The Western Road

by Teyke

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

5. The Imposter King

"Aha!" Tony exclaimed, about a week and a half later. "Got it." He sounded triumphant, although of course, Steve couldn't read his expression – not with the faceplate down, and in the last nine days, Tony hadn't raised it once. Steve was starting to get concerned – well, that was a lie. He had started to be concerned eight days ago.

"Got what?"

"Got how the demon targeted the illusions specifically at you. I think. Can you see this?" He held out his hand, palm repulsor up.

"Your gauntlet?"

There was a pause. "...no. Damn it."

Steve shook his head. "Sorry." He sighed. "You'll have time to work on it tonight – I want to stop early."

"We've still got supplies."

"Yeah, and I'd like to make use of them. We all smell, and I'm exhausted."

And he was pretty sure that Tony, despite needing sleep now – for reasons still unknown – had not actually slept at all in the past eleven days. But it was impossible for Steve to be completely sure, because Tony hadn't been willing to lift the damn faceplate once, not since he'd gotten back from wherever he'd gone when Tripitaka had sent him away. He was becoming more than a bit erratic over the comm., chattering away with the occasional non-sequiturs that left Steve scrambling to catch up – and concerned that somehow Tripitaka had done something to Tony with koans, even though the idea was ridiculous. Tony was not some sort of monstrous creature that could be defeated by spouting nonsense rhymes – or maybe he could, if it was a spell... but there had to be power behind it, and Tripitaka had proven he didn't have that type of willpower.

"Enlightenment can only come to the willing," Tripitaka had said sadly, when Steve had asked him about koans – about koans, but not about Tony.Still...

Tony hadn't even been willing to let Steve check his injuries – for all that he'd fussed over Steve's – instead insisting that extremis would repair them quicker if he remained completely encased within the armour. It had rung true at the time – but like a hollow truth, no matter that the armour had looked as good as new within a day. It might not have been a falsehood, but it hadn't been the real reason Tony wouldn't take the armour off.

Steve had been trying to give him space, but that didn't seem to be working.

"Speak for yourself, I'm a rose," Tony said smugly. "'If you meet the Buddha, kill him.'"

"What?"

"The koan. That one doesn't fit. Tree falls in a forest, sound of one hand clapping – murder of a major religious figure? Doesn't follow."

"Point," Steve agreed, and kept himself from suggesting the logical course of action, which would to ask Tripitaka. It wasn't like Steve wanted to talk to Tripitaka, either.

"So what's its meaning? Why does it damage a demon? It talked about... wisdom, and spiritual power, so these are things... but how the words fit in..." Tony wasn't really talking to him anymore, Steve recognized; he was just talking aloud. Well, though the comm., so it was even odds whether he was actually talking aloud or just transmitting the radio signals, but it came out to the same thing. "Hmm."

"Is there anything I can say to convince you to stop thinking about this?" Steve asked wearily.

"If you've got your shield, I've got armour," Tony said. He sounded almost smug – almost. Maybe it was the comm., maybe it was the lack of sleep, but there was something... not quite right, still. "And a labyrinth, if I can build one – knowledge is the best defence, Captain Ostrich."

That was unfair. Steve let it go.

He didn't say anything more for the next hour and a half, at which point they crested a rise and found themselves looking down on a large complex below – fields of crops laid out not around farmhouses, but a central stone building set about a half-mile away from the road.

"Oh, luck!" cried Tripitaka. "Here they will certainly take us in for the night."

"You sure?" asked Steve, glancing at him. They hadn't exactly met many friendly people yet, although after their first two disastrous stops in a town, they'd at least been able to buy supplies at the third one.

"Yes, it is a friendly temple," Tripitaka said with confidence, so they kept on, and when they came to the track leading away from the white road, they turned off on it.

"Ten bucks says they throw us out in half an hour," predicted Tony, as Tripitaka bowed to the elderly lady monk who came out to greet them. She reminded Steve quite firmly of one of the nuns at the orphanage – a woman who didn't have much time for nonsense, but had infinite patience for the garden. Since the monk's robes were quite covered in dirt and she was holding a spade which she kept drumming her fingers on impatiently, Steve rather thought that they'd probably have gotten along like a house on fire.

"Of course you are quite welcome to stay the night," she said, when Tripitaka had finished the introductions. "Come. I will show you to the guest cells where you may deposit your things, and meditate until dinner."

"...make that two minutes."

"They're religious, it's not like a prison cell," Steve muttered under his breath, smiling at the monk politely when she glanced at him.

"Uh-huh. Gonna take the original bet, then?"

"No deal."

He should have, though, Steve thought later, after polishing off dinner – it hadn't exactly been a large meal, even for a guy without a metabolism four times normal. But they had more food back with their gear – he could eat more later. He ended up stealing Tony's plate anyway.

"Are you sure you don't need to eat?" he murmured under his breath. Tripitaka was regaling the monastery of the trials he'd faced – with a surprising amount of humility – but it seemed like so-called 'students' were supposed to keep their mouths shut.

"Curse."

"Sleeping."

"Extremis."

Steve grimaced. "Just... maybe you should try it."

Tony's voice conveyed perfectly well that if Steve had been able to see his face, he'd see that Tony was wrinkling his nose. "I'll pass. Not a big fan of rice and beans."

"I think you'd like the spices."

"I'm wearing – I am – some of the most advanced sensors on the planet, Steve. There are no spices in that."

"Shucks, I forgot. Given how little you wear the armour, and all."

"We aren't having this conversation here," said Tony. Steve grimaced. They weren't in private – Tony had a point. He cleaned Tony's plate, and waited for some sign that dinner was dismissed – no point in being a rude guest, since they hadn't been thrown out yet.

But since Tripitaka had his own, separate cell, and Yulong was off in the stables – perhaps a bit demeaning, but the monastery interior wasn't built to accommodate a six-legged horse – after dinner, they did have some privacy.

"So sue me, I haven't seen your face nearly three weeks – come on, Tony."

"What," Tony folded his arms across his chest – a move that the armour more menacing than it should have been – "Getting worried that maybe I'm not the same guy who flew off?"

Steve blinked, and ruthlessly squashed the instinct to raise his shield. That wasn't –

He hadn't seen Tony's face in nearly three weeks. He hadn't seen Tony since he'd left. They'd been confronted by a shapeshifter using illusions, and he hadn't checked – well, okay, not that it would have made a difference if he had looked – the demon had used illusions. But Steve had bantered with Tony and Tony had bantered back, and maybe he'd been a bit high-strung, but he was definitely Tony. Steve relaxed. "Stop trying to distract me and just take off the damn helmet, Tony."

Tony tilted his head to the side. In a gentler voice, Steve added, "You tell me – is there anyone spying on us right now?"

"...no," Tony admitted reluctantly. "Steve... I..."

Tentatively, Steve reached out to grab his shoulders. "Tony. Please."

It felt strangely like Tony was teetering on the brink of a cliff – as though here were some chance that, if missed, would not come again. Only superstition, probably. But if Tony spent the rest of his life refusing to face the world except through the filtered light of a HUD, Steve knew, deep down, that he'd never forgive himself.

I should have stopped Tripitaka. I should have found a way.

"...okay," said Tony, and it came out half through the comm. and half through his lips as the faceplate melted away – only the faceplate, not the entire helmet, but it was more than enough to show that even if he needed sleep, Tony clearly hadn't been letting himself get any. Steve had been taking his own share of watches, but if the enormous bags under his bloodshot eyes were any indication, Tony hadn't been sleeping during the break. Unwilling to try, or unable?

Tony frowned at him. "I don't look that bad."

"Yes, you do," said Steve dryly, and picked up one of the thin blankets the cell had contained, shoving it at Tony's chest. "Go to sleep, Tony." And when Tony's eyes slid to the side, "I'll keep watch."

"You're a little big for a teddy bear," Tony murmured, but he seemed to be suddenly amenable to the idea; he balled up the blanket for a pillow, curling up in a corner.

"I've been to Coney Island, Tony, I know that's not true." Not that he'd ever have been able to win one of those giant prizes when he was a kid – and now, it wasn't really fair to the carnies for him to try.

"You're the underdog in this fight, Steve." Tony's half-asleep, almost sing-song tone made the words not register for a moment. "He'll take you apart."

That... didn't sound like Tony was talking about Tripitaka.

"Can't say no forever," Steve breathed, the words rising with the memory.

"Sure you can," mumbled Tony. "Just forget to increment your while loop. Shitty programming, damnit Maya..."

His breathing had evened out. Steve felt his eyebrows raising as he glanced over at Tony – that had been fast. He shifted his shield on his arm and settled in for a long night – Tony really needed to catch up on sleep.

Predictably, less than an hour later somebody was banging on their cell door.

---

"It was a dream," said Steve, feeling more irritated than if he'd been the one woken out of a sound sleep.

"I cannot just dismiss it!" said Tripitaka, wringing his hands. "I must know if it's true. You'll have to go see if his body is there."

"We can deal with it in the morning!"

"If we're going to be going grave-robbing, we should probably be doing it while it's dark out," Tony put in, a private message for Steve's ear only.

Tripitaka's story, such as it was, went like this: he had just fallen asleep – had in fact thought he was still awake – when a ghost had risen up through the floor of his cell. Upon being questioned, the ghost had said, "I am the rightful ruler of this kingdom, but my throne and my form has been stolen by an evil sorcerer, who played at being my friend until he could kill me and hide my body away at the bottom of my royal garden. In the three years since my wife has begun to suspect, but the imposter keeps her locked away and does not often see my son, and so my son does not know; and I fear greatly for them both. Please, will you help me?" At which point, Tripitaka had agreed, and then had woken up.

Except, unlike any normal person who woke up out of a weird but harmless dream, instead of rolling over and going back to sleep, he'd immediately gotten up and started banging on Steve and Tony's door.

"What exactly are we supposed to do?" Steve asked, folding his arms across his chest. "Assume we find proof. We expose the sorcerer – and what? Kick-start a revolution? We could rescue his wife and son, take them with us, but I'm not going to help topple a government without knowing that the people stepping in to run it instead are going to do a good job. But we don't have time to stick around and ensure it."

"I'm putting that up on Youtube when we get home," said Tony sotto voice.

"Obviously, the rightful king must be restored to the throne," said Tripitaka. "He is the one who has Heaven's mandate. And if he is a poor ruler, then Heaven shall make that clear soon enough."

Steve stared at Tripitaka, taking a moment to try to put his thoughts into some sort of order.

"Uh. Laying aside everything wrong with your last two sentences, we're not sticking a zombie on a throne. We have enough problems with that back on Earth," Tony spoke up at last – spoke up aloud, that was. The Iron Man voice sounded even more robotic than normal.

"I am no Great Sage Equal to Heaven, but I am most likely equal to the task of retrieving a wrongly-slain, restless soul from the afterlife, especially one that already has such strength of will as to appear in the mortal world as a ghost. You shall have to dig up the body and bring it back, so that I may try. Even if I am not equal to the task, a full-hearted attempt is an utmost necessity – I gave my word that I would help him and to break it would be a disaster. And as you are my disciples, you are therefore bound as well." Tripitaka planted his hands on his hips and looked at them both sternly.

Steve crossed his own arms, resisting the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose, in hopes it might impede the ghost-headache he was experiencing. He needed time to think – without Tripitaka standing there holding a sword over Tony's head, and all-too-willing to use it. Even though Tripitaka hadn't so much as glanced meaningfully at the headband that Tony still wore, its presence felt like a heavy weight in the room. Hell, getting away from Tripitaka had been one reason that Steve had been so happy to discover that the monastery intended to give the 'master' his own cell, and let the 'disciples' share.

He didn't have time to think now. But something like a mission, out from under Tripitaka's eyes – because they weren't taking him along on anything that required stealth, not when he could wait here in safety – it would at least be time away from that awful collar.

"Okay," Steve gave in. "Where's this garden that he's likely to be buried in?"

Tripitaka hemmed and hawed. "I'm not sure. But if it is his royal garden, then it must be in a palace; and very likely in the capital of this kingdom. We must ask the monks here for a map."

It wasn't been that long since the evening meal; most of the monks, it turned out, were still awake – or were willing to wake up in order to learn what their guests were so excited about. There was a great deal of nodding and satisfied muttering as Tripitaka explained the situation – "The whole kingdom has had bad luck for these last three years," said one elderly monk. "I'd never seen the like of it before. Of course this would explain it."

"If we toss somebody off the throne, leaving no replacement isn't any more responsible than backing somebody we're not sure of," Tony said quietly in Steve's ear.

"All our options suck. I'm aware," Steve said dryly, almost soundlessly, relying on Tony's mics to pick up his words.

"These people seem to want the old king back. If the rest of the kingdom's the same, it's not a bad choice."

"I'm not saying it is, I'm saying we don't know. Can't know. This is one monastery."

"...okay, that was a bit oblique. What I mean is – it might not be a choice. It might be written into the rules of this place – the throne always returns to the rightful king. By blood, and no, you don't need to do that lecture, I know you think primogeniture is so 1775."

"Are you just playing Devil's Advocate for the hell of it?" Steve griped.

In due time, they were presented with a map. Only a small corner of the kingdom was anywhere near the road – to get to the capital, they'd need to travel far overland. Steve glanced at Tony, trying to get an assessment of how viable it was to venture off-road, but the armour's blank face was, well, blank. Even though Tony could probably have made it wear expressions – he could reform it at will, after all.

That mildly distracting thought lasted until Tony said, "Shall we? I don't know about you, but I'm not really keen to hang around, Cap."

"Are you sure you have the time-travel problems worked out?" Steve asked his as they made their way outside, followed by a crowd of curious monks.

"No, but we know where we're going," Tony pointed out. "And it's not that far away." That was true – it was decent-sized if horses were the main mode of travel – no matter how many legs they had – but it hardly held a candle to the size of America, or even Germany.

Steve had to admit to himself that he was slightly disappointed. He'd looked forward to flying again.

Idiot. Like that's important.

"...so we can fly pretty close to the ground," Tony finished belatedly, and Steve felt a corner of his mouth lift in an involuntary smile. "At least until we get near enough to the city that the folding's not such a problem."

Flying close to the ground, weaving in and out among trees, hills, and other obstacles, was a different sort of rush than being a thousand feet up in the air; Steve clung on for dear life, despite the mag-lock, and had to bite down hard on his lower lip to keep from whooping with the joy of it. People would be sleeping by now. Tony was flying slow enough not to throw off too much sound; Steve could keep his damn mouth shut, even if the rush of cold air against his face was a better high than parachuting.

The armour was black beneath his fingertips, and non-reflective; even the light from the repulsors was somehow dimmed. "Smart," Steve murmured, his words eaten immediately by the rush of wind, although it was less of a change than Tony turning his armour into clothes – and vice versa – so Steve supposed he shouldn't have been surprised by it.

"I try," said Tony, the amusement coming through loud and clear.

"Good," said Steve. "We're going to need your brain to get out of this one."

The hesitation came clearly through the armour, although Steve couldn't have pinpointed any specific clue – but he was plastered up against Tony, and that was enough. "I wasn't playing Devil's Advocate earlier just for kicks. The road's obviously a construct, but the dimensional folding of normal space... it could be natural law here. Well, I say could, in the way that Los Angeles could be built on a fault zone, hey, maybe that's why there're so many earthquakes."

"I'm not really getting what wonky space has to do with overthrowing local governments, Tony."

"When the monks say there's been 'bad luck', it might be more than the Earthly consequences for letting a backstabbing creep rule your country. It might actually be something more akin to gravity – force, effect. Lack a ruler from a particular bloodline – crops fail, kids starve, monks rabble-rouse."

"Conjecture," Steve objected, because even for Tony, that was a pretty far leap.

"Sure. Everything is, here," Tony replied, so flatly that Steve found himself biting back a reply. "Look. I told you about where I ended up – those fates that controlled everything? That wasn't just about time and space, that was about individual destinies."

"That doesn't mean that this place is like that," Steve said firmly. There were lights up ahead, the dim light of fire seen through cloth screens. The dim light of the stars overhead – there was no moon – made it just possible for Steve to see the city spread out below. It was small, by modern standards, although the palace in the northern quarter was impressive, but –

All the light became more obvious, more brilliant, as Tony cloaked them; Steve made the mistake of glancing upward, and his attention was caught by the stars, transformed from pinpricks of light to glittering diamonds.

"It might." Tony was talking again – it was hard to concentrate on his words. "I told you Maklu was in a weird location – which was an understatement. The math is some of the most fucked up I've ever seen. It's located in our 3D space, yes, but it's also in everything else's 3D space, even the stuff that isn't in ours." There was a sort of awe in Tony's voice that made Steve almost relax a bit. "And that's my point. It's not a central set of worlds, but it's in the same space as them. The rules bleeding over seems... uh, likely, considering the way these people go on about order and heavenly will."

They slowed, coming in to a hover over top of the palace. There were a large number of gardens stretched out below, all of which seemed well-tended except for one. That one lay behind a closed wall and looked half-dead, half-overgrown: the ornately shaped bushes and small trees of the other gardens had all died off, and the only plants remaining were choking weeds and creeping vines draped over everything.

"I'm guessing no dragons here," said Tony, and Steve had to concur – if anybody had been flying over this place, that garden would have been an enormous red flag. Unless it was simply the custom not to question the king around here.

They dropped gently into the centre of it, neither of them bothering to be careful about the placement of their boots – there was no way to stand on the ground here without stepping on some creeping weed. The ICG flickered off, turning the hitherto enchanting stonework into a gruesome spectacle that might belong in an abandoned graveyard. Steve jogged over to the gate at the entrance – it was made of stone, but in a strange way, as if somebody had first tried to board up the original wrought iron gate, and then had turned the entire thing to stone – either that, or it was carved by a sculptor with a very strange sense of art.

"Human skeleton, buried nine feet down," Tony said, and Steve turned back to see the black shadow that was the armour indicate an enormous, partially buried stone block.

So Tripitaka hadn't just been dreaming. Hopefully the poor guy's remains weren't encased within the stone.

"We could always just tell him it's not here," Steve said, but it was a stupid suggestion – he didn't need to hear Tony's derisive snort to know that. If they did that, what were the odds that the ghost would just show up again? And who would Tripitaka believe? "Alright, fine. We bring him back, let Tripitaka see – but Tony, we can't just pick and choose these people's leader for them."

"Youtube," Tony half sang.

"Tony."

"Steve." Tony's turned his head away. It struck Steve as an entirely fake gesture – given the sensor suite the armour possessed, it didn't really mean anything. "I... can't."

Somehow, Steve didn't think that Tony was talking about the same thing that he was in regards to that 'can't'. "What do you mean?"

"You take a piece of metal and you stress it – it's never gonna be as strong as it was. I broke once. I'll break again."

"Tony..." Steve stepped forward softly, carefully, to lay a hand on the armour's shoulder. "You defied him earlier. It was one of the bravest things I'd ever seen." Not that he'd been appreciating that bravery at the time, thinking as he had that it was an innocent woman Tony was risking his life to kill, but in retrospect, knowing what Tripitaka could and would do... it must have taken a hell of a lot of courage.

"That was different. The demon would've killed him if I didn't – he'd have taken it out on me, it was the lesser of two evils. We don't have a plan here, Steve. There is no way that just refusing to do what he wants is going to make him change his mind – not this time."

"Then we need a plan," Steve said firmly. "We'll – we need to convince him it's not in his best interests." Tripitaka had sworn to help the ghost, but he'd also said that if the king was a bad king, he'd lose the mandate of Heaven...

"Do we?" Tony recoiled and stalked away, around to the other side of the stone block. "You're hung up on the idea that we can't interfere, Cap – too many history lessons getting to you?" He knelt, and Steve could hear the metal of his gauntlets scraping against stone as he dug down – and then, with a heave, he flipped it up and over, sending all two-and-a-half by ten by five feet of it flying; Steve had to dodge out of the way.

"I've never liked people who trample all over others, Tony."

"Yet you're not willing to get rid of a guy who literally murdered his way into power."

"We've got one view of a situation – this is different than if we were going to stick around, Tony. We can't just take on responsibility for them and then abandon them. We don't know enough."

Steve watched, reluctant to help, as Tony went over to one of the larger, flatter pieces of ironwork, and chopped it away with his wrist lasers; a minute later, he had a passable shovel, and began clearing dirt from the grave at an almost alarming rate – alarming, considering that it would take them back to Tripitaka that much sooner.

Steve didn't understand. Why the hell would Tony want to finish any sooner than he had to?

"You were willing enough to fight wars on foreign soil before."

"That was different and you know it." It took real effort to bite back his frustration. "All we have is the word of one ghost."

"Tripitaka has his way, it'll be one ex-ghost – the people here can compare kings and pick whichever one they like."

"And we'll be – where? You can't just kick something like this off and run away from it, Tony."

Tony turned sharply; Steve imagined that if Tony had had the eyes still lit, the helmet would have been glaring at him. "So I should run away first, ignore the problem entirely? What's going on, Steve? Since when does Captain America think that inaction is the lesser of two evils?"

"I don't know!" Steve gestured sharply at the grave that Tony was digging out. "I don't know when the hell you started thinking that anythingTripitaka proposes is a good idea!"

Tony was still. Then, "Jesus Christ, Steve, you could keep your voice down."

Steve winced, shoulders slumping. He shouldn't have gone off at Tony that way – he was making a total hash out of this. Tony had... Stockholm Syndrome, or something – he'd just admitted as much. And... it wasn't like Steve had been doing anything to help him.

"Help me finish this before someone comes and checks who the idiot yelling in the king's private garden is," Tony said brusquely, tossing the shovel up to Steve. A quick boost of the repulsors carried him out of the pit he'd already dug, and over to the grating to assemble another make-shift shovel. Silently, Steve jumped down, and started shovelling out dirt.

Nobody did come and interrupt them, although they finished in short order anyway, uncovering a thoroughly skeletized corpse of a man, buried directly in soil – all of the flesh had long since rotted away. Steve stared at the arm-bone he'd accidentally knocked aside in dismay – how were they supposed to transport back a skeleton? It would fall to pieces.

"Now the tricky bit."

"We'll need a blanket, or a sheet," Steve said, grimacing. They were going to have to hope it didn't matter if the bones got all piled up – there wasn't any way that they were going to be able to transport it, not lose any of the smaller bones, and keep it all arranged as it should be. It seemed horribly disrespectful to the deceased, though – even if the deceased had asked for it.

"Ye of little faith," said Tony. "You should probably stand back for this."

Eyebrows raised, Steve jumped up and out of the pit, then crouched near the edge, watching. Plates on the armour's forearms unlatched – not melting away as they had when Tony changed the armour with extremis, but actually moving forward as a solid piece of metal: part of some device. Tony plunged his gauntleted fists into the grave-dirt, bringing the edges of the plates just level with it.

There was an enormous noise, like the sound of undoing a zipper magnified to a thunderclap, half-deafening Steve. He clapped his hands over his ears – too late – and almost missed the strange black light that flickered about the armour's fingers: visible again now, because the bottom of the grave was gone. Lacking anything to kneel on, Tony tipped forward, and only a quick application of the repulsors saved him from hitting the side of the grave with his face.

Cautiously, Steve removed his hands from his ears. "What the heck was that?"

Tony's voice through his earpiece definitely didn't help with the ringing. "Subspace pocket. Only holds so much, though – and this pretty much puts it at capacity."

Not that Steve really understood what that was supposed to mean, but – he shook his head, feeling foolish. Of all the things that Tony did or said that might be surprising, upgrades to the armour should not be among them. Although, he had said – "I thought you hadn't figured out where Bruce's extra mass comes from."

"Because I haven't. That's definitely not this type of subspace pocket."

There were different types? "Huh. Well, if we're not gonna be lugging a body around..." and they should still have a few hours left until dawn... "We need intel on this place. Let's get some."

Tony tilted his head. "Fair deal," he agreed, after a moment. "Though we should probably start at the other side of the palace."

Steve snorted, already stepping forward to grab onto the armour, and be grabbed in turn by the maglock. "Yeah. You think you could have made it any louder?" The ringing in his ears was starting to fade, and over it he could hear confused shouts in the distance – private garden or no, they were going to have company shortly.

"Oh, honey, you should quit while you're ahead – unless you really want to know the answer to that question." The repulsors carried them upward, ICG cloaking them as soon as they cleared the garden wall. The palace was filling with lights, although not so quickly as to indicate a general mobilization – but most people would have been startled out of a sound sleep.

"See any secret evil lairs?" Steve asked, peering down at the lights below, trying to ignore their dizzying beauty. He'd just about gotten used to it when Tony shut the ICG off again, leaving them hovering almost-silently above the palace, the boots probably just as dim as the stars from down below.

"Not so much. Throne room, though. Garden... dojo? Some sort of mini-temple. Treasury – hey, if we get a reward we should visit there, they've got some stuff that could be useful. And... aha, sorcerer."

Steve glanced back. A tiny figure in voluminous robes was striding toward the gate of the ruined garden, holding – Steve squinted – a small ball of fire, outstretched above one hand. Well, that certainly looked like magic, although it was hard to say if it were any more or less so than a dragon. But the figure raised an arm and the stone gate dissolved, then reformed as the figure entered; and as the person then went directly to the back of the garden where there was now a giant hole in the ground, it seemed safe to say that even if this wasn't their sorcerer, they were at least a party to murder. For several seconds, the figure stood stock still at the edge of the hole they'd hug, and then promptly went running back out the garden and into the palace.

"Run run run," said Tony, almost gleefully. "Let's see where you're going. You and... your guards? Magic not enough?" The armour tilted forward, lazily flying over the palace – Steve assumed, following the path the sorcerer was taking inside. "And... okay, not where I expected you to go."

"Where's he gone?"

"Well, unless he's got a similar view to it as the French did – to confront his loving wife." The repulsors cut out and they dropped down a few hundred feet until they were just above one of the rooftops. "You'll want to hear this."

Steve listened. "I can't hear a thing."

"...really," Tony breathed, like somebody had just given him the keys to the kingdom.

Steve glanced at him. Granted, it would be useful if they could start speaking aloud about Loki again without worrying he was hearing everything they were saying, but there were plenty of other methods of muffling sound through a wall – or a roof, in this case. And apparently this wasn't even good enough to keep Tony from overhearing, so it probably couldn't be whatever the gods used – right?

He'd point that out later. "Mind patching me in?"

The first few seconds were a rushed, sped-up conversation that Steve was barely able to parse into proper words:

"My wife, where have you been this night?"

"I have been here, my husband."

"It is the middle of the night, and you are not asleep."

"My husband, I was woken by a terrible loud noise a minute ago."

"A minute ago? I think you are lying to me, wife."

"O my husband, my king, I do not lie to you; you may ask any of the guards. I have not left my chambers since I retired here after dinner."

"I know well that you do not need to go anywhere to pull your strings."

"How can I possibly do such things, my husband? You have dismissed my handmaidens; you have kept me from my son; I have not spoken to another soul un-chaperoned in three years." Her voice was subdued, pleading – except for those two words: 'my husband'. He couldn't have pinpointed what it was – they sounded so subservient – but they made the hair on the back of his neck rise.

This lady definitely knew something was up.

"How can I have done otherwise? My beautiful queen, I married you thinking you desired peace as strongly as I. But that was youthful naiveté. You have conspired against me, and now I am forced to admit all along what your detractors have claimed: you are no true servant of this kingdom, but yet loyal to your birthplace. And now you have let agents into this very palace, to give them the opportunity to steal one of the sacred treasures of my house. Do you deny it, o wife?"

"I deny it," said the queen. Her voice was shaking now. "I deny it, my husband; and thrice, I say, it was not I."

"You are a liar, my queen. And so you shall be my queen no longer. You have dishonoured your office, woman. Your life is forfeit."

"Tony," hissed Steve.

"Not yet."

"I wondered how long it would take you to get to the point," the queen said, her voice still shaking – but now Steve could hear the rage in every word, previously cloaked in fear. "So you shall kill me, as you killed my husband; and will you kill my son? I dare you to do so, you filth-stained demonspawn – do it! Slay the last of my husband's line, and the land shall rise against you, and drown you in blood!"

There was a pause. "A feeble attempt," said the sorcerer at last. "I am not so easily manipulated as that. But your son... ah, by the time I am finished, he shall give his life willingly to me – as a sacrifice to appease the wrath of heaven, and deliver this kingdom eternally into my hands."

There was a gasp, an indrawn breath, and – "That's our cue," said Tony, and dropped them through the roof.

The silk didn't tear into pieces beneath their weight: instead the strip they'd landed on ripped from where it was nailed into wooden beams and crashed down with them, its edges cracking like a whip. A woman, her head raised high, whirled to face them; another form – the sorcerer – began to drag himself free of the heavy sheet of cloth that had flattened him. He had a bare blade – a massive thing, but Steve could tell from a glance that it was perfectly balanced, and probably quite a bit lighter than it should have been if it were made of steel. That, or the sorcerer possessed strength beyond Steve's – it was a toss-up as to which it was.

"Guǐlǎo!" spat the sorcerer, stumbling to his feet. "How dare you?"

"Usually double, on occasion double-dog," said Tony, incomprehensibly. "Almost always drunk."

"Put the sword down," said Steve, because somebody had to be to the point. Something moved –

"GUAR-urk," said the sorcerer, stumbling to his knees.

Two thin needles, perhaps a quarter-inch in diameter each, had appeared through the sorcerer's throat as if by magic; and there was a hole between them, where a third needle might have gone, except that apparently it had been thrown with such force that it had continued on out the other side – indeed, it was now sticking out of the heavy silk screen somewhat behind and to the left of Steve.

Steve cast his gaze back forward, to where the queen was standing, her form the perfect finishing stance for having thrown a knife – or a set of needles. Given the way her hair was now tumbling down her back, apparently they had been some sort of hair-ornaments.

The screen door began to slide open; a heavy, ponderous movement even with the weight of at least two people behind it, judging by the number of hands filling the gap. Unless that was just one four-(or more)-armed person. Steve glanced between the queen, the sorcerer dying on the floor, steadying himself. But Tony lunged toward him and the world went bright, vivid –

"Your Majesty, you called for us?" the guard inquired, bowing low in the entrance. He did, Steve noticed, indeed have four arms.

"Yes," said the sorcerer's voice, right in Steve's ear. He nearly turned and decked Tony before his brain caught up to his instincts: he could feelthe iron grip that Tony had on his arm, but it was the sorcerer who appeared to be standing next to Steve; the body on the floor had vanished. "I'm going to be spending the night with my wife. Take yourselves and join the search, and establish your perimeter about the palace; allow none in or out. I do not wish to be disturbed before dawn."

"It will be done, your majesty," said the guard, bowing again. He had not raised his eyes above the floor, and he walked out backwards. There was a tense, still moment, as the guards heaved the screen back into place, and then as footsteps faded away outside.

"I didn't know you could do that," Steve murmured to Tony, as the illusion around him melted away. The world dimmed and became ordinary again.

Ordinary. Not lifeless. Although in the brief time it had taken, a life had been lost; the sorcerer breathed out one last breath, and it was as if that breath was all that he was: the robes he had been wearing collapsed with a gust of wind.

"Well, that solves that problem," said Tony quietly, ignoring Steve's half-spoken question. "Although we should keep our voices down; I'm not sure how good their hearing is."

Steve didn't relax, and didn't press the question, either. The queen was now standing with her hands folded into her sleeves, perfectly composed and demure, but when she'd moved, she'd moved fast. Maybe not as fast as one of the superzombies, but faster than him – and she'd just killed a man. Granted, a man who had been planning to frame her for murder and kill her son, but –

Okay, he had to admit he was having a hard time finding a 'but' here. Violence ought to be the last resort – but... hell. What had they been going to do with the sorcerer?

"Sorcerers you may be also, yet I owe you a great debt," said the queen, her voice trembling – rage? Triumph? Shock? It was hard to tell; her face was as expressionless as a mannequin's. It was a bit creepy, actually. "I have been trying to slay him since I learned the truth; but he has not turned his back to me since he slew my husband. You provided me with the first opportunity to strike I have had in three years, and you have my eternal gratitude."

Somehow, Steve kept himself from grinding his teeth.

Somehow, they'd ended up toppling a foreign government anyway. And he couldn't even say they were wrong to do it. But that was the problem, wasn't it? He hadn't known if it was wrong from the start, and he still didn't.

"I can give you the keys to the treasury – " she strode forward and knelt gracefully at the muddle of robes that the sorcerer had left behind, rifling through them and coming up with several items: a set of large, oddly-shaped keys on a keychain; two scrolls; a brilliant scarlet-red feather – this the queen snapped in two without delay, hiding the halves somewhere within the folds of her own elaborate gown – a knife; and a thin rod about one foot long, intricately carved. "Take it, I beg you," she said, offering the key-ring from where she knelt, "take any of this. But let me beg you for the life of my son. He is but a small child and an innocent."

Tony looked at Steve – and then, as if realizing that he was still standing almost uncomfortably close to Steve, stepped away to inspect the silken walls. Apparently, he intended to leave this conversation up to Steve – wasn't that swell of him?

"Ma'am, I'm afraid you misunderstand," Steve tried, and managed to catch himself before he could add, 'I'm afraid this was an accident.' "We were not here to kill anyone – we came to investigate the death of your husband. We're certainly not going to harm your son. And we don't need the key to the treasury, either – we're not going to rob you. Or stick around. The kingdom's yours."

"Then – you knew," said the queen. "Word got out. He was not so careful as he thought." She cast a derisive look at the empty robes, before composing herself to placidity again. "I do not know what grievance you had against the charlatan, but I thank you for your intervention. For my vengeance, I owe you my life. And I owe you more than that, for I am a poor woman who must beg a favour: if you shall spare my son, then please, I beg you, take him with you when you go."

"Uh," said Tony, over the comm. only.

"That's really not – a good idea," Steve settled on.

"To send a child away with a sorcerer, willingly?" The queen's smile was as thin and sharp as a sliver. "A thousand mothers would scream and wail, rend their hair, and become murderers, to prevent such a thing from coming to pass. But if you shall not stay and spare him, then you shall not spare him by going, either. I cannot rule this kingdom; my husband married me for love, but my country and his have little lost between them, and his disappearance shall spell my doom: if his nobles do not have my head, then the people shall. No, an honourable suicide is the most I can hope for myself, if I can arrange it before they throw me to the executioner in disgrace. I cannot have even that hope for my son: there are too many snakes in this court and he has not yet seen his seventh full year. Please," she bowed down, prostrating herself fully, "Please, take him with you. You have shown that even a sorcerer can have honour – that is less than he would be taught here by his enemies, once I am dead."

Her words were like honey, pouring over his mind – Steve shook his head, hard, trying to clear them away long enough that he could think about what she'd actually said. The sorcerer was dead, then – and if the people liable to get into power would use a small boy as a pawn... oh, Hell. They were supposed to be trying not to get involved in this!

Too late for that. "Please stand up. Your husband – was he a good man?" he asked instead.

"Yes," said the queen quietly, her face still pressed against the ground. It made Steve want to kneel down, himself, and raise her up; except he wasn't sure that he could bear to touch her – the mere thought of it felt like the basest form of disrespect. "He was naive, and too wont to see the good in everyone; that is how the sorcerer gained entrance to our court. But his courage was fiercer than any raging wildfire, and his love great enough to bring two warring nations to a peace, however uneasy; and I loved him as I loved the wind, the rain, the storm."

Damnit.

"Stay here until dawn," said Steve firmly. "We'll be back before then. No suicide. No rash actions. And stop trying to convince us like that."

"You have my thanks," she replied, without lifting her head. Something in Steve's chest eased. She still seemed regal – but no longer almost sacrilegiously so.

"And – please get up," he added, half in an embarrassed mutter. To the side, he saw Tony turn back toward them, one hand coming up – much like a peace offering.

The queen didn't move. Steve sighed, and stepped over to grab Tony's hand; Tony hit the repulsors the moment their fingertips touched, and they were ten feet in the air by the time the maglock engaged, locking Steve firmly to the armour. Tony didn't say a word.

"Oh, shut up," Steve said anyway. The words left a bitter taste in his mouth.

---

They touched down to find that the entire monastery was still awake, despite it now being very late; apparently they were all eager to learn as soon as possible of the fruits of Steve and Tony's trip. The monks clustered around them as Tripitaka stepped forward, looking disappointed that they didn't have a corpse with them.

"You didn't manage to find him? But you are back sooner than I'd thought you would be – dawn is still hours off."

"No, we got him," Steve said grimly. "We got the sorcerer, too – he's dead. I think. He didn't leave a corpse."

"Such is the fate of those who practice sorcery," said one of the monks to general nods of agreement.

"Well, then that is excellent!" said Tripitaka. "I shall journey forth and bring the rightful king back, and he may resume his throne unimpeded; and perhaps then the dry and wet seasons shall resume their proper placements within the year. But where is the body?"

"Less 'body', more 'bones'. I've got it in a subspace pocket. Where are we doing this?"

"Here would be wise," said Tripitaka. "The monks can watch over our bodies while our souls journey forth to the underworld." No sooner had he spoken then several of the elder monks began to give directions, to clear a space and give those who were to travel room; and to fetch mats, pillows, and a great deal of incense. Junior monks scurried off, while those who were to be spectators respectfully withdrew a ways.

"We don't know these people," said Tony quietly, as soon as they had even a slight amount of clearance. "I'm sure they're... faithful, or appear to be, but we should be careful."

"How much resistance are we expecting to see in the underworld?" asked Steve.

"It mostly comes down to luck," Tripitaka admitted. "There are all manner of threats there. Do not worry for our corporeal forms, Tony; Yulong is nearby."

"He's... not exactly great on land," said Tony, not very diplomatically. "I'll stay behind – if it goes south I can fly you two away to safety, even if you're not 'back'."

"No," Tripitaka shook his head. "It comes down to luck," he repeated, "but I think your presence could tip the scales; your lances of light are powerful, and your strange ability to recognize demons is worth even more where we go now."

"It's too big a risk."

"Yet you cannot be spared. No, no more arguments," Tripitaka said, frowning, "look – the incense is lit."

Indeed it was, and Steve found himself instantly associating the strange, smoky-sweet scent of it with the grave, even though he could have sworn he'd never smelled it before. But it did bring sudden clarity to Tony's reluctance – he had been to an underworld before, the worst of all possible afterlives he could have visited. So if he was reluctant to venture into another... no, it wasn't out of fear of danger, Steve was pretty certain of that. Even if Tony had – broken, and Lord the word was painful to think – even then, it had been under threat of deliberate, merciless torture, not fear of pain or the unknown.

But he had made and lost a friend there.

"I think we can trust them," Steve said softly, indicating with a slight tilt of his head the monks standing all around them – albeit at a respectful distance, now that the last of the incense-bearers had retreated. "We could use you on this one."

Tony stared at him – or, well, the Iron Man mask stared at Steve. Who knew what Tony was actually looking at? But after a long moment, the armour's shoulders slumped slightly. "Alright."

"Bring out the corpse, then," said Tripitaka, looking at them expectantly.

"You might want to stand back."

Steve and Tripitaka shuffled a half dozen feet backward. The armour stared at them motionlessly. They shuffled back further, and Steve put his hands over his ears.

The panels on Tony's armour unhooked again, and he went to one knee. The sound this time was different – it wasn't something ripping out of the world, but rather like the world held its breath; the air stilled, all sound ceased – and then things appeared out of thin air, with a cacophony of sound, every frequency imaginable. Steve reeled backward, staggered by the combination of base and screechingly high-pitched whines. He could see some of the monks making exclamations of surprise – their mouths were moving – but he couldn't hear anything.

Tony didn't appear to notice that he'd just deafened everyone; instead, he'd stepped forward and begun sorting through everything that he'd just dumped out his 'pocket'. The skeleton and grave-dirt was there, of course, filling Steve's nose with its dour, earthy odour – but it was by no means the only thing. There were sheets of metal stacked on top of each other – gold, but also many variations on silvery stuff – and a large plastic jar full of something that looked like sand. Three arc reactors had rolled to the ground – they had a partial case that had prevented them from shattering against the flagstones of the courtyard, but what they were was clearly visible. Other items were less clear, but not because they were enveloped in packing tape – on the contrary, it seemed like Tony had meant to be able to get at this stuff in a hurry. There was a laptop; several external hard-drives; some more computer equipment that Steve didn't recognize; a telescope, or possibly a spyglass; a rolled set of poster-sized paper – that made Steve blink; a phone; something that might have been an oversized tape measure in a past life; quite a lot of tinfoil; several antennae of various lengths, unattached to anything; duct tape; and a few cans of WD40. Remarkably, nothing except the skeleton appeared to have been covered by the grave dirt, which was now spilling all over the ground.

The panels on the armour's forearms rotated – which was to say, their bases slid around his arms clockwise – and Steve didn't quite realize in time that he should again put his hands over his ears to prevent himself from going totally deaf from the great thunderous rip that vanished everything except the skeleton, its dirt, and three sheets of differently-tinted foil. Several of the monks, including Tripitaka, fell over.

"You could have warned the monks," Steve said, with the peculiar sensation of not actually hearing himself say it. Damn. Had he ruptured his eardrums? That could cause big problems, if Tripitaka was injured like that.

Tony tilted his head – was that meant to be apologetic? Without any commentary, and moving as stiffly as he tended to around Tripitaka, Tony in the Iron Man armour was a cipher. Maybe it wasn't an apology. Tony picked up the metal sheets and crumpled them into a ball, then tossed it back and forth from hand to hand.

Tripitaka waved his hands, gesturing for them to sit down, with the corpse as a gruesome centrepiece. They did so, Steve taking advantage of a mat, while Tripitaka padded his knees with pillows; Tony just sat on the stone. The complete and utter silence in Steve's ears had given way to that familiar ringing from before; hopefully the rest of his hearing would return as quickly as it had then.

Tripitaka, if he had been deafened, didn't seem to be bothered by it: he was chanting, though from what Steve could tell by an attempt at lip-reading, it was a chant of entirely nonsense syllables, just like the mantra of constriction. Gradually, they became audible. The short way he said them, and the deliberate inflection on each, reminded Steve far more of what he'd heard of Mandarin and Cantonese than the English that Tripitaka had been speaking... although it probably wasn't English, really. Whatever let Steve hear it in English mustn't have extend to this sort of thing, because he couldn't make any sense of the sounds as Tripitaka continued to chant, dragging him... down...

Steve's feet hit something solid and he stumbled, struggling to regain the balance he'd suddenly lost at finding himself standing while his body still thought it was sitting. He didn't fall – but the feeling that he was actually sitting down, and that if he tried to step forward he'd turn into a pretzel, didn't go away. A thump alerted him to Tripitaka losing his own battle against the dissonance; Steve leaned down, trying not to feel as though he were folding himself in half, and picked the monk up, setting him on his feet again. He didn't let go of Tripitaka's robes, either, because there was something very important missing from this picture. "Where's Tony?"

Oh. His hearing was back – at least, it was here, wherever here was.

Tripitaka blinked and glanced around, quick furtive glances in-between returning to studied contemplation of the sky – Steve glanced upward, but it was just a solid grey – and taking quick breaths. He looked a bit green. "I don't know. He should have come. Here, we must try again."

A sound in the background that Steve hadn't even registered – a distant voice, still chanting – stopped, and Steve nearly fell over backwards – wait, he was sitting upright, his legs were at right angles from his torso because he was actually sitting. He checked his movement and glanced over at Tony, who was sitting as still as a statue.

"You are difficult to bring along," said Tripitaka; his words sounding muddy and under-water, as the last of the damage to Steve's ears healed. "Give me your hand."

With a slowness that spoke of deep reluctance, Tony raised one hand; Tripitaka seized it in his own, and began to chant again –

Knowing what was to come, Steve forced himself not to try to move this time, until he could look down and see that his legs were straight beneath him – he was standing. Then he leaned over and picked up Tripitaka, again, from where he'd fallen, again. There was still no Tony with them.

"This is very strange," said Tripitaka, and they were back in the real world as he said it. "Give me your other hand – both of them."

"This isn't going to work," said Tony in a rush. "I don't have a soul."

Tripitaka paused. The monks murmured – and Steve could hear that now – but only for an instant, and then discipline prevailed and they were silent. Steve felt a surge of irritation, and out of reflex, guiltily suppressed it – and then found himself experiencing a much larger swell of concern. Sure, Tony was an atheist, and he'd hated what Anthony had gone on about – but Steve didn't think that was what he meant, here.

"That's quite impossible," said Tripitaka. "Of course you have a soul."

"That's what I said," muttered Tony – and yes, that was concern, because Tony knew about the gem that had let Steve see souls, knew that Anthony, even if he wore pajamas all the time, was actually pretty damn powerful. The existence of souls had nothing to do with faith.

Tripitaka's lips thinned. "Stop with this foolish avoidance, and cease resisting the summon," he said, with a warning tone that Steve didn't like.

"I'm not doing anything," said Tony, overtop of the beginning of Steve's protest; Steve shut up. If Tony was able to fight this battle, Steve was more than happy to enable him. "You're the one dragging souls out of bodies, can't you see whether or not I have one to begin with?"

"But you're a person!" said Tripitaka, with an expression of dawning horror – but not, Steve thought, at Tony. It was directed inward, and wasn'tthat curious? "You're my disciple! Of course you must have a soul."

"You tell me."

"Who told you that you didn't have a soul?" asked Steve.

"At the monastery I went to find out about demons – there was this pig-snake... thing. Seemed to know what it was talking about." Tony barely turned his head toward Steve when he spoke. "Apparently, demonic illusions only work on people who have souls."

Since then, Tony had been working on trying to replicate those illusions – and failing. Had he been trying to confirm it?

"A grave-pig would know," said Tripitaka, sounding deeply unhappy. "I am no Great Sage, to be able to see such things; I can transport, but of course transportation is a lesser skill than true seeing. Yet if a grave-pig said it, it must be so – but, oh, this is terrible! I have been treating you as a person all this time, when you are not."

"Hey," snapped Steve. "Soul or not, he's a person."

...right?

Anthony had said that a stain on Tony's soul was driving him crazy. If he now didn't have a soul at all, what did that mean for his brain? His mind? Apparently, it meant he needed sleep now – of course, the immortality curse had been tied to Tony's soul. Could it have been extremis?

The facts were, Tony had had a soul when Steve had last seen him in the other world, and he didn't have one now – assuming that this grave-pig (whatever that was) could be trusted. And between now and then... every difference could come down to extremis.

"No, he's not." Tripitaka wrung his hands together. "A being without a soul can have no true consciousness; it means he is nothing more than a construct. And I have been treating him as a person – I have used pain as a tool to teach – such a thing applied to an animal, or a construct, or a child – applied to any living thing without a proper adult soul – that is base cruelty," he agonized, and Steve couldn't feel a shred of sympathy for him, not over his welling hope. Tripitaka was flighty, and given to breaking his word, but if he could actually think that this was wrong, no matter the reason why... "I am so sorry," the monk apologized, wretched and abject.

"Well," said Tony after a pause. "That's... nice."

Tripitaka burst into tears.

Steve ignored him. "What happened?" he asked Tony instead, voice soft enough to hopefully not be overheard by the monks.

Tony didn't turn toward him when he answered, continuing to face Tripitaka instead. But the answer came over the comm. line, privately, rather than aloud. "I don't know. It could've been extremis, I guess. The grave-pig said I must've been... constructed."

Constructed? He'd grown himself a new body? It suddenly made a horrifying kind of sense that he could – he could apparently turn the armour into just about anything, so why not a new body? But then what had happened to the old one? People couldn't just swap their minds in and out –humans couldn't, at least. And even JARVIS had been tethered to his servers.

JARVIS. Oh, God. JARVIS had died. He'd been destroyed – and then Steve and Pepper had activated him again, but it hadn't been him. It had been a clone. Somewhere back on some Earth, Tony Stark was – Tony had said he was dying; maybe he was already dead, or maybe – if the curse still clung to him – he wished he was. The Tony sitting in front of Steve, then, was just a copy – not just a copy, Steve told himself firmly, privately horrified. Tony was a person. This Tony was a person, no matter what any quack monk or mythical monster might have to say about it.

"Do you know what happened to the – " Steve cut himself off, fixed his wording; this Tony was real; " – original you?"

Another pause, several seconds' worth this time. "No."

"If... he's dead, or," oh, Lord. He'd yelled at Tony for breaking his promise to be right behind him – because Tony... Tony might be dead. ThatTony. And here was another one, in front of him – how?

"I hadn't even thought about it," said Tony, and he sounded slightly dazed. "I – I'm me. I thought it got taken away – oh, Jesus. The grave-pig said it couldn't – Jesus, I didn't even think about it, why didn't I think of it – "

"You are you," said Steve, "You're a person, Tony, no matter what the Hell Tripitaka thinks. You're a person, and you're my friend."

He was. Even if he was a clone – he had all of Tony's memories, he had to be an actual person. Steve had been travelling with him for weeks... even if he'd never met him before in this body – extremis hadn't changed his personality that much. Had it?

He'd known Tony for only day before Tony had fallen through time and space; in then the six months after that he'd failed to notice that Tony didn't need to eat or sleep, and was apparently going insane; then he'd found Tony, sane but having forgotten him – and no sooner had Tony remembered than he was gone again, missing –

Steve kept feeling like he knew Tony, but when it came down to it, maybe Steve had never really known him at all. Pepper – Pepper would know. When they got back, Steve would go looking for her – maybe it wouldn't keep her safe, but he rather thought she'd want to know anyway.

"Of course I am," said Tony, his voice calm and fond. "You can always count on that, Steve." It was like he'd flicked a switch – rebooted himself –

Maybe he had.

Steve swallowed, and forced his thoughts to stillness. Tripitaka's sobs had wound down – he was now just sniffling, wiping his nose and face on a loose fold of his robe. The monks around them were all averting their eyes politely, some speaking amongst themselves of unrelated matters – weather, recent crop failures, speculation: on whether the king would change anything once he was returned to life and his throne; on whether the prince could be considered loyal after being raised by an imposter for three of his most impressionable years; on whether the common people might not grow to love their foreign queen more after learning the truth behind the rift between her and her husband for the last three years.

"Don't be ridiculous," a more elderly monk said to a group of four speculating about that last. "If the sorcerer is now dead then his deception may never be revealed; after all, with a sorcerer there is never a body to display as proof. The king claiming that he has been dead and impersonated for three years will make him seem crazy, and the kingdom even weaker than it already is after these past terrible three years. No, very few will ever know of our queen's commendable loyalty and clear sight: but the king shall know, and given how besotted with each other they were when they married, no doubt he shall be all the more willing to listen to her wisdom in the future."

Steve glanced upward at the sky. It was still pitch dark, but the monk's words had recalled urgency to them – they didn't know how long it might take to bring the king back from the underworld, after all. Hopefully, he wouldn't be just a walking skeleton when he got back. If Tony didn't have a soul... then the repercussions were something that Steve would need to think about, but not here and now. Right now, it just meant that he wasn't coming with them.

"Tripitaka," said Steve. "We need to hurry this up. We made the queen promise to wait until dawn, but after that... I think she might commit suicide."

Tripitaka's eyes grew as round as saucers, and he wiped his nose on his robe one last time. "Honourable death to accompany her husband? Oh, no. You are correct – we must go."

"Tony," Steve said. "Watch our backs."

"Always."

Tripitaka took a deep breath, and if his voice was unsteady when he began the chant, it quickly evened out. The transition to the underworld was even easier the third time, as was retaining his balance once he got there. Tripitaka, it seemed, didn't learn quite so fast – a 'thump' marked him falling over and then he scrambled to his feet again.

Despite his dislike of Tripitaka, Steve found himself asking, "Why don't we just do this standing up?"

"Then our bodies would fall over, and that is even more disorienting," said Tripitaka with a shudder. "And once the body is lying down, it is impossible to walk in this place; gravity is wrong." He peered about the grey mists and sighed in disappointment. "I had hoped the king would be here to greet us; such an active ghost may come very near to the borders of life and death in reality as well as in dreams. But it seems that we must venture deeper in. Be on your guard."

Steve tried staring into the depths, but saw nothing more than he had on his first two trips here. This place's most remarkable feature was how utterly featureless it was. The ground was some kind of grey stone – he kicked at it – or maybe dirt, spread unnaturally evenly without appearing to have been laid down by someone. This didn't change, in any direction, as far as Steve could see; eventually, the grey ground merged with the gentle grey mist in the air, creating an almost seamless join with the – surprise, surprise: grey – sky. There was no one else around, living or dead.

"Which way do we go?" asked Steve.

Tripitaka's expression was grim as he turned himself around, checking the sky – Steve turned around, too, ignoring the twinge in the base of his skull that told him his spine should have snapped with the motion. "Backwards."

They started walking – at Tripitaka's pace, which was pretty slow. Steve kept a wary eye out, but for all of Tripitaka's dire warnings, nothing immediately appeared to try to eat them. Monsters continued to not appear as they kept walking, but the creepy mist made it easy to stay on his guard. The ominous, discordant chanting he could just vaguely hear – but only when he wasn't trying to – made it even easier, even though he knew that it was only Tripitaka, back in his body, chanting the spell to keep them there. Though how somebody's body could keep chanting a spell, yet not manage to stand on its own... well, Steve wasn't a magician, or a sorcerer – or any sort of magic-user. Or high-level-science-user, as Tony would say.

But he had a pretty good sense of time, and they were rapidly running out of it. "Are we actually going anywhere?" he asked Tripitaka.

A slight stir of air, and Steve turned to look; the shadowed outline of a bird winged its way overhead– an owl, he saw, as it came briefly came close enough to not be so obscured by the mists. It made Tripitaka nod, still grim and unhappy. "We are on the right path."

"That is a matter of perspective," said a voice from near Steve's left knee.

Steve jumped back, shoving Tripitaka behind him – and then immediately felt the heat of embarrassment colour his face. It was, improbably, a housecat. A rather large housecat, admittedly, one that would have put any of the old Toms in his childhood Brooklyn to shame... and one that could talk. Actually, Steve really didn't know that it wasn't dangerous. What was 'just' a cat, down in the world of the dead?

Tripitaka looked pleased by it, though, and bowed deeply to the creature. "Cat, you do us honour with your presence."

"Of course I do," said the cat – somehow, not arrogantly: it was just stating a fact, and one that Steve found himself inclined to agree with before he realized what he was thinking. "You looked like you might be of some amusement. Who are you?"

"I am the monk Tripitaka, and this is my disciple, Steve Rogers," Tripitaka did the introductions. Steve bit his tongue before he could object. They were talking to a creature from the underworld – in this, he supposed, he was following Tripitaka. Even if he hated the thought of it.

The cat looked deeply unimpressed. "You are not Tripitaka."

"Not the original, no," said Tripitaka anxiously. "But I was appointed to go to the west by the Bodhisattva Kuan-Yin."

"If you are aiming to go west, then you are certainly not on the right path," said the cat, with a rumbling purr that could almost have been a growl. It paced around them, and Steve found himself edging out of its way – which was ridiculous. It was a cat. Not a tiger.

Then again, Yulong was a dragon...

The cat winked at him.

"We're taking a detour," said Steve. "We need to find the king of the local realm above and return him to life before war breaks out, civil or otherwise."

"A worthy goal," said the cat, seeming to settle back into its skin again – less a tiger, more a cat. Even though it was the exact same size. "You have both strength and courage to be willing to come here, and at another time I'd be very interested to see how you might fare deeper in; but though honourable in itself, your cause here is not one worthy of delaying your journey above. Time is running very short, mortals."

"What do you mean?" asked Tripitaka in a small voice.

"Heaven is under siege." The cat settled onto its haunches and began to lick its paws, its eyes half-squeezing shut. "Your friend has done something catastrophically stupid."

"Tony?" Shit. What now?

"Yes. I'd hurry it up if I were you – things are all falling to pieces. West has become east, and east west; north and south are both pointing rather downward; it is all a muddle. Very dirty." Although the words were without inflection, something in the cat's fur managed to give the strong impression that it did not like dirt.

"What's Tony done?" And, though he hated it – it would have to be asked at some point: which Tony?

"If anyone were quite sure, it wouldn't be such a problem," said the cat. It lowered its paws and gave them both a gimlet stare. "The king is standing twelve feet to your left. I'd take him and go, before anyone notices he's missing."

"What – " Steve tried, tried to keep the cat in his field of view – but even though he'd have sworn he kept it just at the edge of his vision, between one second and the next it was no longer there; there was nothing sudden about its departure, just an absence that clearly announced the cat was gone.

The king, on the other hand, was just as suddenly there – had the cat brought him? Steve had no idea. He seemed to be a young-ish man – he couldn't have been older than thirty at most – despite having some premature grey hairs; he was dressed in rich clothes that fairly popped with colour against the dismal background. "Oh!" he exclaimed, sounding pleased. "Here you are."

"So we are," said Tripitaka, crossing over to take the king's hand. And then his chanting stopped, and they were elsewhere – they were back in their bodies. The king was sitting up with grave-dirt all over him – but he wasn't a skeleton. He was even wearing the same clothes that he'd had on as a soul.

"Okay, that was... interesting," murmured Tony in Steve's ear. "That could give Bruce a run for his money. So long as it's the correct guy?"

"According to the talking cat, it was," said Steve, standing up.

"That was the White Tiger, the Guardian of the West," said the not-so-dead king, standing up and brushing dirt from himself. He managed to make the gesture look regal despite the stains that remained, and despite being even shorter than Tripitaka. "That he showed himself is a great blessing upon your journey – and upon my return. Holy monk," he turned to Tripitaka and bowed, "devoted disciples," he bowed in turn to Steve and Tony each, "you have my very great thanks."

"You are welcome," said Tripitaka, but he still looked troubled. Well, he'd been troubled before they'd left – hopefully, he was still feeling bad for torturing Tony. Steve couldn't spare him much sympathy.

"We better get you back to your palace," said Tony, standing as well in a fluid, yet highly mechanical motion. "I think your queen can fill you in from there."

"Oh my queen, I know well her loyalty," said the king, for a moment sounding utterly besotted – and then he smoothed out his face to blankness, much like how his queen had covered her own emotions. Maybe it was a royal thing. "And my son! I wonder if he will not have forgotten me entirely..."

"I'm sure he'll remember you soon," said Steve, but it was a bit doubtful. He couldn't remember much of his own father, after all, who had died when Steve was a similar age to the prince... but this boy had his father back. And probably hadn't realized his dad was missing in the first place.

"Grab hold," said Tony, offering the king an arm, and, privately, "Sorry, Steve. One passenger flight only."

Steve grimaced, and held in his objection. Tony didn't need to spare an arm to carry him, not with the maglock – but if he didn't want to take more than two people, well, Tony was the pilot. And the engineer. Plus, they were in a hurry – apparently, they needed to get to Maklu before whatever Tony had been trying to do had time to... what? Destroy it? That seemed pretty far-fetched, whether it was meant to be accidental oron purpose.

Steve stood back, watching a dead man be carried into the sky by a twenty-year-younger clone of one of his closest friends, contemplating what that friend might have done to make space and time go sideways – because Steve had been given a warning by a talking cat while he was having an out-of-body experience to go to the underworld.

Far-fetched? More like highly likely.

"Honoured Sage," said an elderly monk whom Steve recalled seeing before, but only at a distance – he had been hanging in the back of the crowd – "Forgive me. I doubted my brothers and sisters who believed you could venture forth into the Underworld and bring back our king, but you have done so, and in the doing restored the balance of the kingdom. Please, will you stay a while, and share even the smallest part of your wisdom with us?"

"Oh," said Tripitaka, looking both pleased and discomfited. "Well, er. I haven't gotten a chance to do much teaching since I started this journey..."

"We're in a hurry," said Steve, pitching his voice to be heard only by Tripitaka's ears.

"Oh," said Tripitaka again, deflating a bit. "I'm sorry, brother, but my disciple reminds me of what is right and true. While in the Underworld we were honoured to meet the White Tiger, and he impressed upon us the importance of haste. As soon as my other disciple returns, we must set out."

At this the monks all looked disappointed – until the one that had greeted them first of all clapped her hands, and said, "Then we must ensure provisions are made! You, you, and you," she nabbed trio of young monks with a glance, "no shirking, now, I'll need your help..."

The rest of the monks began to disperse to their chores. Tripitaka stared after them mournfully. "I do miss teaching – teaching those with openminds." He turned to consider Steve.

Steve stared back at him, keeping his gaze level, and focused on not saying anything. At length, Tripitaka sighed and turned away, his shoulders slumped once more.

---

"Tony." Steve's voice was low, barely audible to human ears – and as clear as a bell to any of Tony's mics, whether the one in Steve's comm. unit or the ones he had scattered about the armour.

"Mmhmm?" Tony thought back in reply – thought made audible; who needed lips? Lips were slow, clumsy things – so was human speech, for that matter. It was a damn good thing that several parts of him had been tapped into eavesdropping on designated VIPs, back when he'd gotten lost in the internet – other bits of him hadn't been in positions where they'd needed to decipher human speech in real-time, and when he'd all come back together... it had been hard enough to slow down again, to make such plodding sounds comprehensible, even with parts of him that did have recent practice in the art. Without those...

He banished the thought. Steve was talking; since he hadn't been paying attention enough to switch over to real-time processing, Tony's audio centres filtered each word and compressed their meanings into tiny fragments of data that were delivered in pico-second bursts. It made for a terrible way of listening; he'd already forgotten about the previous word by the time the data for the next arrived. The switch only took a few pico-seconds itself, and then he replayed what Steve had actually said, stringing it together so that it made sense:

"What aren't you – telling me?"

oh, joy

"Well, that's not of a loaded question," said Tony cautiously. What wasn't he telling Steve? Jesus Christ. The relative location of Asgard – of Maklu – of Earth; calculated wormhole routes from the quantum processors; the plans he had, not-so-very deep in his head, of Armageddon weapons; the results of his attempts at fabricating some of them.

If he was a clone, a copy – suddenly some of those weapons became a lot more viable. Test runs had always been too risky – what if he succeeded at incapacitating himself, but not at destroying his soul? Or what if he did succeed, but it didn't work the way he thought it might? Yet now... seriously, why hadn't he thought of copying himself over before?

Or, well, apparently he had, but that memory hadn't been downloaded into this new body along with the rest of them. Which left the question – why not?

"There was a – cat down in the – underworld," said Steve, apparently forgetting to keep his voice hushed this time.

Tripitaka overheard, from his position atop Yulong's saddle. "That was no cat; the king said he only appeared to be such. In truth, he was as his shadow cast him: the White Tiger."

They were back in the road, having left the monastery in something of a hurry, with bags full of supplies and little to no rest achieved by those who needed it – which didn't include Tony, thanks; his hour had been plenty. But Steve looked like he could have used a nap – except that he'd been in full agreement with Tripitaka that the needed to hit the road as soon as possible, and neither of them had been inclined to explain at the time. Which... meant that they probably blamed him.

oh joy Tony thought again, which did, possibly, make him feel a little tired.

"It said that Maklu – was under threat – that it was breaking apart," said Steve evenly – remarkably evenly, considering the pace at which they were sprinting along the road had him breathing pretty hard. "Because of something you'd done?"

okay genuinely wasn't expecting that...

"The White Tiger's mere presence is an indicator of what now assails Heaven," said Tripitaka dismally. "Ever has he been the Guardian of the West."

"Right," said Tony slowly, "And we're going... ah." Because if they were going west, then they were approaching from the east. Okay, that was pretty stupid of him – he shut down some of the other programs he'd had running and turned more of his brain over to the present conversation. If there was something of Prophetic Importance going on, and apparently he was at threat of blowing up a realm, or something –

The last time he'd been in a death god's realm, he'd not listened to Hel's advice – or taken her offer. And sure, the reasons she'd given for it had been a pack of lies, but the offer itself –

He was such a moron.

"What exactly did it say?" he demanded.

"That Heaven was under – siege," said Steve, still keeping his tone even – neutral. That was good; there was only the slightest trace of judgement in there, of censure. Steve had a better poker face than Tony'd realized. "That east was west and west was east – I guess that's demonstrated – and that everything else was pointing in – weird directions too, all messed up. Things were falling to pieces. And that you'd – done something pretty stupid – except nobody was sure what it was."

"Great, that makes all of us," Tony muttered. "I've done a lot of stupid things, Cap, if you want me to list all of them it'll take me all day."

"We don't have anything – better to be talking about," Steve pointed out.

"Steve, the last time I was told something like that by a death god, it wasn't actually anything I'd done... yet. Possibly. Depends on your point of view." Something he would be doing? Given the way this place mucked with space-time... and it was connected to the prime worlds of this cluster, too. Maybe moving backwards in time would be possible, here, as it wasn't in the branch-worlds. Maybe death-gods in general just had good foresight.

Given what he was carrying around in his subspace pocket, things he might do had real application. If Loki was in Maklu – all bets were off.

Not that he thought Loki was, though, or he'd have siphoned processor space to return to the ever-thorny problem of how to make it a quicker draw. Unfortunately, he couldn't look into the subspace pocket to see what he was pulling out – not without leaving it vulnerable to being opened by anyone else with a subspace reducer – and so had to jump out everything whenever he was searching for even one item. But, hey, if there was a real chance that Loki was in Maklu – as indicated by the idea of him doing something really stupid – then he should be working on getting it out quickly.

If not, then it would just have to wait until after he got the key to curing extremis, could write up a patch for it, and send Steve back home to dole it out to the masses. Although at that point he'd be going around openly armed with the thing, so a quicker subspace draw wouldn't be necessary...

oh, he realized, and could have laughed out loud. of course

He was a clone. He was a clone, carrying around a WMD – of course he was a clone. Really, the first thing he should have thought of was the question of how many versions of him were out there. But that was probably bound up in why his original self had deleted the knowledge of being a clone. No wonder Steve had had to think of it for him. Did that mean that he should stop speculating about it?

"I'd like it to not be – your fault," Steve admitted. "But your first response doesn't exactly – inspire confidence, Tony."

Tony sighed. "I have quantum and conventional processor nodes spread throughout my body to allow for heavily distributed computing –thinking, Steve. If I were to try to explain to you everything I'm doing, even just the things that could potentially end horribly for somebody – lemme put it like this: we'll get to Maklu first. Right now I'm mostly working on filling an in the eleven-dimensional map of the universe, because this road is one gigantic inter-galactic highway – " inter-galactic, inter-reality, same difference – " – and I'm trying to convince myself not to attempt to hack it. Since I haven't made the attempt yet, I'd say I've been pretty successful so far."

"Do not break the Great Road," said Tripitaka sternly, igniting half a dozen panic subroutines.

and that's a pretty good incentive not to...

stopstopstopstopstoppleasestop

"And what else are you – working on?" Steve asked relentlessly. "I'm not asking for details, Tony – I'm asking for a general idea. You asked me to come along. Part of being in a team – is having somebody to bounce off – of. To check they're not real dumb."

shit why not "I told you I design WMDs in my head. I don't have any plans to use 'em on Maklu. But I've got a god to kill, and I'm sure he's not going down easily."

Steve's eyes widened. "If he's in Maklu – "

"Cross that bridge when we get to it, Steve."

"So you have at least – one with you." Ooo, smart.

The lie came without hesitation. This baring of his soul – hah! – had gone too far. "No."

"You said – "

"You asked what I was working on," Tony reminded him. Remorse subroutines, and guilt, and –

stop

Warning: critical fault processes may be affected.

override

"We're at war, Steve. With a guy who can bend and break reality – yes, what did you think I was working on?" Absence of guilt, of negative emotions directed inward, led to outward-seeking anger. "Do you think I should just stand back and let him win, let him fuck everybody over again? I've got plenty of dumb ideas – maybe one of them can kill the son-of-a-bitch!"

stop

"If you rebel against Heaven, it will not end well for you," Tripitaka observed sadly.

"Probably," Tony agreed. "I'm going to scout ahead." Roller-skates formed, and between one-second and the next he was rolling along the road instead of running, while he realigned the repulsors at the backs of his ankles.

"Wait," said Steve.

"Save it for tonight," Tony snapped, and hit the thrusters.

---

The problem with wonky space-time's the same as the problem with the twenty-first century, Steve thought sourly. No good radio.

It was night – late night; he, Yulong, and Tripitaka had run for hours past sundown before Steve, after stumbling one time too many, had given into the inevitable and indicated they should stop and camp by the side of the road. Fortunately, they were again in an area of only semi-civilization, and so weren't squatting on any farmer's fields to do so. Unfortunately, they hadn't caught up to Tony, and Tony hadn't returned on his own.

Not exactly your most diplomatic moment, Rogers.

He was beginning to wonder why Tony had asked him to come with him on this trip. Tony had said he needed Steve to come – why? In the beginning Tony had told him things – explained things – but he was working on WMDs and an entire world was under threat from him: something that would have seemed crazy back in those innocent days before a zombie plague threatened all of Earth. And Tony didn't even seem to regret it. Seemed to think it was necessary.

The memory of Amora's nigh-infinite soul, stretched out behind and beside and beyond her, made Steve's hand pause as he stirred the beans cooking in the pot. Tony had seen Loki kill not a world, but a universe full of them – as many worlds as Amora had had selves. Steve hadn't been able to see an end to her – she had been, in that moment, as great as God. She wasn't, of course – she was no more God than Steve was – but she was... more...than any mortal.

Steve tried to imagine countless Earths in the place of her countless reflections, and couldn't.

But Tony had wanted Steve to come. Maybe he'd wanted Steve to stop him from dooming one more world – if that was going to happen.

Tripitaka came to stand beside him as he ladled dinner out into their bowls. As was usual, he took his without offering thanks or even a nod of gratitude. What was not usual was how he didn't retreat to the other side of the fire after, to eat in silence while meditating, or whatever it was he did.

"You don't respect me, do you?" the little monk asked, when Steve raised an eyebrow at him.

What was Steve supposed to say to that? The obvious answer caught in his throat. Even if Tripitaka had gotten it into his head that Tony wasn't really a person and that only people were somehow worthy of being tortured – two completely twisted ideas that had somehow combined to form a favourable outcome, but not one that Steve could trust for a moment – even if Steve hoped Tripitaka might refrain from using the collar on Tony for Tony's sake, he couldn't trust that Tripitaka wouldn't use it to get back at Steve. He'd threatened it before, after all. Steve had travelled to the Underworld; presumably he had a soul.

"I wouldn't say that," Steve settled on, at length.

"In my home temple," Tripitaka said slowly, settling himself on the ground as he did – unfortunately, not on the opposite side of the fire, despite Steve's desire to be away from him, "I was not respected because I was a small person, physically weak and clumsy. I had ideas, and meditation, but no power to force others to see them. But now I do have power, and you still don't respect me. Is it because you are large and strong, while my strength is that of a holy power?"

Steve stabbed at the beans in his own bowl with enough force to turn them to mush. Oops. "I used to be a tiny little guy. Just as clumsy as you. Wouldn't've respected you back then either. You're a bully."

"I'm on a holy quest," said Tripitaka, offended, but there were tears pricking at the corners of his eyes.

Steve rolled his eyes, letting the flickering firelight hide the motion, and managed not to say anything, keeping his attention on his meal instead. The beans tasted like wet paper. Steve made himself finish them off quickly anyway – he was tired, he needed sleep, and sleeping would provide a good excuse to cut short this conversation with Tripitaka.

"I made a horrible mistake with Tony, I know," said Tripitaka miserably. "I was foolish, and unwise."

"Yeah, and you're sitting there feeling sorry for yourself instead of thinking about how to make amends," Steve snapped. He never had been much good at staying quiet. But if Tripitaka was willing to think – willing to have compassion –

"If I let you leave, I will fail on my quest and never reach Heaven," whispered Tripitaka. "That would be a great evil. This must be the lesser one. It must." His voice grew stronger as he spoke to himself.

So much for that idea.

"Yulong, you've got first watch," Steve told the dragon-horse, getting a muffled horsey noise in reply. He stuck a thick branch on the fire, to keep it going through Yulong's watch, and laid himself out. Almost before he was fully horizontal, he was asleep.