The Corrupt and the Pure; Chapter 12: The Chip
[INFO]Title: The Corrupt and the Pure
Author: Del Rion (delrion.mail (at) gmail.com)
Fandom: The Avengers & Captain America (MCU)
Timeline: post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Genre: Drama, action, hurt/comfort
Rating: MA / FRAO
Characters: Steve Rogers (Captain America), Tony Stark (Iron Man). Also: Bruce Banner (Hulk), James “Bucky” Barnes (Winter Soldier), Clint Barton (Hawkeye), J.A.R.V.I.S., James “Rhodey” Rhodes (War Machine), Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow), Thor, Sam Wilson (Falcon)
Pairing: Steve/Tony
Summary: When the Steve Rogers from an alternate universe appears in the middle of the Avengers Tower, two worlds are about to collide: one where Captain America became the tool of HYDRA and fell into a relationship with the hero Iron Man - and one where Tony and Steve are tentatively getting along. The latter are forced to reconsider their relationship when the Commander kidnaps Tony to replace his dead lover.
Complete.
Written for: A story commissioned by Susanne (ChickenHax @ AO3 / starkred @ Tumblr).
Warnings: Rape/non-con, major character death (alternate universe), graphic canonical violence, M/M sexual content, language.
~ ~ ~
Chapter 12: The Chip
Come morning, Tony was aching from lying on the hard floor and from all the nervous tension. He was also cranky from lack of sleep, coffee, and food - and he needed to go to the bathroom.
At least the Commander was an early riser just like Cap, having gotten up some time earlier as if he ached to go for a run or something. Instead he had settled down on the opposite side of the small space, for the most part just watching Tony in a manner that soon grew uncomfortable.
“I feel gross,” Tony complained, knowing he had next to no leverage but that wasn’t going to stop him from pushing. “I need a shower, a shave, and a bathroom break.” He raised his hand to interrupt the Commander’s reply. “I’ll refuse to do my business in a ditch, in the bushes, or in a bucket in the corner,” he added.
Tony had no leverage, but the Commander wanted to win him over - even when he said it didn’t matter. It was a small request, all in all, and Tony wanted to think that the silence following his demand meant the other was at least considering it.
“I’ll see what I can do,” finally came a reply, and the Commander rose to his feet and crossed the distance to where Tony was seated against a wall. He reached to his belt and retrieved the length of rope-like material he had used to bind Tony’s hands before.
“Really?” Tony arched an eyebrow at him.
“Can’t have you breaking out while I’m gone,” the Commander replied and motioned for Tony to turn around.
His aching bladder made up his mind for him, and Tony turned his back to the super-soldier, even going as far as pushing his hands back before they could be grabbed in order to be secured.
The Commander wasn’t taking any chances, binding Tony’s hands tight enough to almost prompt a protest, but it wasn’t as if his captor was wrong: if Tony saw an opening, he would take it, full bladder or no.
Satisfied with his work, the Commander stepped back and walked out the door without another word. Tony blinked at the sudden appearance and equally speedy disappearance of bright light, standing still and listening to the door being locked behind the other, then slowly turned to look the way he had gone. The lamp’s light didn’t quite reach the door or its locking mechanism, but that hadn’t stopped Tony from investigating it before, nor did it now. His tied hands were of no use, however, and he was very much a hands-on kind of person.
With an annoyed huff, he went to search for something to help undo his hands, but unsurprisingly nothing like that had been left lying around. Improvising a kidnapping seemed to be right up the Commander’s alley, and Tony pondered whether that was something his Steve Rogers shared with the guy. It wasn’t something he would have thought to ask, but he supposed tactical thinking could be utilized in many ways…
Unable to find a tool to free his hands and prompting his shoulders to ache even more as he tested the limits of his bindings, Tony remained trapped. Biding his time was something he hadn’t been particularly good at since Afghanistan; he absolutely refused to play by anyone else’s rules if they even slightly contradicted his own, and even then he would say they were his rules.
As it was, his options were once again uncomfortably limited, and he could almost feel phantom boundaries chafing against him, forcing him into a place he didn’t like.
Well, it wouldn’t have been much of a kidnapping if he wanted to be there…
He knew that was what the Commander wanted, though: for Tony to believe him and give in to the great love story that was supposedly in the cards for them. Tony was afraid to call his bluff because by now he was fairly convinced there was no deception; the honesty he had learned to expect from Captain America seemed to fit oddly well on the Commander’s twisted features as well.
Either that or he was being played for a fool.
Considering the things he had learned since first coming face to face with the Commander, it didn’t feel like he was being tricked. While there was a certain amount of emotional manipulation involved, it hadn’t sunk in yet. Tony didn’t think he was the perfect candidate for Stockholm Syndrome, nor was he planning on testing that theory. The moment he had an opportunity to run, call for help, or attack the Commander with some predictable success, he would take it.
Until then, he was stuck in this situation, and it might be best not to give his captor too much grief in order to be able to negotiate things like access to an actual bathroom.
Still, he had to be careful not to be too cooperative, because obviously the Commander was under the impression that demanding sexual favors from him was totally acceptable, and if Tony didn’t give them willingly… He had no desire to repeat the incident from the previous day, and just because the Commander had backed off one time didn’t mean he was actually feeling contrite - and wouldn’t push it the next time. Or the time after that.
Tony prayed there would be no ‘next time’. The mere idea made his skin crawl. No, he wasn’t afraid of the act itself - nothing to it that he hadn’t done before, one way or another - but being an unwilling participant gave it a very distinct flavor that he didn’t care for. Who in their right mind would? Even rape fantasies worked only as long as the ‘fantasy’ element was included.
So, he had to keep that from happening, and the longer he stayed within this shipping-container-turned-prison, the likelier it was he’d end up in that very same position and there was no guarantee his protests and pleas were going to be heard. Hell, he wasn’t sure what had stopped the Commander the first time, and the odds of that happening again were slim to none.
Deciding that obsessing about it before it happened was only going to make him feel like throwing up, he concentrated on taking one step at a time towards the goal of freeing himself. He had to figure out why his armors weren’t responding to his commands, and simultaneously keep looking for a way to make his position known so that the others could locate him.
‘Others’ meaning J.A.R.V.I.S., first and foremost, although he was sure that if Steve had indeed survived his confrontation with the Commander, he was in hot pursuit. Most likely they already had a trail to follow, but it wouldn’t hurt if Tony managed to help on his end.
The sooner he got away from the Commander, the better.
He was so caught up in his musings that the opening of the container’s door actually made him jump and back away. The light from the outside was painful as he stared at it, and for the first few seconds it was hard to see whether the outline he was seeing was the Commander or Captain America. The likelihood of the latter was distinctly smaller, though, and the moment the man stepped forward, his brain told him to back away some more and prepare himself for anything.
“You wanted a proper bathroom, yes?” the Commander asked sharply. It was clear he didn’t like this. Still, he gestured at Tony to approach him, and with the cautiousness of the suspicious person that he was, Tony slowly stepped forward. The Commander reached behind him and did something to release his bound hands. “You try to run or trick me, we’ll start doing things my way,” he stated, and then took Tony by the throat, right beneath his jaw, forcing him to look up at him. It certainly felt like there was already a layer of bruises there. “You don’t want to piss me off,” the Commander growled, just in case Tony needed to be told that.
He had a fairly good idea this version of Steve Rogers wasn’t to be messed with - not that he thought the other one was either, but the Steve he knew lacked the certain darkness this one wore on his sleeve for all the world to see.
“Understood?” the Commander asked, eyes boring down into Tony’s.
“Yeah,” he tried to say, but talking was near impossible with the supersoldier’s fingers squeezing his throat.
Accepting the weak response, the Commander let him go and took his upper arm in a tight grip instead, pulling Tony towards the door.
Freedom! his brain screamed, swiftly followed by too bright! as they stepped outside and his eyes burned with the rapid change in lighting.
It was daytime, and once he could actually see something, he noted they were at some kind of a dump, surrounded by a few dented shipping containers, stripped cars and all manner of used and broken down electrical equipment that was just lying around the unused plot of land. As far as Tony could see, they weren’t in the city anymore, but he could make out larger, tall buildings in the distance. Not too far from home, then.
Slowly, he flexed his arms, perfectly hiding it under the pretense of stretching his limbs after having them tied again. He kept hoping to see a streak of red and gold in the sky, responding to the remote call, but it hadn’t worked last night and he was yet to determine why that was. A simple crate couldn’t block the signal, so it had to be something else.
They crossed the salvage yard and exited out onto a shabby little side street lined with buildings in equally poor condition. The neighborhood appeared fairly dead because there was not a single car or person passing them by. Seeing as the Commander was carrying his shield and wearing a uniform, someone would have surely taken notice of that - if nothing else than to snap a picture and tweet it, which was the kind of thing people did these days.
A picture on the Net would be enough to clue J.A.R.V.I.S. in to his location, though, and Tony tried to will someone to drive by.
They came to the end of the street and turned a corner, coming across a motel. It was definitely one of those seedy pay-by-the-hour, no-questions-asked kind of places, but it looked like it was open for business which surprised Tony a little; he had fully expected the Commander to take them to the nearest uninhabited building which had a bathroom, but this was a lot better.
Tony tried not to show his excitement as they entered, counting on someone to recognize his mug and tweet about it, at the very least.
The clerk looked up at them, clearly not expecting customers at this hour - then did a double-take at the Commander for obvious reasons.
“I need a room,” the Commander stated.
“Uh, sure,” the man said, and his eyes flew to Tony.
Tony stared the man down, trying to tell him not to react to his presence - it might get him killed - but at the same time praying he would do something about it once they had left the front desk.
“One room?” the clerk asked.
“Yes,” the Commander said. “An hour should be enough.”
“Okay…”
Definitely a seedy motel, Tony decided; the man’s obvious hesitation wasn’t directed to the amount of time as much as who was asking for it, even though the Commander’s striking resemblance to Captain America was somewhat hampered by the scarring on his face.
To Tony’s surprise, the Commander dug a wad of bills from his pocket. They looked like American dollars, and the clerk accepted them, giving the Commander a key in return. He didn’t even get to say the room number out loud before the Commander was already moving out the door, dragging Tony by the arm and following the numbered doors until he found the one matching the number on their key.
Opening the door, the Commander pushed Tony inside first, following suit and firmly closing the door behind them. “You have an hour,” he said, just in case Tony hadn’t realized that.
Accepting that, Tony checked the tiny room. A single bed dominated the space with its faded cover; wallpaper was peeling off the walls, revealing more layers of equally hideous papering beneath it; only the barest of essentials were pushed to the corners of the room. There was a TV, though, and a brochure on top of it listing some pay-per-view videos for inspiration if necessary.
Tony headed for the only other door in the room and found a bathroom behind it, with a cramped shower stall and a tiny sink with a crack in the porcelain. The toilet looked like a habitat for some of the fungi experiments Tony had seen Bruce do in his lab, but it was all infinitely better than a bucket in a corner of an enclosed space with no running water.
Hell, there was even a complimentary single-use shaving kit available, and Tony went back to grab one of the towels he had seen folded on top of the bed.
The Commander was standing in the middle of the room, arms crossed over his chest and not looking all too happy about being forced to do this. No doubt he was going to keep standing there, guarding the door and making sure Tony didn’t make a run for it. The bathroom had no window, so there was no way Tony was getting out that way - not unless he found something to blow a hole in the wall, and even MacGyver couldn’t manage that with only soap and shaving cream.
“Can I close the door?” Tony asked as he was stepping back into the bathroom. “Unless you think I can somehow escape through the pipes,” he added sarcastically despite knowing it wasn’t the best of ideas.
The Commander glared at him - damn if that didn’t look like the evil eye he was used to getting from his Steve - but eventually gave a grudging nod.
Not wanting to give the man time to take it back, Tony closed the door behind him and stripped, did his business at the toilet, then hopped into the shower without stopping to look at all the dirty corners and the things living there. The pipes groaned a bit and it took a while to actually get hot water flowing, but once he achieved that, Tony didn’t waste any time. Who knew when he would get a chance to wash himself again?
After washing his body and hair, he dried off and stepped in front of the mirror above the sink with the intent of shaving. It would be ugly with the tools he had available, but so much better than not doing it at all. He dried his hair some more to stop drops of water from sliding down his face from his hairline, then pushed his fingers through the wet strands in a mockery of styling his hair with gel.
At the back of his head his fingernail caught on something, and he moved both his hands there to inspect the area. It was tender, and as he scratched at it, it felt like a scab. Not remembering how he had got a head injury like that, he first blamed it on the initial arrival of the Commander, but as his fingers searched the area some more, mapping it out, he could feel something beneath the skin that wasn’t part of the healing wound.
He supposed it was possible he had a piece of debris lodged in there, but the shape felt too smooth and cylinder-shaped, like a long capsule. Besides, the other scrapes he had sustained in the small blast caused by the Tesseract were more healed than the one he was feeling his way around, and he began to feel increasingly suspicious of what lay beneath his skin.
Tony decided that whatever it was, it was going to come out. He worked the scab off with his fingers first, grimacing at the slight twinge of pain. Blood flowed from the exposed wound, but he could feel the unfamiliar shape even more distinctly. With determination, he grabbed the shaving kit and tore it open, fishing out the razor. It was far from an ideal cutting tool, and not seeing what he was doing wasn’t helping either, but he could feel the cylinder beneath his skin and one way or the other, he was getting his hands on it.
He clenched his jaw and inhaled as he pressed the blade against his skin, feeling the incision and maintaining the pressure as he tried to cut a line along the cylinder’s length. Not wanting to repeat the treatment, he soldiered on and pressed the razor down some more, making sure he cut in deep enough.
With a shuddery gasp of pain he finally pulled his makeshift knife away and dropped it in the sink. His fingers were covered in blood so he rinsed them quickly, leaving bloody prints all over the faucet. He reached back into his head once he had most of the blood off his hands and dug into the wound, trying to restrain from making sounds that would alarm the Commander as to what he was doing.
At first he wasn’t sure whether his cut was deep enough or close to the cylinder, but then he managed to push it towards the wound with his left hand’s fingers and felt it touch the digit burrowing into his skin. Getting his thumb and forefinger in there, wilfully ignoring the pain in favor of getting the thing out of his head, he tried to grab onto the tiny object. It was slippery, but with the fingers of his left hand pressing it towards the exit, he finally felt it pop out a bit. He almost didn’t catch it, feeling it slide down his neck, but finally managed to track it down and get it between his fingers.
Bringing it around for inspection, Tony swiped a bloody thumb across the tiny piece. It was metal, and too smooth to be something that had accidentally lodged itself in his head. Without any kind of equipment, he couldn’t tell what it had been there for, but perhaps that explained the lack of response from his suits.
Grabbing onto it with two hands as best he could, he twisted the cylinder in half. It gave a tiny crack as it broke in two. Flicking the pieces into the sink, Tony flexed his arms in a familiar motion, to try and call the armor to him once more.
Then he waited, trying to count the seconds until one of them would come bursting through the wall - or the Commander would figure out he was up to something he wasn’t supposed to be doing.
to be continued…
Story info
Author: Del Rion (delrion.mail (at) gmail.com)
Fandom: The Avengers & Captain America (MCU)
Timeline: post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Genre: Drama, action, hurt/comfort
Rating: MA / FRAO
Characters: Steve Rogers (Captain America), Tony Stark (Iron Man). Also: Bruce Banner (Hulk), James “Bucky” Barnes (Winter Soldier), Clint Barton (Hawkeye), J.A.R.V.I.S., James “Rhodey” Rhodes (War Machine), Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow), Thor, Sam Wilson (Falcon)
Pairing: Steve/Tony
Summary: When the Steve Rogers from an alternate universe appears in the middle of the Avengers Tower, two worlds are about to collide: one where Captain America became the tool of HYDRA and fell into a relationship with the hero Iron Man - and one where Tony and Steve are tentatively getting along. The latter are forced to reconsider their relationship when the Commander kidnaps Tony to replace his dead lover.
Complete.
Written for: A story commissioned by Susanne (ChickenHax @ AO3 / starkred @ Tumblr).
Warnings: Rape/non-con, major character death (alternate universe), graphic canonical violence, M/M sexual content, language.
~ ~ ~
Chapter 12: The Chip
Come morning, Tony was aching from lying on the hard floor and from all the nervous tension. He was also cranky from lack of sleep, coffee, and food - and he needed to go to the bathroom.
At least the Commander was an early riser just like Cap, having gotten up some time earlier as if he ached to go for a run or something. Instead he had settled down on the opposite side of the small space, for the most part just watching Tony in a manner that soon grew uncomfortable.
“I feel gross,” Tony complained, knowing he had next to no leverage but that wasn’t going to stop him from pushing. “I need a shower, a shave, and a bathroom break.” He raised his hand to interrupt the Commander’s reply. “I’ll refuse to do my business in a ditch, in the bushes, or in a bucket in the corner,” he added.
Tony had no leverage, but the Commander wanted to win him over - even when he said it didn’t matter. It was a small request, all in all, and Tony wanted to think that the silence following his demand meant the other was at least considering it.
“I’ll see what I can do,” finally came a reply, and the Commander rose to his feet and crossed the distance to where Tony was seated against a wall. He reached to his belt and retrieved the length of rope-like material he had used to bind Tony’s hands before.
“Really?” Tony arched an eyebrow at him.
“Can’t have you breaking out while I’m gone,” the Commander replied and motioned for Tony to turn around.
His aching bladder made up his mind for him, and Tony turned his back to the super-soldier, even going as far as pushing his hands back before they could be grabbed in order to be secured.
The Commander wasn’t taking any chances, binding Tony’s hands tight enough to almost prompt a protest, but it wasn’t as if his captor was wrong: if Tony saw an opening, he would take it, full bladder or no.
Satisfied with his work, the Commander stepped back and walked out the door without another word. Tony blinked at the sudden appearance and equally speedy disappearance of bright light, standing still and listening to the door being locked behind the other, then slowly turned to look the way he had gone. The lamp’s light didn’t quite reach the door or its locking mechanism, but that hadn’t stopped Tony from investigating it before, nor did it now. His tied hands were of no use, however, and he was very much a hands-on kind of person.
With an annoyed huff, he went to search for something to help undo his hands, but unsurprisingly nothing like that had been left lying around. Improvising a kidnapping seemed to be right up the Commander’s alley, and Tony pondered whether that was something his Steve Rogers shared with the guy. It wasn’t something he would have thought to ask, but he supposed tactical thinking could be utilized in many ways…
Unable to find a tool to free his hands and prompting his shoulders to ache even more as he tested the limits of his bindings, Tony remained trapped. Biding his time was something he hadn’t been particularly good at since Afghanistan; he absolutely refused to play by anyone else’s rules if they even slightly contradicted his own, and even then he would say they were his rules.
As it was, his options were once again uncomfortably limited, and he could almost feel phantom boundaries chafing against him, forcing him into a place he didn’t like.
Well, it wouldn’t have been much of a kidnapping if he wanted to be there…
He knew that was what the Commander wanted, though: for Tony to believe him and give in to the great love story that was supposedly in the cards for them. Tony was afraid to call his bluff because by now he was fairly convinced there was no deception; the honesty he had learned to expect from Captain America seemed to fit oddly well on the Commander’s twisted features as well.
Either that or he was being played for a fool.
Considering the things he had learned since first coming face to face with the Commander, it didn’t feel like he was being tricked. While there was a certain amount of emotional manipulation involved, it hadn’t sunk in yet. Tony didn’t think he was the perfect candidate for Stockholm Syndrome, nor was he planning on testing that theory. The moment he had an opportunity to run, call for help, or attack the Commander with some predictable success, he would take it.
Until then, he was stuck in this situation, and it might be best not to give his captor too much grief in order to be able to negotiate things like access to an actual bathroom.
Still, he had to be careful not to be too cooperative, because obviously the Commander was under the impression that demanding sexual favors from him was totally acceptable, and if Tony didn’t give them willingly… He had no desire to repeat the incident from the previous day, and just because the Commander had backed off one time didn’t mean he was actually feeling contrite - and wouldn’t push it the next time. Or the time after that.
Tony prayed there would be no ‘next time’. The mere idea made his skin crawl. No, he wasn’t afraid of the act itself - nothing to it that he hadn’t done before, one way or another - but being an unwilling participant gave it a very distinct flavor that he didn’t care for. Who in their right mind would? Even rape fantasies worked only as long as the ‘fantasy’ element was included.
So, he had to keep that from happening, and the longer he stayed within this shipping-container-turned-prison, the likelier it was he’d end up in that very same position and there was no guarantee his protests and pleas were going to be heard. Hell, he wasn’t sure what had stopped the Commander the first time, and the odds of that happening again were slim to none.
Deciding that obsessing about it before it happened was only going to make him feel like throwing up, he concentrated on taking one step at a time towards the goal of freeing himself. He had to figure out why his armors weren’t responding to his commands, and simultaneously keep looking for a way to make his position known so that the others could locate him.
‘Others’ meaning J.A.R.V.I.S., first and foremost, although he was sure that if Steve had indeed survived his confrontation with the Commander, he was in hot pursuit. Most likely they already had a trail to follow, but it wouldn’t hurt if Tony managed to help on his end.
The sooner he got away from the Commander, the better.
He was so caught up in his musings that the opening of the container’s door actually made him jump and back away. The light from the outside was painful as he stared at it, and for the first few seconds it was hard to see whether the outline he was seeing was the Commander or Captain America. The likelihood of the latter was distinctly smaller, though, and the moment the man stepped forward, his brain told him to back away some more and prepare himself for anything.
“You wanted a proper bathroom, yes?” the Commander asked sharply. It was clear he didn’t like this. Still, he gestured at Tony to approach him, and with the cautiousness of the suspicious person that he was, Tony slowly stepped forward. The Commander reached behind him and did something to release his bound hands. “You try to run or trick me, we’ll start doing things my way,” he stated, and then took Tony by the throat, right beneath his jaw, forcing him to look up at him. It certainly felt like there was already a layer of bruises there. “You don’t want to piss me off,” the Commander growled, just in case Tony needed to be told that.
He had a fairly good idea this version of Steve Rogers wasn’t to be messed with - not that he thought the other one was either, but the Steve he knew lacked the certain darkness this one wore on his sleeve for all the world to see.
“Understood?” the Commander asked, eyes boring down into Tony’s.
“Yeah,” he tried to say, but talking was near impossible with the supersoldier’s fingers squeezing his throat.
Accepting the weak response, the Commander let him go and took his upper arm in a tight grip instead, pulling Tony towards the door.
Freedom! his brain screamed, swiftly followed by too bright! as they stepped outside and his eyes burned with the rapid change in lighting.
It was daytime, and once he could actually see something, he noted they were at some kind of a dump, surrounded by a few dented shipping containers, stripped cars and all manner of used and broken down electrical equipment that was just lying around the unused plot of land. As far as Tony could see, they weren’t in the city anymore, but he could make out larger, tall buildings in the distance. Not too far from home, then.
Slowly, he flexed his arms, perfectly hiding it under the pretense of stretching his limbs after having them tied again. He kept hoping to see a streak of red and gold in the sky, responding to the remote call, but it hadn’t worked last night and he was yet to determine why that was. A simple crate couldn’t block the signal, so it had to be something else.
They crossed the salvage yard and exited out onto a shabby little side street lined with buildings in equally poor condition. The neighborhood appeared fairly dead because there was not a single car or person passing them by. Seeing as the Commander was carrying his shield and wearing a uniform, someone would have surely taken notice of that - if nothing else than to snap a picture and tweet it, which was the kind of thing people did these days.
A picture on the Net would be enough to clue J.A.R.V.I.S. in to his location, though, and Tony tried to will someone to drive by.
They came to the end of the street and turned a corner, coming across a motel. It was definitely one of those seedy pay-by-the-hour, no-questions-asked kind of places, but it looked like it was open for business which surprised Tony a little; he had fully expected the Commander to take them to the nearest uninhabited building which had a bathroom, but this was a lot better.
Tony tried not to show his excitement as they entered, counting on someone to recognize his mug and tweet about it, at the very least.
The clerk looked up at them, clearly not expecting customers at this hour - then did a double-take at the Commander for obvious reasons.
“I need a room,” the Commander stated.
“Uh, sure,” the man said, and his eyes flew to Tony.
Tony stared the man down, trying to tell him not to react to his presence - it might get him killed - but at the same time praying he would do something about it once they had left the front desk.
“One room?” the clerk asked.
“Yes,” the Commander said. “An hour should be enough.”
“Okay…”
Definitely a seedy motel, Tony decided; the man’s obvious hesitation wasn’t directed to the amount of time as much as who was asking for it, even though the Commander’s striking resemblance to Captain America was somewhat hampered by the scarring on his face.
To Tony’s surprise, the Commander dug a wad of bills from his pocket. They looked like American dollars, and the clerk accepted them, giving the Commander a key in return. He didn’t even get to say the room number out loud before the Commander was already moving out the door, dragging Tony by the arm and following the numbered doors until he found the one matching the number on their key.
Opening the door, the Commander pushed Tony inside first, following suit and firmly closing the door behind them. “You have an hour,” he said, just in case Tony hadn’t realized that.
Accepting that, Tony checked the tiny room. A single bed dominated the space with its faded cover; wallpaper was peeling off the walls, revealing more layers of equally hideous papering beneath it; only the barest of essentials were pushed to the corners of the room. There was a TV, though, and a brochure on top of it listing some pay-per-view videos for inspiration if necessary.
Tony headed for the only other door in the room and found a bathroom behind it, with a cramped shower stall and a tiny sink with a crack in the porcelain. The toilet looked like a habitat for some of the fungi experiments Tony had seen Bruce do in his lab, but it was all infinitely better than a bucket in a corner of an enclosed space with no running water.
Hell, there was even a complimentary single-use shaving kit available, and Tony went back to grab one of the towels he had seen folded on top of the bed.
The Commander was standing in the middle of the room, arms crossed over his chest and not looking all too happy about being forced to do this. No doubt he was going to keep standing there, guarding the door and making sure Tony didn’t make a run for it. The bathroom had no window, so there was no way Tony was getting out that way - not unless he found something to blow a hole in the wall, and even MacGyver couldn’t manage that with only soap and shaving cream.
“Can I close the door?” Tony asked as he was stepping back into the bathroom. “Unless you think I can somehow escape through the pipes,” he added sarcastically despite knowing it wasn’t the best of ideas.
The Commander glared at him - damn if that didn’t look like the evil eye he was used to getting from his Steve - but eventually gave a grudging nod.
Not wanting to give the man time to take it back, Tony closed the door behind him and stripped, did his business at the toilet, then hopped into the shower without stopping to look at all the dirty corners and the things living there. The pipes groaned a bit and it took a while to actually get hot water flowing, but once he achieved that, Tony didn’t waste any time. Who knew when he would get a chance to wash himself again?
After washing his body and hair, he dried off and stepped in front of the mirror above the sink with the intent of shaving. It would be ugly with the tools he had available, but so much better than not doing it at all. He dried his hair some more to stop drops of water from sliding down his face from his hairline, then pushed his fingers through the wet strands in a mockery of styling his hair with gel.
At the back of his head his fingernail caught on something, and he moved both his hands there to inspect the area. It was tender, and as he scratched at it, it felt like a scab. Not remembering how he had got a head injury like that, he first blamed it on the initial arrival of the Commander, but as his fingers searched the area some more, mapping it out, he could feel something beneath the skin that wasn’t part of the healing wound.
He supposed it was possible he had a piece of debris lodged in there, but the shape felt too smooth and cylinder-shaped, like a long capsule. Besides, the other scrapes he had sustained in the small blast caused by the Tesseract were more healed than the one he was feeling his way around, and he began to feel increasingly suspicious of what lay beneath his skin.
Tony decided that whatever it was, it was going to come out. He worked the scab off with his fingers first, grimacing at the slight twinge of pain. Blood flowed from the exposed wound, but he could feel the unfamiliar shape even more distinctly. With determination, he grabbed the shaving kit and tore it open, fishing out the razor. It was far from an ideal cutting tool, and not seeing what he was doing wasn’t helping either, but he could feel the cylinder beneath his skin and one way or the other, he was getting his hands on it.
He clenched his jaw and inhaled as he pressed the blade against his skin, feeling the incision and maintaining the pressure as he tried to cut a line along the cylinder’s length. Not wanting to repeat the treatment, he soldiered on and pressed the razor down some more, making sure he cut in deep enough.
With a shuddery gasp of pain he finally pulled his makeshift knife away and dropped it in the sink. His fingers were covered in blood so he rinsed them quickly, leaving bloody prints all over the faucet. He reached back into his head once he had most of the blood off his hands and dug into the wound, trying to restrain from making sounds that would alarm the Commander as to what he was doing.
At first he wasn’t sure whether his cut was deep enough or close to the cylinder, but then he managed to push it towards the wound with his left hand’s fingers and felt it touch the digit burrowing into his skin. Getting his thumb and forefinger in there, wilfully ignoring the pain in favor of getting the thing out of his head, he tried to grab onto the tiny object. It was slippery, but with the fingers of his left hand pressing it towards the exit, he finally felt it pop out a bit. He almost didn’t catch it, feeling it slide down his neck, but finally managed to track it down and get it between his fingers.
Bringing it around for inspection, Tony swiped a bloody thumb across the tiny piece. It was metal, and too smooth to be something that had accidentally lodged itself in his head. Without any kind of equipment, he couldn’t tell what it had been there for, but perhaps that explained the lack of response from his suits.
Grabbing onto it with two hands as best he could, he twisted the cylinder in half. It gave a tiny crack as it broke in two. Flicking the pieces into the sink, Tony flexed his arms in a familiar motion, to try and call the armor to him once more.
Then he waited, trying to count the seconds until one of them would come bursting through the wall - or the Commander would figure out he was up to something he wasn’t supposed to be doing.
to be continued…
Story info