Guest: Thanks for the review! I'm glad you're liking this so far. And no, having Eowyn in the character list is not a typo, but I can't explain why without spoiling the entire rest of this. I have plans, though!
Friends, Wakandans, Countrymen,
This is Clint. If you couldn't tell. It's time to get this plan in gear.
When the email got to her, Natasha was sitting in her room, trying to get a hold of Fury or Hill. She'd seen the headlines coming in: discord in the wake of Shuri's UN meeting, riots in Times Square, the stirrings of military coups in the Middle East. The world was tenuous, about to snap like a rubber band.
One wrong move from anyone, superhuman or not, and society would fold like a house of cards.
At first, she'd hoped that she'd be able to get a hold of someone on the outside. She hated inaction; sure, they were doing things in Wakanda, but burying their noses in books while the world burned felt ridiculous. But now, she had no choice but to open the email. There was nothing from Fury or Hill to distract her; all of their former eyes on the inside were unresponsive.
Hopefully, everyone who needed to get this email has it. Only exception I know of is Rocket, since his tablet is currently part of a space walkie-talkie sitting in Shuri's lab. And last I checked, Bruce and Thor are off-planet right now.
Natasha knew Thor and Bruce were gone. She had seen them pass by her room, practically arm in arm, Bruce prattling in Thor's ear about things that she could not begin to understand; she had watched them through the crack between the door and the jamb, reluctantly curious. A bit suspicious.
She could not pretend anymore that she and Bruce had a chance. They had both changed too much. The world had changed. And even now, she was ashamed of herself for how she had treated him - a gun to unload, an animal to cage. That wasn't love. That could never be love. With the Hulk, it was a means to an end; with Bruce, it was a passing infatuation that she'd taken too far, in a horrendous moment of self-pity and misguided empathy. Lord knew why Bruce went along with it. What a disaster.
Don't worry about getting them in the loop, though - they'll see this when they get back.
So she'd watched Thor and Bruce walk down the hallway, and let her door close. Another door closed, too, that she hadn't realized was left open for three whole years. Though in the end she couldn't help herself, and crossed the room to watch the duo walk into the courtyard about ten minutes later. Bruce was decked out in a Wakandan hazmat suit, which Thor had seemed to be teasing him about. It was odd seeing him without hair.
Thor lifted Stormbreaker, and the Bifrost punched down from the sky to consume them - arcing, crackling, a line of shackled lightning instead of the smooth, elegant lines of the old Bifrost. Perhaps it had something to do with Thor himself, with the power flowing unfettered through his body.
The light of the Bifrost had vanished.
Then she'd gotten the email from Clint, and hadn't realized until then that she'd been staring blankly out the window for nearly three hours.
Okay, here's the plan.
Tonight, at 6:00 p.m., Steve read, we meet in the theater downstairs. He hadn't known that the palace had a theater - but then, this was Wakanda. If the rumors were correct, they had a cure for cancer lying around in one of their labs; of course they had a movie theater.
The comb slid through his slick hair. Steve grimaced at himself in the mirror, at the limp greasiness of his hair and the grime still clinging to his skin, and put the comb down.
Directions: from the main atrium, take the stairs going down on the left. Or take the north elevator to the basement and turn right. Follow the smell of popcorn and Wakandan junk food. We're going all-out on this.
He still found it odd, how smoothly Clint stepped up to take charge. A confidence had surged through him that Steve had rarely seen. In their time in the field, Clint blended into the background, filled the gaps. He was a follower. He didn't take charge. The one time he'd actually taken charge on a mission, in Buenos Aires, he'd saved all their lives. (They'd gotten in trouble with every mob in the area, and Clint had broken his jaw, but they'd come out alive.)
It was always a last resort; Clint preferred to take a backseat and let Steve or Tony do the driving. It hurt Steve to see Clint doing this - because that should have been him making plans, trying to fix everything, being the hero. Not Clint. He'd lost his children, for fuck's sake. If anyone deserved to take a break, it was him.
But try as he might, Steve couldn't find it in himself to step up again. He didn't know anything about this magic ring; he barely understood what the Infinity Stones were about. The world sunk its teeth into his soul and thrashed him around like a chew toy. First with Bucky, crumbling to ash in front of him; then Sam dying alone in the bushes, which they'd only found out when they looked at the security footage in the forest. He'd come undone that night, huddled on the floor of his kitchen with his knees up to his chest and his head in his hands, mouth open in a silent scream of despair.
There wasn't even any ash of Sam to retrieve. The thunderstorm the night after Thanos's snap had washed it all away.
And then he was jerked in the other direction when the Ring was found. His soul practically had whiplash by now. There was hope, maybe. A faint sliver of possibility that it could all be alright - but he understood none of it. It was all new, strange and alien, and he couldn't bring himself to understand it.
But sometimes… Sometimes it felt like the Ring understood him all too well.
Steve made a face and turned off the tablet. He needed a shower.
"Yes - yes, I know, sir," said James Rhodes. "I regret not being able to be there, but -"
"I think extenuating circumstances qualify as an excuse," said James. "Wakanda had the resources we needed, and considering what we were up against, I had to let the Rogues come with. It was our best option. Our only option. Sir."
"No, sir," said James. "It was worse than we thought."
"If everyone who was actually qualified to deal with this hadn't been yanked off the planet, sir, then it might have gone differently," said James.
"Oh," said James.
"You will?" said James. "That's… very generous of you, sir, thank you. Thank you very much."
The door swung open, and he glanced over his shoulder. Natasha leaned in, brandishing a tablet, and gestured at it while giving him a meaningful look. He nodded once and pointed at his phone. "Definitely, sir," said James, grimacing at Natasha. President, he mouthed.
She nodded and slipped out, closing the door behind her. James continued, pulling the Wakandan tablet towards him and turning it on, "I've… yeah, definitely. Off the record, sir, I've thought nearly the same thing about Ross. Never said it, though; not really right for polite conversation..."
The President kept talking. James skimmed the email that Clint had sent, half-listening and humming in agreement in all the right places. Clint had finally written up exactly what he wanted to do. It was nice that someone, at least, had an idea of what to do.
President Ellis asked a question. "No, not yet," said James. "There's a situation in Wakanda that I'm required to help with - no, sir, it's… classified by the Wakandan government. But once that's over I can come back to the States. What do you need me to do, sir?"
"You're going to what? " said James. "Oh, thank God. And who's going to take his place?"
" What!"
Seven minutes later, James Rhodes hung up on the President of the United States and put his head in his hands.
President Ellis had halted James' court martial and fired Thaddeus Ross.
And he'd nominated James to replace him as Secretary of State.
And, like a complete fucking idiot, James had said yes.
"Jesus fucking wept," he muttered, and put his head on the desk.
If there was anything that James Rhodes was good at, it was herding cats. He'd been friends with Tony for a couple of decades, after all, and wasn't an Air Force Colonel for nothing. But herding cats on a national scale? On an international one? Hell no. Hell fucking no. Pickings must be really slim if the President was going with him.
James rolled his head to one side and stared at the edge of his holographic tablet. It wasn't that he wasn't honored, or that he wasn't qualified, just… it was a lot. He just hoped that Ellis wouldn't try and use him to push the Accords anymore. That ship had sailed and wrecked. Even after Tony had pushed a bunch of amendments through the Accords Council, it was still the Secretary Ross show.
Fucking Ross. James was glad the President was doing something about the man. He was just becoming a national embarrassment at this point. James was still bitter about Ross going calling a press conference to talk shit about him and tell everyone about his court-martial. Not to be an ass, but he was kind of bitter that Ross hadn't been Dusted. James had just been trying to do the right thing, for fuck's sake. That was his main beef with the Accords these days. They were so terrible that they kept Earth's heroes divided when the world needed them most. He couldn't stand behind that. Not anymore.
He took a deep breath and nudged his phone away, picking up the tablet. Damn right, he was trying to do the right thing - and he'd keep on doing that as long as he could. Hopefully Clint's plan would help them do that. He kept reading where he'd left off.
After we watch the movie, we'll come back and read the first book in chunks, supplementing it with the appropriate scenes from the film. The book's kind of hard to parse on its own, so a visual aid will help. It shouldn't take terribly long. We're all reasonably smart individuals.
He scoffed.
And speaking of smart individuals...
"Hey, Nebs, listen to this," Kraglin called.
The Hammerhand's bridge rang silent. He and Nebula were the only ones on the ship anymore; the last four members of his crew had hopped on an escape pod and warped back to Ravager territory last night. They knew Kraglin planned on staying on Terra for a while, and didn't want any part in what he was doing.
Well. That was entirely fair. Stakar gave the orders to him, and him only. Being the protégé of the late Yondu Udonta counted for something, after all. And he didn't need the others getting underfoot.
Nebula didn't respond.
"Oi. Nebs. Nebby. Nebula."
Nebula was soldering something in her arm, and did not look up. "What," she said flatly.
Great, she wasn't going to stab him for the nicknames. That was a relief. After Ego, their paths had crossed an uncanny amount of times - enough times for them to consider each other allies, but not quite friends. Kraglin could call her if he needed her specific skillset for a job, and she could bunk on the Hammerhand if she needed to lie low while hunting Thanos. They - grudgingly - had each other's backs.
Still, the first time he'd called her Nebs, she'd nearly thrown him out the airlock of his own damn ship. But they'd moved past that now. Hopefully.
Anyway.
"Listen to this," he said, looking back down at the tablet the Wakandans had given him. "They finally remembered we existed."
"What do you mean?"
He read aloud,
"Everybody who's interested in working on the translation team for the Ancient One's annotations, hit me up tomorrow. I specifically want Kraglin, Nebula, Thor and Bruce on the team because of their language expertise, and Tony, Rocket and Queen Shuri for tech support. If anyone else is interested, let me know.
See you all at six. Bring food if you want.
Clint Barton."
Kraglin hummed thoughtfully and skimmed the email again. "So they want us to help 'em with translatin', after we do the crash course on Lord of the Rings," he mused. "Hm."
He was silent for a long, long while, thinking. Personally, he didn't give a shit about the propaganda - he wouldn't mind if everyone else did the grunt work and just gave him a short rundown at the end. The Sparknotes, Tony had called them. But the language part… that he could get in on. It'd be a good cover.
"You're planning something," Nebula said.
Kraglin blinked and glanced up. "C'mon, don't sound so surprised," he said, putting the tablet down on the control console. "I got standing orders from Stakar, ya know. I gotta figure out how to carry 'em out."
"What orders?"
Kraglin blinked at her and said nothing. Nebula glared and touched the soldering iron to a blank stretch of dashboard, making it spark and snap. "You have orders to do something on this planet. What are they," she said.
Her tone made it very clear that her soldering iron would be jammed into Kraglin's testicles on full power if she didn't get her way. They might've been allies, but they weren't afraid of fighting dirty.
"Why do you need to know?" Kraglin said.
Nebula leaned forward. "Because I can help," she said.
Kraglin shook his head. "No you can't. You're blue as sin - you'll stick out like a sore thumb as it is, where I'm goin' -"
"Ah," Nebula drawled, with a triumphant, self-satisfied smirk. Kraglin cursed and crossed his arms with a huff. "You're leaving Wakanda, then."
"Am not," he snapped.
Nebula shook her head. "Are too," she said. "You are an open book, Krag. What a shame; you'll have to disband your one-man Tony Stark fan club, won't you?"
His cheeks heated up. "Aw, shut up," he moaned, turning away. "Nebula, that's not - c'mon -"
"I could've seen your little guard dog act from Contraxia," the Luphomoid said, smirking. Kraglin didn't think she was capable of expressing anything other than rage or cold hatred, but she sure sounded pleased with Kraglin's discomfort. A sadist, that's what she was. A fucking sadist. "It's kind of cute, seeing you yapping at his heels -"
"Shut up, Nebs -"
"- driving off Steve Rogers with your arrow..."
"Nebs -"
"You're a grown-ass man with a crush -"
Okay, that was it. Kraglin stood up, his chair spinning slowly, and started to leave the bridge. "Get your shiny metal head out of the gutter," he barked over his shoulder. Nebula tutted at him. "Don't swing that way. 'Sides, asshole's old enough to be my father."
"More like your brother, maybe - he's almost fifty, same as you."
"He is? How'd you know?"
"I looked it up," Nebula said blandly.
"Yeah, good for you." He paused. "Wait - you callin' me old?"
"Yes."
"Fuck you."
Nebula gnashed her teeth. He'd be lying if he said that didn't scare him a little. Kraglin took a deep breath and added, "C'mon, Nebs - cut me some slack. You didn't hear him. He told me everything 'bout his life. You know that thing in his chest? The nanosuit? That thing's basically a self-sustaining miniaturized K'lanti reactor. He's walking around with a bomb powerful enough to level the Bank of the Shi'ar in his chest."
Nebula blinked.
"He wiped out the whole Chitauri army," Kraglin went on. "He kept a whole planet from being destroyed. He made a new fucking element in the basement of his goddamn mansion. Did all that while bein' used and abused by every fucker who saw his money and brains -"
"You're reading too much into what he told you," Nebula said warningly. "Both of you were drunk. I wouldn't give him that much credit, if I were you."
And hell, if that didn't make Kraglin mad. He sympathized with the poor fucker. "You fought with him on Titan, didn't you? You know what he's capable of. He's seen shit," Kraglin said, waving a finger at her. "Not as much as I have, but he's seen it. Ain't nobody deserves to get kicked around by the world like that, and… and if I can keep the world off his back a little longer, then damn it, I'll do it."
He'd known people who did that for him. Hell, he'd done that for Quill a handful of times - helped him out when he was just a squirt, taught him the ins and outs of wiring a ship and picking up girls, to distract him from the crushing reality of his new life as a Ravager. Until that falling-out on Contraxia, they'd been best of friends. Quill was the closest thing Kraglin had to a brother. And their relationship had just started getting better, too, before the Dusting.
Fuck Thanos. Fuck him with a goddamn white-hot fuel shaft extension.
When he stopped talking, Nebula just stared at him, her eyes beady and black. At last, she gave him a jerky nod. Kraglin felt briefly triumphant. Then she said, "So, where are you going?"
Kraglin groaned and slammed his head into his hands. " Stop it, Nebs," he said, turning away. "You're not in that loop. Leave it alone."
"No."
He heard her put down the soldering iron and stand up, and froze. She was ominously silent for a long while. He searched the reflective surfaces in front of him, so he could see if she was aiming any weapons at his back. At last, she said, "I have a right to know."
"No you don't," Kraglin said, without turning around.
"I do. If it's anything that might get you on Thanos's radar, then I need to know."
Kraglin scoffed. "Why? So if he comes running, you know when to get the hell off the planet? Turn tail and run?"
"No."
He turned, raising his eyebrows.
Nebula's eyes bored into his. "If you plan on calling attention back to Earth for any reason," she said, her mechanical voice harsh and grating, "I want to know. So I can wait for him. I can find him. And I can kill him."
Kraglin swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. In that moment, he was so, so glad that Nebula's rage wasn't directed at him. "Well, you're shit out of luck with me," he croaked. "I - I'm doing something really low profile, it won't even be a blip on his radar."
"How low profile?" Nebula said.
He grimaced, and looked away. "Hopefully low enough," he muttered. Enough to avoid Thanos? Absolutely. Enough to avoid the Wakandans? He really fucking hoped so. If what the Terrans had told him about Wakanda was true, this country was on par with the Sovereign when it came to technology. But if his tentative plan to look for Stakar's old friend was going to work…
Nebula raised an eyebrow. Kraglin looked back at her, took a deep breath, and sighed, "How much d'you know 'bout Phalanx coding?"
Her eyes glittered. "Enough," she said, which was a huge understatement. Kraglin had seen her spinal cybernetics once, and could tell they were modified Phalanx constructs. The hivemind species had everyone beat on nervous-system cybernetics. Nebula had to service them herself; of course she knew Phalanx tech, inside and out. "What would I have to do?"
Kraglin took a deep breath and told her.
The world is bathed in blue.
It is silent.
He spends an eternity on the shitty couch in his lab, an echo of an echo of a time gone by. There are faint scorch marks on the cushions, which flicker like a glitching hologram between leather and cloth and vinyl.
He presses his hand to the marks and looks up. Across the lab. Into the dim. He blinks slowly.
The endless night of the hall stretches before him, the suits lined on either side like sentinels. He watches the shadow for any signs of movement, and waits.
And waits.
When he finally woke, Tony could not say for sure what he'd been waiting for.
The buzzing of his tablet on the bedside table was what woke him - incessant and beyond obnoxious, like the drone of military helicopters overhead. Tony slowly sat up, hissing as his body protested. "Ooh," he muttered. "Ouch. God damn, that hurts." His joints were going off like fireworks. God, he hated getting old.
He skimmed the email he'd been sent. Clint was already putting his master plan in gear, to get them all caught up on Earth's version of the space propaganda. Personally, Tony thought it was kind of a waste of time, though Clint's reasoning was sound - they needed to know the backstory of what they'd found, and Thor wasn't exactly a gold mine of information. Fishing for scraps in the stories was better than flying blind.
Still. If it were him, Tony would be focusing on the Ancient One's annotations and translating them. She'd apparently spent centuries with the thing; if anyone knew anything about it, it was her. He skimmed the email - he got the gist of it, theater at six, bring food, capeesh caposh - and got to the bottom.
"Well, how about that," he said, squinting at the last paragraph. Clint wanted him for "tech support" on Shuri's translator. Hell. That'd be fun - if Shuri was coding it, and he was going to help, that'd probably mean that he'd have to learn Wakandan coding. Tony moaned audibly just thinking about it. God, that was going to be amazing. Thinking about Wakandan tech was like getting ambrosia shot straight into his arteries. He could hardly wait. It'd really lighten the load of the shitty week he'd had.
The air quivered suddenly. Tony froze, cocked his head towards the window.
Then a massive thunderclap tore the air, and light exploded through the window - a crackling tube of lightning as wide as four Hulkbusters side by side. Tony scrambled out of bed and stumbled towards the window, propping himself up on whatever furniture he could grab. His legs were still weak beneath him.
He knew what the light was, now - the Bifrost, coming down from the late afternoon sky to wreak havoc on the Wakandan's landscaping. Thor and Bruce had left sometime before his nap; Tony had watched the light show through his half-open eyes, before promptly rolling over and falling asleep. They must have had a very interesting heart-to-heart in Bruce's room, after he and Wong had left.
Tony was still trying to put his finger on that. Whatever was between Bruce and Thor. Even in the days right before Ultron, when everyone put on the guise of a big happy family and moved into the tower, they were just casual friends; and their wild adventures in space had only lasted a couple of days. But Bruce had practically been in tears when he said that Thor was dead, back in the Sanctum. And they rarely left each other's sides these days.
Hm. He'd have to get to the bottom of this. Maybe later.
The light of the Bifrost evaporated, and Tony's mouth fell open. "What the fuck ," he said, his breath fogging the glass.
Thor and Bruce were back. And they had the Benatar with them - as battered and broken as it had been on Titan, but otherwise in one piece. "What in the fuck," he said again.
Thor was standing on its roof, his axe in one hand and the other gripping a protruding piece of metal. And if he squinted, he could see Bruce sitting in the cockpit. The Hammerhand loomed behind them, like a dog next to a mosquito. At the right angle, Kraglin's monster hunk-of-junk ship blocked out the sun.
The hatch opened. Bruce clambered out, and Thor skidded across the roof to meet him. They hit the ground simultaneously, and looked around to see if everything was still in one piece; Thor tried to fist-bump Bruce, and Bruce tried to high-five Thor, and they laughed helplessly.
Tony blinked. Huh.
Then he saw a tiny shadow scampering towards them, on all fours - Rocket, he realized. The last Guardian. Something crushed his chest, squeezing his heart like a tin can. Rocket was so desperate to get there that he was running on all fours; on all fours, like the creature he'd been built from. He was so desperate, so broken, that he was willing to risk his pride for this.
This morning, on the way to the conference room, Tony had peeked into Rocket's room and seen him clutching a pillow for dear life, dwarfed by his massive bed and shivering uncontrollably with tears. He'd silently closed the door and gone off to debrief. Some moments weren't meant to be seen.
Tony watched Rocket run up to Thor and Bruce, and freeze five feet away from the ship. They stared at each other, talking about something. Bruce knelt, and Thor flopped down to sit cross-legged on the ground. Rocket didn't seem to even be looking at them; his gaze was fixed on the mangled Benatar, and all the broken bits of hull and engine that Thor managed to drag along in the Bifrost.
Something tugged at him.
Rocket slowly walked between the two men, absentmindedly patting Thor on the shoulder. Thor and Bruce quickly stood and followed Rocket into the Benatar. Damage control. Smart. There was no telling what the raccoon would do, when he hit the cockpit and saw those empty seats. Tony had a strange urge to whistle "Empty Chairs and Empty Tables" from Les Miserables, but immediately crushed it. That was a bit too on-the-nose. Even for him.
Then he realized what was tugging at his heart, and slumped into the desk chair. "Shit," he breathed.
"Shit-fucking hell, I'm stupid."
He'd completely forgotten about Pepper.
Almost immediately, Tony slammed his hand on the arc reactor and let the suit crawl over him, and the HUD flickered in front of him.
There was a soft crackle, and a voice: "Boss?"
"FRIDAY, thank fuck," Tony said, tilting his head back. His eyes pricked with tears. "You have no idea how glad I am to hear your voice."
"It's a relief to hear you, too," said FRIDAY. There was joy in her artificial voice, and it warmed his chest to hear it. "Boss, I'm so glad you're okay - I thought the worst when you left the atmosphere…"
"Yeah," Tony said, cutting her off. "So did I. Hey, um -" He flicked his wrist and visually keyed in a few codes; everything except one of his gauntlets and the helmet retracted into the arc reactor again. He tapped the side of his helmet, and the nanobots reformed into a headset. "FRIDAY. Uh. Tell me, is Pepper alright?"
"She is, boss," FRIDAY said smoothly, and Tony nearly passed out from relief. He slowly pressed one hand to his face, shaking. God. Pepper was okay. She was okay. "Do you want me to call her?"
"Please," he croaked. "Video call, if you can swing it."
"Of course, boss."
He slid the gauntlet off and twitched his fingers; the nanos swirled and reformed into a hologram projector, which he put on his desk. His hands gripped each other tightly, to hide how they were shaking.
Pepper picked up on the first ring. Her face shimmered into view, and it felt like Tony's chest had been torn in two, looking at her worried face again. "Oh, God, Pepper," he choked out, and unconsciously reached for the hologram.
Pepper clapped a hand to her mouth. "Tony," she breathed.
Tony's hand went just a little too far and disturbed the light of the hologram, and seeing Pepper's image dissolve a bit snapped him back to reality. Pepper reached out, too, her manicured hand obscuring the camera. He could see her fingers shaking, and the sight pushed him over the edge. Tears streamed down his cheeks.
"Pepper, I'm so sorry," he whispered, pulling his hand away from the hologram. "I - I didn't know it would get so bad."
"It's okay," she said softly. "I know." One hand was still pressed to her mouth. Her engagement ring shone on her hand.
Her eyes were so, so red, and the sight made Tony's chest ache. "A few tears for your long-lost boss?" he quipped, giving her a shaky smile. She choked, the hand falling away from her mouth. She was smiling now, a shaky and watery smile.
They sat there in silence a while, just looking at each other. The distance between them stretched, tenuous and tense. At last, Pepper said, "Where are you?"
"Wakanda," Tony said heavily. "Pep, I'm - I'm sorry, I can't go back to New York right now. God, I want to, more than anything, but I can't."
"Why not?"
"I got beat up bad." He swallowed, and wiped his eyes. "I… I got stabbed. Shit happened. I can barely walk right now, and I'm in no shape to get on a jet or in the suit and get back home."
Pepper sighed, and looked down. "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "That's horrible."
"Besides, we're… we're working on stuff," Tony said lamely. Something told him to keep the whole Ring thing from Pepper, though he couldn't put his finger on it. Maybe it was the tilt of her shoulders, the bruised-purple shadows under her eyes. Pepper was burdened by something; Tony didn't want to add to that.
Instead, he said, "We're working on a plan to stop Thanos."
"Who's 'we'?" Pepper interrupted. Her eyes flashed up to his, and something in her eyes made him stop breathing. "Who is in Wakanda with you?"
He swallowed. "Um."
"Is Peter with you?" she said softly.
Slowly, Tony shook his head. His hands started to shake, and he clenched them into fists, bringing one up to his mouth as if to punch the grief back into his body. "I lost him," he whispered.
Unexpectedly, Pepper's eyes brimmed with tears, and she honest-to-God started crying again. "No," she said, dropping her head. "Oh, no. I can't -" She pressed a hand to her mouth again and looked somewhere out of frame, her eyes filled with something like dread. Her breath left her in a shuddering exhale. Somehow, that made Tony feel even worse than before.
"How did it happen?" she said, still looking away.
"Pepper -"
"I'm not going to ask again, Tony, how did it happen?" she repeated, a bite to her words that nearly made Tony recoil.
He swallowed, and tried to find the words. "It was Thanos," he said heavily. "We - we ended up on Titan, with some others. We fought. We lost. Thanos snapped his fingers, and…" He waved his hand vaguely.
"Gone."
Pepper nodded slowly. "So it was painless," she murmured. "Like the others." Tears still ran down her cheeks.
"It wasn't," Tony said, before he could stop himself. Realization dawned on him, cold and creeping down his spine.
Mr. Stark? I don't feel so good…
"He could feel it happening to him," he said breathlessly, and Pepper's eyes darted up to his, wide and panicked. "His Spidey senses. Fuck," he said, and put his head in his hands. The kid had felt every second of it. How much pain was he in? How much did it hurt? Again, he felt like crying.
Pepper was staring at him, aghast. "Oh, no," she said. She shook her head. "Oh, God. Tony, that's… how am I supposed to tell -"
And she broke off. Her face screwed up, and she bowed her head. Tony frowned. "Tell who," he said, leaning forward. "Pepper, what - what's going on?"
"Tony."
Pepper took a deep, deep breath and slowly released it. When she raised her head again, her eyes were nearly blank. Tony felt unease thread through his gut. "Tony, I think you should stay in Wakanda for the time being," she said.
He nearly jerked backwards. "Why?"
"I want you as healthy as possible before you come back," Pepper said, CEO persona in full effect. Something must be really, really wrong
"What - no, Pepper, I want to come back," he insisted. "I don't -"
"Tony, listen to me," Pepper said. "I know what you're feeling right now. You want to change things, you want to fix things - and whatever plan you all have in Wakanda is going to fix it, I'm sure. I can see that look in your eyes. You need to stay there so you can fix this."
I don't know if we can, though, Tony thought. Out loud, he said, "We're trying."
"I know. And keep going," she said, and sat up straight. "Tony, I've got a lot on my plate."
"Is everything okay?" he said, suddenly alarmed.
She gave a short, sharp sigh. "Half of our global staff vanished in the Dusting," she said. "I've been wrestling with that, while trying to cobble together a press conference to address everything and…" She cast a slightly guilty look to the upper corner of the hologram screen. "Other things," she said. "I just… there's a lot, and if you came back with your whole planning committee in tow, I'd just be in the way."
"That doesn't make any sense," Tony sputtered. "You've never been in the way before, and you've done much more complex things, I know for sure -"
Something buzzed, and Pepper's eyes flicked to it. Her face went white; even through the blue-tinged hologram, Tony could see it, and he frowned. "I have a call that I have to take, Tony," she said, her lips pursed. "I -"
For a moment, she faltered, and the CEO persona flickered and dropped away. She looked strangely vulnerable in hologram form - wan and pale, as if part of her had been erased. "I love you," she said softly.
"I love you too," Tony said. He reached out again for Pepper's image; she pressed her fingers to her lips and reached out, the tips of her fingers warping slightly as they hit the camera. "I love you, so much," Tony said, his voice cracking. "Stay safe."
Something odd flickered across Pepper's face, and she gave him a sad smile. "I will, Tony," she said. "I promise."
And the hologram flickered out. Tony took a deep breath and slowly, slowly lowered his head to the desk.
They filed into the theater like mourners into a wake - sullen, silent, standing stiff as boards and trying not to let the weight of the room crash down on them. The theater was a hastily-assembled affair - but of course, hastily-assembled for Wakanda was phenomenal by any other standards.
It was an honest-to-God movie theater, Steve thought, as he lingered near the door and glanced around. With a screen as wide across as a semi-trailer was long and hundreds of speakers lining the walls, he could believe that they were walking into an IMAX. But instead of comfortable rows of seats, there were a handful of office chairs and desks arranged in front of the screen. A few pens and pads of paper sat on each desk. A table laden with Wakandan food and coffee stretched along the left wall.
Near the front of the room, an office chair spun around, like that of a villain in his secret lair. Clint sat cross-legged in it, with a bowl of sweet potato fries in his lap and his coffee mug in hand. "Hey, everyone," he said cheerfully. "C'mon in, take a seat."
A gently hissing portal opened by the snack table, and Wong stepped through. Several bags of potato chips and other junk foods drifted behind him, and he levitated them onto the table. Kraglin cautiously picked up a family-sized bag of Cheetos and took a seat in the middle row.
"Office chairs? Are you serious?" said Bruce, pushing past Steve. Thor followed close behind. A fine layer of orange dust clung to the god's clothes, drifting down to the floor. Steve stared at him. "I've seen comfier chairs in waiting rooms at the doctor's office."
"Well, what did you expect, leather armchairs?" Clint called over his shoulder. His chair was still spinning, and a ghost of a smile flickered across Steve's face. "Sadly, this isn't a casual movie night. We're here to take notes and learn shit, and we can't do that if you're falling asleep 'cause you're too comfy. Think of it as a lecture hall. Gotta come to class, or you're gonna get schooled."
"Clint, that made no sense," said Natasha.
"Kinda did," Steve muttered.
Natasha strode past, gently patting Steve on the shoulder, and made her way to the empty seat by Clint in the front row. Shadows flickered by her feet; Steve looked down, and saw Rocket scuttling along in the dark. He swiped a couple of sandwiches and sat at one end of the middle row, impossibly dwarfed by the desk chair.
Bruce scoffed quietly. "I fell asleep in my lecture halls all the time, and look at me now," he muttered to Thor, who hummed vaguely and grabbed a whole platter of Wakandan sandwiches and a few drinks from the table. They chose seats in the middle of the back row; Thor set the plate down between him and Bruce, and sat down in his chair.
"See," said Clint, "These chairs are fine. Just grin and bear it, okay?"
Crack!
The chair promptly broke beneath Thor. Everyone winced as his head hit the table on the way down, nearly launching the plate of sandwiches into Bruce's lap.
Wong blinked owlishly at Thor, sprawled in an ungainly heap of limbs on the ground, and sighed. "They're fine, huh," he said to Clint, who at least had the dignity to stop spinning. With an impatient sniff, he twitched his fingers, summoning glowing orange disks around his wrists, and pointed at the chairs one by one. They changed into comfortable leather armchairs so quickly that Steve had to look twice, just to be sure he wasn't imagining it.
They settled into their new comfortable chairs with gusto. Steve slipped along the back row and took the seat next to Thor, at the very end of the row of tables. Thor glanced over and gave him a polite nod, and did not look his way again. Steve lowered himself into the armchair, casting looks at Thor from the corner of his eye.
The god's presence next to him still lit his nerves on fire with panic. Had he and Bruce gotten themselves in the loop with the Accords? Even though it had been two years since the Civil War, the wounds it had left on the world were still fresh. Steve had no idea where Thor's alliances lay - though, hopefully, they would be a team again, and everything would be smoothed over.
But still. The panic he'd felt in the conference room that first day, when everyone who was left had sat down to talk about the Ring for the very first time, had not left him. And perhaps in his weariness, he had let it show too much. Thor had given him suspicious looks throughout that meeting. As if he knew he was hiding something.
Siberia was a secret. The only ones who knew about it were the ones who were there - and Nat, who'd pried the story out of him once he'd returned. But Steve was reluctant to tell the others what had happened, because it wasn't completely his story to tell.
Clint stood up and brandished his coffee mug for attention. In the front row, at the corner opposite from Steve, Shuri was fiddling with her kimoyo beads to queue up the movie. "Okay, everyone, quick show of hands," Clint called. "Who here hasn't seen this movie?"
Steve slowly raised his hand. So did Thor and the aliens. None of his earthbound teammates raised their hands, and Steve felt a small pang in his chest at being left out yet again. After six years, he thought he would've been used to being out of the loop, but he guessed not.
"Great," Clint said, flashing a cheerful grin. "You're all in for a treat, then. Make sure you take notes, though - write down any questions you might have. Please put your phones on silent, to not disturb the viewing pleasure of your companions, yada yada yada." Shuri glanced at Clint and gave him a curt nod, and he gave her a thumbs-up. "Okay, enjoy the show," he said to the room, to muted applause.
Steve leaned back in his chair, idly spinning a pen between his fingers. He watched its path, watched the steadily-dimming lights reflect on its surface. This was all very surreal. It was like the movie night they'd had a couple of weeks before Ultron - in a time so far from theirs that it felt like last century's news. Tony had insisted on The Princess Bride, saying it was a cinematic masterpiece that they had to watch. Then he'd fallen asleep halfway through, but that was alright, because Steve liked the movie anyway. It was a bit punchy at times, but it was still a good story.
But this?
Steve watched the logo - New Line Cinemas, some kind of visual play on railroads and film strips - drift across the screen. This - this was a mockery. It was a sick, sad parody. Watching movies after the apocalypse; holding onto fiction, with the tiniest hope that it might make real life more bearable. If Steve had it his way, he would be watching this movie in peacetime, with his friends - to see the story and love it for what it was.
It was surreal, putting their lives in the hands of a story. It was ridiculous. His fist clenched around the pen, and he carefully set it down so he wouldn't break it.
Darkness fell. A high, ethereal note drifted through the theater, sharp as wind howling over snow. Steve suddenly felt cold all over; a choir began to sing, voices high and pale.
NEW LINE CINEMAS
presents
...
a
WINGNUT FILMS
production
A voice whispered, in a language Steve had never heard. And a woman spoke over that otherworldly language, voice low and sibilant:
"The world is changed."
The thin, ethereal music and the whispered voice filled the air around him, vibrating, tugging on something within his soul. It had the feeling of a haunting eulogy to things dead and gone.
"Much that once was," said the mournful voice, subtitled on the bottom of the screen, "is lost… for none now live who remember it."
Steve squeezed his eyes shut, stunned by the sudden sting of tears, and ducked his head. He pulled a piece of paper towards him and started to write notes, to distract himself.
Rings were forged and freely given. Flame surged across the screen: armies charging, creatures as misshapen and hideous as the Outriders laying waste to the land.
"One by one, the Free Lands of Middle Earth fell to the power of the Ring," said the voice. Directly in front of him, Kraglin muttered something in Nebula's ear. His fin briefly blocked the screen, and Steve gritted his teeth.
"But there were some who resisted."
A great mass of slender figures in elegant armor strode across a volcanic plain. Mount Doom loomed before them, its slopes crawling with orcs. The camera jumped around a lot - to the men, the elves, even a few close-ups on the orc army. Kraglin pointed lazily at the screen and said, trying to be quiet and failing, "Hey, Nebs, you see that one, with the broken nose? I fought a Skrull in a bar once that looked like 'im."
Nebula elbowed him, her eyes glued to the screen.
The camera swept along the lines of Elves, and then snapped to one - stupidly helmetless, long brown hair flying in the noxious breeze. Steve's breath froze in his lungs, and the pen snapped in his hand.
It was Johann Schmidt. Johann fucking Schmidt.
"Steady, Rogers," Thor muttered, noticing Steve's tension; the leather of his chair squeaked as he leaned forward.
Steve forced air into his lungs and nodded sharply. He doubted Thor knew anything about Schmidt, other than a few passing references - he couldn't know what the man looked like. Briefly, Steve imagined the man on the screen digging his fingers under his flesh, pulling off his face to reveal a blood-red glowering skull beneath.
He reached for a new pen, and glanced back at Thor. The god of thunder gave him another nod - briefly sympathetic - and focused on the screen again, a deep furrow between his brows. In the chair next to him, Bruce was silently mouthing the words to the voiceover, smiling faintly. The man's eyes flicked between the screen, Thor, and -
And Tony.
Steve looked away quickly, but his eyes slid slowly back.
He hadn't noticed Tony coming in; the man must have slipped in after the lights went down. Tony sat between Bruce and Wong, leaning on one arm of his wheelchair and writing notes. A tiny glowing light hovered between him and Wong, shimmering the iridescent blue of his arc reactor. If Steve looked closely enough, or if his imagination ran wild enough, he could see the same blue light glimmering around his fingers.
On the screen, Sauron's helmet crashed to the ground, smoke pouring from its eyes. Tony's eyes slowly lifted to meet Steve's. Steve's heart skipped a beat; this was the first time they'd made eye contact since that disaster in the hospital room. To Steve's surprise, Tony gave him a curt nod and returned to his notes.
Steve exhaled, and turned back to the screen.
"The hearts of men are easily corrupted."
A close-up on the Ring, clanking on the ornate breastplate of a noble man - dark eyes gleaming, long brown hair slightly unkempt. The man's appearance made Steve grit his teeth, the feeling of wrong, wrong skittering along his spine.
The man put on the Ring and vanished, diving into the river as the orcs ambushed him. Arrows, blood in the water. The Ring spiraled down into the murky depths of the river, and Steve swallowed, huddling into his chair. In his mind's eye, he saw murky waters lit by explosions, a glimmering metal arm; a long, long fall. He pursed his lips and tugged a piece of paper towards him.
Ring, he wrote. Mind of its own, betrayed…
He glanced up and looked at the subtitles. Isildur. Right. He carefully copied down the letters. The subtitles, while a bit distracting, were very helpful.
"History became legend. Legend became myth."
Kraglin loudly tore open the bag of Cheetos, and everyone hissed at him to be quiet.
"And for two and a half thousand years, the Ring passed out of all knowledge."
Silt swirled in the river water, and a grotesque hand reached down.
"Until, when chance came, it ensnared a new bearer."
The thin white hand opened, revealing the Ring swimming in river water and grime -
"My… precious," crooned a guttural, rotten voice. Steve's stomach lurched, hearing it; as the Ring shimmered on the screen, his temples started to throb, and he rubbed them. In the front row, Natasha suddenly choked on her popcorn. Clint reached over and thumped her back, but she nudged his hand away. Steve craned his neck around Kraglin and his godforsaken fin to see if she was okay.
"Darkness crept back into the forests of the world."
"Watch it," muttered Thor, and Steve realized he was leaning into Thor's chair; he muttered a quick apology and sat back. Thor's eyes were squeezed shut, as if he was warding off a migraine.
"Rumor grew of a Shadow in the East...whispers of a nameless fear."
On Thor's other side, Bruce hugged his stomach and leaned back in his chair, grimacing.
"And the Ring of Power perceived...its time had now come. It abandoned Gollum."
Steve felt his stomach roll and put down his pen.
The Ring fell down the incline, bouncing off the rock; each ping on the stone stabbed through the room like a dagger. Steve's ears hurt, and he cringed. A deep rumbling filled the room - like a growl, of a great unseen beast.
"But something happened then, that the Ring did not intend."
In the dark, a small fumbling hand closed over the Ring.
"It was picked up by the most unlikely creature imaginable…
"What's this?"
"A Hobbit - Bilbo Baggins of the Shire."
Despite his mounting headache, Steve grinned when he saw the Hobbit: still well-to-do, prim and proper in his red jacket and waistcoat. He remembered this scene well; his dog-eared copy of The Hobbit, still a new release in the years just before the war, was one of his favorite stories growing up. Maybe when this whole mess was over, he would watch the movies they'd made to see if they were any good.
A quiet noise of disbelief came from his left. "A Hobbit?" Thor muttered. "My father never mentioned them."
"Yeah, well, we established that Daddy Dearest didn't have the best track record for honesty," Bruce said sourly. "Tolkien wrote The Hobbit as a standalone book, and only wrote the other books because -"
"Be quiet," Shuri snapped, from the front row. Bruce stared at the back of her head, taken aback by the venom in her voice. Steve tried to return to the movie, but the quiet undercurrent of tension in the room made it impossible to focus.
Kraglin tilted his neck and popped it, and scoffed, "Look at 'im. Never seen a more ridiculous creature in my life."
Ridiculous creature? Ridiculous –
Steve nearly stood up, an irrational anger stirring in his gut. "Hey," he said sternly, and the alien turned around, leering at him. "Don't underestimate him. He's got more power in him that you might realize." All he could think of was the tale of Bilbo Baggins and how he faced down a dragon. As a young and sickly child, he loved to read stories of underdogs, of people the world saw as weak saving the day.
On the other side of the theater, Rhodes stood up and walked to the back of the theater.
Kraglin's lip curled; not the same protective anger that Steve saw when he first landed, Tony's unconscious body in tow, but something just plain mean. A roaring filled Steve's ears. "They're not real, idjit," the alien snarled. The images on the screen flickered on the metal of his fin. He had a flash of a time gone by, yelling at an asshole in another movie theater. "Even if they were, they'd be next to useless."
Something washed over Steve, a kind of old, sickening rage: the rage of being cornered in an alley, of holding a garbage can lid to shield himself - undercut by a deeper, darker rage that he hadn't felt since the war…
He stood up, ignoring Bruce's suddenly alarmed shout, and walked around the table. Kraglin whistled for his arrow.
"For the time will soon come," said the voice, "when Hobbits will shape the fortunes of all."
The film juddered to a halt, and anger roiled in the absence of the movie's soundtrack. Steve felt hands on him, tugging him back and away from Kraglin. He quickly dropped his fists. It was then that he heard the rush of whispers, tense snippy arguments happening in corners. Natasha was chewing out Clint for trying to help her stop choking; he brandished his ever-present travel mug like a club and snapped back. Nebula was holding a fucking knife to Rocket's throat.
Rhodes' hands were still on his shoulders. "Sorry," Steve breathed, glancing at him. Rhodes didn't seem to hear; he was glaring at Tony, who was glaring at Wong, who was blinking around the room with slight confusion. Closer to him, Thor and Bruce's argument had devolved into loud snarls and snide comments; Thor had seized Bruce's collar, and Bruce's hands were clenched into fists. In the dim light of the screen, Steve couldn't see any tinges of green, but he watched Bruce closely just to be sure.
He glanced around the room one more time, guilt pooling in his gut, and froze.
Shuri was staring directly at him. Her young face was twisted with something between rage and fear. Her hand was still poised over the kimoyo beads controlling the projector. The look in her eyes twisted the knife in Steve's chest further, and he forced himself to look away.
But his eyes landed on the one person who didn't seem changed at all by this. Wong. With sinking realization, he stared at the man, at the slightly confused placidness of his face, and said, "Wong."
Wong raised his eyebrows.
"Where's the Ring?"
Silence fell.
Slowly, the confusion on Wong's face faded to horrified understanding. "It's with me," the sorcerer said, aghast. He stood up. "Damn it, I'm sorry."
"Why is it with you?" Nebula said, still holding out her knife. Rocket slowly nudged it away from his throat and scampered back to his chair. "Why don't you have it somewhere else?"
Wong shook his head. "I could not leave the Ring unguarded in the Sanctum," he said regretfully. "I failed to guard one artifact, and I'm not going to do the same with this one."
Steve frowned. "How come you're not…" He gestured vaguely at the room around them.
"It's shielded," the sorcerer said. He grimaced. "Granted, it's only shielded for me, and not everyone else -"
"Why not?"
"Range," Wong said to Tony. "I'll explain later. Look," he said to the room, standing up. He lifted his hand and carved a portal into the air. "We have internet at the Sanctum. If Netflix hasn't gone down, then I'll just watch the movies there."
"Oh, okay," said Clint.
"I'll just Skype in if you guys need me." Wong grimaced at the room and stepped through the portal. "Sorry," he said, "I'd love to stay. But I have to watch the Ring, too, and I can't do both at the same time if you're going at each other's throats like this. See you all later."
The portal hissed shut, and Wong was gone.
Instantly, the stifling tension of the room disappeared. Everyone physically reeled and collapsed into their chairs, like in the aftermath of a battle. Steve could see Shuri's hands shaking visibly, her eyes hollow and wild, as if she'd seen something unforgivable.
"This is wrong," Bruce said shakily. Steve turned to see him leaning forward in his chair, his hands pressed to both sides of his head. Thor sat still in his chair, completely still. "This is very wrong, this isn't - right," said Bruce. "The Ring's not supposed to be that - that strong -"
"Council of Elrond," Tony said immediately, snapping his fingers, as if that was the answer. "Literally what just went down."
Steve knew the name, but he didn't know what that meant. "What's that?" he said blankly.
"Let's just… keep watching," Clint said faintly, from the front of the room. His knuckles were white around his travel mug. "You'll find out." He slowly sank into his chair, looking clammy and pale in the light from the screen. It may have just been a trick of the light, but it seemed as though a murky golden light shone on his face, hollowing his cheekbones and casting his eyes in shadow.
He blinked, and the moment was gone. Rhodes gave him a pat on the shoulder and strode back to his own seat, his back prosthetic whirring.
As they all settled in, Steve leaned forward and tapped Kraglin on the shoulder. His head whipped around. "I'm sorry about that," Steve said softly. "I don't know what got into me."
Kraglin grunted. " 'S alright," he said, turning back to the screen. He didn't seem too fazed by what had happened; he seemed to have recovered quickly from the Ring's influence, having been one of the first to get their bearings and sit back down. At first, Steve put it down to Kraglin being an alien; after all, he couldn't expect the artifact to affect them all in the same ways.
But then he looked along the middle row, and saw that Rocket was still shaking, glaring murderously at Nebula to hide his panic. Nebula herself had broken out in a cold sweat. Steve grimaced and sat back in his seat. He shouldn't worry about that. The Ring was away from them now. He should just sit back and hope for the best.
Author's Notes:
SORRY FOR THE ULTRA LATE UPDATE, I got swamped with real life stuff and Thorbruce week was really distracting. If you like that kind of stuff, feel free to swing by Archive of our Own (I'm under the username thor20 now) and read my fics "Petrichor" and "Bring Them Home." I'll upload them here too if there's enough demand for it. Anyway. This fic is kind of kicking my ass, and I'd like to hear what you guys think about it. Anything. Good or bad. Constructive criticism, suggestions, opinions, anything. I really like this and want to continue it, but the well is starting to dry up.
Anyway - favorites and reviews appreciated, as always. Thanks for reading!
