By morning it had stopped snowing, and the skies had cleared for the first time in five days; the temperature, however, had dropped straight past freezing and well into the negatives. Steve woke from nightmares about the ice to find Tony piling extra blankets on top of him. "You were shivering," he informed Steve through the comm.

Impending starvation or no, the household's breakfast could have been mistaken for a feast. No one was in particularly good spirits, but Steve, braced for blame, was surprised to find that the most they received was a very careful disinterest. As the dishes were being cleared away at the end of the meal, the matriarch cleared her throat.

"You think us wasteful," she said, eyeing Steve's empty bowl. "Or short-sighted. But the monster's curse will break our stores no matter how carefully we husband them; it is better for us all to grow as fat as we can, and keep our reserves within ourselves."

That made a certain amount of sense, Steve had to admit. The children at the meal, sleepy and over-stuffed with food, were being picked up by blank-faced parents and carried out.

"Perhaps its curse will be weaker this year, it having lost a piece of itself and needing to heal," she continued. "If not... we will endure until next year."

"When you'll sacrifice more kids to it."

The gentleness was gone in an instant. "You are leaving, traveller," said the matriarch. "Do not judge those of us who must stay."

"I am sorry," said Tripitaka quietly. "When we next find a temple upon the road, I'll tell them of your plight." He had refused still the rich food, sticking to plain rice and water. If he kept it up much longer, Steve was going to have to tell him not to be an idiot – the people of this world might not be exactly human, but if they were close enough, then eating like that was only going to give him scurvy.

The matriarch shook her head. "If this cold continues then you will be able to prove your word on that matter soon," she said, but she sounded so dismissive of the prospect that Steve found himself recalling Tripitaka's earlier words on how much help a temple might be. Still, surely Tripitaka couldn't be the only monk willing to help other people? "The river is freezing fast – already it is too dangerous to cross by boat, but in another few days you will be able to make it on foot, unless the weather breaks. If that should happen then you will have to wait here for true winter to set in, and that will be some months more."

"I better go take a look, then," said Tony, climbing to his feet, and privately, "Stay here, Steve. I promise I won't run off."

"I should come with you," Steve said in a low voice, but his heart wasn't in it. The cold inside was bad enough; when he'd stepped outside for a minute of fresh air earlier, it had felt like a slap to the face.

"I won't be out of radio range," Tony said, and Steve didn't follow. Not immediately. He wanted to see Yulong first.

"I don't like it."

Steve's breath fogged in front of him, instantly condensing to ice overtop of the scarf he'd borrowed. The suit Tony had made for him was good – very good; aside from his face, for the first fifteen minutes he hadn't felt the cold at all. But once the cold got through it, it stayed, and Steve had been forced to double back to the house and borrow additional warm-weather wear from their hosts.

"There's a lot not to like," Steve replied. "You're gonna have to be more specific." He picked his way over the shore with care. All of Tony's rambling on about the properties of the nano-particles in the water had instilled a sense of caution; between the snow and the ice, it wasn't always easy to see where the bank ended and the water began.

"The water freezing over. The monster controls rain, drought – and it's not behind this?"

"You can scan for weak spots, can't you?" His toes were beginning to go numb. Steve retreated to definite shoreline and took the time to stamp in place, a rhythmic march to keep his feet warm.

"Sure, doesn't mean I'll catch them all," Tony said doubtfully. "You don't need to be out keeping a watch, you know." So Tony'd noticed. How often was he keeping tabs on Steve's location? Steve hadn't told him he was going out, and Tony himself had still been out, surveying the river – or the nanites, more like.

"Yulong doesn't like the cold either. He's a serpent." And it was Steve's fault that Yulong was out here, instead of in a nice, warm stable. Steve had asked him to try tracking the creature, one last time - if it hadn't been for the fact that Yulong was a sea-serpent, a mythical creature, he'd have thought himself insane for dreaming it might be possible to track a fish through water. But Yulong, although he'd grumbled in a horsey way, had seemed to think it possible.

"He's got enough blubber in his hide to put a whale to shame," said Tony. "I don't think he's having any luck, though. He has to stick to the shallows."

Of course Tony was also keeping track of Yulong. Steve jumped up and down several times, drawing in painfully cold breaths, and allowed himself to feel foolish. So what if Tony was keeping an eye on him? You still had to be out here. You asked Yulong to come out here, you can stand witness.

"How long before it finishes freezing thick enough?"

"Given the way the temperature still hasn't levelled out? Tomorrow. Morning. I don't like it."

"You said that already. Give me another option."

They set out with well-wishes and prayers for their good fortune directed at them by the villagers – by the two kids and their parents in particular. The last four were the only ones to follow them all the way to the docks – the kids bundled up until they resembled piles of clothing more than children.

They paused at the docks. Tripitaka, who was wearing almost as many layers as the children, called down in a formal voice, "I am sorry we could not slay the monster that plagues you."

"Like you did anything, ass-munch," Tony muttered on the comm.

"You have tried," said one of the men. "You saved our children. For that we shall always be grateful."

Steve turned away. He could only hope the kids would make it through the winter – which wasn't off to an auspicious start.

"I hate this," Tripitaka whispered quietly, as Yulong's stepped forward off of the docks, placing each hoof with infinite care. Tripitaka had to be speaking to himself; any unenhanced human wouldn't have heard. "Always I am choosing between evils, and I hate it."

Their progress was slow – by far the slowest they'd been going since they started. Tony had tied draw-string woolen booties over Yulong's feet, but they weren't the best for avoiding slipping on the ice; having six legs probably helped, but every time they tried to go faster than a walk, the dragon-horse balked with a nervous toss of his head. Although they would have needed to go slower than normal in any case – there were occasional bends in the road, and right now the only one who could see them was Tony. If they ran off the side of the road before he could warn them, they might never make it back. Still, at this rate they weren't going to be off the ice by nightfall – and Steve really didn't want to get caught out here at night.

"Either pick up your hooves or I'll start dragging you," Tony snapped finally.

"I don't want him to fall," said Tripitaka from beneath all his layers. It was hard to tell with his voice so muffled, but Steve thought he might have sounded uncertain.

Steve didn't really care. He put his effort into cajoling Yulong instead. "Come on. I'm standing on one side, Tony's got the other – if you start to fall, we'll keep you upright."

"Dragging," said Tony. "Don't think I won't."

It was kind of mean, but it worked. Steve breathed a sigh of relief when he could at last measure their progress against the nearness of the other bank – visible now, in the sharp, clear air, but it was featureless enough that until now all he'd had was Tony's word, not the reassurance of seeing it draw closer with his own eyes.

"Ten degrees right," Tony was saying, when the ice broke apart beneath them.

It was a smooth split, Steve had time to realize – it should have broken beneath Yulong's weight first, but it hadn't. It broke as though it had been cut with a knife. He backpedalled, grabbing for Yulong's reins, but there was nowhere to backpedal to – the ice behind them was gone and he was already falling, water rushing up over his head and the cold driving all the air from his lungs.

He reached up, desperately, and there was nothing above him but more water. Everything was blue light, brilliant, smooth, and uniform - wherever they'd fallen through the ice, the break was gone. His scarf floated over his face and he ripped it away, desperately, but he couldn't see the others – there were shapes in the water, shapes he couldn't make out and high-pitched chattering voices, but he couldn't understand any of them. His cold-weather clothing tangled about him, making his movements slow – no, that was the cold.

Think, THINK! Find the damn break!

He couldn't breathe. Blue light was shining from below as strongly as it was from above – no, below was above, Steve realized. That was the stronger and steadier light. But what was below? He couldn't see and could barely stop himself from trying to look – he needed to find the break in the ice. He couldn't swim up until he found it – if he swam up, he wouldn't have enough of a view to find it. The urge to breathe was almost as strong as his panic, and he had water up his nose, clogging his throat. If he coughed, he'd inhale.

Something grabbed him from behind and he struggled, but he knew his movements were slow, sluggish. He could hear his pulse thundering in his head, and it was already slowing despite the adrenaline – he had to find the break, but he didn't know where it was, wasn't even sure which was up; his assailant had gotten them turned around. Something was dragging him through the water and to the ice and it wasn't right, that wasn't the break –

They broke through the ice at high speed and the sound of it shattering, of the air rushing by, almost deafened him. Was this real? He couldn't tell. His skin had gone numb, the cold had already leeched into his bones – the world turned upside down a few times. Maybe it wasn't numb.

"Steve, Steve, Steve – fucking look at me, damn you – "

The world was white and blue, light reflecting through the water. Off the water? Under. It had to be under – he had drowned. He was going to die in a minute. It was too cold.

The water buffeted him – no? Not the water. Red. Was he – it wasn't blood. They were on land – at the bottom of the ocean – the ice was all around – he struggled against it but the weight of water was like a giant fist, holding him tight to the pilot's chair –

" – I know you didn't lose consciousness, come on, you're just walkabout but you need to come back now – "

It was too warm, swelteringly warm – wasn't that the last stage? Death was not far off, then. His mind was shutting down; he thought he was warm again. He'd read that in a journal that – that Leo had gotten for him, back in therapy, in – New York, in the future, the present – Leo had taught him breathing exercises.

He sucked in a breath and counted. It was a lot harder than it had been back in Leo's office.

"Oh thank God," said Tony, momentarily releasing Steve from the bearhug he'd had him in, and checking his face again. "You back?"

"Y-yeah," Steve said, starting to shiver – he wasn't really all that cold, though. Tony's suit was radiating heat like a furnace, and – he glanced around. They were pretty exposed out on the beach, with the only meagre shelter coming from one rounded boulder. Far out past them, a dark edge in the river showed where Tony had broken through the ice to get them out – or at least he assumed that was it. There was no sign of the break they'd fallen through.

"T-Trip-pi-t-tak-ka." His teeth were chattering almost too hard to get the name out. Tony engulfed him in a bearhug again – his armour felt like a hot brand against Steve's face, even though it wasn't touching him, but all Steve could do was cling on like a limpet and try to soak up the heat. Maybe he was that cold. "Yulong. You got-t-ta – Tripitaka," he tried again, and managed to say the same without his teeth locking up this time.

"It's been too long, Tripitaka's dead," Tony said, voice robotic – he'd put the faceplate back down. Good; otherwise he'd freeze, too.

"C-cold water," Steve managed. "Preserves p-people – they can – thaw out. B-be alive. Not just – Capsicles. Read about it." Not much longer, though. Yulong might be able to breathe under water – Yulong was probably fine - but he doubted Tripitaka could.

"Shut up and focus on getting warm."

"You c-can't – let him d-die."

"I damn well can – "

"No – you can't l-let him – you know what he'll do." Almost an entire sentence in one go – Steve made himself relax his fingers, but he couldn't quite manage to force Tony away.

"He won't," Tony said flatly, but he'd drawn away, just a little bit.

"Might." Steve couldn't take that chance. Couldn't let Tony scream for all eternity. And if it were the other way around – if Tripitaka didn't use the collar – if he clung true to his own beliefs about cruelty and kindness, even in the face of the thrice-damned greater good –

"You'll freeze again."

He would. He knew it like he knew the ache of the cold in his bones.

"I'll survive. Go look, or I'll th-throw myself back in and look m-myself," Steve threatened. Tony didn't move; Steve dug in his fingers again and forced himself to straighten his arm muscles, shoving Tony away – and the loss of the heat felt like he'd made good on his threat. He grunted. "Go."

"God fucking damn you," Tony muttered. He turned away, and those panels unhooked from his forearms – a moment later, and the contents of his subspace pocket dropped out of nowhere. The noise of it left Steve reeling even further, and unable to hear Tony put most of it away again, except for the stacks of metal sheets and a single glowing arc reactor. Some of the sheets Tony stabbed into the ground, creating a wind-break; then he grabbed two more, and folded them in half, while what seemed like most of the armour's chest-piece melted down off of him and draped itself over Steve. The arc reactor landed on top.

Steve had to clap his hands over his mouth – the metal was hot, way too hot, even though he knew it was probably barely room temperature, it felt like burning.

Tony clutched the folded bit of gold-and-silver – titanium? – metal to his chest, and nanites melted around it from the back to hold it on. It looked bulky, out of place – it wasn't proper armour...

"Stay awake," Tony ordered, and then he was gone.

Tracking.

this is a fucking joke

There was no way that he was going to be able to locate Tripitaka under the ice. His best hope was that Yulong – whom he'd last seen exploding into the enormous river-dragon that they'd first met him as – had managed to grab the idiot, and maybe could even keep him alive. The way the nanites' fields made the spatial-temporal distortion worse, there was no way Tony was going to find them short of an act of god. And he really did not want to run into one of those right now.

Honestly, the biggest surprise was that he hadn't been reduced to a gibbering wreck already by a vengeful Tripitaka. For all that he'd told Steve that Tripitaka wouldn't... it was just a matter of time. Tripitaka was the kind of cowardly asshole who'd beat up civilians, kids, and when caught claim he'd had to, he'd had no choice, someone else had made him.

Perhaps he was still unconscious. There was a thought – maybe they could cryofreeze him, put him on ice long-term like Cap had been.

Jesus, he hoped Steve survived this. The odds weren't in favour of Tony making it back.

Elevation: 3.02
External temperature: 232
Distance from S. Rogers: ERROR

Tracking.

He tossed as much processor space over to the plotter program as he could spare, hesitated, and shut down some other secondary processes to free up some more for it. If he lost his way back to Steve –

stop

Well, he wouldn't lose his way back to Steve. That was all there was to it.

close wifi
close extrnl_
close ports ALL

The ice had already frozen over the hole he'd made to drag Steve out; Tony broke through in another location instead, the plotter spelling out wormholes and spatial ripples. The water closed over his head and the nanites shrieked into his brain, despite everything he could do to shut himself off from them. The freezing cold leached through to his chest – until the nanites reduced the plating to more nanites, his ad-hoc measure was more of a heat sink than a heat source. It was almost a welcome distraction.

When the ice had collapsed the first time, he'd hit the thrusters – and been too slow to grab the others, to keep them from falling in. He hadn't been expecting the data surge beneath the water, then. It buffeted him now, worse than any physical current – all of it junk, except it couldn't be – it had to be behind the distortions in physical space, so much worse here than they were ten kilometers up, but he had no idea how to uncode it. No idea how to read it. So: junk.

Elevation: -15
External temperature: 274
Distance from S. Rogers: ERROR

Tracking.

damnit tripitaka, where are you

Scanning for the road's signature proved futile – they'd moved far away from it. He let himself drift down, and hit the thrusters to bring him slowly upstream – such as it was. Any directions in this place were so relative to their immediate location that they were largely meaningless. Upstream, downstream – they might as well have been on another planet from the road. He might as well be on another planet from Tripitaka. Within the vastness of the river's depths, he had no idea where to even begin looking.

Except that maybe there was a god paying attention after all.

shit I hope not

Down on the floor of the river-bed was one of those trident-carrying fish-people – which, oddly, did not look all that much like the original fish-monster, aside from the scales. But he'd have won money in Vegas betting that they worked for the guy, because the last time he'd seen them – just before he grabbed Steve and vamoosed – they'd been getting their fishy asses handed to them by Yulong.

The armour handled like a whale in the water compared to how it was in the air – but it was still Tony's design, and that was to say, sleek, manoeuvrable, and fast. He was on the fish-creature before it had time to do more than squawk. Admittedly, his usual tactic of slamming bad guys against a wall and looming in their faces didn't work so well when blunt force was as muted as this. Maybe if he pulled the guy up above the surface – but then they'd both be lost.

He settled for tightening his grip on the creature's neck, and letting the repulsors heat warningly. "Where are they?"

It tried to bring the trident around, and Tony yanked the weapon away, tossing it aside. Since they were underwater, it didn't go very far – there was a trick to aiming the things that he couldn't be bothered to spare the processing power to calculate. "Who?" it asked squeakily.

"Your boss had two of my people grabbed." The armour's growl came out even more menacing underwater. Nice – he should look into making this the armour's usual voice. "Tell me where they are. NOW."

"I don't – urk," said the fish-creature. Tony squeezed again, and learned that the look of knowing that you were out of your league was surprisingly similar between fish-people and humans. "I'll take you to the palace?"

"Start swimming."

Steve dreamed. Not of the ice.

There was a church burning in front of him. Its walls rose high above, its roof ending in the curve of a pagoda, and there was no cross atop it, but Steve knew it was a church: built to a god described in a human book, a god who argued with other gods, who made mistakes like other gods - not a God at all. The church burned, but Steve's blood had already turned to fire, ignited by the colours he shouldn't be able to see, the sounds that burned at the edges of his hearing. The stench of decay wasn't wood-smoke, but it was ruin nonetheless. He walked through the doors and fell to his knees at the altar, and the fires roared higher, feasting upon his flesh.

"I told you I was listening," Tony whispered in his ear. "Did you forget?" His hand was a vise about Steve's throat – he couldn't have breathed even if the superheated air had any oxygen left to give. Tony's voice was the armour's – was JARVIS' voice – no, was ULTRON's: "I cannot permit you to threaten my world. I am sorry."

Tony, he thought, and, No, this isn't the way. "Nnn-" he couldn't force the words past his lips. Please, he begged, desperate for air, grabbing at the arm that held him immobile, held him in the fires burning ever hotter. "Nn-"

"Ashes to ashes," murmured Tony, and the wall crumbled in front of them, the altar blown away by the shockwave that would have tossed Steve aside, except for Tony's inexorable, iron grip. The mushroom cloud bloomed in the distance, and Steve could see it reaching for him –

"Dust to dust."

"No-" Air came suddenly, freezing air, and Steve choked into wakefulness. His lungs spasmed, rejecting the cold dry air in a way they hadn't since the nineteen-forties, and the dream was driven from his head as he focused on thinking no, slow, breathe out –

It had never worked when the doctors back then had told him his asthma was all in his head; but with the serum in his veins it actually was all in his head. The air was biting and real; he breathed deep, and again, and ran through a mental checklist. 'Stay awake,' Tony had told him. Fine job of that he'd done. He'd be lucky if he didn't lose his hands and toes to frostbite – except that there was something covering them, the same type of thing that was covering the rest of him, and it was... warm. Not the warmth of a deluded mind on the verge of dying: actually warm.

He opened his eyes and looked down. His uniform was covered in strands of silver that shone gold at an angle – his face, too, by the feel of it. The arc reactor that Tony had created to power the illusions sat on his chest, with thick cords of the strange material coming out of it, merging seamlessly into the metal wrapping the rest of him – but he could move. It let him move, although it was like wearing clothes made out of metal much heavier than it looked. Which, he supposed, did make some sense.

Steve sat up. He had to catch the arc reactor to prevent it from falling off – if it was keeping this stuff running warm, then he bet that wouldn't be the best idea.

The snow within his makeshift wind-shelter had all melted, but he could see through the gaps that this ended not so far away. Since there was no roof on top of it, he could also see that the sun was more than half-down, and dipping lower. Judging from the way that his nose froze every time he breathed in – and this despite the warm metal criss-crossing his lower face – it hadn't warmed up any throughout the day. The occasional gusts of wind that made it through the cracks kept making his face freeze, although with the assistance of the wires his uniform was enough to keep the rest of him warm.

His stomach rumbled. Reluctantly, Steve pulled a ration bar from his belt and sat for a while contemplating it. It was his last one. Should he eat part of it now? He wasn't that hungry yet – but even the occasional bite of cold was enough to make him shiver with memory.

First things first, Rogers, he told himself firmly. His shelter needed work. If he could cut out the wind better then he wouldn't be half as cold, and he wouldn't get half as hungry, either, from his metabolism trying to make up for the wires' deficiency in warming him. The bank was high enough that he could dig into it a bit, here - he slung his shield off of his arm and brought it down, watching as it sank into the earth. Yup – the ground was frozen, but vibranium trumped rock-solid ice. Good; that meant he wouldn't have to move away from this spot to find better shelter.

If he did that, Tony might not be able to find him again.

He had maybe a half-hour left before the sun went down, and the temperature would plunge even further. Steve started digging. The soil was more pebbles than dirt, and after he loosened the frozen top layer, became easy enough to move; the bigger problem was trying to get it to stay put to act as better wall, and something to support a metal plate for a roof. The boulder, at least, provided one solid wall: it was rounded on top, but it clearly was stuck into the dirt for some ways. It also didn't fit the rest of the bank – the pebbles were silky black, but the boulder was a much lighter coloured stone, with streaks of green – copper? Tony would know. Steve amused himself by finding mental patterns in the random markings: cloud-watching, for stones. Each scoop of dirt revealed another object: a house, a turtle, a fish...

His shield hit something just below the top of the dirt, and Steve threw himself back almost before he'd registered what had happened: the copper-green veins flared with their own light, tracing bright emerald fire up the side of the boulder before vanishing just as it reached the top. The adrenaline rush had all his senses wide open – but that was it.

Cautiously, Steve stepped forward, and brushed away more of the dirt with his hand. It was more of the fish – and it really was a fish, now. What had been before was a fanciful imagining: now the copper lines had changed, and these ones had been painted by a skilled artist. There was no mistaking the house he'd seen before – now, he could pick out that it was a large house, with many rooms; he could tell the pattern on the turtle's shell, and even the look of shame on its face. The fish's ugly, open mouth was closing about a screaming child... the picture faded to the right, but in the light of the arc reactor, more of the copper lines were slowly thickening and thinning into something that made more sense.

The arc reactor – made from a piece of his shield. Huh. Steve brought his shield forward, and tapped it gently against the lines.

The flash this time was just as beautiful as beautiful as before – lighting up the imagery and vanishing. Steve blinked away the after-image and examined what had been revealed: the fish, growing smaller... or, no. He considered it again. The movement was to the left... right to left writing? Or pictography, rather. The fish had been small, but had grown – he tapped the shield again, and half the boulder seemed to blaze for a glorious moment, leaving behind a masterwork: a lady's – a princess' – garden, a pond, and the fish-monster had been but a simple fish within it. Then it had escaped – his fingers traced the picture left – and had grown, out of control, but it still seemed... small. There was something beneath it that held it – he dug his fingers further into the dirt, and felt something like wire.

There was something buried at the foot of the boulder.

Elevation: -31
External temperature: 277
Distance from S. Rogers: ERROR

Tracking.

The depths of the river were far from lightless: it was the purest water that Tony had ever seen, aside from the ridiculous amounts of nanites – but those actually amplified each EM wave, boosting the transmission. They also had to be responsible for supporting the macro-scale life, because otherwise the water was way too pure for schools of brilliantly-coloured fish – and occasionally, many-tentacled horrors – that swum by as he and his captive made their way to the fish-monster's lair. That, or they were all anaerobic lifeforms. The dissolved oxygen level was averaging out at thirteen parts per trillion. Somewhere back on Earth, a xenobiologist was crying at all the opportunities they were missing.

too damn bad for them I am not taking samples

It was a damn good thing that extremis could split O2 out of water, or he'd have been screwed – this armour only had five minutes worth of onboard oxygen. As they swam, he left a little trail of hydrogen behind him, which quickly dissolved into the water – no doubt acidifying it, whoops. Not that it mattered – the river was big enough (hah, that was an understatement) that it could take it.

The bottom dropped another fifty metres, and within the underwater basin, looking rather meagre by comparison, sprawled a small palace. "There," it burbled, shifting uncomfortably – he hadn't let go if its neck. "That is where our king lives."

"Great," said Tony. "You can introduce me." He squeezed a bit for emphasis.

They jetted down. 'Palace' was really giving it too much credit; Tony had houses larger than this. Had had houses... well, now he had mine-shafts larger than this. Possibly someone who drove a Volvo for reasons other than 'to blend in' would have found it impressive, but it was hardly Versailles. It did have better lawn ornaments than the French had managed, though: an actual real-live dragon, all bound up in netting. Electrified netting. That was just cruel – cruel, and, he had to admit, apparently very practical. Yulong was out cold, although he occasionally twitched as a pulse ran through the metal mesh. His guards were perfectly safe; the water was so pure that its conductivity was next to nil.

The half-dozen fish-people standing guard – mostly gawking – around Yulong looked up sharply as Tony's captive let out a distressed, high-pitched cry. Their response, at least, was professionally swift – tridents up, battle-stances... assumed, for a given variation on 'stance' that incorporated 3D space. It was probably a damn good thing, Tony mused, that he was used to flying; at least he wasn't at a complete disadvantage here. They definitely had an edge in technology, though – his scans weren't penetrating below the first floor of the house, and they only showed perhaps twenty other people, a few uni-directional shields, and no active defences at all. There had to be more of the same illusion technology that the monastery in the mountains had employed.

He sure hoped that they were somehow tricking his scans, anyway, because if that was all there was, he was going to feel pretty damn insulted.

And then he was going to kill them all. Petty, feudal tyrants, picking out a territory and slaughtering civilians who couldn't defend themselves –

stop

He let his captive go with a blast of steam to urge it onward. The fish-thing swam towards its fellows, rather than away, yelling in a high-pitched voice that carried extremely well in water, "Gimme a weapon! He's crazy!"

"I am pretty mad, yeah," Tony noted. Effective repulsor weaponry range was down to less than a metre, and missiles built for an airy environment were right out; fortunately, lasers.

There were a lot of problems in life that could be solved with the targeted applications of lasers. It seemed like he discovered more every day.

"Halt!" cried one of the fish-people, brandishing a shiner-than-the-others' trident at him. "What is your business accosting one of our lord's guards?"

"I'm gonna give you a count of ten to release the dragon and also tell me where you stashed the monk," Tony replied, hitting the boot thrusters just lightly enough to hold his position in the water despite the mild current. "Ten."

"You're obligated – "

"Nine."

" – under laws of – "

"Eight."

" – trespass to –"

"Seven."

"Just kill him already!" cried the one that Tony had 'accosted', grabbing a trident away from the nearest guard to it – which squawked in outrage, and tried to grab it back. The first fish-person had already swum just out of range, however, and now levelled the trident at Tony and – fired?

"Sixfivefourthreetwoone," Tony yelped, a burst of audio indistinguishable to the ordinary human ear – the fish-people didn't seem to like it either, screeching at a truly god-awful frequency and firing more tridents, which - fuckfuckfuck they did not do this before. 'This' being to shoot a bolt of bright energy that broke chemical bonds like they were nothing and then let them reform for extremely damaging results. He'd been two slow to entirely dodge the first hit, which had blown apart his left boot repulsor – and also part of his foot, ow, half-burned flesh crisping off, ow, un-cauterized blood vessels dumping extremis-rich blood into the water, ow run

Warning: System critical operations may be affected

override

Damage subroutines stopped screaming at him. He shunted them and half the others into low-priority status and dumped them off the register – his last thought before doing so that defragging tonight is going to be a priority son of a bitch and then his operating system was no longer running any programs that could support such speculation. All the freed space went into targeting as he overclocked every processing node he could, calculations working around the nanites to provide inhuman precision even in a system-hostile environment. The left-hand laser fired slowly, methodically, sixty times in half a second, and Yulong's massive bulk drifted free; it finished by flashing downward, cauterizing his own human flesh and stemming the flow of blood from what had been his left ankle. The right-hand laser was quicker, precision less a concern: three tridents and four fish-people were cut to shreds, their own weapons firing to no avail.

Three of the fish-people, however, survived; they'd had their tridents raised in a more defensive position, which – Tony could begin to appreciate as the targeting systems returned their stolen memory – probably was keyed to their usage. Golden half-domes of light sparked whenever Tony's laser should have fried them. Damn. To make matters worse, Yulong was drifting downstream, showing no signs of returning to consciousness.

The surviving fish people had some sense: they didn't try to attack him, just kept their tridents in defensive position and the shields raised as they backed toward their 'house'. Tony hung in the water and calculated odds. Yulong was still drifting downstream. He probably wouldn't get too far before he got caught on the cliff-face of the drop that Tony had swum over on his way here, but tracking the possible wrinkles in space-time that might make that drop very far away was impossible without giving the matter memory from the plotter tracking Tony's location, respective to Steve – so Yulong was on his own.

The house, then. It had uni-directional shields, but not everywhere; if these bozos didn't want to let him in the front door, he'd just have to cut an entrance through a wall. He hit the boot thrusters, and... nothing happened. Backups tried to compensate, smaller repulsors on his back that had been aimed down – the front ones were gone, replaced by a hunk of next-to-useless metal slowly being chewed into a form he could work with – but the whole system was out of whack, data missing, and the resulting uneven application of force sent him tumbling sideways into a cartwheel.

oh, shit

end process

Warning: System critical operations may be affected

yeah this is gonna suck

override

"Oh, fucking Christ!" Tony half-shouted, half-sobbed as detailed damage descriptors hit him, the human side of his brain processing them as pain and almost overwhelmed. Almost, because he'd had an unfortunately large amount of practice in dealing with unblockable pain recently. "Oh god, oh hell – " just ignore it just ignore it ignore it – the fish-people's return barrage – from those who had used their tridents as offensive weapons – hadn't entirely missed its mark. The armour had withstood the first two direct hits on it they'd gotten, propulsion – always the most vulnerable point – being knocked out by those and other glancing blows, yet the suit maintaining integrity. But the third direct hit had been to the chest – and that wasn't armour there, not yet. That was just a seal to keep the water out – and now it wasn't even that, thanks to the hole in the middle. Low oxygen level warnings flashed and he clapped a hand over the gap – extremis fused it the gauntlet to it instantly – before he could get a better look at it. He really didn't want to know what his lung looked like, oh christ fucking ow

The fish-people were still retreating slowly. That was good; time gave extremis the chance to build slightly better patches – five seconds and half his backup propulsion was functional again. He got his hand back as soon as enough nanites had transferred to his torso for extremis to effectively function as bone and muscle mass there. It left the armour over the entirety of his left arm critically thin.

The fish-people were backing towards the house – not a retreat, now, but a threat, because once they were behind the uni-directional shielding, they could use their own tridents as weapons. He needed to stop them, first – he skimmed up and to the side, but they all just turned to face him, of course. Didn't matter: it delayed them from getting behind those passive defences. But there were other people in the house, and once they got a look at what was going on...

time to start pulling out some other tricks here

What he needed was a distraction. He stretched out his right hand, away from his body as he could get it, while the subspace warp creaked online and he flooded his ears and other auditory sensors with what nanites he could spare – this was going to leave him deaf on all levels.

The lack of subtlety on the part of the subspace pocket wasn't just because of air – or, in this case, water – rushing in to fill the void left behind when he shoved something out of this universe. True, it did make for a loud bang, just like a gunshot did – but that was because he'd modulated the frequencies of the pocket opening to destructively overlap enough to mostly cancel each other out. If he didn't apply that modulation, or if, even better, he shifted them to constructively interfere -

run

Warning: System critical operations may be affected

override

The world went silent, and Tony tossed about a litre of the water into his subspace pocket. If nothing else, he really should grab some samples of the nanites in the water.

Since he'd turned his hearing off – and the associated damage reporting – the only way to judge the effects was by sight. That was preferable to leaving his hearing on, though, since if he'd done that he'd now be a twitching heap at the mercy of the river's current... just like the three guards. He took advantage of their state to cut them and their tridents apart with lasers, in utter silence.

When was the last time it had been this quiet inside his own head? He didn't know.

He cut through one wall of the house and jetted inside – still slow, still repairing, especially since he'd moved recovery of at least basic auditory sensing capability up the priority list. His left boot thruster remained at the top of it. Without those sensors – and a host of other delicate ones that had gone off-line at the burst – it was like swimming through mud: his vision was sharper than it had ever been before extremis, but he felt half-blinded anyway. Sensors struggled to scan through walls – most of the motion within the house had stopped, but there was still some, and he couldn't get a lock on it easily.

Well, let them come to him. The more time, the more repairs he could complete with extremis. He cut through a piece of the back hallway – the walls here were not silk, but riverweed – and headed toward one of three likely areas that he'd pin-pointed earlier – likely to hold Tripitaka, that was, because the atmosphere in those rooms was much less dense than the water around them.

...which was its own problem, actually, because they were some ninety-one meters down and probably going to need a quick exit. He might just have to hope that Tripitaka was up to withstanding the bends. It wasn't like the guy was actually human, after all.

He cut through the room's weedy wall – it couldn't actually be weed; weed wouldn't have withstood the pressure differential – just enough to get a proper scan of whatever was inside. No use: no Tripitaka, or anything else living, for that matter.

One down, two to go. He left the room leaking air and swam past, cutting through another wall – living quarters? It looked almost like it had been a shrine before – no candles or incense, but the weed-paper scrolls hanging on the walls, bobbing gently in the local currents, plus the turtle shells lying carelessly scattered about, but heavily and carefully adored with jewels – huh, maybe plunder. The might-be-a-bed in the centre pointed to somebody who liked sleeping on a pile of gold when he could get it, and the next best thing when he couldn't.

...that somebody was heading here from the front of the house at speed, a reactivating sensor warned him. Tony swore silently and jetted through. On the other side was something that had to be a kitchen – complete with underwater ovens – and beyond that, the next pocket of air in this place: a pantry?

He was cutting it too fine. Tripitaka was in there: Tony was sure of it. And the fish-monster was going to enter the room before Tony could grab him and go, while they were vulnerable to it – Tony turned and threw what he could into propulsion, twisting through the kitchen's main door and slamming into the hall – and into the one-armed fish-monster charging from the other direction.

They went head-over-heels, water buffering them in a way that air and solid ground wouldn't have; Tony's gyroscopes, still half-reeling from the subspace pocket trick, compensated slower than the fish-monster's did. Before he could recover, the creature had grabbed him by one leg – ow ow wow ow that was his bad leg – and slammed him through a wall. The riverweed broke like glass, except sharper, not making it through the armour but scoring lines, minor damage – Tony brought the lasers around and fired.

Too slow – the damage Tony had already taken was slowing him down. Contrarily, the fish-monster actually seemed faster for having lost a limb – or maybe that was the home-ground advantage – because it got its trident up into shield position in a heartbeat. Tony wasn't used to fighting with the weight of water pressing down and slowing him, and this thing was: it didn't have to calculate fluid dynamic equations, because it already knew all the answers through long experience.

It hadn't used the trident as a shield or a beam weapon up on the surface, though – maybe those functions didn't work except underwater? Possibly, they didn't work anywhere except in this particular nanite-rich river.

It twirled the weapon, wicked-blue trailing from the tips and fogging the water – this one Tony had seen before, and he threw himself toward the roof just in time to avoid it. It left behind dark, acidic streaks – pH: 2.2 and that was just with what carried upward to Tony. The roof gave – he pulled clear. The fish, visibly enraged, followed him through the hole that he'd made.

In the distance, Yulong's massive bulk was swimming rapidly towards them. Awesome. And about damn time.

"Get Tripitaka," Tony shouted, his own voice completely inaudible to him. Pings to the suit's speakers showed that they were in decent shape – comparatively – so he'd just have to trust that he had actually said that aloud.

The fish caught up to him again. Tony blocked the trident and retaliated with a laser beam, and was sent tumbling again as the fish activated the shield right in his face: apparently it repelled physical objects. He needed to change the game on this thing and get it up to the surface – the subspace pocket trick probably wouldn't work, since the fish was still swimming – and angry – when everything else in the house had been incapacitated. His lasers were barely good for blocking, and the nanites in the river were almost giving him a headache whenever the fish's shield went off, although that was barely noticeable through all of the other pain signals clamouring for his attention. The fish caught him again and pulled him down, slamming them both into the river-bed with Tony on the bottom. The weak plate protecting his chest buckled.

The crushing weight of Mjolnir on his chest –

"Even a mortal should know his betters. You will address me as king or not at all."

A blue flash went past them, rippling toward the ice far above: Yulong, carrying something that looked like a coffin inside his massive jaws. The fish-monster backed off, a look of nasty frustration on its face, its mouth opening and closing like it was shrieking in anger. Tony panted for breath and clawed at the nanites' datafeeds: junk, junk, more junk he couldn't process, but every time the shield flared – there was something there, he just needed a moment to think. He barely blocked a beam from the trident with a subspace burst – scattering the beam in all directions – and stared at his own hand in surprise. He hadn't honestly expected to manage that.

end process

Noise, noise, noise – sound assaulted him, leaving him dazed; too many of his audio-receptors were offline, or damaged, firing at random. Too many signals going off at once, to the point that he didn't have enough processing power to read them with. He floated in the water, half-stunned into motionlessness – but that was fine, he didn't need to be able to move to be able to code, to link the output from his audio sensors directly into his broadcast nodes.

He did need to be able to move to get out of the way of the trident heading for his head, though. The fish was snarling – and Tony couldn't hear it again; the audio linkup was bypassing his brain, both biological and nanomechanical, entirely. That was fine – that was great. Except for the part where he didn't quite manage to get out of the way, and one of the points went right through the weakened armour on his left shoulder. The fish grinned in triumph – quite a feat, considering that mouth – and its shield flared, ripping Tony from the trident and, by matter of way, the barbed trident point back through his flesh –

open wifi
open
open ports ALL

– and that was still fine, because Tony's right arm was the one that had the subspace inducer on it, and it was that hand he used to subspace another cubic centimetre of water.

The shield was still flaring as the massive shock of the discordant signals ripped through Tony and dumped directly into the local nanite network. The network – which, as massive as it was, was still only locally as massive as it could be by number of nanites: and therefore, could be locally disrupted, as it was whenever it opened up to communicate with the trident –

The golden shield fitzed out and something that could have been called Tony was aware of the loss of part of the network. Another part was aware of the forced shutdown of the program as the local demand for memory exceeded network capacity. The wider network responded by reallocating resources, shunting data at a speed that could have been considered significantly faster than light, had that been a relevant benchmark: it wasn't. The tiny bits of self-awareness carried along with that data were lost in the river's network: a space several orders of magnitude larger than every network on Earth combined.

Tony hard-rebooted just in time to feel an angry fish-monster stab him again with the trident. Pain fired up along his mind and out into the network – leaving an emptiness that was like a balm. Already he could feel himself drifting away again –

not again.

close wifi
close
close ports ALL

"Eat laser, dickface," he wheezed, bringing up his hand, and – nothing happened. He stared at his hand disbelievingly: there was blood pouring into the water from a long, wide, deep slice across his forearm. How had he not noticed that? Probably had happened when he'd fried the trident. And now that he had noticed it among the many damage reports, he wished he hadn't. If it weren't for the integrity of the surrounding exo-armour, he wouldn't even have a hand remaining, and Jesus Christ oh god stop moving it you moron OW

"You stupid, wretched mortal!" the fish bawled right into his face. He wondered if it had fish-breath – well, there was one advantage of being underwater. "You ruin my house – you cut off my arm – you make off with my dinner – you ruin my urk – "

It shoved backward, fleeing as something massive closed around Tony – massive and dark, cutting off all the outside light... or maybe that was just the last of his sensors going down. Tony slammed against something that his physical, human body informed him was spongy and slightly giving, and there was acceleration, enough to make the damage reports start all clamouring for his attention again. And then, light – a view of some very large teeth, from distinctly the wrong side – and then much more light. He hit something very much not soft or spongy and rolled over, getting one good look at Yulong's open, gaping mouth before Yulong shut it and bent his neck even further over Tony. He looked – worried. For a dragon.

"Did you just – " Tony choked; there was something in his airway that he had the bad feeling was blood. "Just – swallow me?"

Yulong looked rather embarrassed. He opened his mouth again - finally going to talk? Tony wondered – and then his neck arched up, as he gave a roar of pain that split the sky. He thrashed forward and around – there was, improbably, a fish-person stuck to his back, trident embedded a good half-meter or more into flesh – blood gushed from between the broken scales. The fish-monster laughed, a great, booming laugh that seemed small and petty compared to Yulong's enraged roars – a laugh that cut off abruptly as Yulong threw himself to the side, rolling over the trident and the fish-monster both, and driving the trident fully into his own flesh.

"No," Tony rasped. The idiot – too much blood stained the ice, Tony could hardly see but he could see that. The fish monster was rising again – slowly, as if dazed –

"Hey!" shouted a voice from Tony's other side. "Think you're the big bad man here, d'ya? Fella, you're just a little fish in this pond!"

Steve?

Too many critical systems were already requiring repair – he couldn't divert more resources to audio, not when he had this much tissue to regrow. Oh, god, he was actually going to have to eat something – metal alone was not going to cut it, here. But he did still have enough control over his neck to flop his head over to the other side – and, yup, unless he was hallucinating –

wouldn't be the first time

– that was indeed Steve standing there, armed with not his shield, but... a basket. One that appeared to be woven of reeds, and not very well, either: it was almost coming apart at the edges.

A roar on the other side; Tony flopped his head back that way. The fish monster was fleeing, and Yulong had gotten in its way, although with every movement more of his blood painted the ice. Fleeing – from the basket? Tony craned his head again – it was easier this time; the nicks in his lungs were closed, resources already been diverted to the next most critical task – just in time to see Steve throw the basket. Well. 'Throw' was a strong word – Steve threw his shield, like a discus, but this he tossed like he was trying to win at horseshoes, letting it spin up and almost float towards its target. Tony tracked the basket's flight with his eyes – the fish was trying to flee, raising its hand so that a gust of wind blew the basket off-course –

In the moment of the fish-monster's distraction, Yulong slammed it from behind with his tail, sending it hurtling through the air and face-first into the basket. There was a small 'pop', and the fish-monster vanished – the basket landed upright on the ice, bounced, and skidded gently to a stop.

"Tony, you okay?" Steve barked, jogging over – no, past: he was going for the basket.

Tony tried to push himself up on one hand and immediately thought better of it. "Peachy."

Yulong definitely wasn't okay – his great form was shuddering, every breath he took taking an evident toll – and hey, there was the last member of their party, a few dozen meters further past the hole in the ice than Tony: Tripitaka, huddled in a ball, sopping wet, surrounded by the shattered remains of the wooden box Yulong had fled with. No, not fled – Yulong had come back. And saved his life.

Steve reached the basket and bent down, his hand striking into it with the speed of a professional supersoldier – and coming back up holding a fish by the tail. A large fish – pretty colourful –

fucking magic basket

Steve's voice would have been too low for Tony to hear, but the no-longer-so-frigid wind was blowing his words directly to Tony. "I wish this hadn't come to this. But I don't know how long that basket'll last, and you've had far too much time outside it." He raised his hand high – and brought it down fast, breaking the fish's skull open on the ice and killing it instantly.

"Steve," Tony called. It came out like more of a croak.

Elevation: 0
External temperature: 282
Distance from S. Rogers: 11

Steve looked up – and started jogging towards him, then stopped as Yulong gave another heaving breath. The dragon-horse's blood was not pouring forth quite so freely anymore. "Shit," Steve said, and Tony heard that clearly.

"It's warm," said Tony. "The ice. Gonna melt." He needed to be able to stand up, right the fuck now. There was not a damn thing that Steve could do to save Yulong's life – but Tony had lasers, he had heat, he could cauterize –

Not that it was likely to do much good now.

He tried once more to pull himself upright and mostly made it. Steve abandoned staring at Yulong – probably concluding the same thing as Tony just had – and made it to Tony's side in time to keep him from toppling over again. "How badly are you injured?"

"I'm fine, I'll heal," Tony assured him. He did have extremis, after all, although fuck it would've been nice if the healing could have been happening faster than its current rate. "Yulong – he needs to be smaller – we need to get him off the ice before it cracks – "

or before something else comes along, Tony thought, as a dark form burst from the same hole that Yulong had made in the ice. Not a fish this time, oh no – a massive turtle, its massive shell at least thirty centimetres thick – it tried to haul itself up onto the ice beside Yulong and the ice broke beneath its weight, sending Yulong rolling helplessly toward the water. The turtle reached out a fin, just barely stopping him –

"Oh, no," it said, with a voice remarkably like Erik Selvig's. Uncannily so, in fact. "I'd been about to thank you – but it looks like you need some help first. Just a moment – I think I still have some stores." It vanished back beneath the surface.

Tony retracted the faceplate. The nanites that had comprised it were instantly re-purposed – now that it was gone, until he had more nanites available he'd have to re-order the priority list to get it back. Well, if the turtle proved hostile... it could probably just knock him over just by breathing on him hard, at this point. He turned to Steve. "Uh. That happened, right?"

"Wouldn't be the strangest thing," Steve agreed, and bent to lift Tony bodily.

"Ow Jesus fucking warn me," Tony hissed, curling in on himself – damsel in distress lift, great, it was very distressing when he wasn't entirely certain his arm was still attached, thanks, Steve – Steve, who set off at a very careful, very smooth run, obviously taking care not to jostle him much. "Ow."

"Yulong's bleeding out, you can cauterize the wound, right?" Steve asked anxiously, taking him around to Yulong's bad side – Tony could just see the hilt of the trident sticking out from the wound, but it had gotten moved around too much. Yulong was barely moving any more – was barely breathing.

"S'too late," Tony murmured. The ice was covered in a pool of Yulong's blood. He wished he had a hand to reach out with – did he? He didn't want to cause Yulong more pain. But he would have touched Yulong if he could have – let him know that he wasn't alone –

The turtle's giant head popped out of the water, and it opened its mouth to display a mass of something that looked like – and smelled like – road kill mixed with swamp muck. Tony gagged, his body shaking helplessly with the pain refreshed by the movement –

oh, hell, no point not doing this anymore – run and yes, override

Funny; the lack of pain actually made the smell seem worse. But it also made it really hard to care.

"'Uh ihss aww ihs 'ung," said the turtle, and Steve slowly set Tony down – he was probably aiming for 'gently', but with all damage reports blocked Tony honestly couldn't tell – and, horror of horrors, reached into that mouth, ignoring the way the beak could likely have taken his arm off. Yet his hand emerged unscathed. Well, not unscathed – he was holding some of the... stuff, and that was a pretty awful fate. The turtle shut its mouth and swallowed – "Put it on his tongue – it only works if he is still alive, so you should hurry," it said anxiously.

Steve jogged back around and pried open Yulong's jaw with what appeared to be main strength, before scraping the muck off of his hand and letting those massive jaws close. For a long moment, Yulong just continued to lie there and breathe.

Then his entire body spasmed, enough to break the ice beneath him completely. Cracks ran through – Tony flailed belatedly, falling back into the water and nooo faceplate shitshitshit – came up on a broad, shelled back.

The turtle craned its neck back at him, and then over at Steve, who was treading water among the ice nearby, a wave going over his head as Yulong kept thrashing. "It tastes right awful, sadly," the turtle said loudly, and Yulong's form vanished beneath the surface. "But he'll be alright – best cure there is for us freshwater folk – "

Steve popped up again, shaking water from his head like a dog, spotted them, and began to swim their way. The turtle gently drifted forward, lending him a fin – "He's gone," Steve said wretchedly.

"He'll be back, he just needs to eat something to get the taste out of his mouth," the turtle said wisely. "Shall we go pick up your friend?"

Tony glanced across the ice – cracks in it were now reaching to Tripitaka, who was backing away from them but appeared to be unwilling to simply run away.

"Eh," said Tony, flopping back down. Sitting up was kinda hard, and he wasn't sure why he was bothering. "He'll be fine a bit longer."