(FIC) Mouths of Madness ch.1

[glasgowsmiles.livejournal.com]

Title: Mouths of Madness ch.1
Author: GlasgowSmiles
Rating: R
Warning/Spoilers: AU (multiverse)
Pairing:  Steves/Tonys (and Steve/Natasha, and eventually a touch of Stephanie/Tony...)
Word Count: 2,486
Beta: The fantastic ellyr_in_ink and any mistakes are mine
A/N: The promised sequel to 'You Were Made For Me'
Summary: Hey, remember how Anthony shows up with a dire warning and then it's practically a romantic freakin' comedy and nobody fights any aliens? Yeah, I didn't forget about that. This time there's action.

NOTE TWO: Because I kept forgetting to put the brief teaser for this fic with either the last chapter of 'You Were Made For Me' or the Armored Adventures fic, there's kind of a brief teaser and then the fic all at once. If it seems a little awkward, that's why.

 

It wasn’t much more than a month after the incident with the other universe when the call came, from a harried Natasha Rogers.

“We need you. That thing you warned us about? It’s happening. We have more data. I need you to gather everyone you can spare.”

 

---/-/---

 

Everyone who had been in the mansion was now assembled in the living room, where most of them had been before Natasha Rogers’ sudden appearance in their universe, and they all had something different they wanted to know.

Natasha grew more agitated with each question until finally Tony stepped forward.

“I appreciate your dilemma, but we don’t even know who we can spare. What if we leave ourselves wide open?”

“I told you,” she growled at him. “They can only exist in one universe at a time. And they don’t need the machine. That wasn’t how they broke through before. That’s never been how.”

“Anthony said they had technology—“

“Yes, they arrived on his earth using a ship and had been hibernating, but something else brought them to his earth. That’s where it started, that ship and wherever it came from to get to Anthony’s Earth. But they didn’t build it, and they didn’t use any ship to get to my universe. They eat through the reality separating our universes. They never stop eating, destroying. And once they destroy one reality, they start chewing through to the next. It’s just as well they don’t have eyes, because I think if you looked into them, you’d probably go mad.”

“I’m allergic to Lovecraftian horrors.” Clint said, garnering a few half-hearted chuckles, a murmur of assent, and a pillow to the head from someone on the couch.

“Okay, here’s what’s going to happen,” Tony addressed his Avengers. “We’re going to form an A team and a B team. A team goes, B team stays. A team prevents the multiverse from being eaten, B team stops Doctor Doom or the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, or what have you. Not just the Avengers. We’re going to the X-Men, we’re going to everyone. Everyone we know, whether or not they’re affiliated. A team goes, B team stays.”

“I can’t wait for you. Take this.” Natasha handed him a device which resembled the Traveler Reed Richards had built. “Make it fast. We know it can move up to ten at a time. I wouldn’t try it with more. Make multiple trips if you have to. I hope you have to.”

“We will.”

“And, Tony? Thanks.” She stepped away, and disappeared.

“Okay, A team and B team.” Tony turned back to the group. “A team, you’re under me, B team, you follow—“

“Clint.” Steve interrupted. “B team follows Clint. He’s allergic to Lovecraftian horrors.”

Tony shot him a warning look, but continued on. “I want some experienced Avengers on my team. Thor, you’re with me. Hank, with me. Bruce, you’re with Clint, I want B team to keep some muscle. Jan—“

“I’ll stay with the B team.” She made an apologetic moue, more to Hank than to Tony.

“All right. Wanda and Pietro are with the B team, Black Panther’s with me. We’re not going to bother phoning Daredevil, he won’t leave his own backyard. We might get Luke Cage; someone pick up the phone and get on that. Him and the Iron Fist. Sam—“

“I’ll take A team.” He volunteered. “Cap’s going, right?”

“Right.”

“Steve,” Tony whispered, doing his best to mask any worry or potential anguish in front of the team.

“I’m going.” Steve said, and he was. His jaw was set, his arms were already crossed in a move which would have seemed petulant if he wasn’t so damn Captain America about it.

Tony let it go for the moment. “I need someone else to call Xavier’s, and one more person on the phone with Reed Richards. Hercules is with me, Carol with me, Bobbi stays... Who am I forgetting?”

“Logan, Beast—“

“Are at Xavier’s, that means they make their decisions with the X-Men. And... I don’t know, I guess Spiderman stays. Earth’s Mightiest Heroes feel pretty well divided? Are we good?”

“We’re good,” Clint nodded.

“All right. Everyone who wasn’t in this room, someone better call their asses. Steve, kitchen. Clint, I better not suspect you of smirking behind my back.”

Steve hid a chuckle of his own and followed Tony into the kitchen. “All right, what is it?”

“What’s the matter with you?”

“Something has to be the matter with me?” He squared his shoulders, arms still folded across his chest.

“You’re the co-leader of the Avengers. That means if I take one team, you take the other,” Tony hissed. “You don’t pass leadership off to Clint and run after me to—“

“Don’t lie to me,” Steve glowered at him. “Is this because the other Steve Rogers died?”

“This is because it’s protocol.”

“Tony...” He leaned against the counter and reached out, one hand resting on Tony’s hip. “Don’t lie to me.”

“You notice Jan opted to stay behind.”

“This silly superstitious thing isn’t like you.”

“Reminds me, someone should call Strange. Eh, doesn’t matter. He’ll stay here, and if he decides he’d rather fight in the other universe, I’m sure he can find his own ride. Steve...” Tony started to lean in, then pulled back. This time, he didn’t worry about how much he let show. Steve was the one person who should know how much this upset him.

“Relax. We know more than he did. Your girlie self is probably hopping to other universes as we speak, gathering up other Avengers, and we’re all going to make one big stand together, one time, and we’re going to end this. Then no more versions of us have to die. No more versions of anybody has to die, not to these things.”

“What about protocol?”

“You think I’m letting you do this without me?” Steve raised an eyebrow. “This is going to be okay. We’re going to be okay.”

“Don’t let your guard down, not for a second. Don’t do anything stupid. Don’t... don’t die.”

“You, either.”

Tony leaned forward and kissed him softly, his arms coming up around Steve’s neck. “Promise me, Steve.”

“I’ll do everything I can. You know... We can worry about protocol next time, okay?”

“Yeah,” He sighed and let himself relax against Steve, chest to chest, his head tilted back to look him in the eye. “Next time. Come on, we need to get suited up...”

---/-/---

“What did I tell you?” Steve asked, grinning. Natasha’s mansion was host to a half a dozen realities, with heroes preparing, guards changing, and everyone awkwardly meeting their doubles and comparing notes.

Natasha checked the Traveler unit in Tony’s hand and made some notations on a handheld computer. A slight adjustment, a movement like scanning a barcode, and everyone had a small, glowing number on their chest. “Making sure you get sent home to the right place. I’ve got a system in place so don’t worry about it.”

Her husband came up behind her and the two Steves acknowledged each other with a glance.

“Our Hank’s going back for the next group.”

“Be back as soon as we’ve got a group of ten ready. We’ve got X-Men en route.” He confirmed before vanishing.

“So.” Natasha looked between Tony and Steve. “Slept with him yet?”

“N-no, uh—no, um...” Steve turned red.

“Can I?” Her eyebrows bobbed.

Behind her, her own Steve looked like he was choking. “Tasha!”

“What? Don’t look at me like that. It’s not weird to have a fantasy involving you, me, and someone who happens to be your absolute perfect double.”

“I thought your fantasy was the, uh, the panty thing,” he whispered.

“Oh, honey...” She tugged him down and kissed his cheek. “That, too.”

“What he meant to say,” Tony inserted himself between his female double and his boyfriend. “Is that we haven’t slept together yet. It’s very much on the menu.”

She put a hand on her hip and raked Tony over with a look that suggested she knew all his secrets. “Like you wouldn’t want to be the creamy middle in the Captain America sandwich.”

“To be absolutely clear,” Steve said. “I do not want clarification on ‘the panty thing’.”

“Oh, oh, sweetheart, no, it’s not what you think,” She laughed. “It’s okay. Steve doesn’t wear the panties or anything.”

He relaxed marginally.

“No, see, what it is,” she continued brightly, “is when I’m away on a business trip and I call home at night, we talk dirty a little and then I tell him to masturbate with a pair of my panties—little, itty-bitty red satin barely-held-together-by-string sort of ones?—and just thinking about it gets me really hot.”

Steve gaped. A couple of times he tried to say something, but Tony never found out what, because Steve wasn’t forming words.

Behind Natasha, the other Steve dropped his head forward, one hand covering his face.

“I think you broke my boyfriend,” Tony glared at her.

Although, he could understand the appeal. Something decadent and unmentionable of his own, Steve’s fist wrapped around that thick, hard cock (the thickness and hardness he took as a given in these fantasies, but he looked forward to getting some confirmation on the exact specs)... And had she just said that Steve Rogers was capable of engaging in phone sex? Because that was some good intel. That was something Tony wanted to remember.

Natasha shrugged. “Sorry.”

“You don’t sound sorry,” her husband pointed out, still mortified.

“Mm. Do you think we could find another Steve Rogers who isn’t already in a relationship with one of me?”

“I’m not having a threesome with another me.” He said, shaking his head. “It’s kind of creepy.”

“Would you do it if it was another me?”

“... So far they all seem to be... men.”

“Yeah, I know. Weird. I’d do it if you were curious.”

“I’m really not.”

“What if it was another you, but she was a woman?”

“Girl-you is... very adventurous,” Steve said under his breath, secrecy disturbed by the fact that Tony laughed out loud.

Natasha gave them an appraising look before moving on to another arriving group. Tony watched her leave and wondered how her ass looked without the Iron Woman armor. He hadn’t bothered checking the first time they met, but now he wanted to have an accurate mental image because, between her and two Steves, he was gathering some pretty good fodder for a foursome fantasy.

Creepy to act upon, maybe—at least, that’s how Steve would see it. Anyway, their first time wasn’t something he was willing to share, even with another version of himself.

But for thinking about alone in the shower from time to time...

“You can head out whenever you’re ready and head back here when you need to. Someone will be able to relieve you, there’s a hospital set up.” Natasha’s Steve informed them. “When you get there, you’ll be able to see where they’re coming through. Doctor Strange says he should be able to close it back up, but it’s hard to do it when they’re, you know, actively using the rip. Anyway, the damage is contained for now, and if we can beat them back enough, we might be okay. We really appreciate your universe pitching in.”

“Anytime. After all, if we don’t stop it here, we’d just be fighting it in our world, and you wouldn’t be around to help out.”

---/-/---

They didn’t look like any Lovecraftian horror Tony could think of, but they did look horrible. Anything that ate through the fabric of the universe had to be, he reasoned, but still...

“More teeth than the Osmond family,” He breathed.

A Spiderman—the glowing number floating over his chest read ‘13’—cocked his head. “Dude, Red Dwarf reference?”

And then they went back to fighting. There was little time for quipping, with the constant advance of gnashing teeth.

The fighting never stopped. On either side, the moment someone fell, another hero or monster took their place. Everything was hazy and orange, and it reminded Tony of nights in L.A., except it wasn’t streetlights and smog; it was flaming cars and the rippling energy from the place where reality was split open.

Tony kept one eye on Steve and one eye on the stream of gnashing teeth that emerged from the hole in the multiverse. A man he’d never met in his own universe, a man who, hell, might have been a woman in his own universe, was fighting alongside the X-Men. No outlandish costume, though, and for a moment Tony wondered if ordinary civilians were involving themselves, until powers came into play. Maybe it was his day off. X-Men had days off, right? The man was between Steve and a Logan—Tony couldn’t see the Logan’s universe tag—and was shouting back and forth to both of them. The ground troops.

Tony would have been down there, shoulder-to-shoulder with Steve, if it wasn’t for the fact that the rip in reality was up in the sky and he wanted to put as many of those suckers as he could down before they even reached the ground.

Spiderman 13 was stringing up webs between streetlights. It didn’t catch them for long, but it slowed them down. In reality, it only gave them something else to eat, but every millisecond spent eating webbing was a millisecond not spent eating something a lot more important.

The repulsor rays worked, knocking them back through or sending them slamming into the next row of teeth, and then it was a sick satisfaction, watching them devour their own kind because they couldn’t slow down the relentless eating, even for a second. He did his best to aim back, to blast them into waiting mouths.

He couldn’t get them all, the rip was too wide, the rows were too long, but he could get some of them, dammit, and at least that felt good. He realized that whatever the initial plan had been in this universe, they couldn’t just force the ranks back and seal the hole. It wouldn’t stop the survivors, they’d tear through again, and that was only if the multiverse was lucky.

If they were unlucky?

If they were unlucky, those teeth would tear through to a different universe, with an Earth left temporarily under-guarded.

They had to kill them. They had to kill them faster than they multiplied, because these things, they couldn’t go on forever.

They couldn’t.

It wasn’t possible, it wasn’t logical.

It wasn’t right.

He saw Steve’s shield whizz through the air to knock out the creature trying to gnaw one of Logan’s arms off, but then he saw the others, already too close, and there was no time. So Tony did what he always did.

He put himself in the way.

---TBC---