"Stark, you hearing me? We have a missile headed straight for that city."

Hill's voice was breathless, like she'd been running. The camera showed pavement – then more pavement – while echoing blasts and clangs threatened to drown out the words. The Iron Man suit was pinned down, and the video was all from its point of view. Behind the camera, Tony asked, "How long?"

"Three minutes."

"Damn it. Point it at the Hulk – it might actually make him angry enough to get through that barrier. If you can keep him pointed in the right direction once it hits. Stark out." Concrete, sky, concrete – there were too many Chitauri around Tony, ganged up on him, and Steve leaned forward in his seat – then, motion; Tony must have fired the boot thrusters, because suddenly the camera was looking down from the air, searching through the swathe of dead aliens cut by... him. Another Steve Rogers, although it could have been him.

The suit dove, and a mechanical hand reached out to grab that Steve by the back of his neck, lifting him into the air and then pulling him around to press him close to the chest of the armour, before speeding up so quickly that the other Steve squeezed his eyes shut and was shouting to be heard. "What the hell, Stark?"

"There's a nuke coming in, Cap, and I'm pretty sure my old man would dig his way out of the grave to murder me if I let you get fricasseed by the American government."

"A nuke – what? But this is New York! We need the Army, not a nuke! That'll kill everybody in – in – "

"Yup."

"Stark, we have to stop it – " he was struggling, now; the armour slowed, its flight erratic as Tony fought with him.

"It's already done," the armour said. "You, gimme a choke point – " Targeting lit up on the screen, and the metal arm closed about the other Steve's neck in a choke-hold; he went limp.

The armour sped up again, and the next two minutes were nothing but blurry ground below, buildings and streets and trees – cars, and there must have been people, too, although they were high enough, going fast enough, that the camera didn't resolve them. Steve was at edge of his chair, until finally – he knew it was coming, but he still almost couldn't believe –

The camera flipped over again as the suit dove down, near to the ground, dumped a stirring Steve Rogers behind the thick concrete of an overpass shelter, and rocketed upward again – why? Recording the moment for posterity? The suit could take the radiation exposure, at least.

From up high, the camera recorded the mushroom cloud blooming over New York City.

"Well," said the Tony Stark inside the suit, "This sucks."

The mushroom cloud froze: the playback had stopped. Steve took a breath, and realized that he was so tense he was starting to get a cramp in his left leg; he breathed out, and forced himself to relax, to slump back into his chair.

He almost couldn't believe what he'd just watched. In his own world, he'd warned Tony that it was a one-way trip – which it hadn't been, thankfully, even though it had been close enough to steal his breath away and almost let the guilt of surviving settle in his gut again. But Tony hadn't once paused to consider anything else, and to this day Steve had no idea what else they might have tried. Surely, they would have tried something, though, rather than just cutting and running.

"That was, you might say, the catalyzing event," ULTRON said quietly, as the forward view-screen went blank – revealing the open sky above them. Since there were no actual human pilots flying the jet, there was no need to have the HUD up – but the HUD tech did make for an unsettlingly good movie theatre.

In the back of the jet, Tony swore again absentmindedly. Steve wondered if he knew this already – or if ULTRON was explaining it to him at the same time. Or maybe Tony was swearing about whatever it was that he was working on. Steve wished Tony were just a bit more willing to talk – but of course he wasn't.

"Yeah," Steve said, and shook his head. What was he supposed to say to that?

"Your counterpart in this world agreed, and, seeing the devastation wrought by Stark weapons on American soil," oh, Lord, that had been a Stark designed missile? Had this Tony still been an iron monger, then? " – other allies also came around to my side. But, alas, in the end I was too incautious, too optimistic. This time, I will show more care."

That sounded... ominous. "This time?"

"Perhaps you should strap in, Captain. We are about to land."

He nearly shrugged it off – he rarely bothered with safety harnesses anymore – but the lingering fuzziness in his vision convinced him. If Anthony's wards were all that great, maybe he'd be fine in a crash even without the serum – but testing it like that would be dumb. He strapped in, and a moment later was thankful when the plane went into a sharp dive downward, sending his stomach up to the top of his throat and making him feel queasy as the ground came abruptly into view, growing rapidly nearer. He hadn't felt sharp motion that strongly since – well, since he'd gotten the serum.

The ground rushed forward: snow-covered prairie, almost indistinguishable from ice-covered glacier, and Steve closed his eyes. It wasn't the same – it wasn't the same – his fingers were locked in position, immobile, he was not going to tilt it out of the dive –

Don't you dare be late...

The downward dive halted as sharply as it had begun, the quinjet's nose pulling up rapidly enough to induce nausea again, and Steve's eyes flew open; he looked down at his hands frantically. He wasn't holding the stick, it wasn't him – he'd meant to put it in the water, he wasn't –

"Forgive the sharp landing, please," said ULTRON, sounding distracted. "Reinforcements are required at the previous battleground. If you could please disembark quickly, it would be appreciated."

"Yeah. Thanks, ULTRON." The name still felt weird in his mouth. The more Steve talked to ULTRON, the less similar the AI seemed to JARVIS: his voice was deeper, true, but he was also more formal in his dictation. And aside from that... 'ULTRON' just seemed like such a weird name – obviously a computer's name. JARVIS had been named after a human.

Maybe that was an unfair thought. Steve did his best to ignore it, like he was ignoring the way his hands were shaking.

Tony was already stalking out of the plane, down to the slow-covered ground below, as Steve fumbled with getting all the buckles undone. By the time he'd made it out of his seat, Tony had wrenched open the ridiculously thick steel door to the small, concrete bunker. Steve frowned at it. Something that small wouldn't contain an entire lab, unless...

More underground secret bases. Wonderful. At ULTRON's none-too-subtle cough (there wasn't really any way that a computer could be subtle about coughing), he hurried down the ramp and over through the door. The cold seemed to bite at his skin, way more than he was used to – how cold was it up here? That cold, or was it just that the serum was still restabilising? He'd be glad when it was finally done.

This underground base, if anything, was even larger than the one in Shenzhen had been. Well, maybe ULTRON had inherited it from the Tony that had created him. Steve just hoped that he hadn't inherited any of that Tony's other tendencies – but that was also unfair.

The walk down was absurdly long, though. "ULTRON?" Steve asked tentatively, after Tony once again rebuffed him – apparently, he was still 'reviewing information'. Presumably ULTRON kept him from walking the suit into walls when they turned a corner.

"I am afraid there is no speaker system within this section," the armour answered – a different voice than from when Tony was talking from it. Steve had to suppress a flinch.

He took care to keep his tone as neutral as possible. "I'd really like to know what the plan is, here."

"We're working on that." That was Tony, which was... weird.

"How about an endgame, then?" This was not something he could simply let go. Besides the obvious – if they were going to be stuck here for days or weeks, then that was a problem – ULTRON's last words in the jet worried him.

They were both silent – talking internally, or ignoring him? It was nearly impossible to tell. Steve decided he'd try waiting them out, first, but a full two minutes passed, and he was nearly on the verge of asking again when ULTRON finally replied, "SHIELD has taken a great number of casualties in the current battle – many from so-called friendly fire, due to Banner's presence. Unfortunately, he has become particularly adept at destroying the armours, which is a problem inasmuch as I have no current mass-production facilities, and this latest battle, I fear, will put us greatly at a disadvantage."

"What was the objective? Can you pull the pilots out early?"

"You misunderstand – these are remote-controlled suits. Steve Rogers will remain the only casualty among our allies today." The tone of voice was familiar; he sounded very much like JARVIS had, in grief. JARVIS... Tony would have to have another backup, somewhere. If he'd been in the grip of paranoia, surely he'd have caches that he wouldn't have told anyone about? "Unfortunately, while today's objective – of accessing SHIELD's research databases – was partially achieved, the suit Captain Rogers was wearing during the operation has been lost, and its retrieval is of paramount importance."

"The ICG." Tony, again. Still weird, like he was talking to himself.

"Correct. I am afraid, however, that Captain Rogers' suggestion of pulling out may be necessary to prevent catastrophic losses in available mobile forces."

"What's the ICG?"

"Invisibility cloaking generator." The whatever-it-was that had made Tony vanish completely, then. "Bad idea, ULTRON."

"Yet necessary. Reserves must be maintained in case Banner should direct his attention to civilian populations or other vulnerable sites, or if Asgard declares war."

"Asgard?" That was... startling.

"Don't ask," the armour's shoulders slumped as Tony spoke.

"...Okay," Steve agreed slowly. At least he wouldn't ask right now. Maybe later, when they were back home – and again, that was a whole other can of worms he didn't want to think about. "So the endgame is... what? Sign a peace treaty with Asgard and lock up Banner?" If he sounded doubtful about either of those, well, "That last one didn't go too well for Ross."

Thank heaven he was retired; he didn't have to call that loudmouthed shit-for-brains asshole by title. Especially when, by all rights, Ross should have been court-martialed years ago. And again, in this world, it was so much reversed – instead, one of Steve's close friends... what should have been one his close friends... had turned out to be the monster. ULTRON had played those videos for him, too, before he'd shown him the destruction of New York. He couldn't help but wonder if SHIELD back home would have gone along in putting up with him, just to keep him happy.

At least SHIELD back home hadn't attempted nuclear genocide.

"Lock up, not so much," Tony said, as they finally reached some part of the bunker that actually looked inhabitable. Glass revealed a lab, workshop, and armoury all rolled into one; the doors swung open silently as they approached, and he and Tony clonked inside, the armour releasing as Tony walked forward to a stand. "There's no place on Earth that the Hulk couldn't break free of in time, and this one – I think he's even stronger than the one back home." He ran his hands through his hair, looking really weird without a beard.

Forget the damn beard, Rogers, Steve told himself firmly.

"Steve!" That was – Pepper? Steve turned in surprise as she came running down the hall – not in heels, for perhaps the first time that he'd ever seen – and right to him, immediately giving him a hug. Steve froze. "ULTRON said that you were – oh, thank god."

Gingerly – carefully – he hugged her back for a moment, before gently pulling away; although it seemed like she might hang on for a moment more – were her eyes red-rimmed? Oh, god, had she and the other Steve been – no, no way. They were probably just very good friends – and he hadn't even realized that this world's Pepper had sided with ULTRON. Shamefully, he hadn't even thought to ask what had become of her – or anyone else. He'd just wanted to get back to his world.

It had been Tony who'd stepped forward and accepted responsibility for this place.

"I'm sorry," he said, and he meant it for far more than just the other Steve's death.

"What?" Pepper stepped backward, apparently realizing that something was amiss, if not what. She scanned him carefully. "Steve? What happened out there? I've been fielding questions from CCS all morning – ULTRON just had time to tell me that you'd been..." She bit her lip.

Steve felt like his tongue was clumsy, too thick in his mouth, and glanced at Tony for help – but Tony was staring at Pepper with a hollow expression – his best impression of a poker face, which wasn't doing much to hide the quiet devastation behind it. Oh, god. The missing memories – he must have just realized he'd broken up with Pepper. Three months ago. Steve found himself quietly hoping that ULTRON didn't stock any alcohol in this place, wherever it was.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," he said instead, falling back on army training. "It is with deep regret that I have to inform you that the Steve Rogers from your world was killed in action earlier today." The words sounded even more hollow coming out of his mouth than they'd looked on paper, when he'd had to type out death notices during the War. "I, um, I'm not from this reality." He tilted his head toward Tony, and then immediately regretted it when Pepper – blinking rapidly – looked in his direction; Tony, too, deserved some privacy at the moment. "I'm from his."

"Oh." She shrunk back, faltering – then, the CEO mask came down, and she turned it into a smooth step backwards; her expression cleared to cool neutrality, her shoulders dropped back, and she stood straighter, compensating for the loss of her six-inch heels by attitude alone. "I'm very sorry, Captain. Please excuse me."

"It's, um, it's not your fault." He still felt clumsy, and he found himself wishing that Tony would say something – but he could see from the corner of his eye (was his vision improving?) that Tony was still standing stock-still, struggling to get his emotions under control half so well as Pepper had done – and failing miserably. "I'm very sorry for your loss."

He was talking about himself.

This felt very weird.

"I – " her hands fluttered a bit by her sides; stilled. The Pepper he knew would have been more emotive, less in control – but then, the Pepper he knew, he knew – this one was a stranger, and was treating him as such. Perhaps one of the reasons it felt so strange. "Thank you, Captain, for letting me know. It's a loss to all of us." She looked tired, then, as she gave him an evaluating look.

Tony at last managed to turn away, and went over to one of the computers – but although the screen was changing, and Steve saw his hands tapping at the keyboard, Steve wasn't sure that Tony was actually doing anything except pretending to be busy. Steve glanced between Pepper and him, and she caught the look and tilted her head back toward the hallway – an invitation to confidence.

Steve felt anchored to the ground. The thought of turning his back on Tony – even for a moment – he shook his head in mute apology instead.

Very quietly, Pepper said, "If you weren't aware, he's been acting... strange."

So ULTRON hadn't told her?

"It's been taken care of," Steve murmured back, equally quiet.

Pepper raised one cool eyebrow, looking down her nose – and how she managed that out of heels was a trick, but she pulled it off very well; Steve felt a good foot shorter under that gaze. "If you say so." She hesitated, then, and Steve thought that she was going to ask for more information anyway – and he was glad he hadn't stepped outside, because this was Tony's to share, and even if she were Pepper, she wasn't the Pepper either of them knew and confided in –

And she'd been the personal assistant to a man who had continued to make weapons even when he found out where they were going, a man who had let a nuke drop on New York without even trying to stop it.

Maybe he had more than one good reason not to leave Tony alone.

"A lot of the local state and county councils were Steve's idea – he helped set them up, made sure they ran democratically. He's... he was a symbol to them. ULTRON's reported to me that he's lost over a dozen armours and at least one quinjet today, and we don't have those resources to spare. We can keep the news quiet, but they rely on us to do heavy-duty policing, peace-keeping. Without those armours, diplomacy is more important than ever, and without Captain Rogers to lead the way, I'm worried about the Consortium of Central States and the New Mexico council." Her mouth twisted. "They have... issues... with a woman leader. Especially one so beholden to Tony Stark, no matter what I've done since then."

"God knows you never owed me anything, Potts." Tony's voice was low; it barely carried over to where they were standing. There was a rasp to it that was painful to hear. "I can't see that going differently in this world."

Pepper smiled: cool, professional, impersonal. "Of course not, but impressions do matter, Mr. Stark. If Captain Rogers were willing to put in a few key appearances..."

Steve's immediate, first instinct was to refuse: he wasn't letting Tony out of his sight, especially not now, when he was so vulnerable. His second reaction was shame. He'd not been too proud to stand up and try to sell war bonds – heck, touring the states had actually been pretty fun, once he'd gotten used to it, and the benefit to the war effort very real, if not as important as what he ultimately ended up doing. Was this any different?

Yes,he answered himself a moment later – mostly by focusing his gaze on Tony's back instead of meeting Pepper's eyes. He was pretty sure that stare ought to be classified as a lethal weapon; it sure was good at killing his own objections. But these people, on these councils – with the USO, he'd been playing a part, and everybody knew it. This was different. What Pepper was asking him to do was to step forward and lie to these men and women – well, if they were distrustful of a woman, then it was probably all men – to keep the peace. A worthy goal... but the method was wrong.

He wasn't that Steve Rogers. He had no idea what had been going on in this world, how the hopes and dreams and fears of the population were balanced. He didn't have the right to claim he was.

Steve met Pepper's eyes, and for a moment, found himself reconsidering. If further unrest broke out... this world was already pretty badly off. Didn't he have a responsibility to them?

Yes.

But it wasn't one that he could fulfill by lying to them.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," he said slowly. "But I don't think it would be a good idea."

"Just being there would reassure them. Steve – " her voice wobbled only the tiniest amount at his name, " – he didn't talk much when acting as negotiator. It was more a matter of... presence. And you wouldn't necessarily have to be there in person – we can video conference." She'd caught his wish to stick by Tony, then.

Steve shook his head. "I'm not the man they've put their trust in. Trying to pretend I am would be taking advantage. It wouldn't end well."

"If it could get them to cooperate long enough to improve people's lives – " Pepper tried, but she smiled gracefully enough when Steve shook his head again.

How was the rest of the world functioning? ULTRON had shown him the map of the fallout; Europe was... gone, but most South American countries had survived intact, and although Africa and Asia had suffered badly, they were in states more similar to the remains of North America than to the complete ruin that was Europe. But ULTRON hadn't explained much about the governance there, and Steve wondered if this was because he simply wasn't as involved in it.

"I'm sorry. If I really thought I could help, I would. But pretty soon, Tony and I will be gone, and they'll have to deal with that then. If we can send aid, though – medical supplies – " even as he said it, his brain balked at the idea; how could they possibly send enough aid to set an entire world on its feet again? And even if they could, they wouldn't be able to fix the most basic problem of how irradiated so much of the planet was – whole cities lying dead and silent. He firmed his jaw. "We'll try our best, anyway." They owed humanity nothing less.

"Don't promise what you can't deliver, Rogers," Tony said brusquely. He was sitting, now, watching data scroll by on two enormous, transparent screens. "You want to fix this world? What about the one next door? It's got issues, too."

"If medical aid were promised, no one here would be opposed to receiving it," Pepper said tartly. "But thank you, Captain. If you should reconsider – my office is just down the hall." She pointed, and Tony took his eyes off the screen, leaning back in his chair long enough to peer down the hallway, as if he'd never thought about what else was in this underground facility except the lab. They both watched her as she left; Steve, considering, and Tony – well.

"So I guess Pepper in our world had enough of the crazy guy," Tony said when she was out of sight.

Steve sighed. "I think it was more that she never really saw you anymore."

"Funny, most people get irritated when they spend too much time with me," but the rejoinder was half-hearted and more than a little pained. "You. Uh. I remember drinking a lot. And saying things, and... you were there."

Steve shrugged, and hunted down his own rolley-chair to sit in. "You needed somebody."

Tony snorted. "And that was you, rather than Pepper?"

"I could be in the lab," Steve pointed out. "She couldn't, she had SI to run. If I hadn't been..." he shrugged, halfway. If he hadn't been...

On that morning, he'd said hello to another Tony Stark, one newly arrived from another world, who'd been terrified of his own AIs. Maybe he'd been from another dystopian Earth like this one. If Steve hadn't gotten into the habit of saying hello –

He'd spent so much time wondering about why Tony had killed himself, but after learning he hadn't, Steve hadn't stopped to wonder about the man who had. Would his presence have changed anything? Would that Tony have lived? Could they have undone the damage from the Skynet Protocol better, more easily – would they have been able to stop Shenzhen from happening?

All this time he'd been thinking that only if he'd gone back... but what if his presence had been the trigger in the first place?

"Uh-huh. ULTRON, I gotta say, big fan of the engine redesign – truly, a thing of beauty – "

"Why thank you, Mr. Stark," and for a moment they could almost have been back in the Tower, back two months ago, before everything had gone so sideways.

" – right, but the ship itself is a really stupid idea. Unfeasible, terrible – and this is coming from me."

"I concede that portal technology would be an easier route, but the time delay – "

"How long does it take him to transform?"

"The fastest incident is recorded at 0.6 seconds."

"Uh-huh."

"What are you planning?" Steve asked. Tony blinked at him – like he'd forgotten that he was there.

That had happened, back in the beginning, a lot, when Tony wasn't used to there being anyone in his workshop except for himself. Over time, though, Tony had at least gotten used to him.

"There is no way on Earth to contain Dr. Banner long-term," ULTRON stepped into the gap. "However, the remaining climate is not much to his satisfaction. With the remains of SHIELD, he has been attempting to create a portal that would transport him to an alternate reality, where he could build anew."

"Basically, he'd be doing what he'd been doing here – extracting promises of research grants in return for, y'know, not breaking New York." Tony's fingers were tapping aimlessly; he was reading even as he spoke, and he looked frustrated with it, whatever it was. "Except that for how he already broke New York here. So, yeah. Bit of a problem. Can't keep him here, can't let him go away – he's not shy about killing people, this one, and, by the way, we are never telling Bruce about this – "

The fierceness in Tony's voice made Steve put up his hands. "I agree."

Tony's answering look was a bit suspicious, but after a long moment he seemed sufficiently appeased. "Fine. Well. Can't cage him, can't kill him."

That last, blunt addition felt like a bucket of ice-water being dumped over his head. Bruce and Tony were friends – good friends. The Hulk was a threat, that was true, and for all that Steve thought the government should just leave Bruce alone in his own world – he was a threat that only came out when provoked, usually by that very same government – this Bruce was clearly, apparently, much less discriminating. But hearing Tony state it so casually, the way he managed to defend their Bruce one moment and then switch to the consideration of murder the next...

"ULTRON, can you give us a moment of privacy?" he asked.

There was an affronted pause. "If you wish. I shall return my attention in ten minutes." At the edges of his hearing, some of the ever-present humming of machinery stopped.

"Wait, what? Rogers, what the hell?" Tony had turned fully from his work, and was now eyeing him with suspicion.

Steve wondered if he should ask Tony to double-check that ULTRON had left them alone – but even if Tony cooperated (not guaranteed) that would be rude, an outright accusation of lying. And he wasn't going to say anything that would bring down more suspicion than asking for that would, anyway, so he didn't. "This is Bruce."

"Uh, false. This is a Bruce. And I kinda have some memories of him slamming me into the ground like a doll before snapping not-you's neck, so, y'know, not the fun-loving physics nerd, here. Or were you asleep for that section of the in-flight entertainment?" So Tony had been keeping an eye on what Steve was watching, even while he'd been pretending to ignore him entirely – what did that mean?

Probably that he didn't trust Steve... which, Steve had to admit, Tony had been pretty up front about.

"Yeah, but... judge, jury, and executioner?"

"ICC got atomized by SHIELD nukes, Rogers. Who else is gonna try him? One of those squabbling state councils Pepper was talking about? Not gonna happen."

Steve shrugged. It sat... badly – there were courts for a reason – but he had to admit that Tony had a point. It was just... disquieting, seeing him sitting there discussing ways to get rid of one of his friends. As if without the last six months of memories, Tony was somebody else entirely.

"I just worry that all our information's coming from one source," he admitted quietly. Video records were all well and good, except that ULTRON could no doubt easily fake all of it.

"Two sources," Tony said, turning back to his screen. "Don't forget Pepper. And three, if you'll count my admittedly shoddy memories of accusing the Romanoff from this world of lying to me, and her completely deflecting the question." He frowned. "Or... saying that it might be Banner. Make what you want of that."

On the whole, it did sound pretty damning. And back in his own world, he'd have trusted their combined words – he'd have trusted any of Pepper's, JARVIS', or Tony's words all by themselves – without hesitation. But they weren't in their home world; they were in a world where Bruce was apparently completely without conscience or remorse – Bruce, a man whose word Steve also would have trusted without hesitation back at home.

"SHIELD lies," Steve said unhappily. Which didn't always mean they didn't have good reason for it.

"It was the WSC that ordered that nuke," Tony said, scrolling down, and Steve looked down, away.

"Yeah, but in our world that was separate of SHIELD. You – maybe don't remember," Steve stumbled, because Tony would probably remember, but only – images, he'd said. Not the reasoning. "Fury went up against them after that. You helped."

"You'll have to tell me all about it. Last thing I remember thinking was that I hoped Pepper would sue the bastards for getting me killed," Tony said snidely.

Steve was taken aback. "What?"

"It was unlikely they'd ever see the inside of a prison cell. She could at least take their fortunes. Suspiciously powerful people: pretty much a guarantee of obscene wealth. I should know."

"No, not that. I thought your memories ended when you went to confront – " He hesitated.

"Loki?"

Steve winced. Then he winced again, because he felt like it should be Tony doing the wincing, after all his caution, all his paranoia. And Anthony had confirmed that the cloaking device wouldn't hide him if he 'called' someone – would the wards that he'd put on Steve do better? No doubt it was the reason that Tony, when he'd been able to remember why, had been so paranoid about saying names.

On the other hand, the name had already been said. He'd just have to hope that if his suspicions were true, then Anthony's claims about his own warding spells had been equally accurate.

"Yeah, him," Steve agreed. "I thought he'd done..." he made a vague hand gesture, meant to encompass, magic. Things mortal eyes shouldn't see, maybe, although he was pretty sure to do that he ought to have borrowed one of the more obscene gestures he'd seen Clint use toward reporters. (Somehow, Clint hadn't been caught at it yet by anyone else).

"Um, no. Granted, he showed me three seconds of my life flashing before my eyes when he defenestrated me – a word that used to be awesome – but, Mk VII to the rescue, day saved, etcetera." Tony snorted. "Please. Loki was crazy, and clueless, and pretty inept. I've seen worse things spring out of my own lab after an all-nighter." There was a darkness behind the sarcasm in that last sentence, not unearned. Steve was pretty sure that Tony had. "It was the Council that nearly got us all fucked."

"So the last thing you remember was the... nuke? The portal?" Steve asked slowly, because the answer – they'd all stood around in the kitchen debating this one, and they hadn't known what it was that Tony had seen, where he'd started getting the impossible answers necessary to make the portals work, but Tony was right here and –

Stars. Of course; through the portal, into space. Anthony hadn't been speaking metaphorically of magic – except he'd said they weren't stars. And that it was something trying to claw a foothold...

"I'm pretty sure I've said that at least three times already, is your hearing going in your old age?" Tony asked irritably, and then he tapped at some keys and suddenly the workshop was filled with a screeching noise that might, with charity, be interpreted as death metal. It certainly wasn't music.

Tony was right here, and Steve still didn't know what he'd seen. But it had been something after the portal. During? Had it been the portal itself – which, after all, was made by the Cube? Or...

Well, you've got yourself to blame for not knowing, he thought bitterly, because Tony's mistrust of him wasn't misplaced: Steve had let Anthony take Tony's memory. For good or for ill.

And now he had to decide if he was going to try to intervene, or just stand by and watch, as Tony did his best to wipe Bruce off the map.

There was a chime that he barely heard over the screeching as ULTRON returned – if he'd gone anywhere at all. The din momentarily quieted, until at least Steve could hear himself think. "Ten minutes have passed," ULTRON announced, not without a hint of waspishness. "It is with regret that I can say that my forces from St. Louis are returning, without the lost armour, and with several more beyond repair. However, SHIELD forces in that location are certainly reduced."

"But Banner got away, and with a cloaking generator, right?" Tony ran his hands through his hair. "Great. Invisible Hulk, that's all we need."

"If you're not going to kill him," Steve forced the words to come out evenly, "then what are you planning to do?"

"Well, genius here wants to shoot him off on a spaceship into the sun," Tony waved a hand about in a way that might have looked cheerful, if not for the fact that it so obviously wasn't. "Which is a great plan, except for that tiny little problem of getting the Hulk onto a spaceship moving away from Earth, which, it turns out, is not so much 'little' as it is 'absolutely massive'. But, now we have an expert in wormhole physics on the scene – "

"An amnesiac expert."

" – and almost all of SHIELD's data on the subject, I am proposing that we let Bruce do exactly what he wants." Tony clapped his hands together. "Go to another world. Just... not one where he can harm anybody, or one he can get back from."

"An ideal solution, assuming that such a world can be found, that several revolutionary breakthroughs in physics make such a portal possible, and that – "

"Banner's already working on it anyway." Tony shrugged. "Which is the entire problem."

"It is a part of the problem, Mr. Stark. It remains to be determined whether whatever apparatus he may be using could be reprogrammed. I highly doubt he would be so foolish as to leave any remote access possible."

Tony tapped a finger against the arc reactor. "We have at least one invisibility generator. Slip in, reprogram, clap our hands and laugh when he turns it on."

"As slipping in and out went ever-so-much as planned before." That was... not the sarcasm that Steve was used to hearing from JARVIS; it was angrier, too bitter to let the words be said lightly.

"And before I was crazy. Now I'm just crazy awesome, so let's make this work."

...

A few hours later Steve did leave Tony alone, hoping to locate food and a washroom. Both, it seemed, were to be found only a little ways down the hall, which led past three other rooms that ULTRON identified as bedrooms, then two other doors – one of which was open far enough to reveal Pepper sitting inside, surrounded by screens of her own – before finally opening onto a kitchen area facing another of the massive steel doors like the ones at the entrance. The kitchen was spotless, and ridiculously large, with an even larger side room containing a massive store of food – more like a supermarket than a walk-in pantry.

From a security perspective – in terms of keeping radiation out – it didn't make sense to have more than the one door. Steve paused, considering the forbidding weight of it. Given the sheer scale of the tunnels they'd walked down, there was obviously more to this place than the few rooms here. He hadn't seen where the quinjets were housed, after all, or the majority of the armour – or even if there was anyone else living in here. But to put such massive doors between these areas and any others spoke of a massive amount of distrust.

It also seemed a really lonely way to live. He leaned in and knocked on the open door to Pepper's office. "I'm making coffee. Want some?"

She smiled at him, looking a bit distracted. "Sure, thanks. Little bit of milk, no sugar."

When he returned, he brought both mugs, coming far enough into the room to hand hers over before retreating to stare around at the room a bit more. It was... barren. There were no personal touches about it, no pictures, no obscure art – even the lab had the fish tank.

"Anything I can help you with, Captain?" Pepper asked politely, and Steve found himself wincing. His first thought had been to offer to help, but he'd already turned her down for that.

"I'm not reconsidering," he said. Better to get that clear from the outset. "But if there's something else I can help with, something under my own name... even if it's just cooking..."

"Well, god knows Stark won't," she sighed. "I've been dumping protein powder into his coffee."

If Tony was – as Anthony had claimed – immortal, then did he even need to eat anymore? Did he sleep? He could sleep – Steve had come across Tony asleep in the lab that once... but every time Steve had brought him sandwiches because he'd missed dinner (had he ever attended a dinner long enough to actually eat anything?), Tony would whine about crumbs and refuse to eat them while he was working. The plates came up empty later, so Steve had thought... but Tony never ate breakfast, either; his 'ew, solids' thing.

...He probably shouldn't speculate too much. He didn't know enough about the curse. They needed Anthony to get back – to reverse the portal difficulties, to help with the Hulk, and to explain what the heck was happening.

"Was there anything else you needed, Captain?" Pepper asked. There was something just a little bit fake about it – cheerfulness covering a genuine reserve. Startled, Steve looked at her a bit more narrowly, and saw the strain on her face – not quite so well-hidden as it would have been if she'd been wearing her usual amount of makeup. Well, the amount that the Pepper he was used to wore, anyway. This one... probably had to ration such things, after the nuclear apocalypse.

And, of course, only a few hours ago she'd gotten word that a friend had died – and now he was here, wearing that friend's face and yet refusing to be him.

He was a heel.

"No," he said, trying not to flush. "I'm sorry. I'll leave you alone."

Outside in the kitchen, as he fixed dinner – or a dinner-like meal, even if he no idea what time of day it was – he asked ULTRON, "Is there anybody else living in this place?"

"Not at the present time."

"Wow." Steve made a face as he dumped cans of vegetables into a pot on the stove. "Sounds lonely." Did Pepper ever get out and see actual people? She didn't seem like a prisoner here, but...

"As I am present in communications systems world-wide, I am hardly subject to loneliness." ULTRON sounded bemused at the suggestion. "Ms. Potts and... Captain Rogers frequently travel. The majority of this installation is factory space –a factory being built slowly, but by entirely non-human labour, thus preventing SHIELD's attempts at sabotage, which have plagued other efforts." Irritation slipped in; by the end, ULTRON sounded just downright annoyed.

"A factory?"

"Order is difficult to maintain without enforcement. Although Captain Rogers had a great deal of success in dealing with local leaders, the world has nonetheless grown darker. Trust is a precious commodity. Assassination attempts against both Ms. Potts and Captain Rogers have become quite common."

So. A weapons factory – or an Iron Man factory, maybe. But they amounted to much the same thing, if ULTRON was controlling the suits remotely. He wondered if Tony knew about this – or if Tony would care. True, he'd stopped making weapons for other people, but Steve knew that he loved and trusted JARVIS like a son. Maybe he saw it as the same thing as being Iron Man.

But Steve had a bad feeling about it. When the people doing the distrusting were the ones with all the weapons...

...that was how zombies happened.

While the pot simmered, Steve reached into a belt pocket – there were way too many pockets on this belt; it was a bit ridiculous, almost as much so as the scale mail – and pulled out the chunk of U's arm. Paranoia gone crazy – maybe, in the world where that other Tony had come from, it had been different; and maybe that world had been nuked by an evil AI. But he'd still blown DUM-E and U to pieces without the slightest hesitation, when those two had not been threats. Tony could have climbed over the table and effectively prevented them from getting to him or harming him in any way. JARVIS – maybe, Steve could maybe see how if he thought JARVIS was a threat, acting that fast could be justified – from a man who was confused, off-balance, didn't know he wasn't in the same world –

Steve smoothed his thumb over a smudge on the metal. DUM-E and U had not been threats.

He'd told Tony about the Skynet Protocol, earlier. He hadn't told him what had happened to the backup of JARVIS, or to his other robots. It had seemed – cruel. And possibly pointless; surely, surely Tony had to have further backups. He couldn't have fried everything in one go.

And there weren't backups... Steve didn't want to know for sure, just yet. But wanting was just like wishing: it never got anywhere without a plan. Steve set his jaw and tucked the bit of U back into his pocket. Dinner was almost done.

Time to find out.


So.

Him and Pepper.

Pepper. And him.

Separate.

God, he wanted a drink. He wanted to get blackout drunk and pretend none of this was happening. He wanted to wake up, and she would be there, and they'd kiss – and New York wouldn't have been flattened by aliens, and he wouldn't have these memories floating around inside his skull, making him feel like nothing more than a puppet.

Instead, he dove into the data: both that on the screen, and the stuff he could see when he closed his eyes. The question of what to do about Banner – the question of whether ULTRON was on the level (a red-haired woman – Natalie, Natasha, whatever she was going by in this world – tangled his legs with her own, and he fell; the world rolled over and went sideways) – were secondary concerns. Until the portal tech was figured out, they weren't going to be able to go anywhere, unless he wanted to rely on Alternatony coming back and taking them home.

Yeah. Because he was such a dependable guy.

Home.

Where there would be no Pepper. Because since four months ago – two months? He couldn't pin it down –

("In the last five weeks we've spent no more than three minutes at a time with each other."

"What? We're talking right now."

"Tony. Nothing's been the same since New York."

"I know. I'm sorry. I've been busy – but this is really, really important, Pep – "

"You need to talk to somebody about this."

"I need to finish this. I'm sorry. This is – it's really important. What was out there... this is probably over your security clearance."

"You're worrying about my clearance? You? Tony, what – "

Beeping; his field of view was fixed on the computer screen in front of him. Test complete, a window in the lower left corner read.

"Sorry, I gotta go. We'll talk tonight – "

...

Later, another memory: "This isn't working.")

- she'd moved out.

He was such an idiot.

"Hungry?" A bowl of something that smelled vaguely tomato-y was suddenly between Tony's face and the computer screen, and he startled backward before relaxing enough to reach up and take it. Rogers was leaning on the edge of the desk, with a familiarity that made Tony's skin itch; he wished the man would just go away.

"Not really." Tony set the bowl to one side – the way Rogers had his arms folded across his chest made it pretty clear that getting into a 'no-you-take-it' match with him would be a worthless pursuit. It was true, though – he wasn't hungry. After all, it had only been – he stole a glance at the clock and his eyes widened.

Seven hours, forty one minutes. Well. Huh.

When was the last time he'd eaten?

"So that's, uh, magic for you," Tony said after a moment's pause. He should have been stiff from sitting in a chair so long with no breaks to stretch; his eyes should have felt tired – but instead he felt like he'd just sat down. That was... pretty cool, actually. No more nights of insomnia – or, well, a whole lot of nights of insomnia, but without any of the drawbacks. His alternate self had called it a curse – and to be fair, he could imagine that in twenty thousand years it would be – but in the meantime... it had its advantages.

"I guess I wasn't really doing you any favours with those sandwiches," Rogers said. He looked almost – embarrassed? For what?

("You should really get out of here more."

"Ah, but then I wouldn't have Captain America bringing me – is this supposed to be a BLT? You don't put cheese on a BLT, Steve.")

How on Earth had they been friends? Sure, they'd worked together on the Helicarrier, and in New York, before the nuke sent everything pear-shaped. But they were so different – and for all that Tony had, at first, wanted to impress him, wanted to be his friend out of some misplaced sense of childish wonder – they were polar opposites. And for all that their fight might have been partly due to Loki's spear... Rogers hadn't been wrong.

("He saved my life – god knows how many times. Got himself killed the last time. I still don't know – he was a better man. How am I supposed to live up to someone like that? It's impossible."

"You do six impossible things before breakfast... I thought once – I thought once that I was done. That I'd fulfilled expectations. But it's not about that. You have to keep on going, doing the right thing – and maybe you fail. But it's the attempt that matters. And you're a good man, Tony.")

How?

"I wanted to apologize," Rogers said. The muscles in his arms flexed with nervous tension – visible even through the scale mail, wherever he'd picked that up. "Properly."

He really did have very blue eyes, Tony thought. It was sort of hard to look away when Captain America, Steve Rogers, was in front of you and looking that earnest.

"I should've asked him what he was planning. I... let him wipe your memory, but I didn't know that was what he was gonna do," he confessed. "I'm sorry. I was scared. You'd been..." his voice was growing steadily quieter. "You'd been dead. When he said that you were – when he said he could fix it, I didn't... I just wanted you to be okay."

There was silence.

He should probably say something, Tony realized. But god, this was why he hated apologies – insincere ones were worthless, and the sincere ones – he had no idea what to do with them. Not that he was often in the position of receiving them, since, well, most of the time it was him fucking up – that was the status quo. But here was Captain America.

Apologizing to him.

For being a dick.

"Yeah, well, curse, curses, I'm probably fine," he shrugged, the words coming out a bit too rapidly. He wanted to dive back into the data. He wanted to be – not here, not listening to this. "So, um, y'know. Apology accepted. No hard feelings." Except for what there were – but if he was going to be blaming somebody, Tony supposed it might as well be his alternate self, the guy who had actually memory-wiped him. And even if a part of him still resented Rogers...

Tony did not go around kicking puppies.

Rogers smiled, a bit hesitantly, but one hundred percent genuine – and Tony tried to resent him, for being able to be that real, but it was a losing prospect, even before Rogers wandered over to flop down on the couch by the fish tank. The sight of him by it triggered more memories – a lot more. Though still not nearly as many memories as Tony had of screens and data – fuck, had he been living in the lab for the past six months?

He needed to figure out what he'd been doing all that time... what the hell had been more important than Pepper...

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Rogers taking a deep breath, like he was working himself up to saying something important, and a feeling of revulsion welled up from his stomach. He didn't want to hear it. Didn't want to hear justification or apologies – it was done.

"So what were you always drawing?" Tony asked casually as he went back to parsing through the data, pre-empting Rogers. Some of these files, a lot of them, really, were familiar: Foster's work.

Rogers – Steve, he supposed, if they were supposed to be friends – sounded embarrassed as he answered. "Oh, well... um, at first it was just things from memory. Then a lot of your robots. I think I filled an entire notebook with DUM-E and U. I tried the screens, but I never could get the colours right."

("You pay them any more attention, they're gonna wind up spoiled," Tony's voice said. In front of him was a program – it didn't make any sense; the calculations didn't... because it wasn't any type of conventional computing. Because what they were computing was – for calculating nine-dimensional travel in eleven-dimensional space. His field of vision moved to another screen –energy requirements?)

"What, no French portraits of little ol' me?" It didn't come out as snarky as he'd intended – the pieces of the schematic before him reminded him of others, things to take context cues from...

The sound of Steve's voice answering him was oddly calming... almost meditative. Numbers, diagrams, data – it was all there in his head, he just had to get it out...

At some point, he became aware that Steve's tone had changed, growing more serious, but by then the words were unimportant; his voice had faded so far into the background that it was unintelligible. The physics grew brighter and larger, impossibilities becoming improbabilities, and Tony was lost to everything else.