and contemplated ripping the entire section of tubing he was inspecting out and replacing it. The hydraulics failure waiting to happen in the transport's landing gear was especially humiliating. He had thought something was off about the system since supervising the repairs to it several octnights ago, but he had allowed himself to be blinded by trust placed in the assumed friendship of a non-Argonian.

He ignored the footsteps behind him at first, confident that they were one of the other mechanikos who had been coming to him for advice over the oast several days -- what was he supposed to tell them? That he was sorry, but half of what he knew might very well be lies?

"Mechanikos Isimud?"

Isimud jumped, knocking his head against the underside of the transport's hull, and spun around. "Arch-Captain, I mean, Imperator Kammani." He straightened up as far as the cramped space would let him and saluted, acutely conscious of the dark stains from hydraulic fluid and grease that covered his tunic and the grim clumping his fur together.

"You are hard at work, I see."

"Yes, Arch- Imperator," Isimud stammered. "There is much to be done before we may depart."

"I have not spoken to you often," she said, almost hesitantly, "since the surrender."

"No, Imperator." Why would she bother, when she was so important and he was just another mechanikos.

"I have... you have been busy. Your work is vital to our departure, and for our journey to our new planet. I did not want to distract you from it." She hesitated, her ears twitching slightly for a moment. One of them was still bandaged, marring the graceful lines of her face, but at least the limp she had had after the duel with Mamitu was gone. "The human Imperator, Steve Rogers, she gave me a gift for you."

"I think Steve Rogers is, ah, male, actually," Isimud said carefully. He would not normally correct a high ranking warrior, but he had gotten into the habit of correcting Kammani's mistakes when she studied English, and he knew she would have to negotiate further with Rogers; it wouldn’t do to call him by the wrong pronouns.

"Oh." Kammani cocked her head to one side, the end of her tail curving questioningly. "How can you tell?"

"Their females have swollen glands on their torso that secrete a fluid they use to nourish their young." One of the other mechanikos who specialized in medicine had made the discovery some time ago, to the general astonishment of his coworkers.

Kammani was too dignified to make a face, but Isimud could read the disgust in her ears and tail. "I know," he said. "They apparently lack teeth as infants, as well."

"How interesting," Kammani said, and though from any other warrior it would have been an empty politeness, Isimud knew that she truly meant it. "He gave me a gift, to pass on to you. From his mate." She held out a stack of human books, the titles written along the spines in the blocky, phonetic English script.

Isimud stared at the topmost book, mentally sounding out its title. Introduction to Physics.

"His mate?" he asked, the majority of his attention on the books. He wanted to snatch them out of her hands and examine them all, but respect for her rank and the knowledge that the grease on his fingers would stain them prevented him.

"Tony Stark." She said the name carefully, without any particular emphasis.

"Tony sent them for me?" Isimud began to reach for the topmost book, then caught himself. It hadn't all been lies, then. Not entirely.

And if those books were what he thought they were, instruction manuals on human science, then given enough time, he could learn to distinguish the lies from the truth himself.

"Can you read these?" Kammani asked, nodding at the books in her hands. "They are in the human script."

He nodded, unable to suppress a faint swell of pride. "It will take time, months, perhaps, but with practice, yes."

"I am impressed, as ever, by your skill."

Isimud looked away, feeling his ears twitch violently at the compliment.

"There will be little for our soldiers to do, on the starships," she went on. "I would have some of the mechanikos teach them English, if they can spare the time, or any other species language that they know."

"There will be no use for it where we are going."

"No," she agreed, "but there will be other species, and other languages, and it will be easier for us to learn them then if we become accustomed to the task now. That it need not be shameful, to speak another species' tongue."

"I will be busy, with the power core and with my," he hesitated, and then, greatly daring, "with my studies. But I can provide you with a list of fellow mechanikos who have a skill for languages."

"Excellent. You have my thanks, Mechanikos Isimud."

With a jolt, Isimud realized that they had been conversing for several minutes without using one another's names or titles, in complete disregard of the rules for polite conversation, let alone a discussion with someone of vastly superior rank. He looked away, suddenly overwhelmed by what he thought he read in Kammani's clear, black eyes -- so expressive, when the rest of her face was always so controlled -- and wrapped his tail around his feet.

"You are welcome, Imperator," he managed.

There was a long silence, as Kammani stared at him, ears and tail so still that Isimud could read nothing from them. Once again, he was acutely conscious of the stains on his clothing and the terrible state of his fur.

"I was not aware," she said, after a moment, "that Tony Stark was mated to a warrior. Not until I escorted the human Imperator to his cell. It is... interesting, don't you think?"

"Yes," Isimud agreed, his voice coming out slightly strangled. "Humans are very strange, Imperator."

"Not all of their ways are completely without value, however," Kammani's ears quivered slightly, as if she were aware of what blasphemy she spoke, and he looked away for a moment. "Their fighting styles, for example," she added softly. "And...other things..." Then she met his eyes again, and went on, her voice brisk, "You have observed the human scientists' construction of a new power core. Do you think it is possible for us to do the same?"

Isimud seized upon the new subject with relief, but also the faintest touch of disappointment. "Now that we understand how and why it functions... eventually. It will take years, but we will do it."

"I am sure," Kammani said firmly, her tail brushing Isimud's for the barest fraction of a moment, "that you will."

***

The bar in Peacock Alley was sparsely stocked now, nothing but gin and a few of the cheaper brands of whisky left; they were collected against the long mirror behind the bar in a sad little huddle, one lone bottle of Malibu rum a spot of white in the middle.

Malibu was only 20% alcohol by volume, and toasting the end of a war should call for something more expensive than cheap whisky and classier than coconut-flavored rum anyway, she she'd had the bartender pour her a shot of the most expensive gin remaining.

She ought to be drinking champagne, but that had been gone for months.

For the first time in months, she had nothing vital to do and no mission tomorrow, so Steve and his quinjet rules could both fuck off.

Except... she had been here nearly a quarter of an hour, and she was still on her first drink.

There was no real point, Carol reflected, staring down at the clear liquid in her glass, in cekebratory drinking by yourself. Drinking to avoid thinking about something, or because it had been been a shitty day and you'd earned it, or because you were upset and need something to calm you down and take the edge off, maybe, but not drinking to celebrate. It just felt... sad. Pathetic.

All this time fighting with the Resistance, and she didn't have anyone to drink with. Not with half the Avengers still injured and Steve alternately either dealing with the Argonian peace process and departure or hovering over Tony's bedside. She really had been isolating herself from the others, she realized. Except for Wanda, and that was more due to Wanda's efforts than her own -- she'd certainly done her best to avoid the other women after the incident on the docks.

The kiss. The kiss she had enjoyed, and then hated herself for enjoying. It was silly to call it an "incident."

The war was over, Carol reminded herself again. They had won. She ought to be happy. No more kids like Vance dying, no more of her friends being tortured, no more killing.

She had assumed, once, that Steve would kick her out of the Avengers again once the aliens were gone, if they were ever gone. The fear seemed silly now. He hadn't treated her as anything but subordinate officer and a friend in weeks. Months, even. It had only been her own fears and paranoia that had kept her from seeing that.

Carol drained her glass, tossing it back in one long swallow, and set it back down on the bar. After weeks without a single drink, she could feel the burn of the alcohol not just in her throat, but clear through her sinus cavities. It felt good, almost the way the burn of energy being absorbed into her body did, but she didn't signal the bartender for another.

Steve wasn't here to be annoyed by it, and drinking just because she could didn't have as much appeal as she'd thought it would have. Possibly because it was, on second thought, incredibly childish.

Wanda would definitely have thought so. She had spent the past several days at Pietro's bedside, while Carol helped Fury and General Ross dismantle their ragtag little army. But she was all right. Even if Carol had barely gotten to speak to her since the subway platform, since her magic had nearly destroyed, at least she knew that she was okay.

She would have heard about it if she weren't. Steve was spending every second of downtime he had up on the helicarrier with Tony; he would have told her.

Steve and Tony. Now there was something would never have expected. She wasn't sure what she would have thought of it three months ago, but now... They had all come so close to dying. Judging anyone seemed silly, unimportant.

And who was she to judge, these days, when Wanda was all she could think about half the time?

Carol turned the empty glass around in her fingers and stared at it, trying to decide if she actually wanted another one. The burns on her hands left by Wanda's chaos magic had faded almost to invisibility, totally healed; there were a few faint pink marks just visible over the curve of her knuckles, but even those would be gone in another week.

And then it would as if it had never even happened.

The hotel's too-bright lights glinted off the curve of the glass; the strange, white brightness seemed bizarrely alien now, after months of hurricane lamps and candles. Dim lighting seemed more natural in bars, anyway.

She was so absorbed in staring at her hands, at the newly healed pink scar tissue she almost never saw on herself anymore, that when she caught a flash of movement in her peripheral vision, she actually jumped a little, a sudden jolt of adrenaline making her heart pound.

Argonians walked very softly, when they took those black uniform boots off. The hotel should have been safe, but she still should have been paying attention to-

Carol remembered that she didn't have to worry about that anymore at the same moment that she realized that Wanda had just sat down on the barstool next to her.

"I'll have what she's having," she told the bartender, nodding at the empty glass in Carol's hands.

She looked good, the grime and bruises from Argonian captivity gone. "I thought you didn’t drink," Carol said, and tried to focus on something other than the dark curls of Wanda's hair, and how thick and springy they would feel under her hands.

Wanda smiled. "I'm an energy mutant. I could probably drink most of the men in this room under the table. I just don't like having alcohol around Tony."

Carol nodded. "Probably a good idea." The bar around them glowed with light, the tiny collection of bottles shining like jewels and the endless stretch of the polished wooden bar gleaming. It could almost have been romantic, Wanda coming to join her at the sllekly expensive mirrored bar that had probably been in a dozen movies. They coud almost have been in a movie themselves, two lovers meeting again at the end of a war -- Wanda would have to be wearing a long, slinky dress, for that, and Carol a dress uniform. And she would have to be a man. And she would smile tiredly at Wanda and say, "What's a nice energy mutant like you doing in a place like this?"

Wanda hesitated, staring down at the gin the bartender had handed her without drinking it. Then she looked up, meeting Carol's eyes."I wanted to thank you. For helping me, when the chaos magic was..." she faltered, and shook her head slightly, as if trying to shake an unpleasant memory away. "I don't like to think about what I could have done."

Carol shrugged. "I barely did anything. You snapped yourself out of it, when I touched you."

"You burned your hands," Wanda said, looking down at where Carol's fingers curled around her glass. "I didn't know you could do that."

"Only a little, and I heal quickly." She hesitated, the memory of Wanda wreathed in chaos lightning a stark and disturbing contrast to the present, then blurted out, "I thought I was going to have to knock you out. I'm glad I didn't; I wasn't sure what that would do to you."

Wanda made a face. "I'm glad you didn't, too. You could have broken my jaw." She was silent for a moment, staring at Carol with an intensity that made her want to squirm in her seat, and then she said, softly, "You brought me back to myself. I would have been lost, without you. The magic would have destroyed me."

What did you say to something like that?

Carol stared down at her hands, feeling small and petty for all those months she had resented Wanda, for the way she had punished her for making her see things about herself that she hadn't wanted to admit to. "I used to be jealous of you, you know. My powers were fading and yours seemed to be stronger and better controlled than ever. I had no idea they could be so... violent. Or so beautiful." And they had been -- Wanda surrounded by the fires of her magic had been awe-inspiringly beautiful, her skin glowing as if lit from within and her eyes burning with light. Too bright and otherworldly to touch.

"I'm sorry I left you," she said, "on the waterfront. I had no right to treat you that way. You deserved better from me."

Wanda shook her head, waving Carol's complete lack of professionalism away. "I shouldn't have assumed you were interested. In me, I mean."

Carol took a deep breath, and forced the words out. "No, you were right. I was just... I couldn't see it at first. You saw it before I did." Admitting it made her face burn, but she felt an odd relief as soon as she had said it.

It was true. She had noticed Wanda's body from the first; the curve of her hips and breasts, the softness of her skin, the delicate lines of her high cheekbones, the way had felt in her arms, so light and fragile despite the muscle Carol knew lay under her loose, flowing clothing.

She had noticed Jessica Drew, too, back when they had been on a team together, but had told herself that anyone would, that she was simply objectively noting the other woman's attractiveness. It felt freeing to acknowledged what it all really meant, not to lie to herself anymore.

She couldn't remember feeling any attraction to women before her memories had been stolen, but she couldn't remember feeling any attraction, either romantic or sexual, to anyone other than Marcus. One more thing that he and Rogue had both taken from her.

Would she have figured things out earlier, if the two of them had never touched her? Had she known, at some level, that she wasn't straight, before her memories had been lost? Had that been why the thought of it had bothered her so much?

It didn't matter. All of that was in the past now, Marcus was in the past now, and she had to move on and start paying attention to what was important now. She had come painfully close to losing her place on the Avengers forever, through her own stubbornness, and she had nearly lost Wanda to the Argonians. The other woman could have died still thinking Carol was disgusted by her, never knowing how she actually felt.

"You were right," she repeated. "I... I liked it when you kissed me. I don't know why I panicked; it all seems really stupid now. And then they took you and--" she broke off, shaking her head. "There are more important things than my problems. You could have died."

"I shouldn't have come on to you so quickly. I should have said something first -- I was there, when Marcus took you away. I didn't mean to scare you off."

"You-" Carol faltered, wanting to say that Wanda hadn't and that she hadn't been afraid and knowing that that wasn't true. "I shouldn't have reacted the way I did. I don't want to lose you as a friend."

Wanda shook her head. "You haven't. You saved me, remember? Probably Pietro, too. If you hadn't snapped me out of it, we never would have gotten him to help in time."

Carol would have sworn Pietro was dead, when they had found him; there was a certain look people had, when all the life had gone out of them, and she had become far more familiar with it over the past few months than she wanted to be. And then Wanda's magic had surrounded them, twisting and distorting everything, and he had only been unconscious, badly injured, but still alive. They had probably just made a mistake at first, jumping to the worst possible conclusions out of fear, but still...

No. No one had that kind of power. He had been alive. They just hadn't seen it, hadn't looked closely enough.

"How is Pietro? Is he--" He had looked like hell, his entire torso a mass of ragged cuts and his skin bloodlessly pale.

"He's much better," Wanda said, and Carol could hear the relief and fondess in her tone. "He's always healed quickly. He's insulting the medical staff's competence and demanding to be let out of bed and calling everyone an idiot." She said it as if it was a good thing. "I don't know what I would have done, if he had died."

Carol put a hand on her shoulder, her skin warm under her fingers. The blouse Wanda wore left her shoulder bare, and her skin was ever bit as soft as it had looked by candle light.

Wanda shivered, and Carol realized abruptly that she was rubbing slow circles against Wanda's collarbone with her thumb, what she had intended as a friendly, comforting gesture turning into something else.

Carol was the one who leaned forward first -- Wanda wasn't likely to make the first move again, after the rejection she had handed her -- and despite the stomach-turning terror it filled her with, sliding one hand into Wanda's hair and pressing her lips against her felt right, like something she should have done a long time ago.

The first kiss had been desperate, a crazy thing brought on by fear and relief and adrenaline. This one was more tentative, both of them feeling things out. Carol half-expected Wanda to shove her away -- she certainly deserved it, at this point -- but she didn't, closing her eyes and leaning into Carol's touch. Her lips parted, and she sucked at Carol lower lip, sending hot shivers through her, and it wasn't so different, really, from kissing a man.

Apparently the first kiss hadn't been a momentary aberration after all. She had been stupid, Carol decided, as she and Wanda broke apart, ever to try and convince herself that it was.

"I don't know how good at this I'm going to be," she admitted.

Her hand was still on Wanda's shoulder. Wanda laid her own hand on the curve of Carol's hip, and Carol ignored the avid way the bartender was staring at them and didn't pull away. Let him think what he wanted.

"It's not something you have to be good at," Wanda said, "as long as you want to try."

***

After octnight after octnight spent living there, the golden and pinkish marble of the human rail station had begun to seem familiar, welcoming, and the array of tunnels beneath it to become something almost like a home. But now, once again, they were leaving, crowded into the starships and fleeing toward an uncertain destination for the second time since Argon's destruction.

The fact that it was Irkalla had wanted, something she had worked and planned for for almost the entirety of their time on Earth, did not make the humiliation and shame of having to bow her head and lower her ears to humans any less.

An entire crowd of human rulers and officers had gathered on the deck of the Helicarrier -- yet another overly-obvious human name -- to observe their final departure, their blandly similar features distinguished only by differences in coloration. At least the American Imperator was distinctive in his bright red and blue uniform; the rest of the human dignitaries all wore jackets and trousers in muted colors with no insignia or indications of rank to decorate them, save for the handful of uniformed human soldiers.

For a civilized world, Earth had an appalling small number of warriors in government positions. It was no wonder it had fallen so quickly at first, as the countless human tribal leaders and councils had argued over what actions to take and struggled to mobilize armies meant for fighting one another rather than for common defence. Earth had never had an Archon, never had the equivalent of an Alulim to unite them.

In some ways, it might have been better if they had, if the Nergal's original plan to conquer them had failed. Nergal's foolish plan to conquer and hold earth had cost them over a thousand Argonian lives, lives they did not have to spare, and nearly a third of an Argonian solar year. Irkalla's control over the shattered remains of the Empire was complete and unquestioned now, but it had come at a heavy cost.

Irkalla inclined her head toward the short, dark-skinned human who served as the Secretary General of their United Nations -- they were all short, humans, most of them no taller than she was -- and said, "We are honored by your generosity and mercy. Our ships stand ready to depart, in accordance with the treaty. We could not have prepared them so swiftly without your people's assistance."

The words felt sour in her mouth, but so much time spent smiling at Nergal and observing all the forms of politeness when all she truly desired was to snarl at him had taught her to hide her true feelings well.

Owing gratitude to a lesser species galled, but the humans had, indeed, been generous.

The human dignitary inclined his head in return, and said something in two human languages, first in a tongue Irkalla did not recognize, and then in English.

"We wish you good fortune in your journey," Imperator Kammani translated. The twin copper shoulderboards of her new rank gleamed in the too-bright sun, heavy with copper braid, and the healed slash through her left ear gave her a distinguished appearance. She had deliberately refused to have it stitched and had left the ear notched as a sign of their defeat, but it looked like a dueling scar and provided her a new air of gravity which she must have been aware of. "We regret the lives lost in the past months, and look forward to a new future of beneficial diplomatic relations as soon you reach your new planet."

Irkalla, observing the way the humans all eyed her honor guard with open unease and distrust, imagined that the true meaning behind the speech was probably something like "please go somewhere far away and never, ever come back."

The humans' various regional governments had all argued over whether or not to accept Irkalla's surrender or demand concessions and restitution for the numerous human dead and the destruction the fighting had caused in human cities. In the end, the terms of the surrender that Steven Rogers had declared had stood. Her people would leave, and they would never return. It was very little, truly, when compared with what the victors might have demanded. The power core that remained in place beneath Grand Central was likewise a small concession, given that a newly built replica of it was powering one of her starships even now.

The formal leave-taking extended for some time, as human after human made speeches, some of them significantly less polite than the Secretary General's. Irkalla kept her face smooth, her ears up, and her tail still, ignoring the way the sunlight beating down on them hurt her eyes. They might be leaving in defeat, but she was not going to show weakness. She might not be a warrior, but she was still a child of Alulim, and though the humans who stared resentfully at her believed her cowed and broken, she knew that, when it came to what truly counted, she had won.

The double-octet of her honor guard stood equally stiffly, none of them flinching from the sunlight, and she allowed herself a moment's pride in them.

"We are going, now," she said, when the speeches had finally ended. "As Imperator Rogers has commanded."

As she walked toward the transport parked on the far end of Helicarrier's deck, its copper-decorated hull a stark contrast against the utilitarian ugliness around them, her path brought her level with Rogers. His uniform had been repaired until no sign of the damage Nergal had done to it remained, and the shield that had broken Nergal's tailblade, striping him of his final weapon and condemning him to the most ignominius of deaths, gleamed brightly in his hand.

She stopped, her honor guard coming to a halt behind her, and turned to face him. He was tall, for a human, enough that Irkalla actually had to look up slightly to meet his oddly small eyes, a strange, pale blue that made him look blind.

"Thank you," she said, in English, sounding out the syllables carefully. She had memorized the sounds carefully, making Kammani repeat them to her over and over. He would not understand the depth of the honor she did him by addressing him in his own language, when no Archon since Alulim had lowered her or himself to speak the language of an enemy, but that did not matter. She knew. "You were a worthy adversary. Your honor will be remembered."

Honor, in those who were not Argonian. Everything they once knew had changed.

Imperator Rogers' eyes widened in surprise, and his reply back to her was stiff, as if he, too, were hiding a desire to pull his ears back and lash his tail.

"My tactics were not very honorable," Kammani translated.

No, Irkalla thought, but they had worked. And who was she, who had come within moments of poisoning Nergal, to criticize them? "Thank you," she said again, secure in the knowledge that no other Argonian present save Kammani could understand her, "for ridding me of Nergal."

Imperator Rogers looked startled for a second, and then he nodded. "It was a pleasure, Archon."

She turned her back on him, then, and walked toward the transport vessel, head and tail high, not looking back.

It was time for them to leave.

Everything had changed, and the Argon that once was was entirely lost to them. Retaking it had been a dream, if a seductive one. Even they themselves had changed -- they had no more slaves, though a small handful of human soldiers had chosen to leave with them, and their mechanikos had, ironically, recovered much knowledge that was once lost, even as so much else was destroyed.

And the mechanikos, she suspected, would not be content with the limited power tradition accorded them for much longer, after observing the humans' chaotic near-lack of social boundaries. It was a problem that would have to be dealt with, when they reached to co-ordinates Dr. Reed Richards had given them and began to build their new world. The very chaos and disorder of human society proved that divisions between warrior and mechanikos were needed, but the empire depended on knowledge for survival as much as it did strength of arms -- they were the blades in the dark, but a blade was useless if the wielder did not know where to strike, and a blade must be forged by someone.

Had they stayed on Earth as long as Nergal had wished them too, it would have destroyed them all. Their new destination, with its red sun and freshwater oceans, could be the saving of them. It would have to serve as their new home, as the center to what would, someday, be their new empire.

It would take years -- generations, most likely -- but Argon would rise from the ashes of their defeat. Someday, they would be great once again.

***

"They already let Hank and Pietro go home," Tony pointed out, with what he thought was admirable reason and restraint. "They're only keeping me in the infirmary because my medical history combined with my bank account makes doctors nervous."

Clint folded his arms across his chest and gave Tony his best imitation of Steve's stern look. As usual, it was significantly less intimidating coming from him. "Pietro heals faster than normal people, and Hank talked his way out because one of the nurses has a crush on him. And anyway, Cap specifically ordered me to make sure you stay in bed."

The bruises on his face had healed enough that raising his eyebrows was possible again. "And you always do exactly what Cap tells you to do?" Tony asked sarcastically. "That's a change."

His broken ribs were slowly reknitting, Vitamin C supplements having completely reversed the onset of scurvy, and while the collection of injuries the Imperator had left him with were healing a little less quickly than they normally would have, they were healing. All he needed in terms of medical care now was rest, and he could get that just as easily at home. Or, well, in the hotel suite that the Avengers had made their temporary home.

The lack of privacy here reminded him of the converter room, an impression that the sterile blankness of the steel walls only furthered.

Clint, unfortunately, had developed a protective streak to rival Steve's in the past few months, and was stubbornly refusing to let Tony move so much as a step from his curtained-off little "room."

"If I let you re-injure yourself or something, he's going to break my nose. All you're going to do is be sarcastic to me."

Tony swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stood, ignoring the flare of pain from his half-healed ribs. Happy's borrowed sweatpants hung low over his hips, the cuffs trailing on the floor, and he resisted the impulse to tug them up. They were better than a hospital gown, or the blandly utilitarian hospital scrubs they had replaced. He always felt faintly pathetic wearing those, and the effect wouldn't have helped his case that he was fit to leave.

"All I'm going to do," he said, holding onto his temper with an effort, "is take a flying car back to the hotel to sit around with Hank and talk about rebuilding Vision and Jocasta. You can come with me to make sure I don't accidentally fall on a razor-sharp computer circuit and die. Or are you still avoiding him because your grand romance with Jan didn't work out?"

That last came out more harshly than he had intended, but boredom and the continual nagging aches whever he tried to move had worn all of his patience away.

SHIELD's medical staff had first cut back and then discontinued the painkillers they had been giving him, at Tony's insistence; the burns on his chest still hurt and the stitches in his side pulled whenever he moved, but it was preferable to the way the medication made him feel. The fuzzy distance it gave him was too much like being drunk, and not having to remember every detail of the last few months was a temptation he wasn't sure he could resist if he were exposed to it too long.

"I couldn't help it, Cap," Clint said, addressing the empty air in a mocking sing-song. "I know you're four inches taller and fifty pounds heavier than me and can kill alien warlords with your bare hands, but he was being sarcastic."

"Are you going to spend the rest of your life babysitting me?" Tony snapped.

"No," Clint shot back, with a smile that was distinctly strained around the edges, "just the part of my life where you're still in a hospital bed and Cap asked me to."

Gambling that Clint would draw the line at actually using physical force to keep him from leaving, Tony began edging slowly towards the white curtain that blocked his bed off from the rest of the infirmary. "I'll get Rhodey to come and fly me down." Knowing Rhodey, he'd probably jump at any excuse to drive one of SHIELD's flying cars; that is, if he'd forgiven Tony for letting him assume that he was dead for five months. Maybe he ought to ask Happy. "Steve won't even know until I'm already back at the hotel. You can tell him Happy strong-armed you."

He took another step backward toward the curtain and ran directly into something large and warm and approximately as solid as one of the Helicarrier's metal walls.

"Strong-armed him into what?" Steve's voice said, directly into his ear.

Tony resisted the desire to melt back against Steve, to let all that strength and solidity hold him upright and protect him. He was fine, he reminded himself. He was healing. He'd kept it together for months down there in the converter room, despite the Argonians watching his every move and the dank, clammy cave feeling that had had Afghanistan seeping into his dreams. He was fine, and wilting against Steve like the heroine in a bad romance novel wasn't going to help him convince everyone else of that fact.

"All I'm going to do is sit in the hotel room with Hank and work on Jocasta and Vision," he said, as he turned around, taking a step back so that he was no longer inside Steve's personal space.

Steve's eyes narrowed, and his jaw set in that particular way that meant 'I am Captain America. Do not argue with me.' "Tony, you nearly died. They're still not sure what longterm effects this might have on your heart. You need to-"

"Rest." Tony held up both hands, palms out, then wished he hadn't as his sleeves rode up the edges of the bandages on his wrists. "I know. And I can do that at home. I mean, at the hotel. Lying around here isn't going to do me any more good than lying around there will."

"No," Steve said firmly. "You didn't see yourself. I did. You're staying here until the doctors release you."

Here, in a huge, echoing room full of people, with doctors and nurses watching him day and night, and too-bright lighting, and nothing to do but lie there and think.

"No. I'm not staying here. I need something to do, and Hank needs my help, and Rhodey's still wearing half my armor patched in with his, and if I don't get what's left of it back, old Shellhead will end up nothing but a bunch of disassembled circuits replacing damaged bits of the War Machine armor. And I promised Jocasta I'd rebuild her. I promised!"

Steve was looking at him strangely; Tony abruptly realized that his voice had risen in volume, and that the hand gestures he was making were too broad, too aggressive. He took a deep breath and forced himself to drop his hands, to look down. "Please," he said, quietly. "It's been months since I touched my armor, months since I even saw the sky." Since he'd held a tool in his hands to do anything other than the Argonians' bidding or to sabotage them.

He would probably need to use an arc welder to take Rhodey's armor apart -- portions of it had fused together from plasma gun damage. It must take him a good twenty minutes to get in and out of it that way, and his maneuverability was compromised.

He would be fine, Tony told himself. It would be fun. He would tear Rhodey's armor down and rebuild it with the proper replacement parts, and he wouldn't think of the way the Imperator had held the electrified branding iron against his skin. He wouldn't let them take that away from him.

If Afghanistan couldn't, and the Mandarin couldn't, and Immortus couldn't, and Justin Hammer and Obediah Stane couldn't, then no one was going to. Especially not someone who was already dead.

"I really think you should-" Steve started, but Tony could tell he was wavering.

"I just want to go home," he interrupted. With you. He left the last bit unsaid -- he wasn't willing to be quite that pathetic in front of Clint -- but Steve must have heard it anyway, because his face softened and he reached out to lay a hand on Tony's shoulder.

Even through his gloves, his fingers were warm, and Tony automatically leaned into the touch. No one had touched him for any reason other than to inflict pain in so long that he'd barely been able to remember what it felt like. No one but Steve.

"Okay," Steve said, and Tony couldn't hold back his grin of relief and joy, even though it made him aware of the bruises on his face all over again.

"Great," he said. "Let's go now."

"Does that mean I'm free?" Clint said, from behind them. "Because I have months of archery practice to catch up on."

Steve nodded, not taking his eyes from Tony. "Unless Fury finds you before you can get off the Helicarrier."

"For what? The aliens are gone. There's nobody to translate for anymore, and I can start forgetting I ever knew their stupid language. I'll see you guys later," he added, and then, to Tony, "There's orange juice in the fridge, on the second shelf down, and Wanda promised Pietro she'd make some kind of Transian desert that has seven layers of chocolate filling tonight."

"Carol really likes chocolate," Steve observed, in an amused tone that told Tony that he was missing something.

Clint smirked. "Carol can fight me and Quicksilver for it. Original teammates get first dibs."

"I think she could take you," Tony told him.

"Probably," Clint admitted. "I'll just claim I'm saving it for Cap."

He left with a bounce in his step that might almost have convinced Tony that he was completely unaffected by the past half-year, if it weren't for the fact that he had seen him sleeping in the chair by Tony's bed, his fingers locked around the hilt of the Argonian short sword he had only taken off a few days ago, after they had left Earth for good.

Steve turned back to Tony, eyeing his bare feet and too-large sweatpants. "Were you planning on walking out of here barefoot?"

"Yes," Tony said, with all the dignity and self-assurance he could muster. He hadn't actually planned anything beyond convincing Clint to let him escape, and getting someone to fly him down to the hotel, but Steve didn't need to know that.

Ten minutes later, Tony had a pair of brand new SHIELD-issue combat boots, as well as SHIELD uniform pants that actually fit him, and they were heading for the flying car hanger on the second deck.

"You're going to go lie down as soon as we get to the hotel," Steve told him firmly.

"As soon as I finish talking to Hank," Tony agreed. "I haven't slept in a real bed in months, except for that one night with you."

Steve was silent for almost a full minute after that, punching the command code to open the door to the hanger with more force than was technically necessary.

The hanger was halfway empty compared with the last time Tony had seen it, SHIELD's fleet of flying cars whittled down to a bare dozen. Several of them showed signs of battle damage; a large dent had crumpled the back quarter-panel of the closest one, and several had long, black scorch marks blistering their paint.

Steve shut the door behind them, his eyes on the little keypad as he reset the security codes. "It almost killed me to give you up again after that, you know."

Despite the ach in his ribs and the raw throbbing of the partially healed burns on his chest, Tony felt a sudden rush of gratitude that their positions hadn't been reversed. He couldn't have sent Steve back in there to his probable death. He wasn't strong enough or unselfish enough for that. "I know," he said quietly, and because he was selfish, he couldn't help but feel a small, guilty warmth that Steve had feared for him. It shouldn't have, but it made going back in feel worth it, the knowledge that not only had he been fixing his mistakes and making up for his failure to act earlier, but that Steve loved him, that Steve hadn't wanted to let him go. That Steve was proud of him.

"I kept thinking about it, down there," he added, after a moment. He forced himself to look up, to meet Steve's eyes. He had thought about those eyes more times than he could count, in the converter room, and in the bright lighting of the hanger, they were every bit as blue as he'd remembered. Steve's blond eyelashes, nearly invisible in the sunlight, showed up better here, and Tony could see a trace of colorless blond stubble along his jaw. It would feel rough under his fingers, or against his face. "It was what got me through it, when the Imperator was..." his voice faltered, the feel of cold metal cuffs digging into his wrists suddenly strong enough that it was all he could do not to rub at them. He's been able to smell his own flesh burning, overpowering the sweet, musky scent of Argonian fur. "I closed my eyes," he went on, forcing his voice to stay steady, "and told myself I was back there with you."

Steve winced, his jaw tightening, and Tony cursed himself inwardly; he shouldn't have mentioned that. Shouldn't have reminded Steve of what had happened. If Tony had been the one to walk in and find Steve in that cell, it would have broken him.

He was wracking his brain for something light and flirtatious to say, some way to change the subject, when Steve took a step closer to him and wrapped his arms around him, pulling Tony against his chest -- gently, more mindful of Tony's injuries than Tony was.

"I couldn't let myself think about you," he said in a low, choked voice. "It would have destroyed me, thinking about you in their hands, about what they might be doing to you."

Steve smelled like leather and human skin and the faintest hint of hospital antiseptic. Tony closed his eyes and buried his face in the junction of Steve's neck and shoulder for a moment, breathing the scent in. Steve's arms around him were as warm and strong as he remembered, and he was murmering something meaningless and comforting in Tony's ar, his breath warm against Tony's cheek.

This was what he had held on for. It almost made the pain worth it.

Steve pressed a kiss against the side of Tony's head, an utterly chaste gesture that sent a tingling jolt through his body despite its intention. The memory of Steve's hands on him, his body underneath Tony's, the taste of him flashed through Tony's mind again. He let go of Steve's waist and lifted his face from Steve's shoulder, reaching up to pull his cowl back. "It doesn't matter," he said, kissing the corner of Steve's jaw, the prickle of blond stubble rough against his lips. "It doesn't matter." Steve turned his head toward Tony, and Tony swallowed whatever he was going to say in return with an open-mouthed kiss, plunging his tongue inside Steve's mouth and letting his hands slide down the rough-edged scale male of his costume until the hit the smooth leather over Steve's ass. It would have been better without the costume, he thought. Better with skin under his hands. "It's over," he said, the words coming out muffled against Steve's lips.

Kissing Steve tasted different this time, the faint hint of blood from his own damaged gums absent, long healed by vitamins and nutrition supplements. He had thought that he would never get to do this again, that he wouldn't survive to do this again, to bury himself in Steve and forget-

Steve broke the kiss, turning his face away. "You're still injured. I don't want to-"

"You won't hurt me," Tony interrupted, dipping his head to mouth at the exposed line of Steve's neck. "I'm not that fragile." He nipped Steve's earlobe, and Steve shivered, but didn't reciprocate.

"Tony, you have broken ribs, fourteen stitches in your side, and you're covered in burns and bruises."

That was probably a valid practical consideration, but letting go of Steve and stepping back took an effort of will. Tony put all the frustrated desire and humiliatingly needy longing he felt into his voice, as he said, "Trust me, we can work around that."

Steve actually blushed, just a little -- or maybe his skin was already flushed from what they'd been doing. It did that, Tony had already discovered, to his not-so-secret delight. "Take me someplace that isn't riddled with Fury's security cameras," Tony went on, belatedly remembering the man's ever-present surveillance, "and I'll prove it to you."

Steve smiled for a moment, but the expression faded quickly. He reached up to touch Tony's face, his thumb brushing over the bruise on Tony's cheekbone, the one he'd asked Steve to give him. It was mostly healed now, at that stage where bruises faded to greenish-yellow, but it was still slightly sore to the touch. Tony found himself leaning into the pressure of Steve's fingers anyway.

"I shouldn't have sent you back in." Steve's voice was low, the words aimed more at himself than at Tony. His eyes held the same haunted look that they had in the kitchen, when he'd told Tony that he didn't want to lose him. 'We've lost too many people already' he'd said, and Tony, hearing the catch in his voice, had known that he'd really meant 'I've lost too many people already.'

Tony frowned at him, and turned his face away from Steve's touch, forcing him to let go. "I volunteered. I told you, remember? Vance wasn't your fault, what happened to me wasn't your fault. Bucky wasn't your fault, either." He waved one hand for emphasis, then halted the motion with a controlled wince when it made his ribs twinge. "People die in wars," he reminded Steve, again, though it felt ridiculously redundant to be saying that it someone who'd been watching people die on the battlefield decades before Tony had been born. "People get hurt. You know that better than any of us."

Steve shook his head, his mouth tightening to a thin line. "I wish I didn't. I wish none of us had had to learn it. I would have challenged the Imperator to single combat months ago, if I'd known that I could." Tony could hear the pain in his voice, and under it, the guilt and regret.

'No,' he thought. Guilt was something Tony was long familiar with, but not something Steve deserved. Not here, not over this. He had done more, fought harder to defeat the Argonians than any three people, keeping up a confident front for the Resistance and pouring out his doubts and worries only to Tony. They would have lost long ago without his leadership; Tony and Clint would probably have died in Argonian prison, or else Tony would have spent the rest of his life repairing Argonian technology and trying and failing to work up the courage to strike back at them.

Tony turned away, stepping to the nearest flying car and reaching for the driver's-side door. "Not while Arch-Captain Mamitu was still around," he said. "You never met her -- she wouldn't have surrendered to a human no matter who won that fight. We ought to have given Arch-Captain Kammani a medal for helping to liberate Earth." The door stuck, the dented metal reluctant to move, and he gave the handle a sharp jerk, pulling the door free by brute force. The hinges had been damaged, probably from the stress the warped metal was putting on them.

His ribs and his stiches both protested the exertion, but he refused to let it show. It wasn't too late for Steve to decide that they were turning around and going back to the infirmary.

Tony moved to climb into the car, but Steve beat him to it, stopping Tony with a hand on his shoulder and then stepping around him to slide behind the wheel.

Tony's lip twitched in spite of himself -- Steve was so predictable sometimes -- and he obediently circled the car and got in on the passenger side.

"Do you get the feeling there was infighting amidst the Argonian high command that we didn't know about?" Steve asked, as he closed the door. "The Archon seemed suspiciously eager to leave."

If the Archon had been half as intelligent as she had seemed, she had to have recognized that the Argonians' position on Earth had become a long-term strategic nightmare by the end of their occupation. The Imperator had had the light of true fanaticism in his eyes when he'd questioned Tony, something Tony had seen in enough supervillains to recognize, but Kammani and Isimud had seemed less certain. And Kammani was now the Archon's right-hand woman, newly promoted in the Imperator's place and probably grateful for the advancement. The animosity between her and Mamitu had been factional as well as personal; Tony would have bet money on it. And the Archon had said thank you to Steve before leaving. In English -- he wasn't sure Steve really realized how much that meant. "You made her the sole ruler of the Argonian Empire," he said. "What's left of it, anyway. I'm not surprised she thanked you."

The car's engine started, the grinding noise it made as it turned over making Tony wince. SHIELD's cars were in worse shape than Rhodey's armor. Just listening to the sound the transmission made as Steve shifted gears made him itch to start tearing the thing's engine block apart, or at the very least check the metal deck beneath it for leaking oil or transmission fluid.

Still, it would hold up long enough to get them home; the slight wobble in its hover was minor, probably due damage to one of the wheels.

"Do you think they'll be back?" Steve asked, as he flew the car towards the hanger door. It opened automatically as they approached it, the car triggering its proximity sensors, and the sunlight that poured in from outside was blinding.

Tony lifted a hand to shield his eyes, squinting into the glare. "Not in our lifetime," he said, and wasn't sure if he felt relief at the thought or not. He would never know if Isimud had been able to decipher the textbooks he'd had Steve give him, never know what discoveries he might make with the knew knowledge. "Our grandchildren had better look out, though. Once they finish rebuilding their population, they're probably going to try to take over the galaxy." He shook his head, thinking of the Argonians' bone-deep sense of their own superiority, and their lethal combat skills. "Who knows, they might even succeed."

The car flew out of the hanger and into the open sky, the doors sliding shut silently behind them. "I'm just glad they're gone." Steve said, the words barely audible over the wind.

After months indoors and underground, the horizon seemed impossibly distant, the sky a dizzyingly vast blue dome overhead. Yawningly empty space surrounded them, and for a moment, Tony thought longingly of his armor, of the freedom of flying on his own, without the clunky bulk of a car or plane surrounding him.

Tony was used to seeing New York City from above, but he had somehow forgotten how tall the buildings were, how wide and green Central Park was, the way the rivers glittered in the sunlight. It was a beautiful city -- why the hell did he keep spending so much time in California?

Then his eyes finally began adjusting to the bright light, and details began to jump out at him. The shattered buildings; the piles of rubble that were all that remained of Penn Station and Madison Square Garden; the burned-out shell of the Met Life building, looming empty and dead over the untouched splendor of Grand Central; the construction scaffolding that already covered several of the buildings in Times Square.

The city was scarred and damaged, but it had survived, and it was going to recover. It some ways had already started.

Steve's fingers suddenly brushed over his knuckles, hovering there for a moment. Then he laid his hand on top of Tony's, wrapping his fingers around it.

Tony looked up from the partially repaired wreckage of New York, and something inside his chest twisted at the sight of Steve, his hand relaxed on the steering wheel and the blazing sunlight turning his windblown hair gold. He was staring down at the city, too, a small smile on his face. Tony had almost forgotten what his smiles were like.

Then Steve looked over at him, and the smile on his face broadened into a grin. "They gone," he repeated, as if he were only now letting himself really believe it. "It's over. I'm so glad it's over."

Tony closed his eyes and tipped his head back, and letting the sun shine on his face. He curled his fingers around Steve's, reveling in the warmth. "So am I," he said.

The End

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

When the Lights Go On Again 21/21

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