Steve swam back towards consciousness slowly. Then very quickly as he registered the pounding mass in his skull and the familiar burn of shrapnel in his skin. He inhaled, and amid the asbestos and the blood and the pulverized cement he smelled a sweet heavenly perfume, like vanilla and jasmine and the summer of nineteen thirty eight. Shifting his weight he was greeted by the soft brush of feathers against his cheek. He was pressed close to a warm body, soft under shifting scale mail, there was long hair in his mouth.
"Sir Steven?" Swan asked, her breath was warm on the Captain's cheek. He felt cool fingers touch his neck. "You coming back?"
Steve made a noise which was not words; he tried to move and discovered that his legs were immobilized.
"Don't." a hand held him firmly at the hip. "They're broken."
"Shit." He slumped into Swan's arms, breathing heavily against her shoulder.
"I used a numbing spell; you're very resilient, for a human." Steve smiled in the darkness, usually analgesics had little to no effect on him, but whatever swan had done made him feel like he was floating on a cloud of ice.
"Thank you." He finally willed his eyes open and was greeted with pitch darkness. "What happened?"
"Aftershock." Swan moved slightly and Steve felt her chest brush his right hand which was pinned between them. Little rocks cascaded down from the gap in her sheltering wings.
"How much room is there?" Steve moved one hand and immediately touched soft feathers.
"Not much," he reached up and felt rubble shift on the far side of the wall of stiff pinions which arched over his back. Swan jerked in pain, pulling air through her teeth inches from Steve's ear.
"Don't," she caught his hand, "don't do that."
"How much weight are you holding up?"
"Not too much." She rested her head back into the sharp, shifting gravel. A support beam had fallen above them, creating an open space barely large enough for the two of them pressed close together. "Don't worry," she sounded oddly cheerful, "This won't kill me, and as for you, you'll suffocate before you're crushed."
"How comforting," he blinked but his eyes only registered darkness, "How long was I out?"
"Five minutes," she said, "You took a pretty hard blow to the head." Steve touched his skull to verify her diagnosis, his fingers came away wet.
"shit." He breathed, rubbing sticky fluid between his fingers.
There was a moment of silence, broken only by the sound of breathing. He was inappropriately well aware of the warmth of the Valkyrie's body. Filthy and bloodied and alien as she was. Her soft, narrow thigh pressed against his groin and he was glad of the concussion and the healing magic which left him drained of any energy his body might have allocated elsewhere.
"Call Tony…" he mumbled into the bed of soft feathers, "is my radio intact?"
"I already tried," she choked on dust, "Too much interference."
Steve struggled to pull a hand free and reached for the radio on his collar. The green light seemed blinding to their dilated eyes and for a moment his vision was filled with the claustrophobic cocoon of gleaming armor and white wings and the woman's face, she had a cut on her lip and the beginnings of a black eye, she looked old and tired and like a battered veteran of a thousand wars.
But the radio broadcast nothing but static.
"Shit." He said for the second time.
Darkness closed once more.
There was a long silence and Steve could feel the softness of the feathers and the weight of the healing magic and the scent of woman and stardust pull him down into a drowsy stupor.
"Sir Steven!" Swan was shaking him, "Stay awake."
"Captain," He corrected her, "-s Captain Steve." He breathed slowly, "We don't have, 'sirs'… in America."
"Is that the name of this realm?" she asked, fishing for something which would keep him alert.
"mmm."
"Tell me about it."
"It's the best."
"Were you born here?" an inane path of conversation, but swan wanted to keep things simple, Steve, however, deflected.
"What's your name, Asgardian."
"I'm Swan," she said and he could hear the smile in her voice, "And it seems I am pathologically driven to rescue human warriors."
Steve smiled at her classification in the darkness.
"That's a strange name." Perhaps he would have been less blunt had it not been for the head injury.
Swan laughed and her chest brushed against the captain's. "I think 'Steven' is a strange name."
The captain smiled in the darkness.
"Thank you,"
"Hm?"
"You saved my life."
"Humans are very fragile." He felt her hand on his thigh, touching the throbbing, warm swell at his kneecap.
The light from the radio made them both flinch as it flashed to life.
"Rogers' ca… …hear me?"
The captain groped for the radio. "Stark, is that you?"
"It's good to hear your voice Cap." Tony must have adjusted something because his voice came through bright and clear. Steve saw swan grin in the dim light.
"I'm with Swan, any idea how deep we are."
"You've got a skyscraper on top of you."
"I noticed."
"It's going to be a few hours, just hang tight."
Steve frowned at the Valkyrie, her lips were pressed together in an expression of worry.
"Tony…"
"Yeah, cap?"
"I don't think we have a few hours worth of air."
"Just sit tight, you didn't have much air under three feet of ice either." Steve cringed, swan looked intrigued.
"We must have fallen to the bottom of the elevator shaft, Swan caught me."
"Well… Odin bless the space Vikings, right?" he said with more than a hint of sarcasm. Steve let his head drop back in relief.
They lay together in silence, using up their oxygen one lungful at a time. Swan noticed the captain's breathing start to slow.
"Three feet of ice?" she asked.
"mmph."
"You are resilient." She said, "for a human."
The Captain laughed as the radio went dark again.
"I'm not a normal human."
"No," he heard the sound of feathers rubbing against one another.
"Think we could dig our way out?"
"Not with your legs."
"Right." Steve cringed; he had forgotten his injury under the soft buzz of magic against his skin.
They fell silent for a few moments, swan cringed, the weight on her wing was agonizing but she did not want the human to know, "Your heraldry, does it represent your realm, or your lineage?"
"What?"
"Your heraldry, on the shield?"
"Oh…"
"It's very nice."
"The shield!" he opened his eyes which he had not been aware of closing in the darkness.
"It's underneath me, stuck fast."
Steve groaned, hoping vaguely that this new piece of information would aid in their escape, but it did not.
"Shit," Tony's voice came through the radio, "Something's happening at the tower, hang tight Cap."
"Stark? what's going on?"
But there was silence from the other end of the radio.
"Tony."
"Steve!" a tremor had fallen over Iron man's voice.
"What's wrong?"
"something's wrong with the sui…"
He was cut off abruptly with a cry of discomfort.
"Tony?"
Silence.
"Stark, can you hear me?"
More silence, stretching out like a damning finger in the darkness.
But then the radio crackled and a stranger's voice, smooth as silver and filled with delight.
"Oh Mister Stark," said the intruder over the radio, "you would do well to appreciate the value of a really vicious lie."
OOOh, did i just pull a Moffat?
hehehe, REVIEW, PEASANTS!