"How'd you get here, anyway?" Tony asked after a while.
They'd retrieved Tripitaka and were now all sunning on the bank. This part of the river seemed to have decided that it was summer, not fall – a change that Steve was grateful for, and not just because of the logistics involved. He'd torn off the netting of extremis and tossed it at Tony as soon as he'd realized he could – Tony needed the extra nanites. His armour was banged up, scorched in places, cut open in others, and the way he kept sort of drifting off had Steve more than a little concerned.
"The basket," Steve replied, flipping it over between his hands and handing it to Tony before he could ask. "The rock you left me at had these... they weren't paintings – " but they certainly had been art. He described the scenes, the fish and the basket – "When I pulled it up, I looked back at it and I saw that the fish was tiny again. It had gotten loose, but when it was in the basket it was easy to see it was just a fish."
"That doesn't explain how you got here," said Tony drowsily. He was running his hands over the basket in a semi-aimless fashion, much as Steve would find himself occasionally doing with his shield during downtime.
Steve shrugged helplessly. "I knew I had to put the fish in the basket and then... there I was. I think the basket must have been called to the fish, or something."
"Mm. Or the rock, and the river," said Tony. The words slurred faintly together. "Damnit."
"It sounds like the tale of Kuan-Yin's koi fish," said Tripitaka, getting up to pluck the basket from Tony's grip and examine it himself, before handing it back. Steve had tensed at the movement – but the monk just sat back down again. "It is not a popular tale these days among the Great Temples, but some versions of Tripitaka's legend tell of how he faced a demon koi fish that had escaped from the Bodhisattva's koi pond. Only the Bodhisattva's power could have caught it again; she must have left that basket where she knew you would find it."
"You'd think she'd have figured out how to keep the fish from escaping after the first time," said Steve. He'd heard of people being careless about pets, but this pet had eaten people, good Lord. If she'd known where to leave the basket, then surely she'd known what the fish would do. He'd not thought that his opinion of this Kuan-Yin could get much lower after learning that she'd been the one to give Tripitaka that damn headband, but this plumbed new depths.
"Trials are sent to test us. We learn by experience and pain," said Tripitaka. But he sounded uncertain, and his eyes were dark and shadowed.
"Or maybe it's the first time through, for her," said Tony, spinning the basket lazily. "Steve, this is just a basket. No nanites. No tech – not that I'm seeing."
"I wish I could've brought you a sample of the rock."
"I wish we could find our way – hmm. Heyyy, turtle!" Tony called, propping himself up on one elbow – still with evident effort. He wasn't so frighteningly pale as he had been when the basket had called Steve out onto the river ice, but it was obvious that he was still injured. Steve would just have to make sure he kept resting – at least he had a healing factor; that much was well and truly obvious now, if it hadn't been before. Nothing on the order of what a super-zombie had, but it was definitely there – possibly even stronger than Steve's own.
The turtle poked his massive head above water and blinked his giant, wrinkled eyes. "Hmm? Oh, yes?"
"Could you find the rock where this came from?" Tony waved the basket.
Squinting, the turtle hauled itself somewhat up onto the bank, until his jaw – which was unnervingly pointy and sharp – was nearly touching the basket. Apparently he was near-sighted. "Oh," he said apologetically after a moment. "Um. Do you know which rock it came from? There are quite a few." Buried beneath the apology was an unspoken question regarding the intelligence of somebody who would ask to find a random rock beside a river – particularly this river.
"No," said Tony, and he tossed the basket back to Steve. "Damn. All those metal plates."
"At least the arc reactor came with me," Steve pointed out. And fortunately the arc reactors were water-proof, because Steve's belt pockets weren't. But looking at the state of Tony's armour he couldn't help but wish as well that he'd been holding onto some of those metal plates – Tony needed all the help with repairs that he could get. Wishing wouldn't produce them from nowhere, though.
"We're not going to be able to find the road again, either," said Tony dreamily.
"What?" said Tripitaka, sounding alarmed.
Steve ignored him and frowned at Tony. "You don't sound too concerned by that."
"I think the damage functions have some hook-ins to my emotional subroutines," Tony confessed. Then, seeing that Steve couldn't parse this, he added, "I turned off my ability to feel pain, and it's a lot like being stoned."
Well, that explained the slurring. And it was a relief, at least, since they didn't have any painkillers – although if Tony could turn off his own pain, how could the headband - ? It must be some different thing, Steve decided. He just hoped Tony remembered how to turn it back on, later. Steve wasn't a fan of pain, but Tony already pushed himself too far – without any reminders of his limits, he'd wind up killing himself. And if it affected his 'emotional subroutines' as well...
"How are we to continue our pilgrimage, if we no longer had the road?" said Tripitaka, and if Tony didn't seem to care, then Tripitaka certainly looked miserable enough to make up for it. Steve wasn't sure how he felt about it – Tony had just admitted that he was at least half-stoned; he'd probably have a better idea of how to get back on track when he was no longer so foggy. Steve didn't like the delay, but – Tony had relaxed from his constant paranoia in order to kill his own pain: he clearly wasn't in any condition to push onward at the moment.
"If you mean the great road, then I can take you there," said the turtle, flipping a fin at Tripitaka in a manner that was somehow calming. "It's the least I can do, really. That awful fish had come down and taken over my home, driven me out, wrecked the family shrine – you've gotten rid of him, and so I owe you a great debt."
"Oh, no," said Tripitaka, eyes brightening for the first time since they'd set foot in that awful temple. "If you can take us back to the road, then it is we who are in your debt. If there is anything we can do for you, please let me know."
...which was a bit more than Steve would have agreed to. He bit his tongue.
The turtle eyed Tripitaka skeptically, and squintily. Steve felt half-inclined to offer to send him a pair of custom-made glasses once they got back to Earth. "You are called Tripitaka, are you not? No, I shan't take any promises from you. The last time a man named Tripitaka promised me anything, he quite forgot within a few days, and there I was, left to swim about as a turtle for another thousand years." The turtle harrumphed. "Funnily enough, there was a koi fish involved that time, too..."
Tripitaka reeled back, looking amazed and disappointed all at once. "You met my namesake?"
"Yes, and as I said, he wasn't any good for his word," said the turtle; Tripitaka looked crushed. "But that's all very well; my house is worth a bit of a trip. I can carry you on my back easily – well, except perhaps for your dragon friend, but he'll be fine to swim by himself."
"Wait," said Tony. "Wait? That's not gonna work. You can't have somebody else carry you – y'need to travel the road yourself."
"I'm a turtle," said the turtle. "I don't count as a somebody for the road's purposes."
Tony squinted back at him. "That seems kinda racist."
"It's the way of the world," said the turtle. "If you'll take a piece of advice – don't object too much, or you might end up a turtle yourself in your next life. Here's your friend now."
Some hundred yards out from the shore, Yulong burst free from the water, arcing into the air. His scales shimmered now in the sunlight, their lustre fully restored – his fins lethal, sharp, and intact. The terrible wound from the trident was fully healed, and he coiled around, diving beneath the surface and then up again, flashing in and out, a joyous celebration of movement.
"Water dragons," said the turtle. It might have been a condemnation; or perhaps not. He sounded a bit sad.
Aside from the metal plates, they'd lost all of their gear that Yulong had been carrying, too, of course. The turtle came up with some riverweed pouches from his house, but it was clear before they'd been in the air for more than a half-hour that the things were good for nothing but disintegrating once they dried out.
"Oh, dear," said the turtle. He was carrying them upriver at a fast clip. Yulong kept pace alongside, occasionally swimming further off to perform more aquatic stunts. "I hadn't thought of that."
"We'll make do," Steve assured him. "We appreciate the thought."
"You're almost to Maklu, that's something." The turtle craned his neck out as far as he could and bobbed it in the general westerly direction. "Why, some pilgrims I've seen cross this river have argued that Maklu starts so near as the west bank: the lower reaches, before the true Divinity of Heaven, perhaps, but a part of it all the same. But it doesn't seem fair to count it like that – none of the pilgrims ever stop at the west bank, so it can't be what they came for. No, true Maklu lies beyond the last river."
"No more rivers," said Tony. He sounded a bit muffled; there was metal... growing over his face. "I've had enough."
"Rivers are places of crossing," said the turtle. "What did you expect on a journey to Heaven?"
"He's got a point," Steve told Tony.
"Nn... heaven's a state of mind."
At the edge of his vision, he saw Tripitaka raise his head, looking started – and then broody again. Steve shifted his foot to nudge Tony's ankle – gently. From the sound of his voice, he was still half-drugged.
Somehow, it was easier to think of it as a drug, and not as his friend turning a part of his brain off. What if he turned off the part of his brain that let him evaluate decisions properly? His emotions? His ability to empathize? Not even on purpose – but if Tony was turning off parts of his brain, what were the odds that he might slip and make a mistake? That he might turn off the ability to feel anything seemed all too possible – he'd already clearly affected his ability to think, to feel. He didn't have a soul – although Steve wasn't sure how much that mattered. Souls were real, but what did they do? JARVIS was a person; Tony was still a person. A soul had to do something – it could make a person crazy – but he didn't know what or how.
He'd believed once that souls were what went to Heaven, but then, he'd also once believed in the Bible's god. Now he knew that god was real, and didn't have any faith in him in particular at all. That didn't mean that there wasn't a greater God out there, a greater Good which might be reached through the best tenets espoused by the Bible – but souls? Where did they come in? Aside from not being able to travel by soul to the underworld –
"Hang on," said Steve. "You're going to be able to enter Maklu, right?"
"Eh?"
"You don't have a soul."
Beneath them, the turtle snorted water out its nose. "Ah, that explains why you're so heavy. All out of proportion, you are."
"No, that's because by mass I'm mostly metal," said Tony. "Denser than your average guy." He grinned dopily. "No jokes, Steve."
"Not being able to get into Maklu isn't a joke."
"It may indeed cause problems," agreed Tripitaka gravely, sitting forward. "Entering Maklu is a spiritual, holy event. Perhaps, under my name, you will be allowed anyway..."
"We'll cross that river when we come to it," said Tony, seeming to sober up a bit. "Literally. If all else fails – well, you can present our case, Steve."
"I said it before and I'll say it again, Tony – splitting up is a bad idea."
"Hey, I didn't say I liked it, either. But it's an option."
The sun was just setting by the time Steve spotted the gleam of the road off in the distance. The sky was a brilliant vermillion at the western horizon, playing off of a few low clouds to create a fantastical show of light and shadow. At this angle, it turned the road itself a cherry hue, so that Steve didn't recognize it for a moment until his brain finished compensating for the shade.
"Almost there," he told Tony, who had flopped back down on the turtle's back and dozed most of the trip. From the sound of his breathing, though, he was at least semi-awake at the moment. It was the longest that Steve had seen him sleep since – well, since ever.
That was a weird thought.
"Great," said Tony with a yawn. Still on his 'painkillers', then – as if the fact that he'd been sleeping all day wasn't enough to make that obvious.
The turtle waddled awkwardly up onto the bank, right beside the road, and let them off – Steve jumped down, while Tripitaka and Tony both slid down the curve of his shell like it was a slide. "Will you be alright here?" the turtle asked politely.
Behind him, Yulong roared and dove deep one last time – and then came cantering out of the river in his horse-form, water streaming from his flanks. He lifted his head to the sky and let out a sound more like a scream than a neigh – but it was triumphant. Apparently, his time as a dragon had done him good.
"I think we'll be fine," said Steve.
"Well, if you're in need on the way back, stand by the river and call," said the turtle. "I'll come and give you a lift." He hesitated. "If, in Heaven, perchance..."
"Yes?" Steve asked after a moment, when the turtle did not continue.
The turtle bobbed his massive head toward Tripitaka – an assessing, impressive stare. Tripitaka shrank before it, and then puffed up a bit again. Perhaps remembering that the turtle had maligned the original Tripitaka, Steve thought.
"Since I don't know what answers Heaven might bring, I won't make promises," said Tripitaka. "And even if I did... I don't know I'd be able to fulfill it anyway. It might be an evil to break a promise, but unless what you might ask is of paramount importance, there are so many greater evils out there in the world. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have offered service to you."
"My home is worth more to me than any trivial matter I might desire to know," said the turtle, but he sounded approving. With a ponderous motion, he hauled himself back toward the water – once in, he was a far smoother swimmer than he was moving about on land. He turned his massive head back downriver, and between one instant and the next, he vanished – not as if going underwater, but as if he had gone... somewhere rather further.
"Right," said Tony. "Note to everyone – no swimming. Also, probably not a good idea to drink the water."
"We are going to need water," said Steve, eyeing Tripitaka – and Yulong – doubtfully. What were the odds that Tripitaka could stay on bare-back? Better than the odds he wouldn't complain about it, Steve supposed, and then immediately felt ashamed of his own lack of charity, and then angryat feeling ashamed – enough, he told himself. Logistics. Tripitaka would have to tough out the lack of a saddle, just as Steve was going to have to tough out the lack of food for a while longer. His stomach rumbled. They probably should have asked the turtle if he had any to share – but the riverweed, while tough, didn't seem edible by humans, and after dealing with the koi fish, the thought of eating fish was nauseating.
Tony let out an exaggerated sigh. "If we don't find a better source a day out, we can come back. Hell, I can make the trip a lot quicker than that, no need for all of us to backtrack."
That was a point, but – splitting up was still a bad idea. Especially since... "Take off your helmet," Steve told him.
The helmet dissolved, and Tony tilted his head to the side, one eyebrow raised ever-so-slightly. His eyes still lacked their usual focus. Yeah, splitting up was an especially bad idea right now.
"If you can't run – or stand – without being drugged, then we're not going anywhere tonight."
Tony rolled his eyes and huffed, "Fine," – and buckled to one knee. His eyes went wide – and then narrowed, an attempt at normalcy that left him squinting; perspiration dotted his forehead.
"Jesus, Tony, turn it back on," Steve said, hurrying over to support him. "Or off. Or whatever. We're staying."
"It's fine," Tony said immediately, waving him off. It would have been more convincing if Steve hadn't been able to see the stress lines in his jaw. "Fine. All the major damage is taken care of – it's like paper cuts, Steve, it's the little stuff that hurts like a son of a bitch, it's no big deal."
Tripitaka shifted – ever-aware of him, Steve tensed, but the monk didn't say anything. Hopefully he wouldn't say anything. Even if Tripitaka was showing signs of not being a bullying little creep... he had no right to say anything to or go anywhere near Tony.
"We're staying," Steve said firmly, keeping Tony from standing by dint of refusing to move his hand on Tony's shoulder. "We wouldn't make it far before dark anyway."
"I have a headlight built into my chest, Cap," Tony sighed, but his eyes had softened out again. "And it's working just fine."
"Great. Give the rest of yourself enough time to be fine, too."
Making camp was short work, mostly because there was nothing much to easily make camp with; fortunately, it promised to be a pleasantly warm night. There was no food – without the turtle, even Yulong didn't seem to want to go near the water to try to fish. At least firewood was easy to find, despite Steve being loath to let the road out of sight. The banks of the river might really have been the shores of a sea for all the driftwood that washed up. And with Tony around he never had to worry about having matches or a lighter – or even flint and steel – to get a fire going.
They could have used the time to get closer to Maklu – heck, maybe if they'd pressed on, they might've already been there. They didn't know how much further it was, but it couldn't be that far. Yet Steve couldn't find it within himself to regret the decision, since he soon as he got back with the firewood, Tony rolled over and went to sleep – and this despite how he'd dozed for half the day. He could say he was 'fine' all he wanted, but he clearly needed the rest. Maybe in Maklu they'd have the sort of science that could heal injuries as if by magic – or maybe they'd get a cold welcome. They needed to be ready.
And he was glad that Tony had the chance to sleep.
It was a mostly cloudless sky; overhead, the stars gleamed with enough light that the banked fire was more a hindrance to his vision than a help. There was no moon – he hadn't seen one in the entire time they'd been here. There were none of the constellations he'd learned back in the War, and instead of the Milky Way there were two bright, hazy lines spread across from horizon to horizon, meeting somewhere below the world's curve. It was beautiful – but he missed the streetlights of New York, the blazing neon signs and backlit ads.
Sometimes on nights like these, back in the War, when they'd make camp – sometimes with a fire, often without – they'd stay up, chatting about what they were going to do when they got home. Steve had always ended up with more than his fair share of blushes – the boys were shameless in teasing him. But he'd always enjoyed those nights all the same, the shared dreams.
It wasn't something he could indulge in now. Even if Tony had been awake... there wasn't going to be a welcome home waiting for him. If Tony came home at all – he was planning to go on to Asgard, to do something that was possibly phenomenally stupid, and almost certainly suicidal.
Was Steve just going to let him?
Staring into the fire was killing his night-vision. Steve kept on anyway; his hearing would provide better warning of any approaching threat, and he didn't want to look at the sky.
By noon the next day, Steve's stomach was starting to gnaw inwards on itself. He ignored it with the skill of an orphan from the Great Depression – and as long as he didn't start feeling the light-headedness that signalled that his metabolism had started panicking, he could keep on ignoring. That didn't mean he had to like it, though, and at every faint curve in the road he kept finding himself looking around hopefully for new signs of human life. The one farmhouse they'd seen around midmorning had been abandoned, and the fields around it long overgrown, with plants that Steve didn't even recognize, let alone have the first idea of whether or not they were safe to eat. (Tripitaka was no help.) True, with the serum it was pretty hard to poison him, but he wasn't yet that desperate.
"We are going to starve," Tripitaka predicted moodily.
"There's water ahead," Tony reported. Steve couldn't hear it yet – but Tony had the suit. And the faceplate firmly closed, as it had been since he'd turned off the pain-suppressant this morning. "No people. Maybe this one'll be safe to drink... less disposed toward fish-monsters..."
Steve made a face. They'd all drunk from the river before leaving – well, all of them except Tony – but the water, even as much as he needed it with the day's sun, still felt like it sat heavily in his gut. Maybe it really was that much heavier – Tony had said there were a lot of nanites in it, but he hadn't specified how many.
On the other hand, that had been this morning; he was thirsty now. And hungry. And by God, he hoped that there would be fish that would be safe to eat – at least cooking would probably make them safer. Right? ...Maybe?
He might have to consider vegetarianism when he got back. The nuns at the orphanage – who'd have rapped his knuckles if he ever looked anything less than grateful for the food they put on the table, although Steve never had been – would have been horrified. His mother might not have; she'd scrimped and saved and put every ounce of herself into trying to raise him right, and if it had wounded her deep into the soul that she'd never been able to feed him as well as a richer mother might've, he rather thought she'd have understood that he just couldn't take the chance he was eating something, someone, that could think for itself, or had been able to think for itself, or might be able to think for itself.
That's not going to happen on Earth, Rogers, he reminded himself sharply, trying to cut himself off before he worked himself into a foul mood based on a situation that was highly unlikely. He shook his head, trying to rid himself of the nagging thoughts.
"You okay?" Tony asked over the comm.
"Fine."
A pause. "...is that the kind of 'fine' that you seem to think I mean when I say I'm fine?"
What was that supposed to mean? "No, actually fine," said Steve. "Though I could use a drink."
"Couldn't we all," Tony laughed, and if there was a blacker edge to it than Steve liked – well.
Damn it.
It was about five more minutes before they came to the river. It was a decent-sized river – maybe sixty yards across, flowing swift, contained within rocky banks on either side – but compared to the previous one, it was little more than a creek. No, the ominous feeling that seemed to dim the day's bright sunlight wasn't because of the river.
The road had ended.
They'd crossed rivers before. Usually, there had been bridges over; occasionally, when the water was shallow, the road ran under and came back out on the other side – the last river had just been a more... extreme example of that. It was clearly not the case here. They all slowed, wordless, as they reached the end: the white stone narrowed, then cut off entirely, and capping the end was a ribbon of gold about a foot wide, stamped with a series of characters that Steve had no hope of reading.
"Ah," said Tripitaka, peering down at it with reverence and wonder, and then out at the river. "This is the Bridge to Heaven."
Steve followed his gaze, but he didn't see anything more than he had the first time: no bridge. There was a rope line tied across it, strung tense from two pitons hammered into either side of the shore, like one might use to pull a ferry across – but he couldn't see an actual ferry. Maybe on the other side? He couldn't see one over there, either, but there was fairly dense brush around the space for a road – space, because there was no actual road, not as he'd come to think of it in the past few weeks.
When had that happened? he wondered. There was a dirt road on the other side, but it felt like his brain was trying to skitter away associating it with the word. That was... really disturbing.
And not something he could do about right now. "Is there anyone over on the other side of the river?" he asked Tony. "We're gonna need a ferry – I don't like the idea of trying to swim this." Considering the last river, that would have to be an absolute last resort.
"There is no ferry," said Tripitaka serenely. "This is the Last Bridge."
Tony was standing as still as a statue – more still than any un-armoured human could ever stand. "Sensors aren't picking anything up," he said slowly.
"Damn it," Steve muttered. And then, reluctantly, because he didn't want to be splitting up, either – "I can run across the rope and take a look," he suggested, stepping forward and testing the rope with his weight. It was strung tight enough that it barely dipped. If they did have to get across on the rope – well, he could probably help Tripitaka, and with extremis Tony probably had good enough balance to be fine on his own. But how were they going to get Yulong across? He glanced worriedly at the dragon-horse and was met with a placid gaze.
Tony grabbed him by the arm. "I meant I can't pick up anything. Anything. I can't see what's on the other side – what are you seeing?"
Oh.
"More of what's on this side," Steve reported. "But no road." He searched Tony's faceplate, ridiculous as it was to try to see anything there. "If you can't cross – "
"No soul," murmured Tripitaka. "He shall have to stay behind." He spread his hands apologetically.
"Let's not jump to conclusions," said Tony. "What if there's actually nothing there? I'm not the one who was fooled by illusions."
And they'd all paid for not believing him – but Steve, Tripitaka and Yulong had paid only lightly. Steve looked back at the rope. Then he scrounged up a rock, throwing it to the other side – it cleared the river easily, and bounced off to rest somewhere among the trees and undergrowth on the other side. "What'd you see?"
"Vanished mid-way."
"If you cannot see it, then that is most certainly because you don't have a soul," said Tripitaka, making motions to scramble down from Yulong's back; Yulong snorted and lowered himself to his knees before Tripitaka could fall and probably injure himself in the attempt. "Maklu lies upon the other side of that bridge, so we must cross. I must cross. Heaven no doubt knows that the rest of you deserve to cross, even if you are not perhaps at the stage where you can," his eyes lingered on Tony, and Steve sort of wanted to punch him for the look of regret that he had the gall to wear, "But your final enlightenment must ultimately be up to you. For my part," he bit his lip, "I must cross."
Steve looked to Tony. "We don't really have a choice."
"I hate gods. And magic."
There was nothing else for it. Tripitaka had no sense of balance whatsoever; if he was going to get across, Steve would have to help him, and before he did that, he wanted to make sure there wasn't some trap on the other side. "Wish me luck," he told Tony, and ran out across the rope.
It didn't suddenly snap in the middle and dump him into the river. In fact, given how steady it was beneath his feet, even with the light wind, he began to feel a bit more confident about getting Tripitaka across without a dunking. On the other side, the dirt road led off into the hills. It was clearer from here: Steve could see what looked like a farmhouse tucked not-quite-out-of-sight behind a rise, and there were settled fields, although he couldn't have said how he'd missed them from the eastern side of the river. No doubt more magic. But there didn't seem to be anything threatening over on this side, either.
He walked back, taking his time about it – enough time to let himself bounce up and down on the rope a bit, and to lean over and try to peer into the river. The water was pretty clear, but deep enough that he couldn't see its depths in the middle; and the current looked strong enough to reconfirm his earlier opinion on not wanting to fish anybody out of it. Back on Earth it might have merely been unpleasant – but not a challenge for a supersoldier and Iron Man. Here, where the river might wash them across space-time... not so much.
Although the road was no longer here. That was a thought. He walked back the rest of the way, to where the others were waiting for him. "If the road's not here, can we carry them across?" he asked Tony, tilting his head to Yulong and Tripitaka.
Yulong snorted; Tripitaka looked severe. "One must walk the last bridge," the monk proclaimed.
Tony held up his hands. "Don't ask me," he said peevishly, "I can't even see the other damn side."
Point. Damn. "Alright," Steve said reluctantly. "I'll bring Tripitaka across first. You bring Yulong across after we're over – Yulong can tell you when," he pre-empted the obvious objection.
Yulong didn't seem thrilled about this; he snorted and pawed at the ground nervously. Steve snorted right back at him; if he didn't want to turn back, then he'd just have to tough it out.
Backing onto the rope – barely a foot over – Steve extended one hand – and then, reluctantly, the other as well, because as much as he disliked Tripitaka he couldn't think, anymore, that Tripitaka deserved to simply fall in and drown. He couldn't say he liked it, but – damn it, it was what it was. Nothing was clear-cut anymore, and Steve wasn't judge or jury.
"Hang on to my hands," he instructed. "I won't let you fall."
Obviously nervous, Tripitaka grabbed on tightly – tightly by his standards anyway; not so much for Steve. That was fine. They edged out onto the rope, Steve not needing to see where to place his feet to keep his balance, but Tripitaka acting as if he walked a razor-thin wire that might vanish from beneath him at any moment. His obvious fear – and determination to keep going anyway – was almost enough for sympathy.
Was enough for sympathy. Steve almost stopped their painfully slow progress as he recognized the emotion. Oh, God, when had the thought of sympathy become so revolting? What the Hell was he thinking?
"Ow," said Tripitaka weakly, and Steve realized that he was holding on far too tightly.
He loosened his grip back to something more human – and something like a gust of wind shoved against the monk. Steve barely felt it, except at his hands, but it plucked Tripitaka from his grasp like it was nothing – just took him, dropping him into the water. Tripitaka flailed, his clothes dragging him down, and gasped out something that might have been a cry for help –
Steve was already diving into the water, but Tripitaka slipped beneath the surface while he was still in the air; he was aware, briefly, that Tony had taken to the air and was rocketing towards them, and then his head was underwater and for a moment it was all he could do to shove away the memories. Then control resumed, and he could kick his legs and swim. He dove deeper, struggling to see about – there. Carried downriver by the current, Tripitaka had gotten caught on something – or Steve thought it was Tripitaka; underwater was blurry. It was something moving and thrashing, though – Steve propelled his way towards him, just as the thrashing stopped, and got there in time to see the monk go still.
He grabbed Tripitaka by the back of his robes and hauled him upward, propelling him up and tilting the monk's head back as soon as they hit the surface. No good; Tripitaka wasn't breathing. They were closer to the western bank now, much closer, so that was the way he swam, slinging the unmoving form over his shoulder and scrambling up the rocks – and coming face-to-face with Tripitaka, alive and well and beaming at him.
"What the Hell," Steve managed, depositing the body on the ground and checking. It was also Tripitaka.
"It is the Last Bridge," said Tripitaka serenely, blissfully. "It strips away mortal weight and mortal sins; look! I may run across it as I please, now," and he demonstrated that he could do just that, touching down on the far shore – Yulong's neigh carried across the water – before running back.
Steve looked back down at the body. He should have already started CPR, he thought weakly. He should have – Tripitaka arrived back in front of him. "It's your body."
"But I am not in it, anymore," Tripitaka pointed out. His voice was gentle. "You may throw it back, Steve Rogers. It was a good house for my soul, but it is now an empty house; let my flesh return to the world. I have transcended it, as you can see."
His soul.
Steve looked up at the opposite bank, horror stealing over him.
Tony.
He dove for the river again – the water closing over his head this time didn't phase him; he was too busy cursing himself for not seeing it earlier. Tony had flown out to help – he wasn't on the other shore anymore – he must have entered the river, and Tripitaka had drowned in about ten seconds, which had to be something of a record. He shouldn't have been dead that fast, unless the river had killed him. His soul had come walking out the other side, but Tony didn't have a soul or an immortality curse either, and if the water killed –
You're dead! a small part of him started clamouring. There wasn't much room for it, because he had a soul and was clearly still here, but Tony – he couldn't see the armour anywhere. It was too dark, not enough light penetrating the depths – he couldn't catch any sign of the tell-tale gleam. He had to surface for air.
"Steve!" Tripitaka called from the shore, and Steve paused just long enough to see what he'd wanted. If he'd caught sight of something – "He went in; he is dead. There's – "
Steve didn't wait to hear the rest. He dove again, hauling himself against the stream this time, closer to the center, trying to make some sort of grid pattern out of it. The armour was metal, Tony was mostly metal – he'd sink pretty fast, right? So he might be further upstream than Tripitaka had been. On the other hand, he was far less a pathetic swimmer than Tripitaka, and had been looking for Tripitaka – Steve came up for air and dove again as soon as his lungs were full.
They had not come so far for Tony to die like this.
They hadn't come so far for Tony to die at all.
Downstream again – on the eastern side of center – and there: an unmoving blob among other unmoving blobs, but the colour was not quite right, and as he rapidly came closer the shape became clear; Steve angled downward, ignoring the pressure in his ears, and snagged one unmoving metal arm. It was the river. It had to be the river. Tony's suit was water-sealed – he had to get him up. He angled for shore again – but surfacing, and pulling Tony's head above water, he realized he must have gotten flipped around: they were back closer to the western bank again. Steve didn't care; Tony's dead weight was a lot more than Tripitaka's had been, but it was all immaterial compared to his friend, whose face he couldn't see, who was as unmoving as a statue.
He slammed his palm down on the breastplate of the armour. "Tony, open up." No response. No sign of life at all. "Tony!"
There was movement in his peripheral vision, and shadows fell over him. Tripitaka – and Yulong; how had Yulong gotten across? Steve didn't care.
"He is gone," Tripitaka was saying, and Steve really didn't give a damn. "I'm sorry, Steve. I should have ordered him to stay behind – but I couldn't, not that way. Not now that I know... knew..."
Steve tugged a glove off with his teeth, the other hand pulling his shield from his back, and ran his bare fingers along the sides of Tony's helmet and faceplate. Thor had been able to rip away the faceplate by brute strength, but Steve wasn't that strong. He couldn't find any sort of catch, not that he'd really been expecting to. But the shield could cut through... he just had to be damn careful not to hurt Tony in the process. Yet it was easy to picture Tony beneath the armour – easy enough to imagine where the armour ended and skin began – he pinned Tony's head with a knee, fixing his mental image of Tony in his mind, and brought his shield down at the side of Tony's chin – a perfect strike. Nanites gave beneath a vibranium edge. He repeated the process on the other side, and then higher up on both sides of Tony's face; the nanites the shield tore away made no move to re-attach themselves. They were as still as Tony was.
Praying it was enough, Steve hooked his fingers into the weakened points in the armour and pulled. It was a lot like trying to open one of SHIELD's vault doors – except harder. He put more effort into it, and the faceplate ripped free.
He didn't toss it aside like Thor had. Tony probably would need the nanites. He let it clang down beside them instead, leaning over to try to feel for a pulse, to listen for breathing – no breathing.
CPR, then. Two breaths, and compressions, which he shouldn't have been able to manage with Tony in the armour. The chest plate gave way beneath his hands far too easily. But Tony had extremis. It would heal him from this. It had healed him from yesterday's fight, and he'd been badly beaten up after that; it had healed him up from when Tony had said he'd been dying. Tony had just been exposed to the water through the armour – he hadn't had his head blown to pieces, or his brains scrambled, and nothing short of that could kill an extremis-infected zombie. So if he just had time to heal – oxygen circulation was important; brain damage would set in otherwise. Steve just had to give him that time –
Breaths.
Compressions.
Five sets. Then check. No breathing.
Repeat.
Then check.
Repeat.
Then check.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Check –
Tony was breathing.
Steve fumbled for a pulse – found one, shaky but there. Or maybe it was just him who felt shaky. Light-headed. Oh, God. Oh, Lord.
Tripitaka and Yulong had fallen silent somewhere around the tenth repeat. Now Tripitaka spoke again. "He lives; a mortal body upon Heavenly soil. I wonder what you have done, Steve Rogers."
Saved his best friend.
Steve felt himself slump; let his head tilt down until his forehead clanged against the breastplate of the armour. His fingers he kept hovering over Tony's face, to feel each slow breath in and out.
Oh, thank You, God.
But he wasn't waking up.
"Wake up," Steve muttered at Tony. His quick-drying uniform had reached that irritating damp stage of not-quite clinging to his skin; apparently even miracle technology couldn't skip that part. The river water felt like oil, felt like a stain against him.
He was so thirsty.
"Steve, he is mortal. His consciousness..."
"You don't actually know a damn thing about what's going on; you can keep your mouth shut," Steve snapped at Tripitaka, and shut his mouth with a click. It took effort not to say more. He glanced down at his hands.
If he, too, was dead – if Steve was now 'just' a soul – then what were the odds that he'd be able to get the cure they found in Maklu back to Earth? Tony had to wake up.
"Perhaps you would know," said Tripitaka, which wasn't shutting up. "You underwent the transformation before; I had not realized. Although it does not seem to have granted you much serenity."
"What?"
Tripitaka regarded him almost fondly; Steve half-shook with revulsion for his pity. Revulsion, and everything else, because loathing alone could not have moved him so. "You crossed the river without being swept clean by its waters."
Steve took a deep breath. It was true – Steve didn't have a clue what it meant, but it was true that he didn't feel any different. So maybe that meant that he could, in fact, return to Earth. And so would Tony. He got one foot under him, then grabbed Tony's arm and hauled him up into a fireman's carry, standing at the same time. It would slow them down – or. He started toward Yulong. "You can keep him from falling off, right?" he asked the dragon-horse.
Yulong snorted and rolled his eyes as if insulted – and then dropped his head a bit, giving Steve a look usually associated more with sad puppies than six-legged horses. Steve glared back at him, and settled Tony over Yulong's broad back.
"The White Tiger warned us of him," said Tripitaka. "This is unwise."
Steve planted himself between Tony and Tripitaka. "We are not leaving him." Could Tony feel pain, right now, if Tripitaka decided to torture him? Steve held his breath. Tripitaka – his body was dead, but his soul was here... his self? Was it really his soul? Looking at him wasn't anything like when Steve had had the soul gem. If it was his soul, did that make him indestructible, or, for the first time, truly vulnerable? Was he really dead, or was 'transcending' different? – because Steve was pretty sure he hadn't previously died at any point, seventy years of being frozen notwithstanding. Mostly sure. Yet, if Steve could, finally, stop Tripitaka – no, he needed to not think like that right now. There were too many things that might go wrong, and the worst case – he couldn't risk the worst case. He couldn't threaten Tony with that. He needed to wait, and learn more – and that meant they had to keep going.
If Tripitaka would let him. Them.
"Steve," said Tripitaka gently. "I would not hurt him. Not – " he closed his eyes. "This is unwise. But I would not hurt him. I have been choosing between evils for so long that my soul was stained with them, but that stain has been washed free, and I can see now... I think I finally understand what the Great Sages speak of. Any choice of evil will undermine the Great Harmony; there is no such thing as a lesser evil."
Steve stared at him. His insides felt hollowed out, his head dull, and Tripitaka was expounding philosophy. They needed to be moving. He turned toward the dirt... road leading further west.
"There are other advantages of transcendence," said Tripitaka, smiling – still gentle, which seemed all the more wrong. "I shall walk with you from here. The cares of my body have been washed away and I do not think I shall slow our pace overmuch."
And that was that.
Seven hours later, the sun had set, and Tony still hadn't woken up.