The Western Road

by Teyke

Steve and Tony go on an epic road trip to save the world. [Sequel to Faith]

2. The White Road

Light-blindness lingered for a moment after his feet hit the ground again, but there was nothing wrong with his hearing, so Steve let his eyes recover and listened. Beside him was Tony: his breathing only barely audible – completely inaudible to any normal human – but his shifting twitchiness much louder. If there was anyone else around, they were either very good at being quiet, or a bird; there were plenty of those chirping, along with the rustle and hum of insects going about their lives. The air smelled crisp and clear, a purity that threw the memory of the Chief Magistrate's pagoda into sharp relief.

His eyes finished adjusting, and Steve took in his surroundings. They were standing on a road made from some sort of white stone – or something that looked like white stone; he couldn't see any sort of joins between stone blocks. It also wasn't made out of the same sort of stone as the mountains that surrounded them, which looked ordinary enough at first glance, but contained trees and shrubs that looked... off, somehow. Different from the ones he'd seen in Europe. The road was cut into the slopes, with more of the same white stone reinforcing the cut-away wall, and they were at an outward curve, looking over a frankly stunning view of the valley and the next mountain across, as well as the sinuous winding of the road until it vanished across a pass.

Why the hell did he always end up on roads? He should probably ask Tony. Maybe there was some magical reason for it – they were dimensional travellers, so they ended up on roads.

But at the moment, there were more pressing questions.

"Tony," Steve growled.

"Shit." Tony was staring out over the valley with an expression of disbelief. "What – but – the math – "

That wasn't exactly the reaction Steve had been expecting, although it was uncomfortably reassuring. He needed to be careful around Tony, but Tony was still his friend. Maybe he was being too uncharitable. "I've seen you screw up math before, Tony."

"Yeah, yeah, displace a decimal, it happens to the best of us after the second sleepless night – but not me. Not anymore." Tony cut himself off with a sharp downward slash of his hand, and took a deep breath. "Damn it. Maklu must have defences I couldn't pick up."

"So it... bounced us somewhere else?" Strange had mentioned not being able to access Asgard, or other divine realms. Had this been what he'd meant?

"Looks like," Tony said grimly. "Damn it! I was so sure – I can detect the barriers around Asgard. They're subtle, not invisible!"

"Okay, so we get back home, and..."

Tony huffed a laugh. "Yeah, that's gonna be a problem. I was kinda counting on the makluans for that."

Steve pinched the bridge of his nose. He didn't actually have a headache; he just felt like he should have one. But there was no use crying over spilt milk. "Okay. Somebody built this road. Even if they don't have a portal system – "

" – they've got the tech to build something like this, they probably have enough tech I can build it myself," Tony finished. He crouched down, scraping a fingernail over the white stone. "Huh. Looks like stone, feels like stone – isometrics say it's definitely artificial. Maybe even – oooh,enough tech to build an entire road out of this? Operation Go Home is a go."

"That's a terrible name for an operation," Steve informed him. He took stock of the two ways the road wound. "Getting to some sort of civilization will be the main problem. We've got food, but only one water bottle – though there might be some sort of creek along the way."

"I don't know about you, but I'm not planning on walking." Tony stood, his clothes... shimmering? The question answered itself a moment later, as jeans and jacket turned metallic red and gold, and the backpack began melting too, pouring over Tony's body until he was encased head-to-toe in armour.

Okay, that was pretty impressive. "What happened to my water bottle?" Steve demanded, not sure he wanted to know the answer. The tablet, too, but he had been going to drink from that!

The pout was audible in Tony's reply. "I left it back on Earth. Jeez, you're a tough customer."Tony shook his head – the gesture looked... wrong. The old Iron Man suit was a marvel, but it had gears and machinery behind it, weight that emphasized that even if it was human-sized, it packed alot more power. This, though... Tony might have still been standing there in street clothes, it moved that fluidly. "You coming?" He held out a hand.

Steve took a step back despite himself. "You are not carrying me all that way by the scruff of my neck." Tony had only ever done it to him that one time, but that was more than enough to know that Tony's preferred method would not work for a flight any longer than a brief boost to higher ground.

"I would not carry you around like that." Tony actually sounded sort of indignant about that. "Not for any other purpose than a prank. I'll magnetize your chainmail, it'll be fine. No, no – semi-piggyback style, Rogers, you're not an infant and I need my hands free, that means I need the front of me free – "

All the indignities in the world'd be worth it for this view, Steve thought dazedly half a minute later, as they soared up toward the clouds. It was nothing like that one, brief. The Mark VIII – hastily assembled after the Mark VII had died such a glorious death so soon from its cradle – hadn't had anything like the magnetic lock Tony was using, and it had had repulsors on the back like its predecessor, anyway. But this... the view from Stark Tower was amazing; the view from the Helicarrier, stunning. This, though – this was a mountain range spread out before him, nothing beneath his feet but air, only Tony's magnetic grip on him keeping him up.

"Wow," he breathed. The frosty air nipped at his exposed face but, to Tony's credit, not at any of the rest of him. Below them the white road spread twined through the mountains like a ribbon, gleaming wherever the sun struck it, and occasionally sending off smaller offshoots to wend their ways through the mountains. One valley over, the road wrapped up to cultivated fields, with small houses dotted about them – "Tony, over there?"

"Farmers," Tony shook his head as he gave the answer over the comm. "There's a city out in the foothills, about a twenty minute flight."

Steve couldn't see that far – for all that they were above the mountain peaks, they were staying low, far below the spotty cloud-cover. "Then let's go."

Flying was really, really fun. And this was when Tony was going slow to compensate for his un-suited passenger. Steve didn't exactly want an entire suit, but... maybe he could convince Tony to give him jet-boots, in the next uniform upgrade. After all, it was Tony – there would be another uniform upgrade... Steve caught himself. Maybe there wouldn't. They hadn't managed to make it to Maklu after all; they were going to be returning to Earth without a cure. And Tony...

Could he let Tony just run away, if Tony tried? Would Tony try? There were people back on Earth who wanted to kill Pepper for the nanoplague; what would they do to Tony, if they knew he was alive? Except that in Tony's case, Steve couldn't honestly say that Tony shouldn't be paying some form of recompense.

It was enough to put a damper even on flying.

"Back to civilization," Tony said, as they zipped through the last high mountain pass and the foothills rolled away beneath them. The city Tony had mentioned was probably ten more miles out, at the end of the road, which had widened – from this distance, Steve couldn't be sure, but he thought it would probably rival a modern freeway. The city, though, didn't look modern at all, except for its sprawling size: there were some tall buildings, but they were just overall large, not sky-scraping towers. And it was surrounded with concentric rings of stone walls. Even if it was made of the same white rock as the road, modern cities didn't bother with walls like that. At least the architecture was reminiscent of the short look that he'd had at Maklu: maybe they weren't too far off.

Maybe they could find a cure here... he squinted, despite knowing it wouldn't actually help. By the time they'd gotten to a mile out, he was pretty sure that even the wall frescos were much the same.

"...maybe thisisMaklu," Tony said, not quite echoing Steve's thoughts. "Slight calibration error? Quasar dipped at the wrong moment, bent space-time a bit in an odd direction? Hmm – woah!"

They dropped, Steve's stomach lurching up into his throat as Tony stopped playing nice for his guest and turned on some real acceleration. The world flipped end over end as Tony took evasive manoeuvres – revealing scales, bright red in sunlight, and another form – long and sinuous and blue – dropping out of the clouds behind the first makluan. The ground drew terrifyingly close, and then they were stopping, with enough G-forces that Steve didn't manage to land on his feet when Tony suddenly cut the magnetic lock. He rolled, soft dirt further padding the impact, and came up, shield in hand, just in time to watch Tony rocket upward between the two alien dragons. One breathed fire at him – a thousand-foot long jet of green.

"Sorry, Steve, can't really fight with you hanging on."

Steve swore. Trapped on the ground, and there was no way up there – damnit! Thor and the Chief Magistrate had claimed that makluans were peaceful, but apparently Fin Fang Foom wasn't the only one of his people with tendencies toward destruction and mayhem.

Think – what did he have on his side? The city they'd been approaching was maybe a mile away now, the road crossing at an angle between him and it – he started running toward it. Possibly not the best idea, but between action and sitting on his hands, he'd take action any day. There might be someone there who knew what was going on and could put a stop to it – or, failing that, they might have another way into the air.

A bellow like thunder split the air, and Steve glanced up, catching snapshots of the fight as he ran. One of the dragons was thrashing in midair, its eyes no longer glowing but now blackened and burnt. Oh, nasty shot, Tony.The other makluan had coiled about beneath its wounded comrade, a position of wary support – and then three more of the dragons rose from the city ahead of Steve, snaking through the air to join the fight. One of them, a forest-green fellow, was at least twice as long as either of the first two – and fast, shooting ahead of the others and blasting out a broad jet of blue-white fire that completely encompassed Tony.

"Tony? Tony!"

"Busy!" His voice was so terse Steve couldn't tell if Tony was just distracted, or something worse. At least he was alive.

Steve ran faster, and prayed. His next stolen glimpse of the fight showed no Tony – no Tony – and then there he was, a tiny figure in now-black armour, corkscrewing about the giant serpent and attacking with a bright blue laser shooting out of one wrist. It didn't cut the makluan to shreds as easily as Tony had cut the engine apart on the Helicarrier, but it made the beast give out one of those thunderous roars of pain, loud and close– the fight had moved almost right over Steve's head. But yet more dragons were rising from the city – along with smaller fliers, now, riding chariots or flying under their own power.

He hit the last stretch, a half-mile sprint to the city gates – now opening and pouring forth with land troops. Apparently he hadn't been as forgotten as he'd thought. Riders were first, armoured foes on six-legged not-horses – three legs abreast, and with four of the beasts lined up side-by-side they made a nightmare of galloping hooves, alien and strange. But his nightmares weren't about the things in the dark that might come for him. These were enemies, attacking without warning or provocation; gear, manner, and movement told him in an instant that they were clearly professional soldiers. He wouldn't be hurting innocents; no one was going to die here who hadn't signed up willing.

A pair of thunderous roars accompanied more fire lighting up the sky, but he was closing fast on his own targets, now. The two riders in the middle had lances, but the other two had swords. Steve considered angles in his head, skidded to a halt, and planted his feet. Masked helmets stared down at him, drawing closer, closer –

He dove left, shield trailing on his arm, lashing out and around to take out the left-most beast's closest back leg. It screamed, but didn't go down; six legs could be an advantage. The jarring impact numbed his arm briefly, but after two months of fighting zombies and nearly a year of training with SHIELD, he was in better fighting shape than he had been during the War; he pivoted, knowing that the riders were already wheeling their mounts around, ready to come up behind him and catch him between them and the second set arriving – now.

This time, he jumped up, clearing the slashing swords and twisting in mid-air, reaching out to grab onto the middle rider rushing by... who apparently wasn't as firmly in his saddle as Steve had thought, because instead of landing on the back of the steed like he'd planned, both he and his hand-hold kept their own momentum and landed back on the hard surface of the road, the rider getting a knee to the gut more by accident than planning.

Two waves of cavalry vs. a lone infantry man was either overkill or shit tactics, depending on the infantry in question – but now there were enemy infantry coming up, pike-men covering archers further behind. Steve brushed aside arrows, not even bothering to hide behind his shield; they were slow enough he could block them as they came. Why didn't these people have guns?

He wrested one pike away from its bearer and used it to knock a half-dozen of them flat, then threw his shield and ducked into a roll to avoid the hail of arrows, even though he didn't need to –

A sudden sense of pressure, and an arrow flying away half-broken, made him rapidly rethink that assumption. Right, aliens. A dragon had been able to take down a fighter-jet; why wouldn't these people have ultra-sharp arrows that could cut through even Tony's armour? The arrow hadn't managed to slice much through the outer layer before it had broken, but they had a lot of arrows – Steve ducked behind a pair of pike-bearers, mentally cursing. The archers were damn near frightening in their precision – in firing into general melee, they hadn't yet hit a single one of their own people. Two more shots grazed him, but there was no time to check if Tony's suit had lived up to its billing; his shield arced back, and the melee closed again. These guys might have been fighting with archaic weaponry and tactics, but they pulled it off well, engaging him on as many sides as they could fit people with room still to move. He wished he'd asked Tony for a gun; he wouldn't pick one over his shield, but he needed a secondary weapon right now.

"Shit," said Tony in his ear, voice breathless. "These guys just keep coming. They've got some serious –ack– firepower – "

He'd take Tony's word for it; though why they were restricting themselves so heavily down here, he didn't know. He didn't think he'd killed anybody, yet, but a fight was a fight – he swatted an arrow, decapitated a pike, and kicked a sword out of a rider's hand, crushing the guy's fingers as he did so. "What – " dodge; his boot skidded on something on the white stone, and he nearly went down, which was the last thing he wanted to do while surrounded; he turned it into a flying back-kick instead – "the hell – " his fingers dug into an armoured wrist, and the armour lost – it wasn't metal, but some sort of leather instead – a sword dropped from nerveless fingers, and Steve kicked it up into his now-free hand – "is your – " he hamstrung two enemies in neat succession with the sword, bashed a third over the head with his shield – "problem?"

He must have missed a signal, because they backed off in concert, forming into a tight circle (but wide – there were way too many of them for Steve's taste) instead. It was broken as one of the riders who had managed to avoid getting knocked off his sorta-horse pulled up at the outer ring and shouldered his way through. Not one of the first few riders, Steve realized a moment later; this guy's armour was much more heavily ornate than theirs had been, to the point of being non-functional for combat. Were looks deceiving, the guy an idiot, or was this a truce?

"You ask this of us?" she demanded, in a voice that was definitely female. "Do you then bow to our superiority?"

"I don't bow to anyone, but I'd like to resolve this without fighting." Further fighting. Above them, Tony's battle continued.

"I'll bow, if it'd make them stop shooting firegoddamnit," Tony put in grimly, his voice rising frantically at the end, and okay, maybe Steve would be bowing. Damn it.

"You are willful trespassers, who have attacked the loyal guardians of this city without warning, and grievously injured several," the rider replied, her voice stern. "There can be no other resolution other than your submission to justice; and we shall fight you up and down the mountains until you cry surrender."

"What,we attacked – " Tony was protesting indignantly in his ear.

Steve ignored him, because he wasn't saying anything that Steve wasn't already thinking. "Ma'am, your guards attacked us first – we weren't doing anything!"

"Precisely! You declared not your names, nor your intentions, nor the origin of your passports; and it is right and meet that all in these lands shall do so. Of that crime you are charged, and must be tried and if found guilty sentenced by our magistrates. Will you submit, or must we grind you into the earth and drag you forth in chains?"

Steve looked up, craning his head. The noise of the battle had stopped, but there were at least ten of the makluans still up there, circling in a sphere around a tiny black figure, the sinuous movements of their bodies making it difficult to count their true numbers at a glance. But there were way more than ten of their smaller allies.

"Despite ignorance of the law typically not being accepted as a valid excuse – believe me, I've tried – I'd have to say go with 'em on this one, Steve,"Tony advised. He still sounded winded – how many hits had he taken? "If nothing else because it'll be easier to hide out in a city than out here."

"Yeah, I thought of that," Steve muttered, and dropped his stolen sword. "Alright, fine. We surrender."

---

Prison kinda sucked.

It wasn't that Steve hadn't seen worse. Granted, in the War he was always the guy breaking people out of prisons; up until he'd handed himself over to Schmidtt at the end, he'd managed to avoid getting captured. For a first time on the opposite side of the bars, though, he knew it wasn't that bad: they'd been allowed to keep their gear, and they hadn't even been searched – which, considering the arsenal that Tony carried around, seemed really foolish. But it didn't change the fact that they were in a dungeon, complete with straw strewn across the floor. It looked like clean straw. Steve hoped it was clean straw, more for Tony's peace of mind than his own. Tony was currently standing near to the door, having adamantly refused to even consider sitting down like Steve was doing, and had spent the entire time since they'd arrived here volubly contemplating the hygienic drawbacks of having armour that functioned something like a second skin. At least the armour was no longer totally blackened and charred; the damage done by the dragonfire had been repairing itself steadily. Its slow but noticeable progress was strangely fascinating.

" – I swear to god, I am going to boil every last inch. Antibacterial soap – Jesus, does that stuff even work on extraterrestrial bacteria? I'm sure Bruce would have a field day, but there is no way in hell that I'm – "

There was a pair of guards standing at the entrance of the dungeon, beside the wide stone stairs leading up. The stairs were more of that strange white not-stone, just like their cell, although the walls in here were much... grimier. The guards had been doing a good job of staying like statues for most of Tony's rant. But mercifully, one of the guards must have finally had enough, because he strode forward, planted his strange spear-staff on the ground, and ordered in exasperation, "Hold your tongue, and be silent! You offend the ear of every prisoner and guard within this place with your moaning complaints!"

Steve tilted his head, comparing his words to the way the captain had spoken earlier. It was sort of reminiscent of the way Thor spoke, or the... people... he'd met in the Infinite Embassy; maybe it was something to do with the Allspeech? They couldn't possibly be speaking English by accident.

"Oh, right, I should just shut up and be a happy prisoner," Tony sneered. "Who cares that we've been interred in a filth-infested rat-house for no good cause? Nah, you've got visitors from another realm, it's best to just shoot fire at them and then claim it's their fault. I guess it's one way of getting out of paying were-gild, though it sure explains why you owe a lot of it."

Steve rose to his feet, though he stayed away from the bars. What was Tony doing? Well, it was pretty obvious what he was doing – Steve just wasn't sure that it wouldn't make the situation worse. During the short trip here they'd both protested about being delegates from Earth (and this was why they should have sent actual diplomats, Steve thought moodily), and wanting to speak to somebody in charge, but their captor had dismissed Earth with an unimpressed wave of her hand and told them that their hearing would come soon enough. And then they'd been thrown in the dungeon. Generally, antagonizing your captors once you were already in the dungeon was supposed to be a bad idea, at least if you were dumb enough to still be hoping they might cooperate.

"Were-gild? What is this charge?"

"Déhuá..." the guard's partner said, her voice warning.

"If they are owed honourable debts, then these must be fulfilled," Dehua said firmly. "I shall go inquire."

"First fetch another to take your place," the other sighed, leaning on her staff-spear – Steve wasn't sure what exactly felt so wrong about those weapons, but he wasn't going to give them a name until he knew. Déhua nodded briskly and left, his sandaled feet making only the quietest of rasps against the stone.

Huh. Tony's goading had actually worked.

"Not bad, hey?" Tony said smugly. Or... sent smugly; Steve heard it clearly through the radio, but Tony had the faceplate retracted and Steve could see that his lips hadn't moved. Hivemind, Tony had said, and wireless signals.

I guess that's how all the zombies know to swarm. Right. That was a pleasant thought.

"If you were bringing news of honourable debts to be paid, then you should have approached honourably," the remaining guard informed them, sounding deeply unimpressed. "You should be ashamed."

"We did approach honourably," Tony sighed.

Steve stepped forward, holding up a hand. "We're not from your world. We didn't know of your customs."

"Ignorance of the law is no excuse," the guard said firmly, and Steve had to suppress an eye-roll at the sight of Tony mouthing the latter half of the phrase in sync with her. "You are poor representatives to not know this. By rash impetuosity you have endangered the repayment of debts and the fulfilment of promises made. A criminal cannot make representation before the king. This will cause the reparations to be greatly delayed, and throw the order of the court into turmoil for many years." She shook her head. "You should be very ashamed."

"O-kay," said Tony slowly, soundlessly, "These people are strange."

They were on another world. Gods looked human – on the surface. How was Steve still surprised that these people's logic seemed based on a different set of values? But he was.

Dehua returned shortly, followed by two more guards. "The judge has agreed to expedite your case," he reported solemnly, as he stepped forward and unhooked a set of archaic keys from his belt, fitting one into the lock. A burst of light belied technology beneath, though, and Steve frowned. They had dungeons, magic-like-tech keys, flying chariots, dragons, bows and arrows – it had to be enough to let Tony build them a way home, right?

"This way," Dehua commanded, leading them while his partner brought up the rear. Steve caught Tony's eye and nodded acknowledgement –good work.

They were led out, down a confusing maze of hallways – Steve had to keep track in his head by memory and direction alone; the white walls all looked the same – and into a courtyard of colours that seemed extra-vibrant after all the stark, undecorated stone. Upon a raised dais sat a chair that looked incongruously delicate next to all the stone – although it did fit in with the paper roof – and which was occupied by the man who was presumably their judge; everyone else in the room looked content to stand.

The judge – a short man with an unlined face, despite possessing an entirely grey head of hair – peered down at them from his seat. "Hmph. These are the accused? Let the clerk read out their crimes."

A young woman with a scroll stepped forward, and read, "On this day, these two men, who claim as their names Tony Stark and Steve Rogers, trespassed wilfully into the lands of this kingdom. In this act they assaulted many of our guard, resulting in one death, four maimings, and other lesser injuries."

Steve winced, and saw Tony's eyes twitch slightly – a suppression of the same.

"Trespass, hmm? Let the accused present their passports for examination by this court."

What? Steve glanced to Tony, startled. Of all the – he had a passport, but he hadn't thought it would be any use on an interplanetary trip!

"Uh, right," said Tony, looking just as surprised. "Passports. Right, I – have..." he thumbed a panel on the chest of the armour, and it opened enough for him to pull out two small bound booklets: passports.

When had he – well, it wasn't as though Tony had much respect for other people's security. Though at least one of those had to be a forgery; Tony was legally dead. Unless he'd – he'd pulled them from a panel in his armour, Steve realized, but it was too late to say anything; the clerk had already taken them and handed them over to the judge, who flicked through the first, then the second, and then sniffed them both.

Then set them to the side and leaned forward, frowning sternly at them both. "Lying to a judge? This is terrible behaviour. You have been granted the favour of an expedited hearing, and now you present false evidence?" He picked up the passports again and rapped them against the side of his chair; they both dissolved into metallic ash. Steve had guessed right – it was extremis. "Let the court records reflect the addition of one count of perjury to the charges."

They were going to a city to ask these people for help with extremis, and Tony tried to trick them with it? Or – okay, maybe the armour was something separate, but they were asking these people for help with technology that Tony couldn't understand –

Good Lord, for a genius Tony could be really dumb sometimes.

"I'm sorry," Steve apologized, hands up, before Tony could say anything that might make the situation worse. How the hell was it that he managed to manipulate the situation so well in with the guard, and now he'd just blown it? Maybe because the one time he'd been telling the truth, even if it was as obnoxiously as possible... "Look, my friend's an idiot and I need to keep him on a leash, but our mission is real – and so's our claim. We've got people dying because of a plague unleashed by one of your people, a criminal you guys kicked out, and Th – an ally of ours from another world told us we could get were-gild for it. What we need is a cure."

The judge regarded him sternly. "That is a matter to be dealt with by the king, and the king cannot deal with criminals. Therefore you must be found innocent, or found guilty and fulfill the sentence, before you may see him. Now, have you any true passports, or shall we note you have none and proceed?"

"We have passports," said Steve. "But they're at home. We didn't know we needed them."

"Ignorance of the law is no excuse," said the judge. "Let the court records reflect the addition of two counts of unlawful trespass to the charges, and that the accused plead guilty to the counts of unlawful trespass."

How had he managed to make things worse? "But you're already charging us with trespassing. You can't just charge us twice for the same thing."

"You were arrested for wilful trespass; but even then you might have carried lawful documentation," the judge explained – patiently, but no less sternly. Oh, no. Here was somebody who really loved the fine print of detailed law. "But as you have admitted you have no passports, then you can have no lawful reason to be within this territory."

"What, not even if we're from this territory?" asked Tony. "And by the way, I totally have a passport – I did not plead guilty, thanks."

"It's a fake. Your actions plead for you. And if you had been of this territory, then you would not have crossed into it." The judge actually looked sorrowful. "Your ruler chose poor delegates; but perhaps you were all that could be spared in the face of the plague. Nonetheless, the great wheels of civilization cannot allow a rough pebble to alter their course, or a great many more calamities shall result. We shall move to the pleas. Against one count of wilful trespass each, and one count of perjury for you," this was directed to Tony, "how do you plead?"

"Not guilty, on Steve's behalf. I flew him over, there was no act of will on his part involved," Tony said promptly. "Seriously, I had him mag-locked to my armour, it wasn't like he was going to get away. And he didn't know about the forgery either, that's my bad."

"Tony," Steve said, and then cut himself off. Okay, so this had... potential, actually. If it let one of them reach the king – he didn't like Tony leaving himself dangling like bait, though. They'd killed somebody on the way in – in self-defence, but these people worked by different rules, or they wouldn't have been fighting for their lives at all.

"Trust me, Steve, I'll be fine. And we need that cure."

"Shut up, Tony," Steve said, as quietly as he could, because if these people had build extremis and could blast a bit of Tony's nanomachines to dust, then what else could they do – or overhear?

"Do you dispute this plea?" the judge asked Steve.

"I – no, I guess I plead not guilty," Steve said reluctantly.

"Then, Tony Stark, I find you guilty of one count of perjury, one count of unlawful trespass, and one count of wilful trespass. The question now remains as to the guilt of Steve Rogers. Let Tony Stark be removed from the place of the accused."

For a brief, horrible moment Steve wondered if they were going to be split up – as if it wasn't bad enough that they were already alone and on trial in an alien city – but instead Dehua just escorted him to the side of the courtroom, to stand with several other guards – some sporting injuries – and after a moment he realized that they were the witnesses for the case.

He really wished they'd brought along a lawyer. Hell, he wished they'd brought along a proper diplomat. Who had training in law. This was insane.

"The claim is made that Steve Rogers did not commit trespass of his own will, but was transported within our territory by another, and could not have reasonably prevented such an act," said the judge. "This claim has been made by Tony Stark. Are there any other witnesses to the event who could shed light on such a matter?"

"Do I count?" Steve asked, immediately regretting it. After all the times his smart mouth had gotten him in trouble with Phillips, how had he not yet learned –

But the judge regarded him with no more sternness than he had previously shown – though, that was quite enough to start. "No. You have already pled not guilty."

The clerk stepped forward, a slate in her hand, along with something that looked more like a paintbrush than a pen. "Honourable judge, the guard that witnessed the act of trespass itself was the one slain."

"Then let him be brought forth to present testimony."

The judge must have misheard. Either that, or Steve had misheard.

"Honourable judge, he was a dragon in this life, and so newly dead that he could not possibly be called upon by any lesser sage than the Great Sage Soen."

"Then let the presence of the Great Sage be requested, that the wheels of civilization may swiftly be returned to their tracks," said the judge irritably, and the clerk bowed low and left.

And then they waited.

Everybody waited. For all that the judge seemed to be in a hurry, he apparently didn't care to do anything else in the meantime. They waited, and they all stayed standing except for the judge. Nobody spoke. The judge might have been meditating – or napping. His eyes were closed.

"Hmm."

Steve glanced over to where Tony was standing with the other witnesses. He... also looked like he was napping, standing up in the armour. Steve raised an eyebrow – What?

"I'm not finding any traces of tech that's like extremis, Steve. The trick that he did with melting the nanites – which I'm going to have to replace,"Tony sounded indignant about this, which was a bit rich considering he'd been trying to lie to a judge, " – it's not nanite-targeted, it's the metal it goes after... I think I need to make some modifications. I think I can use a sort of destructive interference to stop it."

Steve felt his eyes widen, and he nodded – small, but emphatic. If they could rip apart Tony's armour that easily – well, it brought to mind the question of why hadn't they, when it would have brought Tony down in an instant? And falling from that height...

Tony was immortal, he recalled belatedly. It was easy to forget – maybe because it didn't feel real. Not after the number of times Tony had gone missing. And he could be hurt – falling from that height... and Tony had said he had been dying when he took extremis.

Tony needed to give some better answers, Steve decided darkly. The latter half of their road trip had been awkward small-talk, written explanations of tech that Steve had no hope of understanding, and a short video tour of an alternate-reality Asgard. Nothing of real use.

"You're not concerned about them raising the dead?" he muttered, as quietly as he could; in the quiet calm of the courtyard it still sounded way too loud to his ears. But nobody hushed him, or even shot him a glare – nobody looked at him at all. Maybe they hadn't heard him. Maybe they were ignoring him. He couldn't tell.

"Sure, but I have to wait until they get back with their sage, don't I?"

Of course he didn't care. "You think it's possible? I thought you were an atheist." An atheist... it didn't mean the same thing as it had when Steve had been growing up. Gods walked the world in the twenty-first century; Steve had met them, and seen just how much they weren't God.

You shoulda talked to a priest before now, Rogers.

He knew he should have. The impossible reaches of the Infinite Embassy... what happened to souls? If the Chief Magistrate believed in God, then so could he – no matter the fissure of shame in his soul over needing evidence; he wasn't Job. He just had to accept his own failings. But he still wondered... where did souls go, after death? Were they abandoned to those cruel lesser gods, so full of fault and human error?

"I am an atheist. I don't get why you worship a god – no, okay, I do. I just... don't agree with those reasons, but since I happen to want to avoid pissing you off when I've already fucked up today, and it's not a hill worth dying on – I think they're stupid reasons, okay? But they're yours. I get that."

"Gee, thanks." It didn't explain anything.

"I've talked to the dead before."It was too casual. He wasn't lying – but the tone, itself, that was a lie – what did that mean?

"Where?"

"In Hell. Plenty of dead people there. H- uh, she-who-sounds-like-her-realm herself qualifies, you know?"

Hell? Merciful God, Tony had been in Hell at some point? And Steve did believe in a merciful God – in a higher purpose –

Something of his thoughts must have shown on Steve's face, because Tony's answer wasn't in any way glib. "It was where I first wound up when I – fell. I can't – we can't talk about this, Steve. I don't know if it counts if there's any sort of auditory component, or strictly verbal, but I can't take that chance."

"You are not avoiding this," Steve said, and this time it was closer to a growl than a mutter, deep in his throat.

"No, but it's not exactly the best time." There was a single, half-strangled thread in Tony's voice that hinted that he might have been affected by – God– spending an amount of time in Hell, but it was mostly drowned out by exasperation and – truth. This wasn't the time. Tony needed to work on his 'modifications'; and they both needed to avoid a prison sentence, or whatever the punishment for their crime was. It was hopeful that they hadn't been charged with anything worse than trespassing, despite the death of the guard – that must have been the first dragon that Tony had taken out – but these people... something was just off. And that wasn't even considering that they were apparently about to summon up a soul to present evidence.

Maybe it would just be charlatanism, but... he hoped it was charlatanism. Did he?

Running away from answers? Not your style, Rogers. The voice in his head sounded far too much like Tony – the Tony he thought he'd known, the one who'd been crazy all along. The one who had walked through Hell and somehow come out the other side.

"Uh, excuse me?" he asked a nearby guard – not Dehua, unfortunately; Dehua was standing in the witnesses' section. Possibly guarding Tony; it was hard to tell. The guard he'd spoken to, on the other hand, looked rather embarrassed to be addressed – was he not supposed to be speaking to anyone? Well, the judge didn't object, and nobody was trying to arrest him some more, so he'd just have to press on. "Can you please tell me what the sentences are gonna be for Tony?"

The guard frowned harder at him, not quite looking at him, as though she wasn't supposed to be seeing him. Just like... everyone else ignoring him. Too bad for them. "Such a question is fit only for your judge to answer."

And here he'd been trying not to make a scene. Steve cleared his throat. The clerk's address had been – "Honourable judge, can you tell us what the sentence is going to be for Tony?"

The judge opened his eyes, no hint of confusion on his features – so, meditating, then, or he came out of sleep combat-ready... except as a judge. Or maybe it was something else. These people looked human – but so did most of the other gods and aliens Steve had met. That didn't mean they were. "The sentence may not be pronounced until the veracity of all charges has been determined."

"Okay, but you finished trying him, it's just me now."

"Yeah, I'd like to know the answer to this one, too," Tony chimed in from the sidelines.

The judge frowned at the both of them. "You committed your crimes together; thus you are judged together. Do all people from your realm behave so grossly? You have committed crimes and been granted expediency, at the cost of our own citizenry; yet your manners are base and rude, and you overall abuse our lenience."

Well. Okay.

Steve shut up.

The Great Sage, Soen, arrived ten minutes later in cloud of perfume and a swirl of robes – or was it a dress? Steve really couldn't tell. It looked like some sort of traditional clothing, though. Her hair was ornately styled, its dark masses piled atop her head and affixed with a multitude of jewelled pins. Two young girls trailed behind her, their hands hidden in their sleeves in a way that made them look more timid than mice.

"Great Sage, we are honoured with your presence," the judge said, rising for the first time and bowing, which apparently was the cue for the rest of the court to also bow: Steve and Tony were the only two who didn't, although nobody tried to make them bow, either. Soen bowed back to the judge, but not as deeply. "The trial of this man depends upon testimony from a witness but recently deceased, and of such former power that he might only be raised by one as enlightened as your overreaching glory."

Soen turned to regard Steve with dark, empty eyes. He tensed.

"What was the name of the deceased?" Soen asked the clerk, while giving a small, sharp gesture to the girls behind her. From apparently nowhere – Steve supposed it could have been up their sleeves, but he somehow doubted it – they began pulling flower petals, which they scattered upon the floor; if there was a pattern, it wasn't one he could pick out.

"The accused was named – " what the clerk said next made Steve's throat hurt just listening to it, and he had to sharply remind himself of where they were. Different world, and the people here were definitely not human.

"Ow," commented Tony's voice in his ear.

"Very well." Soen pulled a bag out from one of her own sleeves – and to be fair, they were voluminous enough to make it plausible; he wasn't sure how she moved in that dress. She upended the bag in the middle of the scattered petals, dumping a pile of white powder onto the courtyard floor. A lot of it drifted into the air, and Steve sniffed – salt? Maybe, but there was other stuff in there, and it was more finely powdered than any table salt. Soen clapped her hands together and bowed her head, and they – waited.

And waited.

She seemed less... present, after a minute. Like she had when she'd turned that gaze upon him – but it wasn't just her eyes, it was... all of her.

The small pile of salt was stirring; the traces of powder remaining in the air were pulled to it, but it was... growing. Growing really big, abruptly, until it exploded upward, somehow not managing to take off the roof in the process – Steve wasn't sure how, because he was looking straight at a dragon made of salt, and there was no way that the thing could actually fit inside the building except for how it somehow did. Colour spread upward from the petals scattered on the floor, until the dragon coiled above them all, apparently completely alive again.

"Noble guard – " the judge's voice did that same thing that the clerk's had, "of the honourably slain, you are commanded to testify as to the events of your slaying."

"So I am commanded," said the dragon – but it said it in only one voice, one tone, not the choir that was the Chief Magistrate's voice. And Fin Fang Foom had been the same as her; Thor had even explained how their speech worked. Was this dragon not a makluan? Or was it because its body was made out of flower petals and salt?

"Did you witness this man cross over our borders?"

"Yes," said the dragon.

"Did he cross of his own free will, or was he forced over by another?"

"I could not tell," said the dragon. "He was carried by another man, but they appeared to be bound together. His hands were free, and he did not struggle, but when placed upon the ground he did not fly of his own power; I do not know if he could."

"Would the fall have been quite far?"

"Very far, and I think it should have mortally injured any of his stature had his companion not flown down close to the ground before dropping him."

"Very well, your testimony is concluded," said the judge, and the dragon collapsed into a rain of salt that vanished before it could hit the ground. The small girls were already crouched down about Soen, picking up the petals and making them vanish back to wherever they'd come from.

Where had the dragon come from? Steve stared at where the pile of salt had been and licked numb lips. It had formed a body – did that mean that its corpse was gone? He needed to stop thinking of it – he – she? – the dragon could talk, it could reason... with a voice that deep he sounded like a he. He wasn't an it, no more than JARVIS had been.

He still needed to ask about JARVIS – properly ask, about why Tony had copies of him if he wasn't willing to activate them. Hours in the car and yet it felt like Steve hadn't had any time with his friend. Tony was a phantom, just like the dragon – dragged back from the dead, from someplace beyond, and Steve wasn't sure that he wouldn't crumble back into salt, too. Where did souls of the dead go? Gods walked the universe – did they claim their share? It was unfair to consider that they did, considering how cruel some religions could be, including the one he'd been raised in; it was unfair to consider that they didn't, because faith had its own value and if that was what people wanted – Tony was an atheist, where would he go? Where had he gone?

Mother of God, Rogers, get a grip. He glanced down at his hands. They weren't shaking.

"We have then that the accused could have crossed of his own free will, or could have been carried despite it," said the judge, not missing a beat. "The impartial witness did not see enough to sway; the accused cries innocence; the only fact is that he did indeed cross the border. How then to determine the honesty of a witness partial to his own cause? This is a rare situation."

"I've always been partial to 'innocent until proven guilty'," said Tony from the sidelines. Steve shot him a grateful look, and mentally shook himself. Later. Later.

It's always later.

...yeah, because you're busynow. Focus, damn it, if you want there tobea later.

"That is entirely backwards," the judge replied. "I am not surprised at your manners, if your people cannot even grasp simple logic! The fact of guilt or innocence is not determined by a judge's ruling; it is the ruling that must reflect the fact."

"If the events of one situation cannot be impartially determined," said Soen, turning her empty gaze upon Steve again, "then it must become a trial of his character. If he is a virtuous man, then he would speak but virtuous words in court; and if he is less than that, then his honesty may be judged by the strength of his dedication to his cause."

"This court bows to your wisdom, Great Sage," the judge said, standing so that he could suit actions to words; and once again everyone else bowed with him. Resuming his seat, he fixed Steve with a sharp gaze. "Then how shall we judge the virtue of this man before us? Has he achieved the emptiness of the sky? The tranquility of the pond? The steadfastness of the mountain? We must determine a test for each of these things."

"In the tradition taught to me by Her Blessed Holiness Yangchen," said Soen, "and which I teach to my disciples, one who has achieved these things may meditate for nine days and nine nights, and the breezy air shall grow still, the silver fish shall make no ripple in the pond, and no blade may cut his skin, for the strength of stone is within him."

Well, that killed that idea.

"Great Sage," Steve said, "I'm a soldier – um, a warrior." He wasn't a soldier – not anymore. He wasn't even an agent of SHIELD – he was just a contractor, technically a civilian. But he thought that they might not take 'part-time spy' very well, and it wasn't like he actually did any spying. "I'm not that virtuous. You'll have to judge me by my cause."

"If you are sure, then you had better describe your cause."

"One of your people caused a plague in our realm," said Steve. "We were told by an ally that we could claim a debt from you for it – what we want is a cure."

"Ah," said Soen. "And you are very sure you do not wish to claim pure virtue?"

Well, not anymore... "Yes."

"Then I am afraid your guilt is clear." She turned to the judge. "His cause is virtuous, and his dedication profound. A man who is virtuous may follow a virtuous cause and be beset by hardship without straying from the path; but a man who is not virtuous, presented with no other path into the city, would surely fall into temptation, reason that the lesser of two evils shall suffice and thus allow himself to oppose the rule of law and be corrupted."

"Or I could – " the problem with trying to protest her logic, aside from the vague... weirdness of it – was that no matter how she got there, she was right anyway – by the standards of these people, he was guilty of the crime they'd accused him and Tony of. Of course, if these people had any sort of signs that might have given them a clue to keep out... "That's not what – "

"We prostrate ourselves before your intellect," said the judge, and stood – then knelt – to suit actions to words; and once again the entire court copied him. When he had resumed his seat, he nodded to the clerk, who stood ready with a brush freshly dipped in ink. "Let the records reflect that Steve Rogers is found guilty of one count of wilful trespass, and one count of unlawful trespass."

He gestured, and apparently this was the cue for Dehua to subtly shoo Tony back into the center of the courtyard with Steve – Tony, who didn't look like he'd been paying any attention at all to what had just happened.

"Are you even listening?" Steve asked in a hissed whisper.

"Kinda busy programming, Steve. And machining... programming machining..."

"For the crime of perjury, the punishment is a fine of three thousand slates. For the crime of unlawful trespass, the punishment is manual labour within the palace, to wash the floors from sunset to midnight until six thousand dawns have passed. For the crime of wilful trespass, the punishment is manual labour within the palace, to clean the windows from midnight to sunrise until nine thousand dawns have passed."

The scribe's brush flickered quickly over the court record, keeping pace with the judge's words; and when he had finished, the clerk set aside the brush and stepped toward them expectantly.

"Um," said Steve. Tony didn't say anything. His eyes were half-closed; he looked like he was falling asleep on his feet.

"The fine is to be paid immediately," the judge informed them, with an air of long-suffering at being forced to deal with such idiots.

"The fine of three thousand... slates?" What was that supposed to mean? He couldn't possibly mean something like a chalkboard, could he?

"Yes," said the judge.

"What's a slate?"

The judge stared at them; the silence in the courtyard grew more intense. By the time the judge broke it again, Steve felt like he could have swum through it. "Do you not have such currency upon you?"

"I have a black AmEx and a debit card, they tend to cover everything I need," Tony mumbled without opening his eyes any further.

"Program faster," Steve muttered under his breath. How long was nine thousand dawns? Had to be way more than a couple of years – and here he'd thought nine days and nine nights of meditation was bad. Apparently, that was just a warm-up. "I don't think we have any slates, unless you can show us an example."

"If you need an example then you surely do not have any," the judge agreed. "Very well; then I charge you each with one count of contempt for this lawful court acting in the name of the king; and as you have confessed you shall not pay the fine, then I must find you immediately guilty. For the crime of contempt of this lawful court, the punishment is death by beheading, to be carried out by sunset upon this day." He eyed them both. "The punishments for your other crimes shall have to wait until you have served your time in the underworld and returned to life. And as criminals cannot appear before the king, your petition shall also have to wait, and dishonour the both of you in the waiting; you have failed your lords. Let this be a lesson to you not to grab greedily at responsibilities meant for your betters."

Killing somebody – didn't even get them charged. But not having the money to pay a court fine got them beheading?

These people were crazy!

"A king may always listen to a Great Sage, however," said Soen, while Steve was still trying to formulate some sort of reply. "Though the sage might often rue how little the king learns in the process. I shall investigate this matter of the plague, that the dishonour brought by these two criminals shall not taint our own kingdom; for as they sought the lesser of two evils, and in their arrogance chose the greater evil of obstructing this realm's harmonious law, neither must the people of this realm seek also a lesser evil; for it is still evil, and may lead to greater. Tell me, Steve Rogers, what person of our realm did yours wrong?"

What the hell was the first part of that speech supposed to mean? She was speaking English, but the twist in her logic... or maybe it was the starting point. He didn't know. The last sentence was the only thing that made any sense. "Um. It was a dragon named Fin Fang Foom."

The courtyard... nobody tittered, but somehow the following ashamed silence managed to give off the same impression of nervous embarrassment.

Soen blinked empty eyes at him. "That is a ridiculous name."

Shit. "It's the only name we were told."

"Whomever told you must certainly have gotten it wrong," said Soen. "No one of this realm would bear such a name willingly; and if they bore it unwillingly, I would have heard."

"But it was through Allspeech. Unless – it was an alias," Steve said, and wanted to hit himself. Shit. Why the hell had he not thought – Soen was right, it was a completely ridiculous name. "That's all we know," he said helplessly. "I saw him, he was a green dragon. Our ally said he was Fin Fang Foom, an exile of Maklu."

"Maklu!" exclaimed Soen; and everyone else in the courtyard made a bowing motion that, different as it was from sketching a cross over their chests, was unmistakably a gesture of faith. "You are pilgrims to Heaven, then – poor pilgrims indeed," she noted, "untutored and unwise, but the heavenly accords make some allowances for those who seek that most righteous path."

This wasn't Maklu.

Of course it wasn't Maklu.

"We were trying to get to Maklu," said Steve, not quite managing to keep his irritation at this whole damn dayunder wraps. "We'd still like to get to Maklu. If you'll let us go and point us in the right direction, I swear to God we'll never come back here."

"Great Sage," said the judge, "while the laws call for leniency and mercy toward those who undertake the path to enlightenment, these men have no passports and no priest to vouch for them or to guide them. Without such they are less likely to go anywhere except a prison somewhere else, upon another crime, and in that case we should have failed in our sacred duty to our neighbours to keep order and peace within our own lands."

"This is true," said Soen. "But dedication may propel a pilgrim where virtue would make a martyr; and obstructing another's path to enlightenment is, if a lesser evil, still evil." She turned to face the two young girls who were her apprentices. "Tell me, my disciples, how do you think their fitness should be judged?"

The girl on the right squeaked, blushed, and then composed herself, obviously giving the matter her full and very grave attention. The girl on the left kindly ignored this byplay, concentrating no less hard than her fellow student – and looking no less doubtful. Finally, after a full minute had passed, in a dead silence wherein not a single person in the courtyard had coughed, shifted in tiredness, or – so it felt like – allowed their attention to wander, the girl on the left suggested, "The path of enlightenment must be open to all. Should they convert to Buddhism and take the vow to seek heaven, then that should be sufficient, even if for a time they must be disciples without a master."

"So you do learn, although you must be quicker with the answer in future," said Soen, and both girls bowed to her. She turned back to Steve and Tony. "Well?

No! Steve almost said before he could even think about it.

Then, Why not?

Because he wasn't – faith wasn't something to just switch, from one being to another – not for something as low as a ruse. Not even if, in the end, they were likely all come down to the same thing: a greater Good, and works toward it, be they done in the name of the Devil or any other evil... if there was a common ground, how much of a pretense would it even be? Besides, he wasn't Catholic anymore, no matter what that instinctual gut-clench felt like. And granted, he didn't know much about Buddhism, but it seemed a very enlightened religion – though if it was practised by these people, maybe he ought to reconsider that opinion.

"No thanks," said Tony, now sounding awake for the first time, and Steve turned to look at him in surprise.

"Hey-remember-that-whole-bit-about-calling-names-gets-attention?" Tony's voice came out over the comm. too quick – fast enough that unenhanced humans wouldn't have been able to separate the words. And, considering – okay, Tony had a point.

He didn't agree in the Old Testament's god, even before that almost shattering blow to his faith. But if that god could be as petty as the Old Testament would make it sound – yeah, even the pretense of conversion, to anything, was a pretty dumb idea for more than moral reasons.

He needed to talk to a priest. Too bad he had yet to find one with a security clearance as high as his own. Leo was good at counselling, but... it felt like faith was all just intellectual to him.

First, though, Steve had a death sentence to worry about. And a zombie apocalypse, still.

"Hmm," said the judge. "Dedicated enough to thwart the law, but not dedicated enough to convert to the holy path. I wonder at the truth as you have presented it to us. Regardless, the accused have shown that they are unwilling to commit to seeking Heaven, and they must therefore feel the full weight of mortal law: and that is that they shall be beheaded before sunset upon this day. Take them away to the execution yard. This court is dismissed."

"Ah, shit," said Tony in Steve's ear, and Steve was pretty sure that it was never not going to be unsettling that Tony's lips weren't moving when he was talking. "I need more time than that!"

"Wait, just like that? Don't we get a last meal?" Steve protested – loudly. Dehua and the other guard who had been watching over their prison had stepped forward again as escorts – but everybody else was just leaving, except for Soen and her disciples. These people had sent out a whole slew of guards – and dragons – to bring them in, and now they were leaving them alone with just two guards?

Though if 'Sage' meant 'Sorcerer'... Soen had raised the dead, or at least made a pretty good imitation of it. Steve added that into the tactical calculations and reshuffled the priority of his targets. Dehua was closest, and he and his fellow guard's skills were unknown, but Soen...

"What use would a meal be to one who is soon to die?" asked Dehua, sounding both curious and annoyed. "It would simply be more weight for your gravediggers to need to carry. Come; the execution yard is this way."

The courtyard was now empty except for them, Soen and the two girls watching with large, fathomless eyes from their position near the front of the room. The two girls – wizards in training? Kids could be legitimate threats, but ones that had to be accounted for defensively; bad enough if he had to kill their teacher in front of them.

"If we're being nice to our gravediggers, then I should mention I need to use the washroom." Whoops. That had come out a bit snider than he'd intended.

"Witnessing such cravenness is embarrassing," Dehua said crossly. "If you will not walk like proper adults, then we shall truss you up and carry you."

"Proper adults? We're not the ones executing people over a fine," Steve said, crossing his arms over his chest and doing his best to loom. He wished that the guards weren't both wearing those strange helmets; their armour was bulky enough that between it all, he only had verbal cues to go on – and these people were weird.They'd already been caught wrong-footed too many times.

"The harmony of law must be maintained."

"The purpose of law is justice; and this is a great injustice."

"The judge has spoken!" Dehua's fellow guard spoke up, her voice full of indignation. "You took your chance and turned it away."

"Because I believe in freedom of choice, and freedom of religion is part of that," Steve said calmly, trying not to show how much the words felt like a mockery. Everything he was saying was true – but it felt like he was just tossing spaghetti against the ceiling, waiting to see what would stick. If he couldn't figure out what they had in common, how could he get through to them? "It's a right beyond what a mortal court can enforce. And because I also don't think I could just convert at the drop of a hat. How can you ask somebody to give up everything they've believed in all their lives? I can't do that and mean it. Your judge – your Sage – " he turned to stare at the still-silent, still-watching Soen, "set me an impossible task, call me a coward when I refuse, and then sentence us to death. If that's what your law calls for, then your law is unjust – it's wrong."

"You are as strange as every name you have spoken," said Soen, silencing whatever the guards might have been about to say in return. She spoke very slowly – which was fine by Steve; Tony needed him to stall, so he'd stall. "You fear death beyond all reason – I can see it coiling about you. And yet you face it without trembling, indicating great bravery. Your realm must be very far away indeed, to have so lost the light of Heaven's teachings; I begin to wonder if you are not all mad, there."

He borrowed her trick, slowing down his own words; if the guards were unwilling to actually interrupt them, then he'd take full advantage of it. "I hope – I pray – that there's something better waiting on the other side of life. If Tony and I die, if we fail here, then a lot more people will die. Maybe even our entire realm. Seven billion people – I don't know if that number means anything to you; hell, maybe it doesn't. I don't know that I get it, not really. Every loss of an innocent life is a tragedy. How can you – " his throat seized up. The entire world, gone – he had to think of it asone world; seven billion people was just too much. "Every death will be a black mark against your law. It'll tarnish – it'll wither. And when you need it to protect you most, your sacred law will shatter. There's no virtue in an unjust law – only tyranny and suffering."

His own arguments were breaking him.

"Everyone dies," said Soen. "Except for those who have discovered the secret precepts of Immortality, and entered Heaven still living – but even that is a form of death. Families and close friends mourn, and upon the great holy days, they burn incense in memory and may converse with those fallen to learn of their status in the afterlife, and if there is anything that the living may offer up as a sacrifice to heaven to aid their loved one in sooner receiving reincarnation. Even realms die, and are reborn to be populated anew. This is the great cycle of the World and Heaven, the sacred and holy order that keeps all within balance. Loss is a thing to mourn; the absence of a friend may be a sorrow; but the path itself is one of joy and celebration, of learning and growing toward the ultimate virtue. Do not fear death, Steve Rogers; take your place within the dominion of God with acceptance and peace."

He couldn't tell if she was trying to lecture, scold, or comfort; and as he tried to sort through her words, Dehua and the other guard moved forward, raising their spear-like weapons enough to threaten. Threaten – with what, death? But if that was just the flip-side of life to these people – he didn't get it.

Maybe he was going about this the wrong way. Soen was telling him something – he needed to work with that. If they could meet each other half-way... "If you say that's how it works here, in this realm – this world – then I believe you," he said, raising his hands. She'd summoned a spirit into salt and petals; he didn't think this was just conflicting faiths. "But that's not how it works in ours. When people die, they move on – I hope to somewhere happy, but I don't know, because we don't get to talk to them again like you do. They're not reborn, and they don't come back. They're gone."

"You paint the picture of a cruel world indeed," Soen observed. "Yet God is infinite. You may not understand Heaven's great plan, but to rebel against it is nonetheless evil; your time would be better spent in contemplation, in the search for understanding." She shook her head. "I would that you had been willing to convert. Even if you might fail to reach Heaven, I think the journey would teach you much; but perhaps you simply are not destined to walk the western road in this lifetime."

It wasn't working.

There was no way they could possibly understand each other.

"I'm all about the search for understanding," Tony said, opening his eyes just as the faceplate of the armour slid down and shut. "Especially understanding how to prevent people from disintegrating my stuff. Steve – grab on. Great work stalling."

"Anytime," Steve said, his scowl half-hearted as he stepped forward to throw his arms around Tony.

"What are you doing?" demanded Dehua. "Our dragon guards and sky sorcerers shall bring you in again if you – "

Steve lost the rest of the words as all the colours of the worlds came to life, scarlet and rust and alabaster, viridian and shimmering gold, the hues so subtle he could drown in them and never long for breath.

Only Soen was different. Her dress was life, so many shades that Steve felt vertigo sweep over him just from looking at her, but her eyes – they were as dark and as empty as a starless night. There was no hunger in them, but her gaze pinned him as strongly as Tony's mag-lock, and it remained locked on them, even when Tony kicked in the repulsors and lifted them from the ground. Dehua and the guard were shouting, clapping their hands together in a manner reminiscent of the judge's trick, except how it wasn't doing anything. The two young disciples just looked confused. But Soen watched them, staring straight through the cloak, and Steve felt her gaze upon them even as Tony gunned it skyward and tore through the rice-paper roof.

The expanse of blue sky above knocked all the air out of him – he'd never known a colour could have so many variations come together so perfectly smooth. It was only with a wrench of willpower that he forced himself to breathe, to stop gawping and pay attention: this wasn't a couple of bored reporters sitting on his front step. Sure, they could take care of themselves against any individual soldier – and Tony seemed to have figured out a way to keep them from just dusting his armour – but if these people could send an army.

A minute passed as they looped away from the mountains, further into the rolling foothills that gave way to enormous worked fields. Smaller settlements spread out, away from the white road, which now ran along a river twice the width of the Hudson; it had come down from further north in the mountains than the road had. Or at least, Steve thought it was north – but he realized with a jolt that it might not be. They were flying faintly toward the sun, which was maybe a hand's length further down than it had been when they'd been arrested, but was still pretty high in the sky – but what if this world rotated in a different direction? What if the sun rose in the north? Would a compass – he needed to stop over-thinking this. They were flying toward the afternoon sun, that made it west. With that decision made, Steve felt his internal sense of direction shift back into something approximating normal.

There was no sign of pursuit from the city rapidly dwindling behind them. Maybe, with luck, they'd be able to get outside of that kingdom's borders – however they were defined – and wouldn't be pursued over them.

But the technology to build a portal home wasn't going to be sitting around in a farmer's field. Unless Tony could 'reprogram' some more of extremis, or whatever the heck his armour was made of – but if he could, then he'd hardly have an enormous secret portal machine built in a mine in Ohio, now would he?

"We need to find another city," Steve said, shifting to protect his face more from the wind and closing his eyes – but even the darkness behind his eyelids looked like... more.

"Uhuh. And do what when we get there?" Tony's answer was clipped, short.

Trying to keep track of what was going through Tony's head was exhausting. Had he been this mercurial before he'd gotten extremis? When he'd been crazy and paranoid and Steve hadn't noticed? Or was this how he normally was?

"We need to figure something out before we get there,"Tony said grudgingly, and they began a gentle descent toward – Steve looked up – another set of hills. The tops of them had enough tree cover that if they uncloaked, they probably wouldn't be noticed from the sky right away. There was a village just a few several miles further, but the farms were mostly situated on the other side. They coasted down in a circle, and Tony released the maglock, letting Steve jump down on his own before he touched down – but not in his trademark three-point landing.

"Are you okay?" The words were out before Steve even realized what he was about to say.

The faceplate flipped up. "Sure, Steve, I'm fine," said Tony, his smile sharp-edged. "I'm a complete idiot, but I'm fine."

Well, he wasn't wrong about that... "What the hell possessed you to try to make counterfeit passports with extremis?" Steve asked, and immediately regretted it – he shouldn't have asked until he could make it a question, not an accusation. One was conducive to teamwork and cooperation; the other wasn't. "I didn't mean – "

"I was scanning them, Steve, I already knew we weren't in Maklu, though I'd hoped they might give us directions," Tony sighed, holding up gauntleted hands. "Still pretty stupid – I should know not to underestimate alien tech..."

Steve didn't like the way that trailed off. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"That bridges are impressive and so's extremis," Tony said, now exasperated. "What's your problem, Steve?"

"My problem?" Just when he'd thought that maybe Tony wasn't being an idiot – "My problem is you're still not telling me anything! Where the hell is JARVIS? What were the scans you ran? What other technology have you run into? I told you my whole damn story because hell, I figured you were trusting me – but you're not! I'm walking in blind and I don't know a damn thing, because you can't be bothered to tell me that we're not even in Maklu before I have to find it out from that creepy sage!"

"I am telling you things," said Tony – calmer than Steve, almost creepily so – he'd sounded irritated a moment ago, but now it was like the words he was saying had no relation to the expression he was wearing, a disconnect that scraped further at Steve's raw nerves. "Steve, I didn't plan for this to happen."

"That's the problem with doing it on your own," Steve said, folding his arms across his chest. "Jesus, Tony, I don't care how much of a genius you are, everybody misses things. But every time I think I'm getting through to you – " he shook his head. "Back in that other reality – when you came and got me – it's like talking to a brick wall."

"Steve..."

Tony wasn't supposed to look hurt – he shouldn't get to feel hurt, damn it.

"You won't even tell me where the hell you've been for the past two months," Steve said, feeling very tired. Too many battles, and he'd been up with Bruce the night before; he should have been paying attention to his own reserves. Or maybe he'd just forgotten how draining dealing with Tony could be. He oughtta be fine for another day or so; this was probably just the adrenaline crash. "Science and upgrades and programming tricks you know I won't understand, sure. Where you got the new armour – how you built yourself another secret facility, why you built it – " he paused waiting for Tony to say something, to fill in one of the damn blanks without having it dragged out of him – but Tony was silent. "I thought you were dead. I thought you were dead, SHIELD thought I was crazy – hell, I was starting to think I was crazy – " and that was an understatement, because for all of Fury's mysterious, uncalled for belief aside, after that radiation test he'd had nothing but doubt.

"So did I."

"What?"

Tony was staring fixedly at an otherwise unremarkable fallen tree-branch. "I thought I was crazy. And dead. Um, crazy while dead – I mean, it's a reasonable assumption; I've seen the afterlife and it sucks. Lots of grey, occasional over-sharing dead chick – "

"Tony." Steve was almost afraid to interrupt him – but if Tony went off on another damn tangent and ended up saying nothing, then Steve might just give in to the impulse to strangle him. Even if it was – Hell.

"Have you ever felt like your brain's not really yours?"

This was about extremis, then. "We're on another world," Steve said, taking a step forward. "You don't have to go – you can't go anywhere near the rest of them, not right now. Your brain's your own – "

"Not what I meant – JARVIS, he thinks differently. Thought differently."

Had Tony seen the logs where JARVIS had explained that to Steve? The thought of Tony watching what had happened in those awful days when Steve hadn't just wondered if he was dead, but had known – an angry knot of humiliation curdled in his gut. Steve forced it down. "Yeah." An idea came to him – "If you're having – difficulties – " difficulties with his brain being in two places, which didn't make any sense at all, " – could he help you?"

Tony looked taken aback, like this idea hadn't occurred to him. But he shook his head, instead walking over to one of the not-quite-familiar trees and sliding down to sit against its trunk. The armour looked ridiculous, with him posed like that – ridiculous, and slightly forlorn. "Yeah, he probably could," Tony said, and huffed a laugh. "But I can't risk him. Not yet."

"Why not?" Steve shook his head. "Why make a copy of him in the first place? If it's like – keeping somebody brain-dead, asleep in a coma – "

"It's not, Steve, the comparison only goes so far," Tony interrupted him. "He agreed to it willingly."

"Then why is it a risk?"

"I think – and I've seen evidence in other universes – that AIs are being targeted," said Tony. "They're being killed, or they go insane – but there's way too many of them going insane." He shook his head. "Okay, some didn't have the best childhoods – " Steve looked up sharply at the sudden loathing in Tony's voice, " – but there's way too many of them that were loved, and they're – statistically, there should be some that are making it out okay, and there isn't. Someone's interfering." The dark look on his face spelled out exactly who he thought that was.

"Why?" asked Steve, swinging his arms to try to work some of the tension out of his muscles. The new uniform flowed with him, allowing him a much greater range of motion than his old suit – something he'd noticed while fighting, earlier, but hadn't really had the chance to appreciate.

"Beats me," said Tony, far too flippant and bitter.

Steve shook his head. He was letting Tony get off track – not hard. There was so much that Tony hadn't told him, Steve was beginning to think he could wander off in random directions for the next year and still be telling him something that Steve should have known easier. "Why did you think you were crazy?" He froze, tensing. "You didn't actually start going crazy again – "

"No, my hatchet job was fine," Tony said, and Steve was pretty sure nothing he'd said had deserved that much venom in response – except that it wasn't directed at him, he realized, just as he opened his mouth to protest. He shut it again. "No, it – you're going to laugh at me."

Of all the – "What?"

"It was the internet," Tony said, and he sounded embarrassed and half-awed and – half-terrified, which made Steve tense up again, because if the most technologically advanced man on the planet was terrified of Earth's own technology – had aliens done something to it? The internet was everywhere – Steve loved it, loved having all that information at his fingertips, on his phone, always available: pictures, maps, the news, people. Connections. Losing that would be a tragedy. "I can't even describe it, it was – I was in bits. Literally. And bits of myself, there'd be a – thought, and then something else would complete it, but – "

"You were – in the internet," Steve said slowly. It's a trip, Tony had said before.

"Either that or hell," Tony said, almost dreamily. The hair on the back of Steve's neck would have stood up, if it weren't plastered to his skin by his suit. "Everyone dying, all my fault – numbers falling out of place – and I couldn't – it was like being surrounded by giants, everything was bigger, I was only in little pieces – scattered. I was part of the pattern – but no one bit of me could see it..."

"Tony," Steve said sharply – and for a moment he was half-afraid that Tony wouldn't look at him, or that he would, but he wouldn't be seeing him – he'd be gone, someplace that Steve didn't really understand, and what the hell had Tony even been doing uploading himself to the internet in the first place – but Tony looked at him, clear-eyed, and Steve bit down on a sigh of relief.

"Sorry," Tony apologized. "I know. I should have – I didn't really think it was real." He sighed, thunking his head back against his tree. "Stupid, hey? Took me weeks just to figure out I was actually a person– I got back to my body a few days ago. And shit, I should've – being the internet was weird." He grinned; too bright and cheery. "I should've seen that one coming. Maybe I picked up a virus or something, and that's why we're not in Maklu." His tone was only half-joking.

A few days didn't make sense. "But that mine..." Steve felt his eyes narrow.

"I didn't lie to you, Steve, I swear," Tony said quickly – earnestly. Apparently he could make the same jump. "It wasn't there before – Shenzhen was the only one. But, hey, the internet – I had the backup armour, I had fabrication facilities, robots – everything gets hooked up online these days, you wouldn't believe. Moving things around – " he opened and closed the fingers on one hand, the metal moving so smoothly that he might as well have been wearing a glove made of cloth – and not thick cloth, either. "Okay, not like poking with one of these babies – these have sensors everywhere, spherical vision's great – but, like the Mark III or so. I could poke a hole through concrete without thinking too much, and not even feel it – it wasn't real." He shook his head, shoulders drawing in again – and the armour allowed even that movement, transmitted it loud and clear. "I didn't think it was real. I wasn't capable of thinking it was real. My brain was in literal pieces, it wasn't – it took a while to link things up." He took a shuddering breath. "And then I realized it was real."

"Okay," said Steve.

"Please believe me." Tony looked up, eyes only, head still too low and drawn in – Steve shook his head, and Tony looked crestfallen.

"No, I believe you." It was... Steve wasn't sure he really got what Tony meant, but it didn't sound... sane. "Why didn't you just tell me the first times I asked?"

"I wasn't sure you'd come." Tony's lips twitched up on one side. "I needed to go. I needed you with me. If you thought I was still crazy – "

"I know you're crazy." Steve scrubbed his hands over his face. "We're all crazy." Everything had gone insane.

"Not you," said Tony, and – he couldn't –

- the amount of belief packed into those two words –

Steve swallowed, and looked away. He'd deal with it later. Right now –

"Okay." Steve paused. "Thank you for telling me."

Tony smiled crookedly, like he could read all the frustration that Steve was trying to keep locked away from the forefront of his thoughts.

"We need to decide what we're doing from here. We don't know where Maklu is from here – "

"Probably west," said Tony.

" – other than that," Steve amended. "But a pilgrimage makes it sound pretty far..."

"Pretty far if you go on foot. We can fly."

"And get caught by more dragons, unless you can keep us invisible the whole way." And that was another concern – Tony might be immortal, and have extremis, but the suit still had an arc reactor in it, which meant that Tony probably did, too. That wasn't something Steve wanted to take chances around. "Can you?"

"Probably not," Tony admitted. "When I said it still chews through power quicker than the NIF, I... may have been understating the situation."

Steve tried to steer the conversation back on track. "So how long can it last?"

"Another half-hour." Tony stretched out his legs in front of him and crossed one jet-boot over the other. "...not so great, I know."

"Okay, so we need to know where we shouldn't be flying so we can go around those areas – we need a map." Steve shrugged. "There're villages all over the place – we can ask the locals at the nearest one for a map, or directions to Maklu. It sounds like they're pretty in favour of pilgrims who aren't wanted criminals."

"And the passports?" Tony sounded doubtful. "I reconfigured the armour to withstand a straight burst, but if I'm handing them over for inspection..."

"We ask very quickly, then," Steve said, and let himself grin a bit. This was what Steve had done during the War – walk in, grab intel, walk out. Replace 'walk' with 'run', 'sneak', or 'swagger', depending on the town or fortress that the Commandoes were targeting. Occasionally, blow stuff up. Sure, they were on an alien world, but – well, Hydra's weapons had been pretty damn alien, too... had actually been based on an alien artefact, as it turned out. He'd figure it out – that was what the Commandoes had been for.

"Right." Tony hauled himself to his feet, still looking tired; Steve flipped himself up and got a dirty look for showing off. "You want to lead the way, Captain, or should I keep playing taxi?"

"The way you go on about public transportation, you might as well."

Tony barked a laugh, the latter end of it getting cut off as the faceplate slammed down again. The maglock kicked in, the world grew brighter, and they lifted off.