The second Steve and Tony were outside the plane, Iron Man's HUD began lighting up with warnings about the weather, specifically the temperature and the incoming storm. Tony knew the suit could sustain much cooler weather but the bundle in his arms could not, so he cranked up the heat in the armor, knowing it would bleed into the metal holding onto Steve.
"Sir," JARVIS said through the internal speakers, "maintaining this temperature will put significant strain on the arc reactor."
"I know, J." Tony could see the charge dropping as they spoke. But he didn't have a choice. Without those actions, Steve would freeze to death before they could be rescued.
"It is ill-advised to keep this up for more than fifty-two minutes."
"Duly noted." When all this was said and done, Tony really needed to revisit making the heating system more sustainable, especially if Fury had plans to keep sending the Avengers to this part of the world. "Mute and direct saved power to the thrusters."
As instructed, JARVIS fell silent and increased their speed by 2.5%.
Before they'd jumped out of the plane, Tony had had JARVIS scan for the nearest town. Unfortunately, Mayfield was a fair distance away, even while flying; worse, it was their only option unless someone pulled off a rather spectacular rescue. The strength of the emergency beacon wasn't great in the howling wind but Tony could see on the HUD that JARVIS had managed to reach both the Avengers and SHIELD by bouncing the signal off the quinjet before it had crashed, as predicted, in an empty field. The AI had yet to receive any response but Tony was hopeful at least someone was on the way.
He was pulled from his thoughts by a thunk against the front of his armor. "Whazza plan?" Steve shouted through chattering teeth.
"Get to the nearest town."
Steve's reply was lost in the roar of the wind. He must have realized it too, for he tilted his head out of the burrow he'd made between his arm and Tony's suit and yelled, "Far?"
While Tony consulted the HUD again, JARVIS spoke up. "Sir, my calculations reveal you will not be able to reach Mayfield by the time Captain Rogers' temperature becomes unsustainable for life."
"I don't have another option!" Tony all but shouted. If he survived this, he was going to kill Fury. Or not. That might be too quick an end to the punishment he, but more importantly Steve, was enduring. "We should fly as far as we can. Put us in reach of the town."
"Sir, the weather is getting worse," JARVIS said. "Continued flight is inadvisable."
And the hits just kept coming.
"I don't have a choice, JARVIS," Tony snapped. "We have to get to that town." His mind raced to calculate what he could turn down to power the thrusters and get them to town faster. Unfortunately, every option he came up with ended up with Steve dead, since the most power-consuming element of the suit was currently the heater.
"You will both fair better from mild hypothermia than a lightning strike."
Tony paused. "That bad, huh?"
"Unfortunately."
"I don't suppose you'll tell Steve?"
JARVIS was pointedly silent.
Groaning, Tony flipped open the outside channel and reported the news. Steve, predictably, wasn't thrilled but he seemed to understand that this was their only option. He held out a shaky-thumbs up then tucked his head back under his arm while Tony prepped for landing.
Once they were safely on the ground, Steve climbed out of Tony's grip and winced once as his boots slid into shin-height snow. "Direction?" he asked, teeth chattering even under the massive amounts of blankets he was wrapped in.
"Northwest, 75 miles. We'll head that way, stop only—What are you doing?"
Steve looked up from where he was snapping a branch off a tree. "Building... sh-shelter."
"That's insane! We should head toward the next town and find some sort of cave to hide in on the way." It would be a thousand times better than whatever Steve was going to cobble together from snow-covered branches.
"Too f-f-far," Steve stuttered as he began pushing loose snow into a pile with his branch. "Gotta build one... n-n-now."
Tony stepped in front of Steve, keeping him from making another sweep. "We have to go now. We're running out of time."
"Don' you think… I k-k-know that?" Steve snapped, his eyes flashing with anger, and maybe a bit of frustration. "I've been t-t-trained for this. Building shelter and g-g-getting a fire started is how we s-s-survive this s-s-snowstorm." His stuttering was getting worse with each passing second, only reinforcing Tony's thought that they get back in the air and fly for as long as they could.
"That is exactly the opposite of what we need to be doing."
Steve stopped working and turned so he was looking Tony straight in his eyes. His gaze was strong and steady, despite the way the rest of him was shaking. "'rust me?"
Tony did, but it was hard to get on board with Steve's plan when staying in the snow went against every single instinct he had. But Steve was certain this was the right path, and if he, the man who had been basically frozen for seventy years, was willing to stay on the ground, in the snow, instead of taking their chances in the air, it must have really been their only option.
Steve must have taken Tony's silence as an agreement since he held out his branch. "Then s-s-start d-d-digging."
In an attempt to conserve power to the suit, Tony turned off all non-essential functions like the clock and the power joints. However, the time spent keeping Steve warm had significantly drained the suit's reactor. There was barely 50% charge left, and even with the insulating material in the suit, Tony was displeased to realize he still had to run said heater on its lowest setting to keep his limbs moving. As with everything else they'd faced today, he had no choice but to watch the arc's charge tick down while he and Steve worked.
The lack of a clock meant he had no idea how long they dug in the snow before they had created the saddest igloo Tony had ever seen. It was woefully uneven and leaned heavily to the right, but the way Steve's expression brightened as they poked a small hole in the top and covered it with a piece of bark to keep the snow out was almost enough to validate that this had been the correct choice.
Tony had woven in some branches into the supporting structure, which had given them a precious few more inches of height, and meant the two could sit almost completely upright.
"Where are you going?" he asked Steve, who had turned his back to the shelter and was heading back toward the trees.
"Fire...w-w-wood."
"Let the man in the suit get it," Tony said. Even with his rapidly draining reactor, he was still far more mobile than Steve and his spangly outfit. "You get into the igloo."
Thankfully, Steve didn't resist. By the time Tony returned with a large armful of frozen kindling, Steve had spread two of his blankets across the snowy floor and was huddled into a physics-defying-ly small ball.
"Make some room for the fire," Tony said, dropping the kindling then heading back out in the snow to search for some rocks. If possible, they'd both serve as a fire ring and reflect the heat. Unfortunately, the snow was too hard to break with the stick, so he had to use one of his gauntlets to melt enough snow from the base of a tree to get down to the dirt. That maneuver cost him 5% of the arc's remaining charge but had gained him a large armful of rocks, which he was able to break free by hand.
He quickly walked back to the igloo and dropped the rocks just inside the entryway. While Tony maneuvered the suit through the small opening, Steve arranged the rocks in the space he'd cleared in the middle of the igloo, then piled the frozen kindling inside the ring. Once Tony had sat on the other blanket Steve had parted with, he ran the gauntlet on low to dry out the kindling. A fire crackled to life not long after.
As the first wave of heat washed over them, the grin on Steve's face almost rivaled the glow from the flames. He immediately stuck his gloves over the fire and slouched back in relief. "How much power... d-d-do you have left?" he asked after a minute.
"39%."
"Still sending up our c-coordinates?"
"Every ten seconds."
"Make't fifteen," Steve said, leaning his head over his half of the fire to warm his face.
Fifteen seconds seemed far too long for Tony's taste, but he recognized the logic in Steve's words and settled on pushing the signal every twelve seconds instead.
They sat in silence for a long while, warming themselves up. Then Steve sat back and began upturning the blankets and jackets wrapped around him and opening the snaps on his belt.
"We have…" he paused to inventory their supplies. "First aid kit... bandages, four... Hot Hand packs, eight protein bars, two... bags of jerky—"
"—and a partridge in a pear tree."
The look Steve shot him was downright deadly.
"—and Bruce's sludge." Designed for recovering from one of his transformations, the sludge was high in protein but not particularly tasty. "Water's'not an issue," Steve continued as he waved to their surroundings. "Melt it firs'. Avoid dehydration."
"Melting and drinking lots of water. Got it. Now about you," Tony said. "How are you doing?"
Steve glared at him again.
"Hey, if you can ask about the power in my suit, I get to ask about you."
"Be better... once we get outta 'ere," was all Steve said. It was a deflection but it was as good as Tony could have hoped for in the circumstances.
Little did he know, things were going to take a turn for the worse.
Sometime later, maybe about a half an hour, Tony couldn't help noticing that Steve was still shivering. The fire they built was by no means roaring, since they didn't want to melt the igloo, but it was putting out a decent amount of warmth. He had even been able to turn off the heater in his suit, which meant Steve should have warmed up too.
"You're still shivering," he stated, opting for the direct approach.
"What... of it?"
"You should have stopped by now." Tony popped open his gauntlet then reached over the fire and felt Steve's forehead. The supersoldier tried to pull back, but his reaction time was slow, and Tony was able to fully lay his hand on Steve's head long enough to feel his cool, clammy skin. "You're freezing."
He grabbed Steve's shoulder and pushed him as close to the fire ring as he dared. "What's wrong?"
"Suit's still w-wet," Steve said softly.
"Wet?" Tony blinked. "WET?"
Steve nodded, then bit down hard on his bottom lip as a particularly harsh shiver racked his body.
"You mean your suit isn't waterproof?!"
"Doesn't... seem to be."
"Jesus Christ, Steve. Does your suit do anything useful?"
"Looks... d-damn fine."
Thinking he was serious, Tony was about to ream out Steve, but then he saw the corners of supersoldier's mouth lift. As well-intentioned as the smile was, however, it did little to diminish the gravity of this situation. They had enough supplies to sustain them for the near future but they both had a very real chance of dying if the storm didn't let up or they weren't rescued.
As much as Tony wanted to fix Steve's useless suit right now, he couldn't allow himself the cycles. There was nothing he could do in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness, except deal with the symptoms.
Tony crawled over to where Steve was sitting and stuck his arm under the mound of blankets so it rested on Steve's damp suit. He then pulled the supersoldier in close and JARVIS, without being asked, immediately turned on the heater, focusing the energy on the side of Tony resting against Steve.
"Can't," Steve stuttered as he tried to pull away, but Tony just gripped Steve's far shoulder and held him firmly in place.
"The arc—" he tried again.
"—will be fine. But one half-frozen supersoldier might not be unless he warms up."
"Tony," Steve ground out in what was obviously an attempt to be commanding. This words lost some of their severity, however, when his teeth began chattering anew.
"Just shut up and accept my help, Steve," Tony snapped as he shifted so more of Steve's suit was in contact with the metal armor.
For a moment, Steve was silent, but then he nodded. "If the arc g-g-gets to 20... you stop," he said. Then, with a remarkable show of coordination, he slipped out of Tony's grip. "Or no deal."
"I could just knock you out instead and run the heater at full power, dooming us both," Tony countered. "The choice is yours."
Steve looked over his shoulder and scowled but Tony held firm. A moment later, Steve slipped back under Tony's arm. "Beneath you," he grumbled, causing Tony to huff out a laugh.
"You can sue me later."
Steve rolled his eyes, then shifted a little closer to the warm armor.
"Hey, Tony?" he asked a beat later.
"Yeah, Steve?"
"When we get back... could you take a look at my suit? It really sucks."
Caught off-guard by Steve's directness, Tony actually laughed. "Sure, Steve," he said as he pulled his friend closer. "No problem."
Despite all of SHIELD's resources, the Avengers couldn't find someone in the proper channels to take them to Tony's emergency beacon. When Clint and Natasha were about to hijack a plane and go themselves, Fury informed them he'd called in a favor with a guy in Bottineau who had the skill and right level of insanity to go out in the storm. Steve and Tony were rescued around six hours after the quinjet had first crashed and were immediately taken to the closest hospital. According to the pilot's report, he'd arrived just in the nick of time: the suit was down to 21% and Steve's lips were taking on a decidedly blue color.
Much to Tony's chagrin, the doctors confirmed that Steve's quick actions had in fact saved their lives. Tony replied by saying that the team really needed better outdoors training, just in case weird stuff like this ever happened again. He'd only half-meant it but he could see by Steve's expression that the supersoldier was seriously considering it.
They were instructed to stay the night for observation, which had the dual effect of allowing them to wait out the storm. Hooked up to a warm saline IV, Tony called Pepper to tell her he was well and truly fine, then he and Steve video-chatted Clint and Natasha, who had made it to the North Dakota border but had been unable to cross.
"It might be easier to lock you both in the Tower," Natasha said, after expressing her relief that the two were truly okay.
"Does that make Tony or Steve Rapunzel?" Clint quipped with a wicked grin. That expression flashed through Natasha's eyes as well, and a moment later, Clint yelped as Natasha's hand connected with the crown of his head. She muttered something in Russian that neither Steve nor Tony understood while Clint rubbed the top of his head with a scowl.
"When will you be back?" Natasha asked, turning back to face Steve and Tony.
"Tomorrow," Tony replied. SHIELD was supposedly sending a plane from Chicago for them, but Tony had already looked into buying out a local plane and a pilot if bureaucracy got the better of Fury's plan.
Natasha smiled, then looked over her shoulder and nodded at someone unseen. "We have to go," she said to the webcam. "Be safe. We'll see you Sunday."
"Al-ways," Tony said, which was seconded by Steve.
As he hung up the phone, Tony looked over at his temporary roommate, who had regained some of his color, but was still shivering sporadically. While rolling his eyes, Tony punched the call button on his bed, and dark-haired nurse named Belinda stepped in not too long after.
"We're fine," Tony was quick to say, "but he's freezing." To prove his point, he motioned at Steve, who was visibly trying to keep from shaking. "Can he get some more blankets? Like a mountain of them? Cost is no object."
As Steve protested weakly, Belinda nodded. "Right away, Mr. Stark."
"Tony—"
"Perks of being rich," Tony said, waving his hand dismissively. "Now about your suit. Something warmer for sure, but breathable for the summer missions. Maybe some well-placed, reinforced mesh? I'm not used to non-metal materials so that might be way off base."
He heard Steve chuckle and looked over to see the supersoldier smiling. "I'm sure you'll figure it out. I t-t-trust you."
After all he and Steve had been through the last year, the words shouldn't have caught Tony as off-guard as they did. However, he was still stunned by the casual but honest way Steve had said them, and it took him a beat before he could make his mouth work again.
By that time, Belinda had returned with a truly impressive number of blankets, which she was currently piling on Steve. Given that Steve was going to be distracted for the near future, Tony just pulled out his phone and started sketching out the basics of Steve's new suit.
And that's how Tony Stark came to design suits for the Avengers (per his comment in Age of Ultron that he designs and pays for everything.)
Up next: After his run-in with the Mandarin, Tony decides to get the arc reactor removed. Happy calls in Steve for additional protection while his boss is recovering.
Thanks for reading! I'd love to know what you thought!
