Title: Resurrection, Reconstruction, and Redemption, 7/13
Authors: seanchai and elspethdixon
Rated: PG-13
Pairings: Steve/Tony. Various canon ships. Sharon/Winter Soldier, for your daily dosage of bondage kink.
Warnings: Denial fic. Blatant shipper fic. Captain America and Iron Man in a romantic relationship. One non-canonical het pairing. A dire lack of sex. Terrifying amounts of snuggling and angst.
Disclaimer: The characters and situations depicted herein belong to Stan Lee and Marvel comics. Also, some of the dialogue in chapter five was taken from Brian Michael Bendis's Civil War: The Confession. No profit is being made off of this derivative work. We're paid in love, people.
Note: For a rundown of where this fic departs from current continuity, see the notes at the end of chapter one. Familiarity with the events of Captain America #25 and Civil War is encouraged.
Again, thank you to angelofharmony and tavella for the wonderful beta job.
Chapter Seven
There was blood everywhere; smeared across Sharon's face, covering her shirtfront, filling the air with its heavy, sweet/metallic smell. He couldn't breathe, couldn't pull any air into his lungs, couldn't --
Steve jerked awake, gasping for breath. Most of the dream was already fading from his mind, but he could still smell the blood and gunpowder, still feel the impact of the bullets.
Damn it. He rolled over, face down, and closed his eyes again, squeezing them shut tightly while he waited for his breathing to even out.
Next to him, Tony stirred, reaching out to lay a hand on his back. Steve ignored the touch, silently willing Tony not to say anything. Damn it, damn it, damn it. Not again. He'd been over and done with this business years ago.
Tony, thank God, remained silent, running his hand gently up and down Steve's spine while Steve took deep breaths and reminded himself that this was not six weeks ago, that he wasn't dying, that that was over and he was fine now and everything was okay.
Sharon's promise from the ambulance hadn't been a lie after all.
Tony's hand came to rest between his shoulder blades, warm and embarrassingly comforting. He hadn't had nightmares in years -- not this kind of nightmare, the kind where things you desperately wanted to forget played out in Technicolor and movietone sound, and tore you awake with your heart racing -- but he'd never forgotten how much he hated them.
Steve shifted to bury his face in the blankets over Tony's chest, not opening his eyes. Tony continued to rub small circles between Steve's shoulders, fingers hard, not saying anything. He consciously slowed his breathing, catching the musty scent of the blankets and the faint tang of metal that always seemed to hang on Tony's skin.
It was really a little too warm lying this close, and probably not entirely comfortable for Tony, but he didn't say anything, and Steve couldn't bring himself to move.
The first time he'd gone through this, he'd been on his own, and it had been miserable; he'd spent a lot of sleepless nights, restless and not willing to face sleep after being jerked awake by memories of falling, and cold, and Bucky. This time around... the dreams were still horrible, but having someone else there helped to ground things in the present.
Actually, that time was probably partly responsible for their friendship. Steve hadn't been familiar enough with the changed city to want to walk around by himself after dark, so he'd spent most nights the first month or two after waking up in this time wandering the halls of the Avengers Mansion, looking for a distraction. He'd quickly discovered that when he was staying there, 'Iron Man' was also often awake at all hours, and they'd spent more nights than Steve could count playing chess, or talking about books that they'd both read, or what was going on at Stark Industries, or what he thought of this new era, or what the Avengers had done that day, or about nothing in particular. Sometimes, Steve had simply gone down to the lab in the basement of the Mansion to keep 'Iron Man' company while he worked on something. That was actually how he'd figured out who was in the armor; Tony tended to lose all ability to dissemble when caught up in some mechanical problem, and the intensity and focus were unmistakable, whether he was in the armor or a business suit.
Neither had ever asked why the other was awake in the middle of the night, but it had been strangely companionable to have someone to spend the time with. Eventually, the dreams had faded, and Steve had been able to sleep through the night again, but by then, Iron Man -- and Tony Stark -- had already been on the way to being Steve's best friend.
Tony brought his other hand up to run lightly through Steve's hair, and he had moment of intense gratitude that this was Tony with him, and not someone else.
He didn't have to say anything; Tony knew him well enough not to try to make him talk about things he'd rather forget, to stay quiet and offer simple, unquestioning, physical comfort.
Not that he liked having Tony see him like this, but if someone had to, there was probably no one else he could have been this open around. No one else he would have been comfortable letting see him this shaken, not even Sam or Sharon. Sam was one of his best friends, close as a brother, but this kind of thing was always just a little bit awkward, with Sam. For Sam, he'd have smiled, and shrugged it off, and tried to put a brave face on things. It didn't actually work -- Sam could always see through him -- but there were things you just didn't confess to in front of your brother.
At least he didn't take it as far as some people, though. Back during the war, Steve had once seen Nick Fury walk three miles on a fractured ankle rather than admit to the other Howling Commandos that he was hurt, only to have his leg give out on him thirty minutes away from camp.
Dum Dum Dugan had thrown Nick over his shoulder and carried him the final mile back to base, Nick bitching the entire way. Steve had heard words coming from the man's mouth that he'd never heard before or since, including some he suspected Nick had made up on the spot.
As for Sharon... Sharon felt guilty enough as it was; she didn't need to know about this.
And Bucky, well -- out of everyone else, Steve would have been relatively comfortable with Bucky seeing him like this. Like Sam, Bucky was close as a brother, but he had also known Steve when he was twenty-one, and still innocent enough to be taken by surprise by the atrocities the Nazis were committing.
Somehow, though, Steve didn't think that Winter Soldier would have rubbed his back, and run a comforting hand through his hair. And while that certainly wasn't necessary -- he'd managed this by himself before -- it was... nice.
It was irrational to feel safe just because Tony was there, particularly when Steve was supposed to be there to watch his back. And anything that posed a serious threat to him could certainly take down an un-armored Tony. When the armor was removed from the equation, he could take Tony out easily, not the least because every move Tony knew, he'd learned from Steve.
He managed to look really good while losing, though.
They'd spent the past few months trying to destroy each other, but even at the height of the fighting, he'd never really managed to think of Tony as an enemy -- he'd always half-expected to wake up and discover that it had all been a bad dream, and they'd been on the same side all along.
The hand that had been stroking his hair settled on the back of Steve's neck, squeezing lightly.
Steve's heartbeat had finally slowed down to a more normal pace, and he could feel the knots in his neck and shoulders unwinding under Tony's hand. If this had been anyone else, Steve would have moved by now, and possibly pretended that he'd never been awake in the first place.
Instead, Steve turned his head to one side, taking a deep breath of the cold, slightly damp air; it was going to rain soon. He smiled slightly; this close, he could hear the slow, steady beat of Tony's heart.
Tony's warning had come just minutes after they had started settling in at the safehouse, his voice toneless and impersonal on the Avengers' comlink Peter had gotten used to not wearing. "Doombots on 45th Street," the comlink announced, and it would have been just like old times if Tony's voice hadn't sounded exactly like a robot's. "Six to ten of them—the news cameras can't get a clear view."
There was a moment of silence, as Peter and Danny both turned to Luke, waiting for his decision. MJ, in the middle of unpacking a suitcase, stopped and looked up, a folded shirt still in her hands.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Evil robots in the theater district," Peter started, and then Luke was answering Tony.
"We've got it," he said, and cut off his communicator. "Let's move. Those robots are going down."
"I'll bring you a robot head," Peter offered to MJ, as he pulled his shirt off to reveal the black costume underneath.
She threw the shirt at his head, and Peter caught it out of the air with one hand and tossed it back. "I take it that's a no?"
"Get out of here!"
"I'm going, I'm going." Peter pulled his mask on and followed Luke and Danny out the door.
He got to the theater district first, weblines being a faster way to travel than Danny's over-rooftops-and-through-attics route. There were no flattened cars or broken windows, the way there had been on Wall Street. Instead, nine 'bots were standing in a semi-circle around the entrance to the Minskoff Theatre, facing inwards. As Peter swung down towards them, all nine raised their hands in unison and fired a stream of orange energy at the giant yellow and black Lion King marquee over the broad entry way.
It caught fire immediately. The front broke off, crashing to the pavement, completely blocking the doors.
Damn it, damn it, damn it. Peter threw out another webline and reversed course, heading for the roof of the theater instead of the street. It was a matter of seconds to break through a skylight and climb down through the theater's criss-cross of lighting struts and catwalks.
It was too early in the day for a performance, but Peter's luck was working true to form, and the theater was crowded with people anyway. Onstage, a cluster of dancers in animal masks were standing in a panicked huddle, while a tall, balding man with a conductor's baton tried to herd dozens of musicians toward the fire exits.
Dress rehearsal. Wonderful.
"I'm not leaving my cello!" one of the orchestra members protested. "Do you know how much they cost?"
"Carry it out, let it burn, I don't care!" the conductor yelled. "It's not as if you can play on tempo anyway!" He stabbed the baton in the direction of the "exit" sign. "Just get outside."
Peter spun a new web-line and lowered himself down from one of the catwalk beams. "How can I help?" he asked.
The conductor looked up, did a double-take, then pointed towards the fire with his baton. "I can handle the musicians. You do something about that."
The front half of the building was already ablaze, orange and yellow flame eating the gilt-covered wood of the private boxes and balconies. It would have been nice to have ice powers. Or water powers. Or fire-retardant-foam-throwing powers.
Instead, Peter grabbed a fire extinguisher, handed it to a dancer dressed as an ostrich, and went back outside to stop the Doombots from lighting anything else on fire.
Luke and Danny were already outside, wading into the Doombots with abandon.
Doom didn't seem to have any specific objective, outside of causing as much chaos as he could. It must be nice to be crazy, Peter thought, ducking underneath a Doombot's energy blast. No worrying about consequences, or strategy, or what you were going to do next -- all you had to do was cackle manically and send in the killer robots.
"Does he ever run out of these fuckers?" Luke asked. He punched a Doombot in the faceplate, then slung it towards Danny, who hit it with a karate chop so hard half the rivets in its torso popped off.
A half dozen bits of metal slapped into Peter's chest and arms, and a final rivet flew past his face, about an inch away from his nose. "Ow!" he yelled, slapping at the stinging welt he could feel rising on his left arm. "Watch it! Doom never runs out," he added, aside, to Luke. "I think he has a factory in Taiwan somewhere that rolls these guys off an assembly line."
Peter picked a Doombot -- there were still plenty to choose from -- and sprang up onto its shoulders, shooting webbing into its face. If this worked like last time, it would now stumble around blindly waving its arms, like Abbot and Costello meet the Mummy.
It stumbled blindly. It waved its arms. A musician hit it with a trombone. The Doombot grabbed the trombone out of the musician's hands and began to bend it in half, metal groaning. Peter grabbed a chunk of rubble, snuck up behind the Doombot, and bashed open its control panel. He ripped a handful of wires out, and the Doombot lurched to a stop, repeating, "Doom, Doom, Doom," over and over again, like a record winding down.
The trombonist grinned at Peter, clutching his bent instrument to his chest. "Thanks, Spidey."
Peter saluted him with two fingers, and headed for the next Doombot, trying not to think about the fact that it was Tony who'd shown him how to shut down a Doombot.
After that, it didn't take long. Unlike the ones on Wall Street, these Doombots didn't really seem all that motivated. Peter got the feeling that they'd been sent solely to burn the theater, and hadn't been given any other instructions. Maybe Doom just really hated family-friendly theater.
Luke kicked the mangled remains of a Doombot. "There could have been kids in there."
"Yeah," Peter kicked the Doombot nearest to him. It made his foot hurt. "That's for trying to destroy our tourism industry."
Luke looked at him, eyebrows raised.
"What?" Peter asked, "Broadway brings a lot of money into this city. And it takes it from fat mid-western tourists who voted for registration."
"How can we ever thank you?" the dancer in the ostrich costume gushed, gazing up at Luke with a starry-eyed expression. It was hard to tell under the mask and all of the feathers, but Peter was pretty sure the ostrich-dancer was a guy.
A female dancer in a gazelle costume grabbed Peter by the arm with both hands. "Is it true that Captain America's back? You know that here on Broadway, we all thought that what they were going to do to him was horrible."
Was it supposed to be a secret? Peter wasn't sure. No one ever remembered to tell him these things. "He was dead. But. Um. He got better!" Peter said, trying to sidle away. The dancer was still clinging to his arm, so it didn't work. She followed him, still staring at him with that vacant hero-worship expression which in theory, you always thought would be flattering, but which was usually just kind of embarrassing.
"That's great," the ostrich dancer said. He'd finally let go of Luke, probably due to the poisonous glare Danny was giving him. "He's a real tiger."
"I'm sure he'll get a kick out of hearing that," Luke said, with the slight smirk that meant he was already picturing Cap's expression when they repeated this conversation to him.
"The fire department's coming," the conductor said. "You guys should get out of here before the cape-killers show up."
"Sorry about the theater," Danny said. "Send the repair bill to the Rand-Meachum corporation. They'll be happy to help."
"No need; Disney can handle it. It's not like they don't have the cash." The conductor shrugged, then added, "And you know what they say about dress rehearsals. At this rate, we're going to have one hell of a first performance."
Tony had refused to come shopping with Steve in Kmart. Admittedly, it wasn't his first choice either, but they were far less likely to draw attention in a Kmart than somewhere smaller, and less generally chaotically crowded. In any case, the other stores in this neighborhood disturbed him; not even a supervillain needed to wear that much black leather and metal.
Steve made his way through the aisles of brightly colored plastic toys, dusty school supplies, and cheap women's jewelry, up the escalator to find men' clothes. The store was about half-full; apparently the recent round of attacks hadn't affected business. There were kids that didn't look like they were out of high-school yet clustered around the movies; a harried looking man in a rumpled suit trying to balance packages of paper and printer cartridges; women with baby carriages holding baskets filled with formula and diapers; three college students carrying boxes of ramen; an elderly couple looking at desk lamps; and a group of disaffected-looking young people in artistically torn and paint spattered clothing wandering about aimlessly. He nodded stiffly at a heavy-set woman in a red vest restocking bottles of vitamins, walked past two young women examining fold-out futon beds, and realized with a start that this was the first time in months that he'd really been able to walk around freely, without having to keep an eye out for the cape-killers. Not that there was nothing to worry about, of course, but somehow the threat of Doombots or the Mandarin's minions felt far less oppressive.
The selection of men's clothing was small and basic, and Steve wasn't in the mood to be picky, not while he was still wearing borrowed clothing that didn't quite fit.
Luckily, SHIELD-issue combat boots were fairly standard, and Steve was used to wearing them. They weren't as comfortable as his own red boots, but they were decent. And at least he'd been able to take them from SHIELD's surplus, and hadn't had to borrow them from anyone.
The main problem Steve had when shopping was trying to find things that fit properly; he'd been unusually tall by the standards of his day, and although he might not be as comparatively tall in this time, but he was still bigger than most people.
Two pairs of jeans, a couple of shirts, a pack of boxers, socks, a flannel over-shirt, and trench-coat seemed like enough clothing for the moment, since they were traveling light. He'd need to find out what had happened to his things at some point; knowing Tony, they were probably still around somewhere.
Steve grabbed a plain dark blue backpack to carry everything in, then made his way to the front of the store to check out. The cashier gave him a strange look when he paid cash for the entire pile, but Steve just nodded and smiled politely at her. He paused by one of the cluttered display tables, pulled on the trench-coat, packed the rest of the clothes neatly into the backpack, and handed the empty plastic bag back to a confused-looking clerk.
It was a crisp, cold morning, but the sun was out, and there was a rare clarity to the air. Steve paused on the corner for a long moment, just enjoying the day, and the fact that he had the opportunity to do so.
There was no sign of Doombots, or Red Skull's minions, or the Mandarin's men, Tony was back at the hotel, and they didn't need to leave the room for another few hours. Steve shouldered his backpack, and set out to find the most circuitous route possible back to the hotel; it was a nice day, there was no reason to waste all of it inside.
This was New York, and in spite of the recent chaos, the streets were filled with people hurrying about their business. Steve kept expecting someone to recognize him from the news, but no one so much as gave him a second glance. Apparently, people were less observant than he'd thought. Or maybe they just didn't care.
It was no warmer inside the St. Mark's Hotel than it was outside; apparently, they were having some problem with the heating. The man at the desk had claimed that it was due to damage from the recent attacks, but given the look of the place, Steve suspected that it was simply in need of maintenance. The whole place had a dim, dusty, rickety feel, at odds with the fact that the neighborhood mostly seemed to be a bastion for the particular brand of disaffected youth that liked to imagine themselves to be artists. Of course, Steve admitted to himself as he made his way up the poorly-lit wooden staircase, the place did have a bit of a Bohemian ethos, which was probably why it had lasted.
Tony was in their room; the one benefit to staying in this neighborhood was that no one had raised an eyebrow when they had requested a single room. He was sitting at the small dented wooden table set against the left wall, half turned away from Steve, working on the laptop he had brought with them from the Helicarrier. His coat was draped over the back of his chair, and there was a plastic bag lying on the bed; he'd obviously been out at some point.
Tony turned and looked up when Steve shut the door behind him, blinking, and giving him a half smile. "Have a nice walk?"
"Yes," Steve said, shrugging off the backpack and leaning it against the wall by the door. "It's a nice day. Did you go out?"
Tony nodded; over his shoulder, Steve could see the streams of data still rolling across the computer's screen unabated. "Just to get a feel for the neighborhood. I have no idea why Fury thought this would be a good place for us to go to ground."
Steve shrugged. "I stopped trying to figure out why Nick Fury does anything years ago," he said, walking over to the bed and picking up the plastic bag. It was white, with a red oval that said Utrecht on it. Inside, there was a pad of drawing paper, a set of drawing pencils of various hardnesses, an eraser, a box of Copic pens, and a blending stump. Steve pulled the rolled piece of paper out of the bag and held it up to Tony. "These cost a dollar each, and I can make them myself out of a folded piece of paper."
"The clerk said you needed it for shading," Tony said.
Steve took the pad of paper and box of pencils out of the bag. They were good quality, though that wasn't surprising. He tapped them lightly together, before setting them back on the bed. "Only if you don't know how to improvise," he said.
Tony just looked at him.
"Bill Mauldin didn't use one," Steve said, folding his arms across his chest.
"Are you going to quaff a glass of root beer in his memory, too?" Tony asked, raising an eyebrow at him. Steve held his hands up in surrender, and Tony grinned, and nodded towards a paper bag sitting on the other chair. "There's food."
Steve picked up the bag; it was warm, slightly damp, and there was the menu from a Chinese take-out place stapled to the folded top. He put the bag on the table and began removing the cartons of food, while Tony stood and set the computer on the bed, not bothering to close the lid.
Even though he knew Tony could do it now, it was a little disconcerting to think that he was using the computer without so much as looking at it.
They ate, Tony using the cheap wooden chopsticks, while Steve used the plastic fork. He'd always thought that chopsticks were somewhat pointless when forks were really far more practical.
The food was decent, but a little cold, and Steve wondered briefly why Tony hadn't just started without him.
"Doctor Strange just got in contact with the New Avengers," Tony said, setting down the half-empty container of lo mein. "He's still researching ways to permanently seal the artifact. Apparently, it's taking him longer than he'd hoped, because it's so powerful."
"Did he tell them where he was?" Steve asked. Doctor Strange had left them fairly abruptly the other day; it would have been nice to have some idea what he'd been intending to do.
Tony shook his head. "No. He mostly seems to have been checking in." He smiled a little. "I think he enjoys being mysterious about these things."
"Probably," Steve said. "Do you know where anyone else is?" He'd chosen to go with Tony willingly, and would make the choice again, but it had meant leaving the others somewhat abruptly. He felt bad, leaving Bucky, Sharon, Sam, and the New Avengers like that.
A small part of him couldn't help but be grateful for the reprieve, though. The New Avengers kept looking to him to have answers to questions he barely knew, and Sharon... He forgave her implicitly; what had happened wasn't her fault. But she still felt guilty about it, and Steve wasn't sure that he was ready to deal with that yet.
Tony cocked his head to one side, expression going distant, as if he was seeing something other than the small room. "The New Avengers just took out nine Doombots in the theater district. One of the dancers is flirting with Luke." He paused, then went on, "Agent Carter and Winter Soldier have reached DC safely. They think they've found a lead on one of Red Skull's contacts, but," Tony paused for a moment, and Steve could hear Bucky in his next words. "He's covered his tracks 'damned well.'"
"He always has," Steve said wryly. One of the biggest problems in fighting Red Skull always lay in finding him.
Tony placed a hand over his, and squeezed lightly. He was still holding the chopsticks with his other hand, though he'd stopped eating.
They sat in silence for a moment, then Tony removed his hand, and said, "Unfortunately, the Mandarin's nearly as well hidden as Red Skull. We're fairly certain that he must be somewhere in China. He's always been focused on it, and that's where most of his recent attacks have been centered," he said, gesturing emphatically with the chopsticks.
"I guess that's not his usual MO," Steve said.
"No," Tony shook his head. "It's not. He might not always lead his attacks, but he's never hidden himself before. He's been all over the map this time: Shanghai, Hong Kong, Chongqing. We know his ultimate goal is domination of Asia, and eventually, the world, but there just hasn't been any obvious strategy to his actions. And the Mandarin may be insane, but he's not stupid; he has to be up to something," Tony finished, stabbing at the air with the chopsticks. Steve decided not to point out the irony.
"If Asia is his goal, why send his people here? Why blow up the Helicarrier?" Steve asked.
"Payback," Tony said, making a dismissive gesture with the hand holding the chopsticks. "I blew up his idiotic dragon ship."
Steve nodded, then frowned, suddenly focusing on Tony's hand and the scars that he'd noticed the night before. There was something about the pattern that made Steve's stomach twist. What on earth had Tony been doing to himself?
Steve reached out, and took Tony's hand in his, pulling it across the table to get a better look.
The scars ran across Tony's knuckles, and down the back of his hand, increasing in length as they went; there was one longer scar that started at the base of his thumb, and wound down and around, ending in a small, faintly reddish knot at the ball of his wrist. They were small, although some of them looked fairly deep, and most of them had jagged edges, as if there had been something embedded in them.
Steve knew what left that kind of scar pattern.
"What?" Tony asked, looking baffled, although he made no move to take his hand back. Steve swallowed a little thickly, but didn't let go, squeezing Tony's hand.
Steve pulled the chopsticks from Tony's grasp, setting them pointedly on the table. "If you're going to keep working on that laptop," he nodded at the open computer on the bed, lines of data still scrolling across the screen, "you could at least pretend to type," Steve said, turning Tony's hand over and tracing his thumb across the ball of his wrist.
He didn't want to think about what had driven Tony to put his fist through a window some time in the past two months.
As always, thanks to everyone who reviewed, favorites-listed, or otherwise commented on or encouraged us over the past six chapters.