Crossfire, Prologue-Day 3 [Cap/Iron Man Big Bang 2012]
Title: Crossfire
Artists: angelicfoodcake and makowe-pola
Author: ashei
Rating (both art/fic): G for art, PG-13 for fic (cursing and mild violence)
Universe: Iron Man Noir
Word Count: 27,191
Warnings: Animal transformation, big cats, questionable magic
Beta: eschatologies
Art Thumbnail:
Fic Summary: Though both the war and his days of adventuring for Marvels are over, Tony Stark is still looking for a cure to his failing heart. When Nick Fury asks him and Captain America to investigate a newly discovered world dubbed the Savage Land, Tony jumps at the chance, hoping to find something - anything - that'll fix him. But once Tony finds that something, he discovers that it comes at the cost of Steve's humanity - leaving Tony to struggle to turn him back before it's too late.
Link to Art: angelicfoodcake's art and makowe-pola's art
Link to Fic: AO3 | LiveJournal
Prologue-Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6-Epilogue
Notes: Written for c_im_bigbang's 2012 big bang!
This fic is primarily Noir-verse and takes place several years after the events of Iron Man Noir, though there are also a handful of 616 and MCU references thrown in here and there. That said, I wouldn't say Noir knowledge is necessary - basically all you need to know is that Tony's heart is damaged and he used to go exploring for magical relics to find a cure while documenting his adventures in a magazine called Marvels.
Special super thanks to my awesome beta eschatologies, who was wonderful and perfect and found everything I'd missed, and my two amazeballs artists, angelicfoodcake and makowe-pola! Really, if you haven't checked out the art yet, you should do so RIGHT NOW.
Should also add that this is very heavily inspired by a recent movie! Naming the movie would spoil the animal transformation aspect of it, but if you're really curious, it's [this movie]Brave.
Prologue
War hero. Super soldier. Military man.
They were, to be honest, all descriptions Tony didn’t give a shit about. War hero? Please. Maybe it’d be impressive if Tony weren’t a war hero too, but he was, so what was there to be impressed about? And super soldier? Absolutely ridiculous. Tony had security clearance. He could access the files on Project: Rebirth. And he knew that everything super came out of a test tube and some vita rays.
Finally, military man. This was the most troubling, because Tony had had his fair share of run-ins with military lackeys during the War. But he was Iron Man, and in the end, he could still go off and do whatever the hell he wanted. But this. They wanted to pair him up with Captain America, the biggest military lackey of them all. And Tony didn’t like it.
“I could still ditch you and do this alone,” he announced to the empty room.
Well, almost empty. Sitting at the far end of the table was the Star-Spangled Man himself, various files and papers strewn on the table around him. His lips twitched slightly as he looked up at Tony, raising an eyebrow. “And I could ditch you,” he said. “But we’re under Fury’s orders. Perfectly reasonable orders, I might add. You can’t go down there alone.”
And that, Tony supposed, was where they differed, because Tony was quite sure he could explore the Savage Land on his own. Hell, he’d been the leading man for Marvels for years, and he was still very much in one piece. He didn’t need some guy, much less one who regularly donned a flag-colored outfit with a big ol’ star on it, telling him what to do. “Wish I could,” he groused.
It’d all been quite clever of Fury, really. He’d dangled the prospect of a new, post-war adventure in front of Tony’s nose, going on and on about how the Savage Land was a whole new world filled with undiscovered creatures, resources, and, most importantly, possibly relics of a magical sort, because Nick Fury was an asshole who had somehow figured out the truth about Tony’s incurable heart condition and was now playing it up as much as he could, damn him. Get your ass out there and explore, he’d said. We’ll take you there, and then you can do whatever the hell you want. The caveat? The Savage Land was such an unknown that Fury-and by extension, S.H.I.E.L.D.-wanted a nice, long report about what he found. And they wanted one Steve Rogers to accompany him.
“I’m not sure why you think this is so awful,” Rogers said, glancing up at him with a frown. “I’m capable of handling myself. I’m not going to get us into trouble.”
“Exactly,” Tony said. “Trouble is the last thing we’re going to get into. And that’s boring.”
“Helping our country isn’t boring,” Rogers replied, because apparently he was the biggest Boy Scout ever, Jesus. “We’re going to find new information about this place. And we’ll learn a lot.” He held up one of the papers, waving it at him. “Stark, you do realize preliminary reports show that there are sabretooths in the area? And dinosaurs? They’re supposed to be extinct!”
Tony snorted. “Well, gee,” he said. “What a surprise. Thank you for enlightening me, because I have never heard that before in my entire life. But I don’t care about big cats or reptiles.”
“So what do you care about?”
Tony just swiveled his chair away, not answering. There was only one reason he was here, really. It was the same reason he’d gone to the British Honduras or Atlantis or any of those other places: that faintest glimmer of hope that somewhere, somehow, he’d find a cure for his broken heart.
But Fury, for all his conniving and irritating ability to know everything about everyone, had apparently decided not to share this information with Rogers, and so Tony sure as hell wasn’t going to bring it up now. Let him be clueless.
From behind him, he could hear Rogers sigh, and then he heard the rustling of paper, like maybe he was putting all of the documents back in their folders. “It’s late,” Rogers said. “We’ll be there tomorrow morning. I suggest you get some rest, because it’s going to be a long week.”
“Yes, mother,” Tony replied, staring out the window of the airship as he listened to Rogers walk off. One week. Seven days in which the airship would come every day at noon and see if they were ready to be picked back up, because the Savage Land was in the middle of goddamned Antarctica and none of their communication devices worked down here. He glanced down at his chest, idly tapping at the metal plate that he knew was there. “You can hang on for seven days, can’t you?” he asked.
Unsurprisingly, his heart had no answer for him.
Day One
The airship was gone, lifted back up into the skies where it would… well, Tony wasn’t sure. Fury had promised them that every day for seven days, the airship would return to this spot at noon and pick them up if they were here. And considering that his heart was running on a battery, if after seven days they were a no-show, then it would probably be safe to assume that they were dead.
Tony wasn’t anticipating that, though. Sure, maybe he’d never fought a sabretooth before, but he was certain he’d be able to manage-he’d brought his gauntlets along, and he’d never met an animal that couldn’t be quelled with a repulsor blast in the face. Of course, if he used the gauntlets too much or too hard, then he’d have to hook them up to his heart battery to recharge them, and there’d be no way he could last the whole week… but that was a problem he’d deal with once he got there. If he got there.
“So here we are,” he said, looking around. Foliage as far as the eye could see, though there were some mountains in the distance, and a river cutting its way through the terrain a few miles away. If he looked carefully, he was pretty sure he could make out the dinosaurs Rogers had apparently read about in the briefing. God. He couldn’t believe it. Dinosaurs. And if dinosaurs were here, if they could somehow exist in this land out of time… then surely something magical could be here too. He just had to find it.
“Here we are,” Rogers agreed. Tony turned to watch as Rogers brought out what looked like a sparse map of the area with various squiggles covering it, kneeling down to lay it flat on the ground. “I mapped a potential route we could take. It’s not exact because there aren’t really paths, just these rough ideas of where the mountains and forests are, but I think if we go in an outward spiral like this, we can see a lot of things but still be able to return to the airship point pretty quickly. What do you think?”
Tony looked at the map, then back at Rogers. God. “Boy Scout doesn’t even begin to describe you,” he said. He brought out one of his own toys, a tracking device he’d designed years ago but hadn’t had a chance to use until now-wars tended to take up a lot of his time. “I was thinking we’d use this instead.”
Rogers frowned, squinting at it. “What is it?”
“Power detector,” Tony replied, flipping a switch and turning it to look at the display. “It can track different types of power. Electric, magnetic, nuclear… you name it. It’s bound to show us something more interesting than just wandering around aimlessly.”
“It’s not aimless-” Rogers began, but Tony was already walking off, heading down the small hill they’d been standing at the top of. “Stark-”
Tony raised one hand and waved at him. Either the shield boy could follow or he could not-hopefully he wouldn’t, but Tony’s hopes weren’t very high. How could someone who so embodied the American spirit be so annoying?
“Oh, I see,” Rogers said irritably as he caught up to him. Funny. The man always seemed so cheerful and polite in the public eye, but it seemed like Tony had a gift for getting under his skin. Well, good. “So you’re in charge of this expedition now, is that it? Did you even read the briefings Fury gave us?”
“Of course I did,” Tony said. He’d gone through them all before they’d even left, and that had been all he’d needed to do. “Rogers, maybe your precious, idealistic mind can’t handle it, but S.H.I.E.L.D. didn’t send us out here so we could have a field trip for fun. They’re looking for something, and they’re using us to get it.”
To his credit, Rogers didn’t look particularly put off by Tony’s observation. Maybe he’d seen enough of the War to know this already. “So why are you here, if you know this?”
“Because I’m looking for something too.” And Tony would just as rather do this all alone, but Fury was providing the means-and with his time running out, he could hardly afford to snub him.
“Which is?”
“Classified.”
Rogers sighed. “And here I thought we would get to be partners,” he muttered.
Tony almost, almost felt bad about this, but ultimately it was inconsequential. Rogers didn’t need to know about his ailing heart, and Tony didn’t want Rogers to know. He could only imagine his reaction at finding out that Tony didn’t have very much longer to live, despite the constant recharging he did. Sooner or later, it wouldn’t be enough. And sooner or later, he’d drop dead. He’d already exhausted much of the known sources of magic he’d gotten his hands on, and this Savage Land was one of his last hopes.
“You can’t always get what you want,” he said.
Rogers didn’t say anything to that, and for the next few hours, they continued to meander through the foliage, Tony occasionally checking the readings on his meter as Rogers rolled his eyes and made disapproving sounds under his breath. The Savage Land was a strange place, but it was still Earth. There were the occasional odd magnetic field readings that upon closer inspection were completely explainable by non-supernatural reasons, and other strange readings that turned out to be volcanic geysers or something like that-as reckless as Tony was, he had enough sense to stay away from those.
All in all, not exactly the stronghold of magic he’d hoped for.
But that was okay. It was only the first day, and they still had time to find something-even though this was different from his other missions, where he already knew what the hell he was looking for, he still had hope that there was something here. He just needed to locate it first.
They stopped for the night in a small cave, where Rogers set up a little fire and started to look through a notepad he was carrying. Unsurprisingly, he’d taken notes about the various fauna and animals and such they’d seen today, which Tony hadn’t thought to do. Well, whatever. His memory was good enough, and if Rogers was doing it, why did Tony need to?
“You should get some sleep,” Rogers said, and Tony started, realizing he’d been staring.
He bristled. “And what, you shouldn’t?” Was it bad that Rogers set him off so easily? Probably. But whose fault was that? If everyone had just let him go treasure-hunting on his own like he wanted, then he wouldn’t have had anyone to get annoyed at.
And maybe, just maybe, Tony was a little bit jealous. He was still young, still healthy, except for the very major problem that was his heart, ticking ever so closer to an end that would come sooner rather than later-his one, single flaw. But here was Steve Rogers, the War’s other all-American hero, and he was fit as a fiddle and as perfect as anyone could be. And now-well. Now Tony had to get some sleep and Rogers didn’t?
“I’m going to stay up and keep watch.” Rogers glanced up from his notepad, quirking an eyebrow. “I know Marvels never showed any of that boring stuff, but you guys kept watch at night, didn’t you? I’m surprised you’re still in one piece otherwise.”
Tony blinked, momentarily distracted. “Marvels? You’ve read Marvels?”
“Sure I have.” Rogers turned his attention back to the notepad, scribbling something down. Probably more notes. “Used to be a big fan.”
“But not anymore.”
“I grew up.”
Tony sighed. Rogers’ response didn’t tell him anything, but he wasn’t in the mood to press tonight. “Wake me up when it’s my turn to keep guard, then.” Rogers nodded, and Tony rolled out his sleeping bag, curling up inside it before discreetly checking the charge on his heart. 93%. So far, so good. If the rest of the week was as eventless as today, then he was in no danger of running out of power. Whether or not that was particularly desirable was another question entirely, but Tony had little choice but to roll with it.
He missed Rhodey. He missed Pepper. Most of all, he missed Jarvis. But they were all back in civilization doing one thing or another, helping to rebuild the world after war had ravaged it. He wondered if Rogers wanted to be back home, too. Tony sure did-but if he couldn’t find a cure for his heart here, then he wouldn’t be able to be anywhere.
Damn his broken body. But he’d deal with it, one way or another. Either he’d find a cure, or he’d die trying.
After all, what other choice did he have?
Day Two
On the second day, Tony found what he was looking for.
Or at the very least, he was pretty sure he’d found something promising.
They’d left that morning, making sure to hide the evidence that indicated that they’d stayed there that night-while they’d yet to encounter anyone else who might be tracking them for whatever reason, it was best not to take any chances. From there, they’d bickered about which direction to go, because Rogers was apparently wary of perfectly good technology and believed in-Tony didn’t even know. Aimless exploring, maybe? But Tony had won the argument, which was for the better, because it was all paying off now.
“There’s something under here,” he announced sometime past noon, stopping in the middle of an unremarkable grove.
Rogers frowned, looking around. “I don’t understand,” he said.
“Of course you don’t,” Tony said, waving his hand. Rogers bristled, but Tony ignored it. “My readings are picking up a lot of empty space below. There’s something down there.”
The other man’s frown only deepened as he knelt down, as though that would somehow make him see what Tony was seeing. “Empty space could mean a lot of things,” he said. “It could just be an underground spring. Or maybe lava flows. I’m not digging a hole so we can fall into lava.”
“It’s not a heat reading, so it’s not lava,” Tony replied, rolling his eyes. “And I’m not asking you to dig any holes.” Wouldn’t that be hilarious, though? Captain America with a shovel. “There’s something else I’m picking up.” He wandered over to a large rock nearby, brushing his fingers against it. “Look.”
Rogers followed him, squinting at the rock. After a moment, it was clear he was seeing what Tony was, because he asked, “Is this writing?”
Tony nodded, eyes sweeping over the strange markings, faded with time. “I think so. It’s not a language I’m familiar with, but from what I can tell, this marks the entrance.”
Rogers looked contemplative. Then he looked troubled. “That means there are people here.”
“That means there are creatures capable of written language here,” Tony said. “There’s a difference. Anyway, I don’t think it matters. I’m not picking up on anything of significant mass that seems to be alive below us, so even if there were people here once, they’re gone now.” But if they’d ever owned anything magical… then maybe that was still here.
“Okay,” Rogers said. He touched the markings on the rock again, continuing, “So how do we get in?”
Tony tapped on the rock idly, examining what looked like a seam running around it. “We push.”
So they pushed. As it turned out, someone had sliced the rock into two, and pushing the front half away revealed a hole in the back half, which led… down. It was dark enough that he couldn’t tell how deep it went-for all he knew, it was either three feet deep or three miles-but he was unfazed. After another moment of peering into it, Tony brought out a length of rope from his pack, tossing one end down before offering the other end to Rogers. “You strong enough to support my weight on this?”
“Yeah,” Rogers said.
That was enough for Tony. Without further ado, he slithered down the rope, keeping his eyes and ears peeled for anything suspicious, but besides the light coming in from above and the shadow from Rogers’ head on him, there wasn’t much to see. Not too long after, his feet touched the ground, and he felt around blindly for a moment, making sure everything seemed solid. “I’m in,” he called, bringing out his flashlight and shining it up at Rogers. “Can you see me?”
Rogers nodded from above. “I’m going to tie the rope around the rock and then come down. Is that okay?”
Tony pointed the flashlight in various directions around him. They seemed to be at the start of a tunnel, but he didn’t have enough light to tell how far it went. Still, it seemed to be safe, and he had his gauntlets if they ran into any trouble. “Yeah,” he said.
A moment later, Rogers was standing beside him, shield in one hand and a flashlight of his own in another. “I hope you know what you’re looking for,” he said as he started forward, Tony trailing after him.
That makes two of us, he thought. Nonetheless, he kept quiet on that front, shining his flashlight around as they headed down the tunnel, their breathing loud in the otherwise quiet space. It was dark and cool and utterly ordinary in every way, the walls unblemished and the floor looking as though no one had used it for ages-or ever, really.
Still, Tony had a feeling about this place.
After some time, the tunnel seemed to widen, and Tony realized they were standing at the edge of… of something. Something magnificent. “Rogers,” he breathed.
“I see it,” Rogers replied.
It looked like it might have once been a small city-albeit one that hadn’t made it very far in architectural advances-though now it’d fallen into disrepair, the crude structures crumpled and broken. At least, that was what the small amount that was actually illuminated by their flashlights looked like, anyway. “An underground city,” Tony said, barely able to contain the glee in his voice. “Can you believe it? There’s got to be something interesting here.”
“Maybe,” Rogers conceded, though he didn’t sound nearly as excited as Tony felt. “Personally, I’m wondering why the city is empty. You sure it’s a good idea to just waltz on in?”
“Come on, Rogers,” Tony said, shining the flashlight around until he found something that looked like a road leading downward and started forward to follow it. “We’re on an exploration. In case you’ve forgotten, that means we should be exploring. Where’s your sense of adventure? Besides, think of all the notes you’ll get to take. Fury’ll want to kiss you once you show him all the things you’ve learned.”
Rogers snorted from behind him, and from the sound of his footsteps, Tony could tell he was following. “Somehow I doubt that,” he said. “I’m not sure that I’d want a kiss from Nick.”
“‘Nick’?” Tony repeated, baffled. “Since when are you two on a first-name basis?” He sure wasn’t about to call Fury “Nick” anytime soon. He suspected Fury felt similarly.
“We’re very close,” Rogers replied, which wasn’t much of an answer. “Hey. Look at this.” He stopped, the beam of his flashlight illuminating one of the walls of the building… well, if it could be called a building, anyway. It sort of resembled an extraordinarily crude igloo made out of dirt more than anything. “More markings.”
Tony added his light to the wall as well, stepping closer. “Well,” he said. “Will you look at that.” It wasn’t the same as the markings from the rock they’d seen earlier-these were more elaborate, even if in the grand scheme of things Tony would consider them to be rather primitive. “What do you think?” They resembled prehistoric cave paintings, but instead of bison and horses, these looked like… well, sabretooths. He moved his flashlight around, following the progression of drawings. First there were stick figures chasing the sabretooths, then stick figures running away from the sabretooths, then a bunch of dead stick figures. Ouch.
“I think it’s beautiful,” Rogers sighed, sounding just dreamy enough for Tony to roll his eyes. Wasn’t like Rogers could see him in the dark, anyway. He kept on following the mural, Tony trailing behind him. “It seems like they worshipped the sabretooths.”
Tony considered it. Yeah, he could buy that, based on the next few drawings. “I guess they thought intentionally sacrificing things to them was better than getting mauled.”
For the next few hours, they made their way through the ruins, their flashlights the only things illuminating the place as they took everything in, Rogers recording their findings with what Tony personally thought was an overblown eagerness-had the man never visited an architectural site before? He’d probably faint from excitement if Tony ever took him to the Cave of Altamira.
Not that Tony was particularly keen on doing so, of course. The last time he’d gone looking for magical artifacts there, a feral bison had tried its damndest to gore him to death.
They passed by more drawings as they headed deeper into the city, but much of them were similar to ones they’d already seen before, of harried humans and somewhat majestic big cats. Apparently, whoever had lived here really had a thing for sabretooths-even if personally, Tony would have chosen to worship a dinosaur. Who wouldn’t?
Every now and then, he checked his power detector to see if maybe, just maybe, it was picking up on anything. But since they’d dropped down into the hole, it’d been behaving strangely-whether it was because they were underground now or because of something else, Tony didn’t know. Hopefully it was because of something else. Something magical. But time would tell.
Eventually, Rogers came to a stop, and Tony only narrowly avoided bumping into him. “We should stop for the night,” he said. “Or at least, I think it’s night.” He brought his wrist up, looking at his watch before frowning. “Hmm.”
“What’s wrong?”
Rogers tapped at the watch’s face. “It’s not working right,” he said. “It’s stuck at 1:23.”
Huh. So it wasn’t just Tony with the faulty electronics, then. “Don’t worry about it. My stuff is messed up, too.” At least his heart was still working.
The widening of Rogers’ eyes was visible even in the dim light. “You mean, we’re stuck down here in the dark with compromised equipment? Tony, we have to get back up to the surface again.” He cursed softly, which was surprising because Tony was pretty sure he’d never heard Rogers curse before. “It’ll take us most of tomorrow to make it back…”
“Stop fretting,” Tony interrupted before Rogers could get on a roll. “Look, it’s okay. We know our way back. Besides, we haven’t even explored the whole place yet-”
“And we shouldn’t, because we’re in an awful position where we can’t even see anyone sneaking up to us-”
“-Which doesn’t even matter, because no one is here-”
They both broke off, huffing. Tony glared at him, then continued stubbornly, “I’m not ready to leave yet.”
Rogers quirked an eyebrow at him. “Why? Because you’re still looking for your classified toy?”
“That’s right.”
Rogers just sighed at this, turning away into one of the igloo-things. He had to hunch over to get inside, which was, honestly, an image Tony had to snigger at. Whoever used to live here must have been pretty short. “Are you going to mope now?” Tony asked his retreating figure.
There was a spark of light as Rogers brought out his lighter, making a little fire inside the igloo, which apparently had a fire pit inside. “I’m stopping for the night,” he replied.
Tony considered it for a moment, then ducked into the same igloo as Rogers, turning his flashlight off. Better not to risk getting separated, since outside of the igloo it was completely dark. “Okay,” he said. “But we’re going to keep on exploring tomorrow.”
Rogers made a non-committal grunting sound in response, bringing out his notepad again and writing more things down-presumably about the things they’d seen today, because he was a note-taking machine. Tony, meanwhile, brought out his sleeping bag, slithering into it and checking his heart monitor beneath the metal plating. 81%. Nothing to worry about. “Don’t tell me you’re going to keep guard again,” he said. “There’s nothing here.”
“Maybe,” Rogers replied lightly, eyes on the notepad. “Go to sleep.”
Tony shrugged to himself. Well, if Rogers wanted to stay up for no reason, that was his prerogative. But Tony was going to sleep. “Good night,” he said.
“Night,” Rogers said right back, and damn him, he didn’t sound tired at all.
Tony shut his eyes and tried not to dream of magical relics.
Day Three
“Wake up.”
Tony groaned, lashes fluttering as he blearily opened his eyes. It was dark… still nighttime, then. No need to wake up. He rolled over, letting his eyes close again. “Too early.”
“Wake up.”
This time, the words were accompanied by a gentle shake of his shoulder, and Tony groaned again, blinking in the darkness. “What?” he asked irritably. “Rogers, is that you? Go to sleep.”
“Shh,” the person said, sounding annoyed enough that Tony could tell it was Rogers for sure. “Stark, there’s something outside.”
Tony sat up at this, brain revving into gear. “What do you mean, something outside?” he replied, automatically lowering his voice. “You mean people?” He really hoped Rogers didn’t mean people. Because that would be bad.
Rogers exhaled. “No,” he said, and Tony sighed in relief before the other man continued, “I think it’s a sabretooth.”
Oh. Oh. That wasn’t good. Possibly worse than people, maybe. He hadn’t actually fought any sabretooths yet, so he had no idea how bad they were. But they were probably pretty bad. “Okay. What makes you say that?”
“I can hear it,” Rogers whispered. “It’s breathing. Listen.”
Tony fell silent, trying to hear it. Once he managed to filter out the sounds of their own breathing, yeah, it was pretty loud and clear-there was sort of a deep, throaty element to it, which might have been nice in an entirely different context but was mainly terrifying now. “Shit,” he murmured. “Do you think it’s heard us by now? Scratch that, of course it’s heard us.” It was probably listening to him right now, and wasn’t that creepy? “Why isn’t it attacking?”
Rogers was silent for a moment, probably thinking about it. “I don’t think it can fit in here,” he said at last.
Well, that was certainly reassuring. “So we’re trapped.”
“Unless we fight our way out.”
Hmm. Well, Tony was always up for a good fight. Of course, most of his fights were in well-lit, open spaces. Or just lit. This place was the opposite of that, and he wasn’t sure how his gauntlets would do in such an enclosed area. Then again, that just meant now was the best time to find out. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s fight. How hard can it be? It’s just a cat.”
“Famous last words,” Rogers muttered.
Tony rolled his eyes, even though Rogers couldn’t see, then pulled his gauntlets on, securing them in the darkness. “Or we could just stay here for a few more days and hope it goes away on its own. Come on, let’s go.”
“Wait!” Rogers hissed, managing to find his arm and grabbing onto it. “What are you thinking? We need a plan!”
“Uh, duh,” Tony replied. “I already have one. It’s called ‘shooting a repulsor blast straight into its big ugly face’. You won’t have to do a thing.”
Rogers sighed. Even in the dark, Tony could tell how put-upon he was. “Stark. Tell me something. Do you know where its ‘big ugly face’ is?”
Tony blinked. Then he frowned. “No,” he admitted.
“Then sit down.”
He pouted but complied after a moment, grumbling. “Killjoy.”
“That’s me,” Rogers replied. There was a rustling sound as Rogers seemed to be searching through his pack for something, though it was too dark for Tony to really know for sure. Then Rogers found it-whatever it was-and continued, “Okay. I’m going to turn on the flashlight, and then I’m going to throw it outside. If the sabretooth goes after it, hit it in the face. I’ll get out and attack it from behind. Got it?”
“You get out and do all the fun stuff while I shoot things from my hidey hole,” Tony said. “Yes. Got it.”
“You shoot its big ugly face from the hidey hole,” Rogers clarified. Tony wondered if he was smiling right now. Too bad it was dark. “Okay. Let’s go.”
A second later, a beam of light was rolling along the ground, from their igloo-thing out onto the road. In the next second, something massive pounced onto it, and Rogers rushed past him, heading into the street. “Go!” he shouted.
Tony brought his hands up, aimed, and fired-
-Then watched as the sabretooth merely shook its head, looking no worse for the wear.
“Shit,” he said. “Rogers?”
“On it,” came Rogers’ voice, and then there was a loud thump and the sound of an extremely pained roar; in the wild light of the flashlight, Tony could see the glint of the shield as it rammed into the cat’s body. “Try again!”
Tony brought up his hands once more, but with the sabretooth moving around so much and the limited space he had from his position inside the igloo, he couldn’t get a clear shot. “Dammit,” he muttered, considering his options for a moment before ducking his head and running out, leaving the safety of the igloo. “To your left!” he called, and shot again as Rogers somersaulted away.
The sabretooth abruptly stopped squirming, then turned, the flashlight laying on the ground in such a way that it silhouetted the cat from the back and revealing Tony standing there, making him feel very much like a deer caught in the headlights. Well, this was great, just great. Tony brought the gauntlets up again, aiming toward the face, but if it hadn’t worked before, why would it work now?
Then Rogers jumped in, kicked the flashlight aside, and the world was plunged into darkness again.
On instinct, Tony blindly leapt to one side at the same time the sabretooth leapt forward, shooting his repulsor blasts again and praying Rogers wasn’t in his line of fire. There was a whooshing sound as Rogers presumably flung his shield, then a thud and a growl as it made contact. “It’s not going down,” he yelled, firing again even though he could barely see where it was. “Got any ideas?”
“Yeah, I-”
Tony never heard the rest, though, because in the next instant, a thousand pounds of big cat bowled into him, knocking the wind right out of his body. Oh, shit. Oh, shit. He squirmed helplessly, and if a high-pitched yelp escaped his throat, well, could anyone really blame him?
Suddenly, there were sounds of a scuffle as Rogers did-something; it was too dark for Tony to really see, but it sounded like Rogers had jumped onto it from behind and was grappling with it. “Shoot it!” Rogers shouted.
“I’ll hit you!”
“You won’t. Go!”
So Tony fired again. In hindsight, this was probably an awful idea, because it caused the sabretooth to lash out, clawing blindly at his chest as Tony cried out in pain, automatically shooting again in response. “Rogers, fuck, for the love of God, get this thing off me-”
“I’m trying-”
More blind scuffling. The sabretooth was clearly enraged by now, which was bad news for Tony, who was bleeding and in clear reach of its claws, but he tried fending it off anyway, blasting at its paws whenever it got too close. “Rogers-” he gasped again, wanting desperately to curl up into a bloody ball and pass out. Still, something in him kept him conscious, kept him fighting-how could he not? Rogers was trying so hard to help him; it’d do him no good to let him down now.
Another roar, then a strange clinking sound, and then-“Stark, shoot it now!”
Tony focused his eyes enough to see the shield propping the sabretooth’s mouth open partway, Rogers doing his best to keep it there as the beast thrashed and roared. Somehow, even with it writhing on top of him, Tony recognized a need for more power, and so he grappled quickly for the cables located in each gauntlet, opening his shirt and plugging them into his chest plate. From there, he managed to hold his arms up steady, shooting twin beams straight into its mouth with everything he had, lighting up the entire area as he did.
Then the light faded, and for several seconds, everything was quiet save for the sound of their panting. A moment later, the sabretooth made a terrible gurgling noise and collapsed right onto Tony, the sudden shift in weight forcing a strained whimper from his lips.
“Dammit,” Rogers breathed from somewhere above him, quickly scrambling off and laboriously shoving the cat’s body off him. “Stark. Tony. Are you okay?”
Tony wheezed heavily, trying to take inventory of all the injuries he’d just sustained. Okay. Okay. So he’d been slashed a few times by a giant cat, and he was pretty sure some of his ribs were cracked, if not broken. Great, really great. But he was alive, which was an improvement over being dead, so he supposed it could have been a lot worse. “I’ve been better,” he coughed out. “You?”
“I’m fine,” Rogers replied. “Wait here, I’ll be right back.”
Tony nodded weakly-it wasn’t like he was in any condition to run off right now, anyway. Once Rogers disappeared, Tony took the opportunity to unplug the cables from his chest plate, stuffing them back into their compartments. He managed to finish just as Rogers came back, holding the flashlight in one hand. Tony groaned, turning his face away from the glare, only to be confronted with the sabretooth’s body. Jesus. “…Is it dead?” he asked.
Rogers hummed, leaning forward to investigate it. “Yeah,” he said after a moment. “It’s dead.” He managed a shaky laugh, running his free hand through his hair. “Well, now we know what to do next time. Just get it to open its mouth wide somehow and shove a beam of light down its throat. Easy as pie.”
“It’s a repulsor blast,” Tony corrected, promptly coughing up some blood immediately afterward. God, it tasted awful. “Not… not a beam of light.”
Rogers turned the flashlight back at him, frowning. “You’re bleeding,” he said.
Tony reached up, batting his hand away. “Not right in the face,” he managed. “I’ll-I’ll be fine.”
“Let me be the judge of that. Can I pick you up?”
At this, Tony hesitated, debating whether he’d rather lose his dignity or continue to lay down next to a dead animal, then decided to hell with his dignity and nodded. In response, Rogers slid his hands underneath Tony’s body, hoisting him upward and carrying him back to their igloo. He laid him down afterward, movements surprisingly gentle as he shone the flashlight over his chest. “This looks bad,” he murmured softly. He set the flashlight down, then rummaged in his pack, bringing out something Tony recognized as the first-aid kit.
“Wait,” Tony said abruptly, realizing what was coming next. “There’s no need for that, is there?”
Rogers’ brow furrowed, and he worried the kit in his hands for a few moments, eyes on Tony’s stained shirt. “You’re bleeding,” he said again.
“It’s just a cut.” Tony tried to roll onto his side, away from Rogers’ gaze as he gritted his teeth in pain. God, this was stupid. He should just let Rogers take care of him, it was just-he didn’t want anyone to see the metal plate shielding his damaged heart. Not even Captain America.
“You were gouged by a sabretooth, for God’s sake.”
Tony scowled at the floor, hand reaching up to clutch at his torso. Just how bad were his ribs? “I was cut,” he insisted. “Superficially. Go away.”
“I won’t go away,” Rogers said, and the next thing Tony knew, he was rolled onto his back again, Rogers reaching up to undo the buttons of his shirt. Tony tried batting his hands away, but it was no use-Tony was far too weak, especially after plugging the gauntlets into his chest plate, which yes, okay, was only supposed to be done in case of emergency because that charge was supposed to be for his heart, but hello, that was an emergency. And anyway, Rogers had that glint in his eye that basically said I do what I want and you can’t stop me. Damn him.
The shirt came off. Instinctively, Tony reached up, trying to cover the metal plating over his heart, but Rogers moved his hand away. Though it was dark save for the flashlight, Tony could see Rogers’ eyes landing on the plate, seeming to contemplate it for a second before his gaze drifted away. To his credit, he didn’t say anything, instead starting to wipe the gouges clean. “Ow,” Tony said.
“Sorry,” Rogers replied, but he didn’t stop. “I don’t want to risk infection. It doesn’t look like its claws were poisonous, but it doesn’t hurt to be careful.”
Tony just grunted in response, watching his hands as they worked. They were nice hands, he supposed. Big, too. He liked big hands. “You know what you’re doing.”
“You learn a lot of things when you’re in a war,” Rogers said softly. “Especially when you’re in the middle of nowhere with injured men.”
“I bet,” Tony murmured. It hurt too much to tilt his head up to watch Rogers, so he just gave up, relaxing back against the ground and trusting the other man to tend to him. After all, it wasn’t like he had a choice, and if he was really being honest with himself, well. It-it was kind of nice, having someone tending to him who didn’t seem to be bothered by his metal chest plate, unlike everybody else. For once, he didn’t have to hide what was, in the end, a major part of him. “Well, I’m grateful. Thanks.”
Rogers shook his head, uncapping an antibacterial ointment and starting to rub it over the injured area. “I’m just doing my duty,” he said. His gaze flickered up toward him as he managed the faintest of smiles. “Glad you didn’t ditch me yet?”
“Don’t push your luck,” Tony grumbled, not quite yet ready to make that sort of concession. He took a deep breath, trying to ignore the pain it caused him. Damn ribs. Damn chest. Damn giant cat.
“Stubborn,” Rogers murmured, but he kept on working on him in silence, bringing out a roll of gauze after a while and beginning to tape it over the gashes. “Almost done. How are you feeling now?”
Tony thought about it. He was still hurting, but he felt slightly cleaner, and Rogers’ hands had helped soothe him a little. “Better,” he admitted. He hesitated a moment, then added, “But I think my ribs are fractured.”
Rogers frowned down at his torso, looking as though he’d be able to see them through Tony’s skin if he just stared hard enough. Maybe he could. Did he have x-ray vision? No, that was Superman. Rogers was just Captain America. “I can’t tell,” Rogers said at last, and Tony had to try not to laugh, because that would be completely inappropriate and out of nowhere at the current moment. “But if they are, I don’t think there’s anything I can do.”
Tony pouted up at him. “Aren’t you supposed to bind them so they hurt less? I’m hurting. Bind me.”
To his surprise, Rogers shook his head. “I don’t want you catching pneumonia,” he said when Tony opened his mouth. “Just stay strong, okay? Hang on.” He turned away for a moment, rummaging in the first-aid kit before producing a white pill and poking it through Tony’s lips. “Swallow,” he continued, handing him a canteen. “It’s aspirin. I brought some along.”
Obediently, Tony took a swig-it was just water, not anything exciting, unfortunately-and swallowed. “I thought drugs didn’t work on you.”
“They don’t,” Rogers replied. “I brought them in case you needed them.”
Oh. Well, wasn’t that something? No wonder everyone in S.H.I.E.L.D. was so fond of him. But he was still annoying! “Thanks,” he said anyway, because it seemed like the sort of thing he should be thankful for. He weakly pushed himself up onto one elbow then, looking Rogers over. He looked a bit battered, but otherwise okay. “Is there anything I can help you with?”
Rogers tutted and promptly pushed him back down as gently as he could. “You can help me by getting some rest,” he said. “You lost a lot of blood.”
Come to think of it, Tony did feel kind of woozy, but staying put was boring. They still had a lot of exploring to do. “I don’t want another giant mutant cat with skin of steel to attack us while we’re here.”
“I’ll take care of it if it does,” Rogers assured him. He picked up one of Tony’s gauntlets, examining it. “This can’t be that hard to use, can it?”
Tony couldn’t tell if Rogers was joking or not, but he swiped ineffectually at it, trying to snatch it from the other man’s grasp. “Mine,” he said. He didn’t like sharing his toys.
Rogers rolled his eyes, but he set the gauntlet back down. Like he had any right to be exasperated! Tony would like to see how he reacted if he tried taking his shield. “Fine,” Rogers said. “If another giant mutant cat attacks us, it’s on you.” He peered out the entrance of the igloo-thing, even though it was pitch-dark outside. “I think we’ll be okay, though.”
Tony nodded, picking up the gauntlet and cuddling it to himself idly. Maybe Rogers was right. Maybe he should just get some rest now. “You’ll keep an eye out?” he asked.
Rogers’ gaze landed on the gauntlet, and for a moment, he looked dubious. Eventually, though, he nodded, pulling out a blanket and draping it over him. “Yeah,” he said. “Go to sleep. You’ve lost a lot of blood.”
“Uh huh,” Tony replied absently, turning to one side and wincing as he curled up underneath the blanket. This was going to be a fun night. Or was it even night at all? It was probably the morning now. Well, the morning could go suck itself. “Don’t let me down, Rogers.” He took one more deep, searing breath, and then he was out like a light.
Prologue-Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6-Epilogue
Artists: angelicfoodcake and makowe-pola
Author: ashei
Rating (both art/fic): G for art, PG-13 for fic (cursing and mild violence)
Universe: Iron Man Noir
Word Count: 27,191
Warnings: Animal transformation, big cats, questionable magic
Beta: eschatologies
Art Thumbnail:
Fic Summary: Though both the war and his days of adventuring for Marvels are over, Tony Stark is still looking for a cure to his failing heart. When Nick Fury asks him and Captain America to investigate a newly discovered world dubbed the Savage Land, Tony jumps at the chance, hoping to find something - anything - that'll fix him. But once Tony finds that something, he discovers that it comes at the cost of Steve's humanity - leaving Tony to struggle to turn him back before it's too late.
Link to Art: angelicfoodcake's art and makowe-pola's art
Link to Fic: AO3 | LiveJournal
Prologue-Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6-Epilogue
Notes: Written for c_im_bigbang's 2012 big bang!
This fic is primarily Noir-verse and takes place several years after the events of Iron Man Noir, though there are also a handful of 616 and MCU references thrown in here and there. That said, I wouldn't say Noir knowledge is necessary - basically all you need to know is that Tony's heart is damaged and he used to go exploring for magical relics to find a cure while documenting his adventures in a magazine called Marvels.
Special super thanks to my awesome beta eschatologies, who was wonderful and perfect and found everything I'd missed, and my two amazeballs artists, angelicfoodcake and makowe-pola! Really, if you haven't checked out the art yet, you should do so RIGHT NOW.
Should also add that this is very heavily inspired by a recent movie! Naming the movie would spoil the animal transformation aspect of it, but if you're really curious, it's [this movie]Brave.
Prologue
War hero. Super soldier. Military man.
They were, to be honest, all descriptions Tony didn’t give a shit about. War hero? Please. Maybe it’d be impressive if Tony weren’t a war hero too, but he was, so what was there to be impressed about? And super soldier? Absolutely ridiculous. Tony had security clearance. He could access the files on Project: Rebirth. And he knew that everything super came out of a test tube and some vita rays.
Finally, military man. This was the most troubling, because Tony had had his fair share of run-ins with military lackeys during the War. But he was Iron Man, and in the end, he could still go off and do whatever the hell he wanted. But this. They wanted to pair him up with Captain America, the biggest military lackey of them all. And Tony didn’t like it.
“I could still ditch you and do this alone,” he announced to the empty room.
Well, almost empty. Sitting at the far end of the table was the Star-Spangled Man himself, various files and papers strewn on the table around him. His lips twitched slightly as he looked up at Tony, raising an eyebrow. “And I could ditch you,” he said. “But we’re under Fury’s orders. Perfectly reasonable orders, I might add. You can’t go down there alone.”
And that, Tony supposed, was where they differed, because Tony was quite sure he could explore the Savage Land on his own. Hell, he’d been the leading man for Marvels for years, and he was still very much in one piece. He didn’t need some guy, much less one who regularly donned a flag-colored outfit with a big ol’ star on it, telling him what to do. “Wish I could,” he groused.
It’d all been quite clever of Fury, really. He’d dangled the prospect of a new, post-war adventure in front of Tony’s nose, going on and on about how the Savage Land was a whole new world filled with undiscovered creatures, resources, and, most importantly, possibly relics of a magical sort, because Nick Fury was an asshole who had somehow figured out the truth about Tony’s incurable heart condition and was now playing it up as much as he could, damn him. Get your ass out there and explore, he’d said. We’ll take you there, and then you can do whatever the hell you want. The caveat? The Savage Land was such an unknown that Fury-and by extension, S.H.I.E.L.D.-wanted a nice, long report about what he found. And they wanted one Steve Rogers to accompany him.
“I’m not sure why you think this is so awful,” Rogers said, glancing up at him with a frown. “I’m capable of handling myself. I’m not going to get us into trouble.”
“Exactly,” Tony said. “Trouble is the last thing we’re going to get into. And that’s boring.”
“Helping our country isn’t boring,” Rogers replied, because apparently he was the biggest Boy Scout ever, Jesus. “We’re going to find new information about this place. And we’ll learn a lot.” He held up one of the papers, waving it at him. “Stark, you do realize preliminary reports show that there are sabretooths in the area? And dinosaurs? They’re supposed to be extinct!”
Tony snorted. “Well, gee,” he said. “What a surprise. Thank you for enlightening me, because I have never heard that before in my entire life. But I don’t care about big cats or reptiles.”
“So what do you care about?”
Tony just swiveled his chair away, not answering. There was only one reason he was here, really. It was the same reason he’d gone to the British Honduras or Atlantis or any of those other places: that faintest glimmer of hope that somewhere, somehow, he’d find a cure for his broken heart.
But Fury, for all his conniving and irritating ability to know everything about everyone, had apparently decided not to share this information with Rogers, and so Tony sure as hell wasn’t going to bring it up now. Let him be clueless.
From behind him, he could hear Rogers sigh, and then he heard the rustling of paper, like maybe he was putting all of the documents back in their folders. “It’s late,” Rogers said. “We’ll be there tomorrow morning. I suggest you get some rest, because it’s going to be a long week.”
“Yes, mother,” Tony replied, staring out the window of the airship as he listened to Rogers walk off. One week. Seven days in which the airship would come every day at noon and see if they were ready to be picked back up, because the Savage Land was in the middle of goddamned Antarctica and none of their communication devices worked down here. He glanced down at his chest, idly tapping at the metal plate that he knew was there. “You can hang on for seven days, can’t you?” he asked.
Unsurprisingly, his heart had no answer for him.
Day One
The airship was gone, lifted back up into the skies where it would… well, Tony wasn’t sure. Fury had promised them that every day for seven days, the airship would return to this spot at noon and pick them up if they were here. And considering that his heart was running on a battery, if after seven days they were a no-show, then it would probably be safe to assume that they were dead.
Tony wasn’t anticipating that, though. Sure, maybe he’d never fought a sabretooth before, but he was certain he’d be able to manage-he’d brought his gauntlets along, and he’d never met an animal that couldn’t be quelled with a repulsor blast in the face. Of course, if he used the gauntlets too much or too hard, then he’d have to hook them up to his heart battery to recharge them, and there’d be no way he could last the whole week… but that was a problem he’d deal with once he got there. If he got there.
“So here we are,” he said, looking around. Foliage as far as the eye could see, though there were some mountains in the distance, and a river cutting its way through the terrain a few miles away. If he looked carefully, he was pretty sure he could make out the dinosaurs Rogers had apparently read about in the briefing. God. He couldn’t believe it. Dinosaurs. And if dinosaurs were here, if they could somehow exist in this land out of time… then surely something magical could be here too. He just had to find it.
“Here we are,” Rogers agreed. Tony turned to watch as Rogers brought out what looked like a sparse map of the area with various squiggles covering it, kneeling down to lay it flat on the ground. “I mapped a potential route we could take. It’s not exact because there aren’t really paths, just these rough ideas of where the mountains and forests are, but I think if we go in an outward spiral like this, we can see a lot of things but still be able to return to the airship point pretty quickly. What do you think?”
Tony looked at the map, then back at Rogers. God. “Boy Scout doesn’t even begin to describe you,” he said. He brought out one of his own toys, a tracking device he’d designed years ago but hadn’t had a chance to use until now-wars tended to take up a lot of his time. “I was thinking we’d use this instead.”
Rogers frowned, squinting at it. “What is it?”
“Power detector,” Tony replied, flipping a switch and turning it to look at the display. “It can track different types of power. Electric, magnetic, nuclear… you name it. It’s bound to show us something more interesting than just wandering around aimlessly.”
“It’s not aimless-” Rogers began, but Tony was already walking off, heading down the small hill they’d been standing at the top of. “Stark-”
Tony raised one hand and waved at him. Either the shield boy could follow or he could not-hopefully he wouldn’t, but Tony’s hopes weren’t very high. How could someone who so embodied the American spirit be so annoying?
“Oh, I see,” Rogers said irritably as he caught up to him. Funny. The man always seemed so cheerful and polite in the public eye, but it seemed like Tony had a gift for getting under his skin. Well, good. “So you’re in charge of this expedition now, is that it? Did you even read the briefings Fury gave us?”
“Of course I did,” Tony said. He’d gone through them all before they’d even left, and that had been all he’d needed to do. “Rogers, maybe your precious, idealistic mind can’t handle it, but S.H.I.E.L.D. didn’t send us out here so we could have a field trip for fun. They’re looking for something, and they’re using us to get it.”
To his credit, Rogers didn’t look particularly put off by Tony’s observation. Maybe he’d seen enough of the War to know this already. “So why are you here, if you know this?”
“Because I’m looking for something too.” And Tony would just as rather do this all alone, but Fury was providing the means-and with his time running out, he could hardly afford to snub him.
“Which is?”
“Classified.”
Rogers sighed. “And here I thought we would get to be partners,” he muttered.
Tony almost, almost felt bad about this, but ultimately it was inconsequential. Rogers didn’t need to know about his ailing heart, and Tony didn’t want Rogers to know. He could only imagine his reaction at finding out that Tony didn’t have very much longer to live, despite the constant recharging he did. Sooner or later, it wouldn’t be enough. And sooner or later, he’d drop dead. He’d already exhausted much of the known sources of magic he’d gotten his hands on, and this Savage Land was one of his last hopes.
“You can’t always get what you want,” he said.
Rogers didn’t say anything to that, and for the next few hours, they continued to meander through the foliage, Tony occasionally checking the readings on his meter as Rogers rolled his eyes and made disapproving sounds under his breath. The Savage Land was a strange place, but it was still Earth. There were the occasional odd magnetic field readings that upon closer inspection were completely explainable by non-supernatural reasons, and other strange readings that turned out to be volcanic geysers or something like that-as reckless as Tony was, he had enough sense to stay away from those.
All in all, not exactly the stronghold of magic he’d hoped for.
But that was okay. It was only the first day, and they still had time to find something-even though this was different from his other missions, where he already knew what the hell he was looking for, he still had hope that there was something here. He just needed to locate it first.
They stopped for the night in a small cave, where Rogers set up a little fire and started to look through a notepad he was carrying. Unsurprisingly, he’d taken notes about the various fauna and animals and such they’d seen today, which Tony hadn’t thought to do. Well, whatever. His memory was good enough, and if Rogers was doing it, why did Tony need to?
“You should get some sleep,” Rogers said, and Tony started, realizing he’d been staring.
He bristled. “And what, you shouldn’t?” Was it bad that Rogers set him off so easily? Probably. But whose fault was that? If everyone had just let him go treasure-hunting on his own like he wanted, then he wouldn’t have had anyone to get annoyed at.
And maybe, just maybe, Tony was a little bit jealous. He was still young, still healthy, except for the very major problem that was his heart, ticking ever so closer to an end that would come sooner rather than later-his one, single flaw. But here was Steve Rogers, the War’s other all-American hero, and he was fit as a fiddle and as perfect as anyone could be. And now-well. Now Tony had to get some sleep and Rogers didn’t?
“I’m going to stay up and keep watch.” Rogers glanced up from his notepad, quirking an eyebrow. “I know Marvels never showed any of that boring stuff, but you guys kept watch at night, didn’t you? I’m surprised you’re still in one piece otherwise.”
Tony blinked, momentarily distracted. “Marvels? You’ve read Marvels?”
“Sure I have.” Rogers turned his attention back to the notepad, scribbling something down. Probably more notes. “Used to be a big fan.”
“But not anymore.”
“I grew up.”
Tony sighed. Rogers’ response didn’t tell him anything, but he wasn’t in the mood to press tonight. “Wake me up when it’s my turn to keep guard, then.” Rogers nodded, and Tony rolled out his sleeping bag, curling up inside it before discreetly checking the charge on his heart. 93%. So far, so good. If the rest of the week was as eventless as today, then he was in no danger of running out of power. Whether or not that was particularly desirable was another question entirely, but Tony had little choice but to roll with it.
He missed Rhodey. He missed Pepper. Most of all, he missed Jarvis. But they were all back in civilization doing one thing or another, helping to rebuild the world after war had ravaged it. He wondered if Rogers wanted to be back home, too. Tony sure did-but if he couldn’t find a cure for his heart here, then he wouldn’t be able to be anywhere.
Damn his broken body. But he’d deal with it, one way or another. Either he’d find a cure, or he’d die trying.
After all, what other choice did he have?
Day Two
On the second day, Tony found what he was looking for.
Or at the very least, he was pretty sure he’d found something promising.
They’d left that morning, making sure to hide the evidence that indicated that they’d stayed there that night-while they’d yet to encounter anyone else who might be tracking them for whatever reason, it was best not to take any chances. From there, they’d bickered about which direction to go, because Rogers was apparently wary of perfectly good technology and believed in-Tony didn’t even know. Aimless exploring, maybe? But Tony had won the argument, which was for the better, because it was all paying off now.
“There’s something under here,” he announced sometime past noon, stopping in the middle of an unremarkable grove.
Rogers frowned, looking around. “I don’t understand,” he said.
“Of course you don’t,” Tony said, waving his hand. Rogers bristled, but Tony ignored it. “My readings are picking up a lot of empty space below. There’s something down there.”
The other man’s frown only deepened as he knelt down, as though that would somehow make him see what Tony was seeing. “Empty space could mean a lot of things,” he said. “It could just be an underground spring. Or maybe lava flows. I’m not digging a hole so we can fall into lava.”
“It’s not a heat reading, so it’s not lava,” Tony replied, rolling his eyes. “And I’m not asking you to dig any holes.” Wouldn’t that be hilarious, though? Captain America with a shovel. “There’s something else I’m picking up.” He wandered over to a large rock nearby, brushing his fingers against it. “Look.”
Rogers followed him, squinting at the rock. After a moment, it was clear he was seeing what Tony was, because he asked, “Is this writing?”
Tony nodded, eyes sweeping over the strange markings, faded with time. “I think so. It’s not a language I’m familiar with, but from what I can tell, this marks the entrance.”
Rogers looked contemplative. Then he looked troubled. “That means there are people here.”
“That means there are creatures capable of written language here,” Tony said. “There’s a difference. Anyway, I don’t think it matters. I’m not picking up on anything of significant mass that seems to be alive below us, so even if there were people here once, they’re gone now.” But if they’d ever owned anything magical… then maybe that was still here.
“Okay,” Rogers said. He touched the markings on the rock again, continuing, “So how do we get in?”
Tony tapped on the rock idly, examining what looked like a seam running around it. “We push.”
So they pushed. As it turned out, someone had sliced the rock into two, and pushing the front half away revealed a hole in the back half, which led… down. It was dark enough that he couldn’t tell how deep it went-for all he knew, it was either three feet deep or three miles-but he was unfazed. After another moment of peering into it, Tony brought out a length of rope from his pack, tossing one end down before offering the other end to Rogers. “You strong enough to support my weight on this?”
“Yeah,” Rogers said.
That was enough for Tony. Without further ado, he slithered down the rope, keeping his eyes and ears peeled for anything suspicious, but besides the light coming in from above and the shadow from Rogers’ head on him, there wasn’t much to see. Not too long after, his feet touched the ground, and he felt around blindly for a moment, making sure everything seemed solid. “I’m in,” he called, bringing out his flashlight and shining it up at Rogers. “Can you see me?”
Rogers nodded from above. “I’m going to tie the rope around the rock and then come down. Is that okay?”
Tony pointed the flashlight in various directions around him. They seemed to be at the start of a tunnel, but he didn’t have enough light to tell how far it went. Still, it seemed to be safe, and he had his gauntlets if they ran into any trouble. “Yeah,” he said.
A moment later, Rogers was standing beside him, shield in one hand and a flashlight of his own in another. “I hope you know what you’re looking for,” he said as he started forward, Tony trailing after him.
That makes two of us, he thought. Nonetheless, he kept quiet on that front, shining his flashlight around as they headed down the tunnel, their breathing loud in the otherwise quiet space. It was dark and cool and utterly ordinary in every way, the walls unblemished and the floor looking as though no one had used it for ages-or ever, really.
Still, Tony had a feeling about this place.
After some time, the tunnel seemed to widen, and Tony realized they were standing at the edge of… of something. Something magnificent. “Rogers,” he breathed.
“I see it,” Rogers replied.
It looked like it might have once been a small city-albeit one that hadn’t made it very far in architectural advances-though now it’d fallen into disrepair, the crude structures crumpled and broken. At least, that was what the small amount that was actually illuminated by their flashlights looked like, anyway. “An underground city,” Tony said, barely able to contain the glee in his voice. “Can you believe it? There’s got to be something interesting here.”
“Maybe,” Rogers conceded, though he didn’t sound nearly as excited as Tony felt. “Personally, I’m wondering why the city is empty. You sure it’s a good idea to just waltz on in?”
“Come on, Rogers,” Tony said, shining the flashlight around until he found something that looked like a road leading downward and started forward to follow it. “We’re on an exploration. In case you’ve forgotten, that means we should be exploring. Where’s your sense of adventure? Besides, think of all the notes you’ll get to take. Fury’ll want to kiss you once you show him all the things you’ve learned.”
Rogers snorted from behind him, and from the sound of his footsteps, Tony could tell he was following. “Somehow I doubt that,” he said. “I’m not sure that I’d want a kiss from Nick.”
“‘Nick’?” Tony repeated, baffled. “Since when are you two on a first-name basis?” He sure wasn’t about to call Fury “Nick” anytime soon. He suspected Fury felt similarly.
“We’re very close,” Rogers replied, which wasn’t much of an answer. “Hey. Look at this.” He stopped, the beam of his flashlight illuminating one of the walls of the building… well, if it could be called a building, anyway. It sort of resembled an extraordinarily crude igloo made out of dirt more than anything. “More markings.”
Tony added his light to the wall as well, stepping closer. “Well,” he said. “Will you look at that.” It wasn’t the same as the markings from the rock they’d seen earlier-these were more elaborate, even if in the grand scheme of things Tony would consider them to be rather primitive. “What do you think?” They resembled prehistoric cave paintings, but instead of bison and horses, these looked like… well, sabretooths. He moved his flashlight around, following the progression of drawings. First there were stick figures chasing the sabretooths, then stick figures running away from the sabretooths, then a bunch of dead stick figures. Ouch.
“I think it’s beautiful,” Rogers sighed, sounding just dreamy enough for Tony to roll his eyes. Wasn’t like Rogers could see him in the dark, anyway. He kept on following the mural, Tony trailing behind him. “It seems like they worshipped the sabretooths.”
Tony considered it. Yeah, he could buy that, based on the next few drawings. “I guess they thought intentionally sacrificing things to them was better than getting mauled.”
For the next few hours, they made their way through the ruins, their flashlights the only things illuminating the place as they took everything in, Rogers recording their findings with what Tony personally thought was an overblown eagerness-had the man never visited an architectural site before? He’d probably faint from excitement if Tony ever took him to the Cave of Altamira.
Not that Tony was particularly keen on doing so, of course. The last time he’d gone looking for magical artifacts there, a feral bison had tried its damndest to gore him to death.
They passed by more drawings as they headed deeper into the city, but much of them were similar to ones they’d already seen before, of harried humans and somewhat majestic big cats. Apparently, whoever had lived here really had a thing for sabretooths-even if personally, Tony would have chosen to worship a dinosaur. Who wouldn’t?
Every now and then, he checked his power detector to see if maybe, just maybe, it was picking up on anything. But since they’d dropped down into the hole, it’d been behaving strangely-whether it was because they were underground now or because of something else, Tony didn’t know. Hopefully it was because of something else. Something magical. But time would tell.
Eventually, Rogers came to a stop, and Tony only narrowly avoided bumping into him. “We should stop for the night,” he said. “Or at least, I think it’s night.” He brought his wrist up, looking at his watch before frowning. “Hmm.”
“What’s wrong?”
Rogers tapped at the watch’s face. “It’s not working right,” he said. “It’s stuck at 1:23.”
Huh. So it wasn’t just Tony with the faulty electronics, then. “Don’t worry about it. My stuff is messed up, too.” At least his heart was still working.
The widening of Rogers’ eyes was visible even in the dim light. “You mean, we’re stuck down here in the dark with compromised equipment? Tony, we have to get back up to the surface again.” He cursed softly, which was surprising because Tony was pretty sure he’d never heard Rogers curse before. “It’ll take us most of tomorrow to make it back…”
“Stop fretting,” Tony interrupted before Rogers could get on a roll. “Look, it’s okay. We know our way back. Besides, we haven’t even explored the whole place yet-”
“And we shouldn’t, because we’re in an awful position where we can’t even see anyone sneaking up to us-”
“-Which doesn’t even matter, because no one is here-”
They both broke off, huffing. Tony glared at him, then continued stubbornly, “I’m not ready to leave yet.”
Rogers quirked an eyebrow at him. “Why? Because you’re still looking for your classified toy?”
“That’s right.”
Rogers just sighed at this, turning away into one of the igloo-things. He had to hunch over to get inside, which was, honestly, an image Tony had to snigger at. Whoever used to live here must have been pretty short. “Are you going to mope now?” Tony asked his retreating figure.
There was a spark of light as Rogers brought out his lighter, making a little fire inside the igloo, which apparently had a fire pit inside. “I’m stopping for the night,” he replied.
Tony considered it for a moment, then ducked into the same igloo as Rogers, turning his flashlight off. Better not to risk getting separated, since outside of the igloo it was completely dark. “Okay,” he said. “But we’re going to keep on exploring tomorrow.”
Rogers made a non-committal grunting sound in response, bringing out his notepad again and writing more things down-presumably about the things they’d seen today, because he was a note-taking machine. Tony, meanwhile, brought out his sleeping bag, slithering into it and checking his heart monitor beneath the metal plating. 81%. Nothing to worry about. “Don’t tell me you’re going to keep guard again,” he said. “There’s nothing here.”
“Maybe,” Rogers replied lightly, eyes on the notepad. “Go to sleep.”
Tony shrugged to himself. Well, if Rogers wanted to stay up for no reason, that was his prerogative. But Tony was going to sleep. “Good night,” he said.
“Night,” Rogers said right back, and damn him, he didn’t sound tired at all.
Tony shut his eyes and tried not to dream of magical relics.
Day Three
“Wake up.”
Tony groaned, lashes fluttering as he blearily opened his eyes. It was dark… still nighttime, then. No need to wake up. He rolled over, letting his eyes close again. “Too early.”
“Wake up.”
This time, the words were accompanied by a gentle shake of his shoulder, and Tony groaned again, blinking in the darkness. “What?” he asked irritably. “Rogers, is that you? Go to sleep.”
“Shh,” the person said, sounding annoyed enough that Tony could tell it was Rogers for sure. “Stark, there’s something outside.”
Tony sat up at this, brain revving into gear. “What do you mean, something outside?” he replied, automatically lowering his voice. “You mean people?” He really hoped Rogers didn’t mean people. Because that would be bad.
Rogers exhaled. “No,” he said, and Tony sighed in relief before the other man continued, “I think it’s a sabretooth.”
Oh. Oh. That wasn’t good. Possibly worse than people, maybe. He hadn’t actually fought any sabretooths yet, so he had no idea how bad they were. But they were probably pretty bad. “Okay. What makes you say that?”
“I can hear it,” Rogers whispered. “It’s breathing. Listen.”
Tony fell silent, trying to hear it. Once he managed to filter out the sounds of their own breathing, yeah, it was pretty loud and clear-there was sort of a deep, throaty element to it, which might have been nice in an entirely different context but was mainly terrifying now. “Shit,” he murmured. “Do you think it’s heard us by now? Scratch that, of course it’s heard us.” It was probably listening to him right now, and wasn’t that creepy? “Why isn’t it attacking?”
Rogers was silent for a moment, probably thinking about it. “I don’t think it can fit in here,” he said at last.
Well, that was certainly reassuring. “So we’re trapped.”
“Unless we fight our way out.”
Hmm. Well, Tony was always up for a good fight. Of course, most of his fights were in well-lit, open spaces. Or just lit. This place was the opposite of that, and he wasn’t sure how his gauntlets would do in such an enclosed area. Then again, that just meant now was the best time to find out. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s fight. How hard can it be? It’s just a cat.”
“Famous last words,” Rogers muttered.
Tony rolled his eyes, even though Rogers couldn’t see, then pulled his gauntlets on, securing them in the darkness. “Or we could just stay here for a few more days and hope it goes away on its own. Come on, let’s go.”
“Wait!” Rogers hissed, managing to find his arm and grabbing onto it. “What are you thinking? We need a plan!”
“Uh, duh,” Tony replied. “I already have one. It’s called ‘shooting a repulsor blast straight into its big ugly face’. You won’t have to do a thing.”
Rogers sighed. Even in the dark, Tony could tell how put-upon he was. “Stark. Tell me something. Do you know where its ‘big ugly face’ is?”
Tony blinked. Then he frowned. “No,” he admitted.
“Then sit down.”
He pouted but complied after a moment, grumbling. “Killjoy.”
“That’s me,” Rogers replied. There was a rustling sound as Rogers seemed to be searching through his pack for something, though it was too dark for Tony to really know for sure. Then Rogers found it-whatever it was-and continued, “Okay. I’m going to turn on the flashlight, and then I’m going to throw it outside. If the sabretooth goes after it, hit it in the face. I’ll get out and attack it from behind. Got it?”
“You get out and do all the fun stuff while I shoot things from my hidey hole,” Tony said. “Yes. Got it.”
“You shoot its big ugly face from the hidey hole,” Rogers clarified. Tony wondered if he was smiling right now. Too bad it was dark. “Okay. Let’s go.”
A second later, a beam of light was rolling along the ground, from their igloo-thing out onto the road. In the next second, something massive pounced onto it, and Rogers rushed past him, heading into the street. “Go!” he shouted.
Tony brought his hands up, aimed, and fired-
-Then watched as the sabretooth merely shook its head, looking no worse for the wear.
“Shit,” he said. “Rogers?”
“On it,” came Rogers’ voice, and then there was a loud thump and the sound of an extremely pained roar; in the wild light of the flashlight, Tony could see the glint of the shield as it rammed into the cat’s body. “Try again!”
Tony brought up his hands once more, but with the sabretooth moving around so much and the limited space he had from his position inside the igloo, he couldn’t get a clear shot. “Dammit,” he muttered, considering his options for a moment before ducking his head and running out, leaving the safety of the igloo. “To your left!” he called, and shot again as Rogers somersaulted away.
The sabretooth abruptly stopped squirming, then turned, the flashlight laying on the ground in such a way that it silhouetted the cat from the back and revealing Tony standing there, making him feel very much like a deer caught in the headlights. Well, this was great, just great. Tony brought the gauntlets up again, aiming toward the face, but if it hadn’t worked before, why would it work now?
Then Rogers jumped in, kicked the flashlight aside, and the world was plunged into darkness again.
On instinct, Tony blindly leapt to one side at the same time the sabretooth leapt forward, shooting his repulsor blasts again and praying Rogers wasn’t in his line of fire. There was a whooshing sound as Rogers presumably flung his shield, then a thud and a growl as it made contact. “It’s not going down,” he yelled, firing again even though he could barely see where it was. “Got any ideas?”
“Yeah, I-”
Tony never heard the rest, though, because in the next instant, a thousand pounds of big cat bowled into him, knocking the wind right out of his body. Oh, shit. Oh, shit. He squirmed helplessly, and if a high-pitched yelp escaped his throat, well, could anyone really blame him?
Suddenly, there were sounds of a scuffle as Rogers did-something; it was too dark for Tony to really see, but it sounded like Rogers had jumped onto it from behind and was grappling with it. “Shoot it!” Rogers shouted.
“I’ll hit you!”
“You won’t. Go!”
So Tony fired again. In hindsight, this was probably an awful idea, because it caused the sabretooth to lash out, clawing blindly at his chest as Tony cried out in pain, automatically shooting again in response. “Rogers, fuck, for the love of God, get this thing off me-”
“I’m trying-”
More blind scuffling. The sabretooth was clearly enraged by now, which was bad news for Tony, who was bleeding and in clear reach of its claws, but he tried fending it off anyway, blasting at its paws whenever it got too close. “Rogers-” he gasped again, wanting desperately to curl up into a bloody ball and pass out. Still, something in him kept him conscious, kept him fighting-how could he not? Rogers was trying so hard to help him; it’d do him no good to let him down now.
Another roar, then a strange clinking sound, and then-“Stark, shoot it now!”
Tony focused his eyes enough to see the shield propping the sabretooth’s mouth open partway, Rogers doing his best to keep it there as the beast thrashed and roared. Somehow, even with it writhing on top of him, Tony recognized a need for more power, and so he grappled quickly for the cables located in each gauntlet, opening his shirt and plugging them into his chest plate. From there, he managed to hold his arms up steady, shooting twin beams straight into its mouth with everything he had, lighting up the entire area as he did.
Then the light faded, and for several seconds, everything was quiet save for the sound of their panting. A moment later, the sabretooth made a terrible gurgling noise and collapsed right onto Tony, the sudden shift in weight forcing a strained whimper from his lips.
“Dammit,” Rogers breathed from somewhere above him, quickly scrambling off and laboriously shoving the cat’s body off him. “Stark. Tony. Are you okay?”
Tony wheezed heavily, trying to take inventory of all the injuries he’d just sustained. Okay. Okay. So he’d been slashed a few times by a giant cat, and he was pretty sure some of his ribs were cracked, if not broken. Great, really great. But he was alive, which was an improvement over being dead, so he supposed it could have been a lot worse. “I’ve been better,” he coughed out. “You?”
“I’m fine,” Rogers replied. “Wait here, I’ll be right back.”
Tony nodded weakly-it wasn’t like he was in any condition to run off right now, anyway. Once Rogers disappeared, Tony took the opportunity to unplug the cables from his chest plate, stuffing them back into their compartments. He managed to finish just as Rogers came back, holding the flashlight in one hand. Tony groaned, turning his face away from the glare, only to be confronted with the sabretooth’s body. Jesus. “…Is it dead?” he asked.
Rogers hummed, leaning forward to investigate it. “Yeah,” he said after a moment. “It’s dead.” He managed a shaky laugh, running his free hand through his hair. “Well, now we know what to do next time. Just get it to open its mouth wide somehow and shove a beam of light down its throat. Easy as pie.”
“It’s a repulsor blast,” Tony corrected, promptly coughing up some blood immediately afterward. God, it tasted awful. “Not… not a beam of light.”
Rogers turned the flashlight back at him, frowning. “You’re bleeding,” he said.
Tony reached up, batting his hand away. “Not right in the face,” he managed. “I’ll-I’ll be fine.”
“Let me be the judge of that. Can I pick you up?”
At this, Tony hesitated, debating whether he’d rather lose his dignity or continue to lay down next to a dead animal, then decided to hell with his dignity and nodded. In response, Rogers slid his hands underneath Tony’s body, hoisting him upward and carrying him back to their igloo. He laid him down afterward, movements surprisingly gentle as he shone the flashlight over his chest. “This looks bad,” he murmured softly. He set the flashlight down, then rummaged in his pack, bringing out something Tony recognized as the first-aid kit.
“Wait,” Tony said abruptly, realizing what was coming next. “There’s no need for that, is there?”
Rogers’ brow furrowed, and he worried the kit in his hands for a few moments, eyes on Tony’s stained shirt. “You’re bleeding,” he said again.
“It’s just a cut.” Tony tried to roll onto his side, away from Rogers’ gaze as he gritted his teeth in pain. God, this was stupid. He should just let Rogers take care of him, it was just-he didn’t want anyone to see the metal plate shielding his damaged heart. Not even Captain America.
“You were gouged by a sabretooth, for God’s sake.”
Tony scowled at the floor, hand reaching up to clutch at his torso. Just how bad were his ribs? “I was cut,” he insisted. “Superficially. Go away.”
“I won’t go away,” Rogers said, and the next thing Tony knew, he was rolled onto his back again, Rogers reaching up to undo the buttons of his shirt. Tony tried batting his hands away, but it was no use-Tony was far too weak, especially after plugging the gauntlets into his chest plate, which yes, okay, was only supposed to be done in case of emergency because that charge was supposed to be for his heart, but hello, that was an emergency. And anyway, Rogers had that glint in his eye that basically said I do what I want and you can’t stop me. Damn him.
The shirt came off. Instinctively, Tony reached up, trying to cover the metal plating over his heart, but Rogers moved his hand away. Though it was dark save for the flashlight, Tony could see Rogers’ eyes landing on the plate, seeming to contemplate it for a second before his gaze drifted away. To his credit, he didn’t say anything, instead starting to wipe the gouges clean. “Ow,” Tony said.
“Sorry,” Rogers replied, but he didn’t stop. “I don’t want to risk infection. It doesn’t look like its claws were poisonous, but it doesn’t hurt to be careful.”
Tony just grunted in response, watching his hands as they worked. They were nice hands, he supposed. Big, too. He liked big hands. “You know what you’re doing.”
“You learn a lot of things when you’re in a war,” Rogers said softly. “Especially when you’re in the middle of nowhere with injured men.”
“I bet,” Tony murmured. It hurt too much to tilt his head up to watch Rogers, so he just gave up, relaxing back against the ground and trusting the other man to tend to him. After all, it wasn’t like he had a choice, and if he was really being honest with himself, well. It-it was kind of nice, having someone tending to him who didn’t seem to be bothered by his metal chest plate, unlike everybody else. For once, he didn’t have to hide what was, in the end, a major part of him. “Well, I’m grateful. Thanks.”
Rogers shook his head, uncapping an antibacterial ointment and starting to rub it over the injured area. “I’m just doing my duty,” he said. His gaze flickered up toward him as he managed the faintest of smiles. “Glad you didn’t ditch me yet?”
“Don’t push your luck,” Tony grumbled, not quite yet ready to make that sort of concession. He took a deep breath, trying to ignore the pain it caused him. Damn ribs. Damn chest. Damn giant cat.
“Stubborn,” Rogers murmured, but he kept on working on him in silence, bringing out a roll of gauze after a while and beginning to tape it over the gashes. “Almost done. How are you feeling now?”
Tony thought about it. He was still hurting, but he felt slightly cleaner, and Rogers’ hands had helped soothe him a little. “Better,” he admitted. He hesitated a moment, then added, “But I think my ribs are fractured.”
Rogers frowned down at his torso, looking as though he’d be able to see them through Tony’s skin if he just stared hard enough. Maybe he could. Did he have x-ray vision? No, that was Superman. Rogers was just Captain America. “I can’t tell,” Rogers said at last, and Tony had to try not to laugh, because that would be completely inappropriate and out of nowhere at the current moment. “But if they are, I don’t think there’s anything I can do.”
Tony pouted up at him. “Aren’t you supposed to bind them so they hurt less? I’m hurting. Bind me.”
To his surprise, Rogers shook his head. “I don’t want you catching pneumonia,” he said when Tony opened his mouth. “Just stay strong, okay? Hang on.” He turned away for a moment, rummaging in the first-aid kit before producing a white pill and poking it through Tony’s lips. “Swallow,” he continued, handing him a canteen. “It’s aspirin. I brought some along.”
Obediently, Tony took a swig-it was just water, not anything exciting, unfortunately-and swallowed. “I thought drugs didn’t work on you.”
“They don’t,” Rogers replied. “I brought them in case you needed them.”
Oh. Well, wasn’t that something? No wonder everyone in S.H.I.E.L.D. was so fond of him. But he was still annoying! “Thanks,” he said anyway, because it seemed like the sort of thing he should be thankful for. He weakly pushed himself up onto one elbow then, looking Rogers over. He looked a bit battered, but otherwise okay. “Is there anything I can help you with?”
Rogers tutted and promptly pushed him back down as gently as he could. “You can help me by getting some rest,” he said. “You lost a lot of blood.”
Come to think of it, Tony did feel kind of woozy, but staying put was boring. They still had a lot of exploring to do. “I don’t want another giant mutant cat with skin of steel to attack us while we’re here.”
“I’ll take care of it if it does,” Rogers assured him. He picked up one of Tony’s gauntlets, examining it. “This can’t be that hard to use, can it?”
Tony couldn’t tell if Rogers was joking or not, but he swiped ineffectually at it, trying to snatch it from the other man’s grasp. “Mine,” he said. He didn’t like sharing his toys.
Rogers rolled his eyes, but he set the gauntlet back down. Like he had any right to be exasperated! Tony would like to see how he reacted if he tried taking his shield. “Fine,” Rogers said. “If another giant mutant cat attacks us, it’s on you.” He peered out the entrance of the igloo-thing, even though it was pitch-dark outside. “I think we’ll be okay, though.”
Tony nodded, picking up the gauntlet and cuddling it to himself idly. Maybe Rogers was right. Maybe he should just get some rest now. “You’ll keep an eye out?” he asked.
Rogers’ gaze landed on the gauntlet, and for a moment, he looked dubious. Eventually, though, he nodded, pulling out a blanket and draping it over him. “Yeah,” he said. “Go to sleep. You’ve lost a lot of blood.”
“Uh huh,” Tony replied absently, turning to one side and wincing as he curled up underneath the blanket. This was going to be a fun night. Or was it even night at all? It was probably the morning now. Well, the morning could go suck itself. “Don’t let me down, Rogers.” He took one more deep, searing breath, and then he was out like a light.
Prologue-Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6-Epilogue