Title: Resurrection, Reconstruction, and Redemption, 9/13
Authors: seanchai and elspethdixon
Rated: PG-13
Pairings: Steve/Tony. Various canon ships. Sharon/Winter Soldier, for your daily dosage of spy/assassin hotness.
Warnings: Denial fic. Blatant shipper fic. Captain America and Iron Man in a romantic relationship. One non-canonical het pairing. A dire lack of sex. Terrifying amounts of snuggling and angst.

Disclaimer: The characters and situations depicted herein belong to Stan Lee and Marvel comics. Also, some of the dialogue in chapter five was taken from Brian Michael Bendis's Civil War: The Confession. No profit is being made off of this derivative work. We're paid in love, people.

Note: For a rundown of where this fic departs from current continuity, see the notes at the end of chapter one. Familiarity with the events of Captain America #25 and Civil War is encouraged.

/ text in italics / denotes radio/cellphone communication via Extremis. # text in italics # denotes news broadcast received via Extremis.

Again, thank you to angelofharmony and tavella for the wonderful beta job.


Chapter Nine

/Two Doombots located on 8th and 41st, right outside the Port Authority. They appear to be deactivated. Orders, sir?/

/Follow standard operating procedure. Clear the area and approach with caution./

/U.S. Army reports terrorist cell in Mosul successfully neutralized. Is there even a reason I'm stationed here? Can I get a transfer to Baghdad?/

/Tony? This is Jan. The Falcon and Sentry just intercepted an assassination attempt on Congressman Rosen. Rosen is fine. Unfortunately, Bob tossed the sniper through a wall, so between that and the secret service pumping him full of bullets, we never got a chance to find out who hired him. If it's not the Red Skull, I'll give you twenty bucks./

/Jen here. We've finally managed to get things calmed down here. If you can call it calm. We're essentially running on martial law now, and I hate to think how many lawsuits the city's going to be facing when all this is wrapped up. We're getting reports of smaller riots in Long Beach and Santa Anna, not to mention Texas and Utah. Hell, just turn on CNN. They've got a guy reporting from Brigham Young University right now./

/Tell Fury we've cracked that damned neo-nazi group that's got Chicago all riled up. They've been receiving funding from two bank accounts, one out of New York and one in the District of Columbia. Transmitting the account information now. Now we just need to get the Nazis to stop beating up anyone they think is a fucking mutie, and the rest of Chicago to stop beating up the Nazis./

"… back. I got sandwiches."

/NYPD reports three Asian men found unconscious in Hell's Kitchen, with injuries consistent with severe beatings. According to the officer on the scene, they all dropped dead as soon as they woke up. We're sending in our ME now, but we don't expect to find anything useful. The guy on the scene also said they all had those dragon tats./

# And in international news, prominent British politician Terry Heck was discovered this morning to have been accepting bribes from what an MI-5 investigation is calling the largest neo-nazi group yet discovered on British soil. Heck, a recently elected member of Parliament, had just introduced legislation in the House of Commons calling for an English equivalent to America's Superhuman Registration Act, legislation that is already being criticized as potentially violating British civil liberties.#

"Tony. Tony."

Tony blinked, the world abruptly coming back into focus. As sensation returned, so did the stabbing pain just above his left eye-socket. Steve was looking down at him with a worried expression, hands on Tony's shoulders, shaking him.

"Stop that," Tony said, batting Steve's hands away. At least his nose wasn't bleeding this time. That would have upset Steve, and he didn't need to worry about that; it wasn't as if there was anything he could do.

Steve stood from where he had been crouched in front of Tony, and picked up a paper bag from the floor by his feet. "I brought food. And coffee," he said.

"Thank you," Tony replied, nodding and rolling his neck in an attempt to relieve the stiffness. The nagging headache he'd picked up three days ago had finally turned into a full blown migraine that morning, and food was the last thing he wanted at the moment. Coffee, on the other hand, would be heaven in a styrofoam cup.

Steve sat beside him on the cold concrete floor and handed him a paper-wrapped sandwich, and a cup of coffee. "I didn't see anyone," he said, pulling a second sandwich and cup of coffee out of the bag. "But that doesn't necessarily mean anything. And we can't take the chance that civilians might get hurt. Unfortunately, I think we're going to have to stay here for the night."

"The Mandarin's men are a bit less obvious than Doombots," Tony agreed, pulling the plastic lid off of the cup of coffee. "They could be almost anywhere. We're going to have to keep an eye out for them; the Mandarin actively recruits for insanity, but not stupidity."

"That's better than the Red Skull. The SS actively recruited for both."

Tony took a sip of the coffee. It tasted like something that had been made yesterday out of scorched coffee grounds and then left to sit overnight, but it was hot.

They had been heading towards the next safe house on the list Nick Fury had given Tony when Steve had spotted a tail a block behind them. They'd managed to lose him via a combination of rooftops and fire escapes, but while this had given Tony a new appreciation for Daredevil, it wouldn't keep them off the scent forever.

All the SHIELD-approved hotels had too many innocent bystanders. The Mandarin really liked innocent bystanders. Red Skull liked them even better, especially when they were Jewish, Black, Hispanic, or gay, and that was most of New York.

They'd ended up holed up in an empty warehouse owned by a subsidiary of Stark Enterprises. The roof leaked in four different places, and Tony had made a mental note to avoid storing anything in a Techtronics building until he'd had them all inspected and personally overseen their repair. There were three building code violations in this one alone.

Steve set his coffee cup down on the cement and pulled a face. "This is really horrible. I'm sorry."

"I've had worse." Reed Richards was one of only two people who'd ever been able to make Tony feel stupid, but he made what was possibly the worst coffee on earth. He always forgot the coffee was on and left it to burn, and then never seemed to notice that it had turned into blackened sludge. Even Ben Grimm refused to drink it.

Tony took another sip of his bad-but-still-better-than-Reed's coffee. Happy had made the best coffee he'd ever tasted. Just strong enough, never scorched, always served black, and he'd usually stuck around to talk while Tony drank it.

Coffee hadn't tasted as good since Happy had died.

He put the cup down on the floor next to him and picked up the sandwich. The pressure behind his eyes might have removed any desire he had to eat, but he probably needed the fuel.

/Doom's border patrols have definitely spotted us./ Carol's voice. /We've avoided them thus far, but we're not going to be able to do it much longer. Tell Fury we're going to have to pull back away from the border, and if he wants to go poke the Latverians with sticks, he can come do it himself./

/Sir, the Chinese are resistant to our offer of help. They say the Mandarin is a domestic threat, and if we continue to interfere with their military operations on their soil, they'll complain to the UN./

"Are your eyes supposed to turn black when you do that?" Steve. He had the concerned expression on again.

"They have?" Tony put down his half-eaten sandwich. "I guess that makes sense. Maya's test subject's did."

Steve frowned thoughtfully. "Maya Hansen?" he said, crumpling the paper that had been wrapped around his sandwich into a ball and dropping it into the empty bag. "I think I met her on the Helicarrier. She wanted to test my DNA."

Tony snorted. "That would be Maya."

"She reminded me a little bit of Reed Richards," Steve said. He settled back against the cinder block wall, apparently immune to the cold.

Tony nodded. "Well, yes, that's probably because they both have Asperger's syndrome," he said absently, half his attention on directing a data stream from the SHIELD agent in London to Nick Fury. "At least, Reed does, and I'm fairly sure that Maya does too." Reed Richards was the kind of genius that came along maybe once a century, but he was also close enough to borderline autistic that even Tony, to whom social skills had only come with long practice, couldn't help noticing. And Maya... thought that asking to test someone's DNA was an appropriate conversation starter.

Steve looked at him blankly. "They both have what?"

"Asperger's syndrome," Tony repeated. "It's a neurological disorder that essentially makes you Reed Richards."

Steve raised an eyebrow at him. Right; he'd probably never heard of it. Tony only knew about the whole concept in the first place because Pepper and Happy had found an article on it in WiRED a couple of years ago and made him read it. "It's a milder form of autism," Tony explained, paraphrasing the article as best he could remember. "It tends to appear in people who are highly intelligent, like Reed. They have trouble with social interaction -- it's part of why Reed usually sounds like he's giving a lecture when he talks to people."

"I thought that was because he usually is?" Steve said, looking faintly amused.

"Well, there is that," Tony said. "But it's a little more complicated than that. People like Reed and Maya don't interpret emotions very well, their own or other people's, so they don't realize that other people are bored, or uncomfortable, or upset. And they don't like direct eye contact, and tend to avoid it. You've probably noticed that Reed almost never looks anyone directly in the eye."

"Yes," Steve said, "because he usually has his head turned one-hundred and eighty degrees, while he fiddles with something on the other side of the room."

"I met him once, before he could do that," Tony said. "And he never looked anyone in the eye then, either." That had probably been the one piece of good advice Tiberius Stone had ever given him; always look people in the eye. "Anyway, because of that, they can have trouble dealing with conflict. They can't understand alternative perspectives, because they're so convinced that theirs is the correct, logical one, so they end up seeming stubborn or intransigent. The best known symptom, though, is a tendency to be almost obsessively interested in a single subject, sometimes to the exclusion of everything else." Maya's obsession with the Extremis, for one. There was more -- the WiRED article had had a whole bullet-point list of symptoms, several of which Pepper had underlined in red ink, including "highly logical or technical thought patterns," and "micromanages employees endlessly?" which had been penciled in at the bottom and underlined three times -- but Steve didn't need a compete rundown.

Steve nodded. "Ah," he said, a thoughtful expression on his face. "Is there some test for it that you could take?"

"They printed one in WiRED. Pepper made me take it."

"And?"

"And quizzes in magazines are meaningless. Ask any woman who reads Cosmo."

"I don't know any women who read Cosmo," Steve said.

"Jan was interviewed in it once, and Tigra was on the cover, back in the nineties," Tony said. The article she'd been featured in had been titled "Make love like an animal". He'd asked her once if she found that offensive. Tigra had only laughed, and declared that she did make love like an animal.

/These things are dead, Colonel Fury. Something's completely fried these Doombots' circuits, and they're designed to take all kinds of punishment. It would take a massive EMP to do this, and that would have knocked out every electronic device in a ten block radius./

"Something's frying the circuits on Doombots in Hell's Kitchen," Tony told Steve. "Any ideas?"

"Doctor Strange claimed that Daredevil was the guardian of Hell's Kitchen, and that his presence acted as some kind of shield against Doom's interference." Steve stretched his legs out in front of him, leaning his head back against the wall.

"It would be nice if that shield worked against drug dealers, and the Kingpin," Tony said, surreptitiously pushing the half-eaten sandwich to the side and moving closer to Steve.

Steve snorted. "Magic is never that useful."

"I'm never going to say anything bad about magic again," Tony said. Magic had brought Steve back; any problems he might have had with it before seemed trivial now. "In fact, I may start sending Doom Christmas cards." As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he regretted them; they'd managed to avoid really discussing Steve's resurrection for the past week, and Steve was probably happier that way.

There was a long moment of silence, and then Steve said steadily, "I think he might have killed someone to bring me back." He stared straight ahead, eyes on the far wall. "Strange wouldn't tell me, but that kind of magic has got to have a price." His jaw tightened for a second, and he added, almost tentatively, "I just can't help but wonder what being brought back like that does to you."

Of course Steve would feel responsible for whatever Doom had done to bring him back -- being Steve, he couldn't do anything less. If Doom had killed someone, Tony hoped Steve never had to know for sure; it wasn't something he needed to carry with him, not when he'd had no hand in it. No matter what kind of magic Doom's resurrection had required, Steve was utterly blameless.

Tony had never been as good a human being as Steve; he didn't care what Doom had done. Steve was back, and that was all that mattered.

"My mother was Catholic," he started slowly, trying to think how to say this in a way that would reassure Steve, and stop whatever pointless guilt he was carrying, "and she used to take me to church with her sometimes. And I think there's something in the Bible about how evil done in the name of God is still evil, and good done in the name of the Devil is still good." Actually, it had been in the Chronicles of Narnia, but it didn't sound as meaningful coming from the mouth of a fictional lion. And knowing C.S. Lewis, it probably was in the Bible somewhere. "And you being back is good," he went on, laying a hand on Steve's leg and squeezing gently. "Any price is going to fall on Doom."

Steve covered Tony's hand with his own. "Maybe," he said, sounding a little less uncertain than before. "I'll just have to make sure I'm worth it." He had his chin up, jaw squared, and even sitting on the floor in a dingy warehouse, managed to look noble. Steve Rogers: living recruitment poster.

Tony took a deep breath; it felt like the temperature had dropped ten degrees from that morning, and he could hear the faint patter of rain on the small, grated windows. The storm that had been threatening all day had obviously finally broken, and chances were it would rain all night. And the roof leaked.

The food and coffee hadn't helped the headache; the unrelenting ache was draining, especially since it was so cold and damp. He hadn't been really warm for days, not since before the headache had started.

Tony leaned sideways until his shoulder was resting against Steve's, leaning his weight against him. Steve was the one warm thing in the warehouse, heat radiating through his clothes.

"What are you doing?" Steve asked, blond eyebrows arched in amusement.

"It's cold," Tony said. "And you're warm." He didn't mention the migraine, anymore than he'd mentioned the nosebleed that he'd had that morning. The Extremis wasn't really meant for this kind of heavy, uninterrupted use. Steve didn't need to know that, though. He shouldn't have to worry about Tony, especially not when he was still having nightmares.

"That's what coats are for," Steve said, slipping an arm behind Tony's back.

The warehouse, Tony decided, wasn't really that bad after all. But the Techtronics maintenance people were still getting reprimanded.


It was raining, a cold, slow, fine, miserable rain that got into everything, and turned the city into a slick-pavemented mess. It was just past eleven in the morning, but the sky was dark enough that it might as well have been evening, dull chrome grey.

Luke rolled his neck, taking in the empty street and juggling the damp paper bags full of groceries -- and who the hell used paper bags anymore, Goddamn environmental waste that they were -- and slammed the door to the safe-house behind him. SHIELD safe-house, and it was just fuckin' surreally homey; an old two story red brick building just on the Southern edge of Hell's Kitchen. Probably nice some time in the last century, but still with the illusion of class. It made Luke think of Matt Murdock.

The front hall was empty, lights flickering dimly under dusty shades. There were probably cameras under there too, but Luke didn't want to think about that too hard -- it was already too damn easy for Stark to spy on them, forced to keep in radio contact like they were.

Luke tossed a glare at the lamp, and shrugged out of his wet jacket, tossing it over the back of the rickety wooden chair by the door, shifting the bags of food from one arm to the other. They were too damn light, mostly filled with ramen, canned soup, and other things that could be made in a microwave in under ten minutes.

It was going to be a problem pretty soon. Even with SHIELD footing the bill, they were living on a pretty limited food supply; there wasn't a person in the house that could do more than boil water, and they couldn't risk take-out places. Every Chinese food joint within a ten mile radius of Hell's Kitchen knew Luke and Danny by face, and most knew them by name. And Stark had made sure that everyone knew exactly who Peter was. It would be too fucking easy for someone to make them, follow them home, or start a fight in a place with too many potential hostages.

Which meant that they'd spent the past week living on ramen, which wasn't bad -- it was a hell of a lot better than the microwaveable crap that had been around when Luke was a kid, but also about two hundred calories a serving. And not only were they all fighting hard, but Pete and Danny both needed truly freaky amounts of food for little guys.

He could hear voices from the kitchen -- Peter, Danny, MJ and Jess were all in there together. Cap and Stark obviously hadn't gotten there yet, since there was no way Peter would be that loudly, cheerfully obnoxious with Stark around.

They'd gotten the call to expect Cap and Stark some time this afternoon, that they needed a safe place to crash for the night. Reading between the lines, that probably meant they needed to get a few hours uninterrupted sleep, and maybe that Cap wanted to spend time with someone who wasn't a God damn traitor.

Luke shouldered open the heavy wooden door to the kitchen. "No one's gonna come give me a hand with these bags?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.

"I think you can handle the bag full of dehydrated noodles yourself," Jess said from where she was leaning against the counter, baby in her arms. "And if you can't then maybe you shouldn't be going shopping alone."

"Oh, I can handle it." Luke smirked, but handed the bags off to Peter who had jumped up when he had spoken. "I just figured that coming back with back with food for my family might earn me a warmer welcome," he said, giving Jessica a pointed once over. Even on the run, living out of bags, she looked gorgeous in jeans and a sweater, absently rubbing the baby's back.

"You'll have to do better than ramen for that," Danny said, not bothering to get up from where he was sitting backwards in one of the kitchen's four mismatched wooden chairs.

"Ooh, but you got peanut butter!" Peter said happily, rummaging through the bags, pulling things out at random but not bothering to put them away. Luke rolled his eyes. If only everyone were so easily pleased.

"You know, I swear you didn't used to like peanut butter so much," MJ said, standing and starting to actually put things away. Peter just shrugged; he'd already pulled out a spoon.

"So we have any idea when Cap and Stark are getting here?" Luke asked. It would be good to check in with Cap again, but it made him all kinds of uncomfortable to be opening their home -- where his baby was -- to someone he wouldn't trust as far as Peter could throw him. Bad enough that he was their only contact, knew where they were, and was probably keeping an eye on them -- the fact that right now it was technically his job didn't make it any less disturbing.

"You were here when we got the message." Jessica propped the baby on one hip, and brushed a stray piece of hair out of her eyes. She kept swearing that she was going to cut it, but Luke was pretty sure that was just talk. Hoped it was just talk. "They said they'd be here some time this afternoon. Didn't exactly give a lot of detail."

"He sounds like a robot," Peter announced, then paused, cocking his head to one side in the way that made him look a little like a dog. A muffled banging noise drifted in from the hallway, and there was a moment of silence as they all looked at each other. "Speak of the devil," Peter said, grabbing his mask from where it had been lying on the counter. He held it for a long moment, before stuffing it into the back pocket of his jeans.

Somehow, answering the door became a group activity, as they all crowded down the hall, Luke leading the way, Danny and Peter on his heels, Jess and MJ right behind them.

Luke turned and glared, gesturing them back; presenting a united front was one thing, acting like a pack of junk yard dogs was another. Danny backed off a step. Peter didn't, but Luke hadn't really expected him to.

It was still raining; Cap's hair was slicked to his head in a fine blond mess, and as for Stark -- Luke didn't think the phrase 'drowned cat' had ever been more apt. Cap was wearing a long trench coat that looked like it had walked right out of one of the old, black and white movies that Jessica liked, and at some point, he'd obviously been unlucky enough to pass a taxi driver, because the cuffs of his jeans were soaked through. Stark looked, if possible, even wetter, and pretty much utterly miserable, which didn't bother Luke in the slightest. He was clutching at the metal briefcase that held his armor with a white knuckled grasp, and looked tired in the kind of way that Luke associated with him going crazy and trying to kill them all.

Luke stepped back to let them in. "You know, we could get you a fedora to go with that," he said, nodding at Cap's trench coat.

"Why does everyone keep saying that?" Cap asked. He shrugged out of the trench coat and hung it, still dripping, on the coat rack. Beneath it, he was wearing a blue t-shirt that was identical to the one he used to wear around Stark Tower.

Stark's lips twitched for a second, in something that wasn't quite a smile. "Because you look like Sam Spade," he said.

"That's not the Bogart character I was going for," Cap said with a more genuine smile, looking at Stark, who was looking at the floor.

"Are you okay?" Peter demanded. "You don't have killer robots or something chasing after you, do you?" He addressed the question solely to Cap, not looking at Stark -- which was much more mature than sticking his tongue out at him and calling him a traitor, so Luke was glad for small favors.

"Not that I know of," Cap said.

"Yet," Stark interjected. "We don't have killer robots after us yet. Give it about twelve hours, and Red Skull's flunkies will probably be on our trail again, though. They're getting better at fire-walling the satellites, and there's a second player keeping tabs on SHIELD communications now, probably the Mandarin."

Peter made a disgusted face. "Oh, great, that's all we need."

"I thought your job was to stop them from doing that," Luke said. They had enough problems without Stark putting the Mandarin on their trail.

Cap shook his head. "Blocking Red Skull from using the satellites would tip our hand. He'd just destroy them, and we'd be left with no communications." He ran a hand over his hair, shedding water on the floor, looked at the puddle forming around his feet, and turned to Luke. "Is there anywhere I can change into dry clothes?"

Luke shrugged. "Pick an empty bedroom," he said, nodding in the direction of the staircase. "They've all got two beds."

"Thanks for putting us up for the night," Cap said, picking up his duffle bag again and heading towards the stairs. Halfway up, he halted, turning back to Stark, who was still standing in the hall, staring off into space with a zombified expression. "Tony, you're dripping on the floor."

Stark blinked, then nodded, and started after Cap. Cap waited until Stark had drawn even with him, then put a hand on his shoulder, and pushed him on ahead, up the stairs.

Cap watched him go, shaking his head. "It will be nice to talk to someone who doesn't break off in the middle of a sentence to mutter algorithms," he said, but there was a look on his face Luke recognized, half exasperation, half affection, and suddenly, he wondered exactly what Cap and Stark had been getting up to for the past week.

"So, he seems okay," MJ said as soon as Cap had disappeared up the stairs.

"I guess Stark hasn't actually done anything to him," Jessica added. On the one hand, it was a good thing that Cap had chosen to go keep an eye on Stark. Someone had to, and Cap ran a better chance of actually keeping him in line than anyone else. But it meant that Cap had been completely alone with the guy who'd been doing his flat best to see them all locked up for three months.

"That we can see." Peter said darkly, folding his arms across his chest. MJ rolled her eyes, but touched him on the arm, an expression of mixed amusement and concern on her face that was uncomfortably similar to the one Cap had given Stark not two minutes ago.

"If Stark's done anything, we'll find out about it," Danny said, bouncing slightly on his toes, the way he did when he was thinking about fighting.

Luke nodded. "And if he has, we'll deal with it." He was still waiting for a decent explanation for why Cap wanted them to work with Stark's people now. He knew Cap and Stark had been in friends and all, but there had to be more to it than the vague explanation that had been handed to them at the SHIELD meeting. Luke knew he would have forgiven Danny just about anything, so long as he got a halfway decent explanation, but he'd need an explanation first. Not that Danny would ever have stabbed them in the back like Stark had.

"Of course we will," Jessica said. "We're the Avengers, right?" She looked at the others, then rolled her eyes. "Come on, let's go back to the kitchen. We don't need to stand here gawking. They can find their way down again without us watching."

"We should go put on dinner, anyway," Luke said. They had guests. Sort of. This wasn't actually their house, and he wasn't going to count Stark as a guest, but still.

"What are we going to make? The ramen, or the Kraft macaroni and cheese?" MJ asked just a little snidely.

Peter cocked his head thoughtfully. "I think we've still got a frozen pizza."

"The last one came out burned, remember?" Danny said.

"It came out fine," Luke said, pushing open the kitchen door, and holding it so the others could enter. "You just don't like pizza." Danny had an irrational dislike of anything made with cheese that Luke could never quite understand, given the way he ate most everything else.

Cap reappeared about ten minutes later, right after they finally managed to get the pizza into the oven. "It's nice to be dry," he said, rolling his neck. "We were stuck in a warehouse last night, and the roof leaked."

"Where's Stark?" Danny asked, swiping a paper-towel over the shredded cheese that had spilled out onto the counter while they were arguing over the pizza directions.

"Hopefully in the shower," Cap said. "I practically had to push him into it. He's one of the smartest people I know, but sometimes he literally doesn't have the sense to come in out of the rain."

Luke leaned back against the counter. "Stark's got a history of making bad decisions," he reminded Cap.

"I know." Cap's eyes went distant, and a muscle in his jaw tightened as he looked away from Luke for a moment.

The entire time they'd been fighting Stark's people during the Registration mess, Cap had been like a man possessed, hell-bent on resisting all that Big Brother shit whatever the cost. After he'd come back, he'd looked shell-shocked, which wasn't too damn surprising, considering that he'd been killed and then brought back to life by mister Phantom of the Opera himself. Now, he'd lost that dazed look, the one that made him look like he was a million miles away. He didn't like talking about Stark, that much was obvious, but he seemed more... settled, something like that. Danny would probably say that his chi was back in balance, or some kind of mystical kung fu shit.

The door swung open again, and Stark edged into the room, letting it fall shut again behind him. His hair was still wet, but he was wearing different clothes and no longer dripping water on their floors, so presumably he'd listened to Cap and showered.

"Thanks for the ah, hot water," he said, not looking directly at any of them. "We don't have to stay long. Shouldn't, actually. The longer I'm in one place, the more accurately our skeletal friend can pinpoint me."

"If anything shows up, I'm sure Luke and Peter can handle it," Cap said, frowning slightly.

"If I feel like leaving anything for them," said Danny. Luke cuffed him on the back of the head, and Danny ducked away, fine blond hair standing on end where Luke had ruffled it.

Stark shook his head. "The Mandarin's people are better than Red Skull's. They're going to pick my trail up faster than he can."

"Don't worry," Jessica told him. "We'll kick you out when the ninjas show up."

"I like the ninjas," Danny objected. "They make better targets than the Doombots."

"I hate ninjas," Peter mumbled. He didn't say it loudly, because that would have interfered with his insistence on pretending that Stark wasn't there

"They're more dangerous than Doombots," Stark said. "So like I said, thank you." His shoulders were drawn forward, just like they had been when he was wet and dripping, and he still hadn't met anyone's eyes. It was strangely un-Stark-like body language.

Cap took a long step over to Stark's side and touched him on the elbow. "Tony," he said quietly, "your eyes have gone black again."

They were, Luke realized. Black and opaque like that freaky oil from the X-Files. It was quite possibly the most disturbing thing he'd ever seen Stark do, and that counted the time his armor had gone berserk.

Stark blinked, the black-oil sheen draining from his eyes like water. "A bomb filled with sarin gas just went off in the Hong Kong airport. Things are a little hectic right now." He produced a cynical little smile, which immediately faltered. "At least China will agree to shut the airport down now. We've had to stop three cases of pneumonic plague from boarding flights to the mainland in the last two days alone. Amongst other things."

"Pneumonic plague?" Peter asked, raising an eyebrow.

"The Mandarin is a traditionalist." He stopped, expression going distant, and the creepy black stuff started to film over his eyes again.

Cap put a hand on his shoulder. "Do you want to go back upstairs, so you can be alone with the computers?" he asked, voice almost gentle.

"China is objecting to SHIELD's presence. They keep wanting to treat the Mandarin's attacks as purely domestic threats, with no international ramifications, and consider international organizations interfering in their affairs to be an insult." He paused, then continued. "I probably should. This has the potential to turn nasty." Stark turned towards Cap, leaning slightly into his touch. Cap tightened his grasp on Stark's shoulder for a moment, before letting his hand slide to the center of Stark's back, shoving him lightly in the direction of the door.

Stark nodded absently, more at the room then at any of them, and wandered out the door, letting it swing heavily behind him. Cap watched him go.

Luke exchanged a look with Jessica. Something was definitely going on there.


Danny Rand was used to weirdness. By most people's standards, his life was pretty damned unusual to begin with; being heir to Rand-Meachum, losing his parents at such an early age, growing up in Kun-Lun, defeating Shou Lao the Undying and gaining the power of the Iron Fist, the thing with Luke and Jessica, which worked better than it probably should have, and then there was that thing with the aliens... Rich orphans were unusual enough. Rich orphans who were highly trained living weapons were even thinner on the ground.

The past few months, though, had been strange even by his standards. First, being Daredevil, which was a whole different experience from being Iron Fist - different moves, different opponents, different public reactions. People were a lot more intimidated by Daredevil than they ever were by Iron Fist. Maybe it was the costume.

Then there was the goddamn Superhuman Registration Act, which had done a spectacular job of screwing up everyone's lives, bar none. Even now that Cap was back, and they were all being forced to work together, you could still see how badly it had fucked things up.

At least now they got to hide from Doctor Doom, Red Skull, and the Mandarin instead of from assorted ex-friends and their own government. On the other hand, the cape-killers hadn't all been hell bent on destroying the city.

Three big-bads seemed to be fighting each other about as much as they were doing anything else, but even so, they were kept pretty busy trying to keep the streets safe. And even in one of SHIELD's safe houses, someone had to be on watch all of the time.

Right now it was Danny's turn. He liked the late watches; they were pretty much the only chance you had at getting any quiet time alone.

Tonight, though, Danny could see a line of light spilling out from under the heavy wooden door to the kitchen. Since there was a limited number of people it could be, Danny decided to investigate; at this hour, there was a pretty good chance that there would be coffee, if nothing else.

Surprisingly, it was Stark. He was sitting at the kitchen table, working on the laptop. He looked tired and scruffy, like they pretty much all did -- well, except for Peter, who looked tired, but surprisingly clean-shaven. Peter claimed that it was a spider-power, which had in no way stopped Luke from ribbing him about his inability to grow facial hair.

Little as he liked the guy, Danny was willing to admit that with the four-hour communications blackout rule in place, Stark did have a reason to look tired. Which was probably why he was eating the coffee straight out of the tin.

"Hey," Danny said, leaning against the door frame, "are you eating the instant coffee?"

Stark glanced up at him over the edge of the computer screen. "It's the quickest way to get the caffeine into my bloodstream," he said, turning back to whatever he was working on, absentmindedly pushing back the cuff of the oversized red and blue flannel shirt he was wearing. He also had on a blue t-shirt that looked a lot like the one Cap had been wearing when they arrived, and Danny really didn't want to think to hard about what that meant.

"Yeah, it is pretty good," Danny said. "Can I have some?"

Stark nodded, so Danny grabbed a spoon out of the canister on the counter, and took a seat opposite him. Stark pushed the coffee tin halfway across the table, and Danny snagged it, pulling it closer. "It's a good thing this is Folgers," he said, tapping his spoon against the rim of the tin. "You can't do this with Maxwell House; it tastes like battery acid."

Stark glanced up at him again with a bemused expression. "I didn't know that there was any difference."

"Well, it's not like it's common knowledge," Danny said, shrugging. He only knew because of late nights and stupid dares.

They lapsed into silence, eating the coffee crystals. Danny had never developed Peter's need to fill any lull in the conversation with chatter, and Stark was obviously distracted with all of the information he was processing.

After maybe fifteen minutes, the quiet was broken by a heavy creaking step that could only be Luke. "Are you eating the coffee again?" he asked from the doorway, mild irritation in his voice.

"Yes," Danny said, wrapping a protective hand around the tin; he wouldn't put it past Luke to try and physically take it away. He'd done it before.

"It's just the quickest way to get caffeinated," Stark said, reaching over to take another spoonful.

"If you really need caffeine that badly, Tony, you can heat the water to go with it," Cap said, stepping out from the shadows behind Luke. He was wearing grey sweatpants, but no shirt. Not that he needed one; he was Captain America.

Luke continued as if he hadn't been interrupted. "And really, what if Peter saw you?" He directed his comment at Danny. "You want to give him ideas?"

"It takes too long to heat the water. And we don't have the equipment to flash boil it." Stark told Cap.

"If Peter wanted coffee, I would share," Danny whispered to Luke, quietly picking up the coffee tin and moving to lean against the counter. He knew better than to get in the middle of arguments, particularly ones that probably counted as 'relationship arguments'.

"If you can't wait five minutes for water to boil, we probably need to have another talk about your relationship with addictive substances," Cap said, lips quirking.

Stark glared at him. "That was a low blow, Steve. And in any case, alcohol is a depressant, caffeine is a stimulant."

Cap folded his arms over his chest, frowning. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"It really isn't bad this way," Danny said to Luke, taking another spoonful. "I don't know why you don't like it. And really, it's not like it's any better with water." It was a running argument they'd had, as long as they'd known each other.

Luke rolled his eyes. "I don't know what's worse. You doing that, or Peter eating the peanut butter out of the jar."

"He probably needs the protein," Stark said absently.

"What?" Luke asked, frowning.

"Protein," Stark held up one wrist up, hand flexed back. "Spider webs are made out of protein. Now that Peter produces them organically, he probably needs to eat a lot more. And that's a quick way to get a lot of it."

Made sense -- it was pretty much the same reason that Danny needed to eat after he used the Iron Fist. "See, I told you it was more efficient," he said, waving his spoon at Luke.

"Oh, for God's sakes," Luke said. He grabbed the tin of instant coffee with one large hand, and shoved Danny towards the door with the other. "Anyway, your watch is over, you don't need to eat the coffee. You go sleep, I'll keep an eye on things."

"You know, I needed that," Stark said from behind them.

"No. And Luke's right," Cap said, and Danny heard the chair scrape against the kitchen's linoleum floor as he pulled Stark up. "It's time to get some sleep."

"I've got work to do," Stark protested as they passed Luke and Danny in the hall.

"Well, you won't be able to do that very well if you don't get some sleep," Cap said, shoving him down the hall.

There was a moment of silence, before Stark said quietly, "That's why I was eating the instant coffee."

At that moment, the door to the room Peter and MJ were sharing swung open, and Peter stuck his head out. His hair was sticking up straight, and he was wearing nothing but a faded t-shirt and boxers. "Hey," he said, obviously half-asleep. "What's going on out here?"

"Danny and Stark were being idiots," Luke told him. Danny glared. There was no call for that. It wasn't like Luke didn't have his own share of weird habits that Danny could tell people about.

"It's really not that bad," he said again, crossing his arms over his chest. Not that anyone was listening to him.

"Tony's going back to bed," Cap said, looking stern. He was good at that. It made him look all noble, instead of like a kindergarten teacher, the way it did most people.

Peter blinked. "I thought there was only a four hour communications blackout every day?" he asked, running one hand through his hair so that it stood up even more.

Cap turned to frown at Stark. "A four hour communications blackout every day?" he said slowly, voice even. It sounded like this was the first time he'd heard of it, which was surprising -- Cap hadn't been there when that decision had been made, but it seemed like something he ought to have heard about.

Stark just shrugged one shoulder in response. "We really can't afford to have them go down for longer, especially right now. Red Skull is still hammering away at Washington, and the Mandarin's got forces all over. And until Doctor Strange finds a way to stop him, we need to concentrate on keeping Doom away Hell's Kitchen." He paused, then made an emphatic gesture with one hand. "If communications go down for more than about four hours, someone's going to be missing vital data, and we'll end up losing more people," he said, a muscle working in his jaw.

Cap's eyes narrowed slightly. "You still should have said something."

"Um," Peter said, "right. I'm going to - right. Go back to bed. Goodnight!" He disappeared back into his room, closing the door quickly behind him.

"Yeah," Luke said, giving Danny another none-to-gentle shove towards their room. "It's time for all people not playing dispatch or on watch to be in bed."

Cap and Stark continued to glare at each other for another minute. Finally, Stark dropped his eyes looking down at the floor. "I didn't actually sleep earlier, and I was going to declare the blackout soon anyway. I may as well do it now."

Cap nodded, a closed expression on his face. "I'll be in in a while. I'm going to go get a glass of milk."

"We only have whole milk, because the baby drinks it," Danny said.

"That's fine," Cap said, looking at him a little blankly.

Danny wrinkled his nose, but didn't say anything. He'd never really understood why people drank milk; there was something creepy about the fact that it was literally squeezed out of cows. Anyway, it made him feel kind of sick, even if Luke insisted that it was good for you.

Luke rolled his eyes, and shoved Danny towards their room again. Pushy bastard. "Milk sounds good," he said to Cap.

Eyes still on Stark, Cap nodded, then turned, and walked into the kitchen.

Stark watched him go, shoulders slumped, face unreadable in the dim light. After a minute, he turned, and walked into the room that they were all pretending real hard he wasn't sharing with Cap.

It all made Danny incredibly glad that the worst thing he and Luke had to fight over was instant coffee.


Steve took a glass out of the cupboard, and set it on the white formica counter top with short, sharp motions. Yelling at Tony would have been pointless. It wasn't as if Tony had much of a choice in this situation; he was right, long communications blackouts were a potential liability.

But Tony could still have found the time over the past week to mention it. He'd thought that they were done with Tony keeping things from him.

He should have noticed. In retrospect, it was awfully convenient that Tony had just happened to be awake every time Steve woke up from a nightmare. He'd been shaken up enough each time that he'd simply been glad to have Tony there, but he still should have noticed.

Luke shoved open the kitchen door and walked over to the refrigerator. He pulled a cardboard carton of milk out and handed it to Steve.

"So," he said, folding his arms across his chest. "What the hell is up with you and Stark?"

"What do you mean?" Steve asked. He filled the glass with milk, then set the carton on the counter. He took a single sip of the milk and set the glass down next to the carton. He hadn't really wanted it; he'd just needed to not be alone in a room with Tony at that moment.

"You're acting like the past three months never happened. Suddenly, the two of you are bestest buddies again, and after everything that's gone down, that just ain't right."

It probably did look odd to the others, Steve realized. "We have to put the past behind us now," he said. He and Tony had been such close friends for so long that once Steve had known the rationale behind his actions, known that he hadn't simply sold out, and how much it had torn him up… Whatever Steve thought of Registration, once he understood Tony's motivations, he couldn't stay angry with him anymore. He'd always had trouble staying angry with Tony once he understood why he'd done something. Adding sex into the mix didn't change that. "We all need to work together, or we're not going to be able to win this. And if we lose, we lose our chance to fix Registration." And Red Skull would overthrow the government, and Doom would take over the world, but that went without saying.

"Yeah," Luke said, staring at him unblinkingly, "but that still don't explain why you're sleeping with him."

"I was dead," Steve snapped. How did Luke know? "I can sleep with whoever I want." What went on between him and Tony was no one else's business.

Except that, less than two months ago, he'd effectively been leading Luke in a war against Tony's people, and given that, Luke did deserve some kind of explanation.

Luke raised an eyebrow, and Steve thought for a minute, trying to put into words something that he'd never really questioned before. "He doesn't treat me like a legend," he said finally. "He doesn't act like everything I say has to be true just because I'm Captain America." So many people did, even when they ought to have known better. He was only human, and he needed somebody to remind him of that. "He makes me defend my point of view, which is good even when he's wrong, because otherwise I'd still be stuck in 1945. Even when everything was falling apart, he was still the only person I could really talk to about anything." Even when things had been at their worst, it had taken a constant effort to remember that he couldn't simply pick up the phone and call Tony any time he needed someone. The one time Tony had called him, he'd never even considered not answering until he already had. "I thought everything was over between us, and now that we've got a second chance, I'm going to do things right."

This thing with Tony… even before that first night on the Helicarrier, Tony had been the most important relationship in his life. If he decided that he wanted to stop being Captain America tomorrow -- not that he ever would, but if he did -- Tony was the one person he knew wouldn't look at him any differently.

From the very start, he'd never seen the helmet or the metal faceplate when he looked at Tony. Even when he'd still only known him as Iron Man, he'd always seen a man, and never a walking suit of armor. And Tony had always been able to see through his mask.

He wasn't going to lose that again.

Luke stared at him, then pulled a face. "Whatever. Guess there's no accounting for taste."

"So," Steve asked hesitantly, rubbing at the back of his neck and staring at the patch of linoleum next to Luke's feet. "How did you…"

"Oh, come on. Man, you're sharing a room with him and he's wearing your clothing. Peter and MJ aren't that obvious."

Oh. Right. Tony was wearing his shirts. Steve hadn't really given it much thought, beyond noting the obvious -- that Tony looked good in blue -- but now that Luke had pointed it out, it was a fairly clear give away. And their room had two beds; he hadn't thought it would be that obvious.

A week ago, Steve had wanted to sink through the Helicarrier's conference table at the mere thought that anyone in the room might realize he'd had sex with Tony. Now that someone actually had figured it out, he found that he didn't really care. It was oddly and inexplicably satisfying to think that people could tell that Tony belonged with him.

His anger at Tony had dissipated while he talked to Luke. Steve poured the rest of his milk down the drain and set the glass in the sink. "It's late," he said. "I'm… going back to… bed." Where Tony was. He could feel a faint rush of heat in his face and ears. Maybe he wasn't quite as comfortable with people knowing as he'd thought.

"Yeah, have fun with that," Luke said.

Steve turned to walk out of the kitchen. As he opened the heavy, wooden door, Luke added, "The giant bite mark on Stark's neck ain't all that inconspicuous, either."

Steve could feel the back of his own neck flushing red. He didn't actually flee the kitchen, but he did walk back to the room he and Tony were sharing very quickly.

He really should have noticed that Tony wasn't sleeping. Tony should have told him, but considering that they'd been sharing a bed for a week, Steve himself had seriously dropped the ball.

Tony had been there for him, offering silent support and comfort after the nightmares. Steve had been leaning on him; how was he supposed to help fix whatever was wrong with Tony if Tony wasn't willing to do the same?

The light in their room was still on, seeping out under the bottom of the door. Tony was already in bed, lying on top of the blanket with his back to the door.

Steve crossed the room and sat down on the edge of the bed beside Tony, resting one hand on his shoulder. He'd told Tony to go to bed, yes, but he hadn't wanted him to fall asleep thinking Steve was still angry with him. Steve wasn't foolish enough to think that the fact that they were sleeping together was going to stop them from having real things to argue over -- but fighting over something Tony couldn't help wasn't worth it.

Tony stirred, then rolled over, resting his head on Steve's knee. He blinked up at him, eyes not quite focused. "And you were worried coffee would keep me up," he mumbled, bringing one hand up to rest on Steve's leg, fingers curling loosely into the fabric of Steve's sweatpants.

Steve laid a hand on Tony's head, lacing his fingers through the black strands of his hair, and Tony shifted slightly, turning into Steve's touch. After a few moments, his eyes slid shut and his breathing evened out.

Arguing wasn't the same as fighting; it kept things interesting. And he could get used to moments like this.

If they all made it out of this, Steve could see himself getting into a lifetime's worth of stupid arguments over coffee with Tony. It wasn't an unappealing thought.


As always, thanks to everyone who reviewed, favorites-listed, or otherwise commented on or encouraged us over the past eight chapters.