Title: Resurrection, Reconstruction, and Redemption, 10/13
Authors: seanchai and elspethdixon
Rated: PG-13
Pairings: Steve/Tony. Various canon ships. Sharon/Winter Soldier, for your daily dosage of spy/assassin hotness.
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 Ten

After a week of steady rain, the Potomac was running high, the water flat and grey outside the car's window. Half the drivers on the road were stubbornly ignoring the local traffic law and hadn't bothered to turn on their headlights. Sharon had flicked her own on moments after the first drop of water had hit the windshield; with Winter Soldier and his sniper rifle in the passenger seat, getting pulled over by an over-zealous traffic cop was definitely not in her plans.

She and James had finally tracked down the Red Skull's lair. After a week of futility trying to trace him through post office drop boxes and bank accounts opened under false names, Sharon had looked up the ownership of all the addresses in Wheeler's data files in various fire insurance company's records, and had found an apartment building on the Upper East Side of Manhattan right off of Central Park owned by a small company that was actually a front for the Kronas Corporation. James had theorized that Aleksander Lukin had housed a mistress there, or possibly a kept man.

If he had, Sharon doubted anyone would ever hear from her again. She had probably been eliminated as soon as the Red Skull set up housekeeping in Lukin's body.

The blue SUV in front and to the right of them abruptly swerved into their lane, without bothering to put on its turn signals. Sharon slammed on the brakes, cursing.

James raised his eyebrows. "You want me to shoot their tires out for you?" He patted the barrel of his rifle suggestively.

"Don't bother," Sharon said. "This is DC. The other drivers probably all have assault rifles too."

"This is a sniper rifle," James corrected. He returned to staring out the window, watching the other cars suspiciously. It was like having a half-feral Doberman in the front seat, Sharon thought with amusement.

He had wanted to drive. She had argued that he didn't have a valid driver's license, and that most of the streets in DC had undergone construction since the last time he'd been through. Both of them had avoided mentioning what they were about to go and do.

It had a feeling of finality to it. Sharon had devoted the past two months of her life to tracking Red Skull down with the sole intent of killing him, and by tomorrow, it would all be over one way or another.

Sharon flicked her own turn signal on and made the turn onto Independence Avenue. They were on a tight schedule -- God knew how long Red Skull would stick around at Lukin's old home-away-from-home -- but they needed backup before they could go in. A simple in-and-out assassination attempt wouldn't work this time; it had failed before, and now, more than ever, they needed to take the Red Skull's organization down with him.

She didn't think it would be difficult to convince Sam Wilson to help them. He'd been mildly horrified by what she and the Winter Soldier had done to Dr. Faustus and Agent Taylor, but there could be no question that Red Skull deserved to be terminated with extreme prejudice.

Once they had Sam, they had about three hours to get back to New York and contact Steve. Even with the car in aerial mode, the timing was tricky, but she owed it to Steve to give him the chance to face the Skull down himself. She owed a lot of things to Steve, but this one… This one, she could actually make good on.

James remained silent beside her, his right hand absently caressing the rifle barrel. He was looking forward to ending all this, too, she knew.

"Thank you, James," Sharon said. She kept her eyes on the road, waiting for the light at the next intersection to turn green. She wasn't completely sure what she was thanking him for (the sex? Watching her back? A shoulder to cry on?) but she wanted to say it before they were no longer alone. "For being here," she added.

James was silent for a moment, long enough that she thought he wasn't going to respond, then, "Do you know, you're the first person in sixty years who's called me by name?"

That didn't sound quite right. Sharon shook her head, and turned onto 1st. Street. "Steve calls you-"

"Bucky," he interrupted. "I'm not Bucky anymore. I don't mind that he still calls me that; I can be Bucky for him, but that's not who I am anymore, and I haven't been for a long time."

Sharon had had her own experiences with mind-control and undercover-work, but even so, she could only imagine what five decades spent being the Winter Soldier did to you. There probably wasn't any going back after something like that, just as there was no going back to what she and Steve had had before that hideous afternoon on the courthouse steps.

She looped smoothly around the statue of President Grant and into the federal employee parking lot, then put on the brake. "We're here," she said. "Help me find a spot to park."

The man was good, ninja-trained, with the kind of lightning-fast, fluid moves Steve had come to associate with Iron Fist and Daredevil. Steve threw himself backwards, the foot that had been flying toward his face flashing harmlessly over his head. He planted his right hand on the ground for balance -- left hand still holding the pizza he'd been carrying -- and kicked up with both feet, catching the ninja squarely in the solar plexus. Still off-balance from the half-completed kick, the ninja doubled over, and Steve bounced to his feet and slugged him on the jaw.

The ninja went down in a crumpled heap.

And he hadn't even dropped the pizza.

Steve looked up from the unconscious ninja, finally taking in the buildings around him. They were only a block away from the SHIELD-operated bed and breakfast-cum-safehouse. If one of the Mandarin's agents was this close, it was entirely possible that he'd already been there.

Stupid, so stupid. He should have made Tony come with him, should never have left him alone.

He didn't quite run back to the bed and breakfast -- running would have been obvious -- but Steve walked as quickly as he dared. If Tony had been fully immersed in the Extremis data, he wouldn't have noticed an entire platoon of ninjas coming through the door.

Once inside the building, Steve ran flat out, taking the steps up to the third floor three at a time. He threw the door open so hard it rebounded off the wall with a crash, and skidded to a stop.

Tony was sitting at the table against the far wall, in exactly the same position he'd been in twenty minutes ago. Not gone. Not lying on the floor with his throat cut.

Tony jerked at the noise and jumped to his feet, swinging around to face the door, both hands up as if to blast Steve with the repulsor gauntlets he wasn't wearing. He relaxed when he saw Steve, hands falling back to his sides. "What is it?" he asked, voice tense. "Are you all right?"

"I, ah…" Suddenly deprived of an emergency, Steve found himself stumbling to explain. He could still feel his pulse racing, and the possibility of disaster still seemed to close to reality. "I ran into one of the Mandarin's men about a block from here. I'm fine, though. I even saved the pizza." He held the slightly crushed pizza box up for Tony's inspection.

"The Mandarin's people are here?" Tony's face had gone blank, all visible emotion draining out of it. "We have to leave, now." He was already moving to close his laptop, reaching for its case.

Steve set the pizza on the table and grabbed him by the wrist, halting the motion. "There was only one," he said, "and trust me, he's not going to be getting up for a while. We can call in SHIELD to deal with him."

"No." Tony shook his head sharply. "You don't understand. Where there's one of the Mandarin's people, there are a dozen. Like cockroaches. That's the way he operates. We need to get out of here."

"We don't know for sure that there are any others around," Steve said. "If there are, and we rush out into the street, it's only going to make us obvious targets."

"You're right." Tony's lips twitched for a second, in a familiar self-deprecating smile. "There's a DOD spy satellite right overhead. I'll scan the surrounding buildings for life signs." His eyes swirled to black, and his face went blank again.

No matter how many times Steve saw that, it never got any less disturbing.

But it got more disturbing a moment later, when a thin line of blood began to trickle out of the left side of Tony's nose.

Steve grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him, hard. "Stop it!" he snapped. Whatever Tony was doing, there was obviously something wrong.

Tony blinked, eyes suddenly blue again. "What?" He shrugged away from Steve, and put a hand to his face. When he pulled it away, the tips of his fingers were smeared with blood. "Oh," he said, staring at his hand a little dazedly. "That happens sometimes. Maya says it's like a computer's processor overheating." He paused, eyes going distant again, and frowned slightly, as if concentrating on something far away. "No life signs in the immediate vicinity. We're safe for now, but we have to move." He swayed on his feet, and Steve grabbed his arms again, steadying him.

"We're not going anywhere," Steve said flatly. He was not going to argue about this, not when Tony could barely stand. "We both need to eat, and you need sleep, or you're going to be dead weight." If they moved out now, with Tony in this kind of shape, and they ran into trouble, Steve couldn't guarantee that he'd be able to get them out of it intact.

Tony started to protest, and Steve shoved him back a step and down until he was sitting on the edge of the bed.

"I'm fine," Tony said wearily. He rubbed at the blood on the lower half of his face with the back of one hand, succeeding only in smearing it further. "I can handle it. We can't afford to let them catch us; our entire communications network will go down."

Even for Tony, who was unfortunately good at fighting injured, this was not 'fine.' "It doesn't help anyone, if you get yourself killed!" Steve yelled. He could hear his voice increasing in volume as he went, and his fists itched with the desire to hit something. But there was nothing in the room to hit, and that wouldn't have helped anything, anyway.

Tony glared up at him, eyes suddenly narrow and angry. "Don't you think I know that?" he demanded. "What do you think kept me going the past six weeks?"

"Oh, I don't know. Caffeine and stupidity?" His frustration with Tony's refusal to take care of himself had been building since that night at the New Avengers' safehouse, when he'd found out about the four-hours-of-sleep-a-night rule. It was only a matter of time before Tony burned himself out from exhaustion, and now it was obvious that using the Extremis was hurting him, and he still refused to rest.

"It was that or alcohol, and I think I did a halfway decent job!" Now Tony was half-shouting as well. "I had to keep things running; that was all that mattered." He dropped his eyes and said, more quietly, "I had to make things work."

There was nothing Steve could think of to say to that -- nothing that would help, anyway. He closed his eyes for a second, and forced his voice to calmness. "If I start packing now, will you eat the damn pizza and sleep for a couple of hours?"

Tony sighed, shoulders slumping. "All right." He stood up and vanished into the bathroom, returning a few moments later with the blood washed away.

Fifteen minutes later, he was lying utterly motionless on top of the bed's garish floral coverlet, one arm thrown over his eyes. There were still traces of blood under his fingernails.

Steve thrust the last spare shirt into his knapsack -- Tony's shirt, but at this point their clothes were so thoroughly mixed up that it wasn't worth the effort to separate them out -- and sat down on the bed next to him. The past week, since leaving the New Avengers' safehouse, had been tense. They'd been staying in abandoned buildings and the odd SHIELD-owned establishment, like this one. They didn't dare use Tony's credit card, so Tony had resorted to using the Extremis to hack ATM machines and embezzle from his own bank accounts.

Things were still a mess in California and the Midwest, some guy in DC had tried to shoot Sam, and they hadn't heard from Sharon and Bucky in a week. And Tony was apparently hell-bent on working himself to death.

Tony didn't move for a full four hours, asleep too deeply to even twitch. When the time-limit was up, he sat up and rubbed at his eyes, groaning.

Steve stood, and picked up the knapsack and duffle bag, setting them on the end of the bed to show that he'd fulfilled his end of the bargain.

Tony swung his legs over the side of the bed, and sat there for a second with his head in his hands. Steve moved to stand in front of him, intending to pull Tony to his feet; instead, Tony swayed forward and rested his head against Steve's hip. "I'm sorry," he said, eyes closed. "The past few weeks have… not been good. And I haven't been handling things well." His voice was low and slightly hoarse from interrupted sleep.

These situations wouldn't be half so frustrating if Tony would only tell him about them up front. Tony's physical condition was important tactical information right now, not something to be kept a secret. But then, Tony had always done that, had spent years keeping his heart condition from everyone. If he were being honest with himself, Steve was really more worried than angry.

He brought his hand up and curled it around the back of Tony's neck. "Come on," Steve said, squeezing gently. "Let's move out."

If one more Congressional staffer or Senate page gave Sam the hairy eyeball, he was going to start shouting.

Even when he was conservatively attired in suit and tie, with Redwing exiled to the roof and window ledges outside, politicians and lobbyists still edged over to the side of the hallway when they saw him coming.

It could have been his 24/7 Secret Service "shadows" ("we're here for your protection, Mr. Wilson, not to watchdog you"); it could have been because of the potshot somebody had taken at him and Jan a few days ago; at night, in most parts of DC, it would have been because of the color of his skin. If he'd been asked to place a bet, though, Sam would have put money on the words "unregistered superhuman."

Sam resisted the impulse to glare at the woman in a business suit currently giving him an unnecessarily wide berth and continued on his way to the door. Redwing had spotted a familiar red convertible illegally parked in the Hill's employee parking lot, and Sharon Carter's arrival was the perfect excuse to duck out of the congressional committee hearing he and Jan had been trapped in for hours.

Jan had displayed charts demonstrating that crime rates in the greater New York metropolitan area had risen dramatically over the past two months, reminded the committee that the Registration Act had been used to jail American citizens without trial while the Initiative put convicted criminals like Bullseye back on the street, and delicately avoided bringing up the fact that New York was currently under attack by multiple supervillains and needed all the superpowered help it could get. Sam had spoken when spoken too, and tried his best too look non-threatening and law-abiding and, incidentally, like an obvious member of an ethnic minority who was on the verge of having his civil rights violated.

The committee members had frowned, scribbled things down on their PDAs, and asked Jan if she was sure the statistic weren't just a fluke, if the system didn't just need to have some of the kinks worked out. Only the two New York representatives bothered to ask Sam any questions. Congressman Rosen, a Democrat well-known for opposing the Iraq war, had frowned thoughtfully and asked both Sam and Jan if, in their opinion, the Initiative could be considered a military draft for superhumans.

Congressman Dickstein, Republican, had had more personal questions ("Mr. Wilson. I understand that you were given you powers by a terrorist organization, is that true?" "Ms. Van Dyne, I believe your ex-husband is bipolar, correct?"). Sam had smiled with gritted teeth, answered politely, and mentally envisioned what Dickstein would look like after pigeons had pecked out his eyes. His disdain for superheroes was anything but subtle, and given that he'd been one of William Stryker's old drinking buddies, it had to be more than just "Compassionate Conservative" disgust at people taking the law into their own hands.

You would think that preventing a terrorist attack on the Capitol Building would buy you some kind of credit, but apparently, gratitude was a foreign emotion to career politicians. At least knocking Rosen out of the way of a bullet seemed to have won them his willingness to listen to them, if nothing else.

Through Redwing's eyes, he could see Sharon and Winter Soldier walking up the white stone steps of the Capitol Building, the two of them shoulder-to-shoulder and moving like people on a mission.

Sam met them in the front lobby, on the far side of the security station, so that they could avoid the fun of trying to get Winter Soldier through the metal detectors. Sharon was in full SHIELD field gear, and Winter Soldier's black motorcycle jacket, though it covered his cybernetic arm, did not exactly blend in with the crowd; the two of them stood out like sore thumbs against the polished marble backdrop.

"Sharon," Sam started, once he was close enough to speak without being overheard, "I thought Fury wanted you below the radar." The two of them had been in a communications blackout for the past five days, save for Sharon's daily check in via the SHIELD network.

"We've found him," Sharon said, without preamble. "He's in an apartment in New York City, on the Upper East Side."

"You found Red Skull?" Sam dropped his voice even lower, darting an instinctive glance at the closest security guard. The Skull had to have at least one member of the Capitol Hill security on his payroll, or that packet of C4 could never have made it onto the roof.

She nodded, smiling grimly. "And we know where he's been getting his information. It turns out the Honorable Joe Dickstein was in need of some extra campaign funding."

"Dickstein?" For a moment, Sam felt almost ill. He'd just spent four hours sitting in a conference room with the man, playing friendly little superhuman for him. "I was just in a meeting with him. If I'd known…" If he'd known, he would have been hard pressed to keep from reaching across the table and killing him. He hadn't needed the constantly repeated news footage to burn the sight of Steve taking that bullet into his memory -- it had been seared into his brain from the instant he saw his friend jerk with the impact and collapse, leaving a trail of blood across the courthouse's white marble steps.

There were damn few people Sam Wilson truly hated, but the Red Skull was one of them, and Dickstein had just volunteered to be number two on his list.

"It's not to late to go back upstairs and kill him," Winter Soldier offered.

"James," Sharon said warningly. Winter Soldier shrugged, and she went on, "Red Skull's going to have security and minions coming out his ears. We can't take him on without backup. Are you in?"

In answer, Sam reached up and turned on his Avengers communicator. "Jan," he said, "give the congressmen my regrets. I'm not going to be able to make it back to the meeting."

Tonight's base of operations was nicer than the warehouse, but only just.

With the Mandarin's people so close on their trail, even SHIELD-run hotels had become too much of a risk. So Tony had located an abandoned apartment building -- Steve wasn't sure exactly what computer-based alchemy he'd used to find an empty apartment building in Chelsea -- and they'd broken in.

"I still think we shouldn't be here," Steve said. He flicked the light switch up and down, getting no response.

"Relax. I ran the address; the whole building's owned by a subsidiary of Rand-Meachum." Tony smirked, and ran a hand through his hair, leaving half of it sticking up. "I think Iron Fist owns about ten percent of the real estate in New York."

The main room had no furniture, and the bare bulb in the middle of the ceiling persistently refused to light up; the electricity had probably been turned off. At least the water still worked.

Steve abandoned the useless light switch and circled the room, peering out of the grime-streaked windows. There was an old iron fire escape bolted to the back wall of the building, and he made a mental note to keep an eye on that window. It would be easier to break in there than to come through the door.

"I hope he doesn't rent these places out. There were tenements in the thirties in better shape than this."

Tony set his laptop case and briefcase down in a corner and straightened, arching his back. "It's slated to be part of an urban renewal project." He started for the hallway, rubbing at his eyes with the heel of his hand, and added, "I just hope there's a bed."

Steve frowned. He'd seen Tony get by on even less sleep than he was getting now, with no visible ill effects. He shouldn't be this tired all the time, even with the constant mental exertion of running SHIELD's communications. The Extremis was doing something to him, somehow.

He followed Tony down the narrow hallway into the bedroom, which was every bit as bare as the main room, save for a single, metal-framed bed. Thank god it had a sheet, and one that, as far as Steve could tell in the pale glow of the streetlight flooding through the window, looked clean.

Tony sat heavily on the edge of the bed and buried his face in his hands for a moment. "Right," he mumbled. "Communications blackout starts now."

Steve sat down next to him, putting a hand on his shoulder. Tony had been making an obvious effort to hold things together since their not-quite-shouting match the previous night, but Steve had seen him grey-faced and barely able to stay on his feet, blood coming out of his nose, and he wasn't fooled. If it were up to Steve, Tony would have stopped using the Extremis yesterday, but it wasn't as if either of them had a choice in the matter. "Are you-" he started.

Tony lifted his head from his hands and frowned at Steve. "Don't look at me like that." He reached up to curve one hand around the side of Steve's face, rubbing circles over the pulse point just below Steve's jaw. "I'm fine." In the dimly lit room, Tony's eyes were dark grey -- under brighter light, they were blue, almost startling against all that black hair.

Tony leaned forward, brushing his lips against Steve's. It was an obvious ploy to distract him, but Steve went along with it anyway.

He put a hand on the back of Tony's head, holding him in place, and closed his eyes, immersing himself in the kiss. This close, Tony was almost fever-warm, and Steve could feel the faint scratch of short hair on his cheek and against his palm. Tony made a small sound in the back of his throat, mouth opening, and shifted his weight forward so that he was halfway in Steve's lap, one hand resting against Steve's side, fingers just dipping below the waistband of his jeans.

In response, Steve moved a hand under Tony's shirt, sliding his palm up Tony's spine, from the dip at the small of his back to between his shoulder blades. After several moments, they broke apart, and Tony smirked, staring at Steve through his ridiculously long eyelashes.

Well, if Tony wanted a distraction… Steve planted his hand against the center of Tony's chest and shoved him flat onto the bed, then crawled on top of him to continue the kiss.

When he pulled back, Tony was gazing up at him with heavy-lidded eyes, still smiling. His hair was even more disheveled than it had been a few minutes ago, the loose pieces over his forehead sticking up every which way.

"Your hair is sticking up," Steve informed him, leaning on one elbow to look down at Tony.

Tony made a little half-laughing sound, and closed his eyes. "It does that. It did it even more back when I used to wear it shorter."

"I liked that hair," Steve said, grinning. He flicked at one of the pieces of hair hanging over Tony's forehead. "It always looked so goofy when you took your helmet off."

Tony made a contented humming noise, not opening his eyes.

"Tony?"

Silence. "Should I be insulted?" Steve asked. "I didn't realize my company was so boring." On the other hand, with only four hours to sleep, Tony needed all the rest he could get.

Even sleeping, Tony looked tired. There was enough light coming through the window for Steve to see the dark circles under his eyes, and he was definitely leaner than normal, the hard lines of collarbones and cheekbones that had been evident two weeks ago still sharply visible.

The past two weeks hadn't been easy on Tony, but he'd looked like this well before that. He'd been visibly worn down when Steve had come back, though that obviously owed more than a little to Steve's temporary death. Now that he thought about it, Tony hadn't looked that good during the fight over Registration, either. Even before Stamford, he'd had a careworn look -- not the sheer physical exhaustion of the past few days, but a ground down kind of weariness that went bone deep.

How long had Tony been doing this to himself? Since the Extremis? Since the Avengers had broken up? Before that?

He couldn't be sure, and that in itself said something. It was his responsibility to know when there was something wrong with one of his teammates, and he had no excuse for not noticing when there was something wrong with one of his friends.

Back when they had first formed the Avengers, Tony had occasionally been visibly unsteady on his feet after a fight. Steve hadn't known what was going on at the time, but after they'd all learned the truth about Iron Man's identity, he and Thor had figured out that Tony was letting his chestplate -- the one that kept his damaged heart beating -- run out of power. He'd done the same thing more than once when he'd had a mechanical heart. And even when he hadn't had anything specifically wrong with him, Tony had still made a habit of pushing his body beyond its limits. When the Avengers had still been a functional team, Steve had once seen him pass out in the middle of a fight because he'd gone into it with internal injuries.

Taken on their own, all of those instances had been worrisome, but Steve never noticed a pattern until now. He had thought Tony wasn't taking care of himself because he was preoccupied with the Extremis, and before that, because of what had happened to him, but clearly he'd just been failing to take care of himself for years.

How could somebody as smart as Tony was be so maddeningly stupid? And why hadn't anyone noticed this ages ago?

Steve ran a hand down Tony's chest, then rolled off of him. He sat beside Tony with his back against the wall, where he could keep an eye on the window, and the fire escape beyond it.

Tony shifted in his sleep, head rolling to the side to rest against Steve's hip, and Steve reached out, without taking his eyes off the fire escape, placing a hand on his shoulder.

Once this mission was over, and Tony could stop playing human switchboard, they were going to talk about this, and it was going to stop.

As always, thanks to everyone who reviewed, favorites-listed, or otherwise commented on or encouraged us over the past nine chapters.