Cap-Ironman Reverse Bang Fic: Flight 1/3
Title: Flight
Artist: made_of_tin
Author: sunryder
Beta: keelover
Rating (both art/fic): PG
Universe: Comic-esque
Word Count: ~16,000
Warnings: Abuse of Canon
Link to Art: Stunning, stunning artwork HERE Really, you need to go see it, it made my brain explode!
Fic Summary:
On to Part 2 | On to Part 3
"This isn't freedom Thor, it's kidnapping!" Steve objected, trying to sound forceful while hanging from the claws of Thor's griffin. It didn't really work since he could hear Thor laugh at his objection and feel Loki, the griffin, doing the same. ">
She glided over the smooth ground, feet touching the floor so lightly she left no trace of her presence. She had cast a spell out before her to smooth the way, drowning the guards in the overwhelming urge to sleep, and to keep their failing to themselves. There were pathetically few guards protecting the Jess, though why she'd assumed these pathetic griffin riders would have the common sense to properly defend the building that housed all their treasures, she didn't know. Hidden deep within the Jess were records of all the riders to come before, secrets and stories known only to their people, artifacts that had made their history, and at the center of it all was the frozen corpse of Captain Steven Rogers.
The Captain had been crafted of magic beyond the skill of anyone still yet living, and the Sorcerer who'd made him had died with his refusal to ever make another like him. The Captain had fought a battle to the death against the abomination of magic he was created to destroy, and as his target lay dying, he cast one last spell against the Captain, trapping him in a pillar of ice, and killing him instantly.
Or so the story went.
The riders kept the Captain in his pillar of ice, tucked away in the depths of the Jess where, in theory, only the most honored were allowed to see him. (In truth, guided tours went through the building at least once a month, with a stop to try and chip away a piece of his ice to sell as a relic.)
Never had she seen the Captain in person, but she had always been curious, and that curiosity had paid off well for her. One night she stole a memory from the mind of a rider, a memory of the Captain trapped in his ice, and she knew, his heart still beat within his prison.
She used her powers as a sorceress to trample the will of many a rider until she found her way into the Jess, and stood uninhibited before the ice that held the Captain caged. He was a beautiful man, bright face still burning with the flush of youth, and for a moment she thought of keeping him for a time after he woke, taking a little pleasure from his frame still humming with magic. But he was far too perfect an ingredient to waste with waiting. His block of ice sat in the center of a room surrounded by layers of defunct protection spells made by lesser wizards. Some spells were shapes etched into the ground, and others were runes painted into the walls. But with the passing of time and the coming of tourists everything in its turn had been scratched out, leaving the good Captain unprotected.
Everything, that is, but the ice.
She sauntered forward, reaching out with her magic to get a feel for the weak points in the ice, stepping in a smooth circle around it until she found the perfect place that could give her a path through the block to where the Captain waited. She traced her finger along the ice, burning the grooves of a rune wherever she touched. When the mark was inscribed she rested her palm against the flat surface of the ice and chanted under her breath.
The reaction was immediate, as though the magic that created the ice had been impatiently waiting all this time for someone to give it the order to break. Within moments outer chunks of ice slicked off the block, like glaciers dropping into the sea. She stepped back, trying to keep out of the way of the sudden rush of water, but the spell was too enthusiastic, melting away the water and soaking the hem of her long, green skirt. She hissed in displeasure and looked down to shoot another spell to tidy her dress, and by the time she looked back up the Captain was already free of his icy enclosure, slumped down to the ground, taking in the long, slow breaths of deep sleep.
A quick flick of her magic banished away the rest of the unwarranted water, though she consciously left the Captain damp so his clothes would cling to the lovely planes of his chest for her own amusement. She knelt down beside him, and appreciated the view for a moment (a woman ought to have some pleasures before she killed a man in order to eat his heart).
She pulled a box from within one of the enchanted pockets of her skirt and cracked it open before setting the box down beside his body. The box was spelled to keep his heart fresh once she cut it out from within his chest, letting no time pass so that the organ might be as fresh as possible when she added it to her spell. She reached into the same pocket and withdrew a long, curved knife with enchantments so strong it glowed in the pale light of the room.
With a push of her magic she rolled the Captain on to his back, and put her hand upon his chest to open the clasps of his armor, only to pause when she felt the warm thrum of his heartbeat underneath her palm. She hissed in displeasure and dropped the knife to rip open the sturdy, enchanted fabric that gave him protection, and pressed her hand straight to his chest, getting a feel for his heart undiluted by the armored spells.
She cursed under her breath at this discovery. His heart was beating, yes, but it was tired. When the spell had hit him, preserving him well enough to be reached by her all these years later, the Captain had resigned himself to death. His heart kept beating, but the good Captain wasn't truly alive.
No, no, this just wouldn't do. Her final spell, for which the Captain's heart was absolutely vital, wouldn't do it's job well if his heart was not full to bursting. A heart like this, no matter what it may have done before being exhausted, would crumple under the pressure and ruin her chances.
She gathered up her skirt and stormed out of the room, leaving the Captain alone and alive on the floor where she'd put him. His heart needed to live again, to thrum with meaning and strength, and given her track record of dead lovers, she was not the person for the task.
But she knew precisely who was.
XXXXX
"You have need of freedom, Steven!"
"This isn't freedom Thor, it's kidnapping!" Steve objected, trying to sound forceful while hanging from the claws of Thor's griffin. It didn't really work since he could hear Thor laugh at his objection and feel Loki, the griffin, doing the same.
Steve had stumbled out on to one of the Aerie's many balconies, desperate for a breath of fresh air. The only time he'd left the rider's floating base in the month since he'd woken was when he had been taken from the Jess to the Aerie, and he'd been going steadily insane ever since. He aimlessly paced around halls that hadn't changed in over seventy years, looking for the long dead riders of his pride around every corner he turned. The loneliness and expectation tore at him, but Madame Hill had given orders that Steve was to stay concealed in the protection of the Aerie, leaving him trapped.
All of the riders kept Steve confined as they were ordered, save for Thor.
The second Steve stepped out onto the balcony for his moment of freedom, Loki dropped from his perch where he had laid in wait, and silently dove straight for Steve. Before he knew what hit him Steve was wrapped in Loki's talons, suspended over the countryside below and on his way to freedom. Communicating like all griffins, Steve could feel Loki projecting smug triumph at catching the rider unaware. Loki broadcast this emotion to Thor as well, and the rider came darting out an upper window, trying to see what his griffin was up to now. Steve felt the mental hum of the griffin and his rider having a conversation unto themselves, but instead of Steve being restored to his position on the balcony, Thor smirked and took a flying leap out the window as Loki darted over to catch him. Loki gave a burst of irritation at having Thor's bulk thump upon him from above, but didn't waste time complaining, and instead fluttered his wings for the nearest town.
Steve gave himself a moment to enjoy the thrill of flying, the wind rushing past and granting him the pure bliss of freedom before he started shouting up to Thor that he really should be getting back to the Aerie. Loki and Thor let this go on for several minutes, with Thor shouting back his own brand of logic, and Loki projecting a little louder each time that he thought Steve was being ridiculous.
Eventually Loki couldn't take it anymore and twisted into a barrel roll, waiting until the peak of his momentum to release Steve, and let him launch up into the air, free of the safety and restraint of the griffin's talons. Steve reached the top of his arc and floated there, weightless with his arms outstretched for one perfect moment, before the earth seized control again and pulled him back down.
Loki was a talented griffin, Steve had spent enough time over the last few weeks watching his fly to know that. (It was a small comfort to know that griffins were mostly the same as they had been all those years ago, though that was rather more soothing than the predictability of other things.) Now, just as then, there were griffins who had been trained to do nothing more than fly fast and dive hard, but whatever they taught in Thor's country had given Loki more agility than Steve had ever seen in a griffin (though Loki might have learned it all on his own to ease his mischief). Loki positioned himself under Steve, talons up to catch him, and tucked his wings into his sides to join Steve in a drop, close enough to Steve's speed that the griffin caught him without jarring, then rolled and again, with a spread of wings, raced back up into the sky.
The earth below them was thick forest slowly thinning into green fields as they moved away from the floating village that was the Aerie and closer to civilization. Steve vaguely recalled a village lying this way when he'd been a rider, but in truth he'd never been to see it. Steve felt Loki send him a burst of questions, and Steve had spent enough time around griffins to know that the emotion was meant to ask how Steve knew his maneuvers when no one else at his home in Aerie knew them. Steve shouted up, "My pride had riders from all over, and they taught me."
Loki paused for a moment, not sending Steve back into the air when he expected it and instead gliding while he sent another gentle pulse of questioning. Rather than use words, Steve let Loki in to his mind to feel the hollow ache of a bond that never was, all Loki needed to understand that Steve had never bonded with a griffin of his own to share the skills with. Despite how the other riders found Loki difficult, the griffin felt for Steve, and rather than pestering Steve with questions, tossed him back into the air, trying to make Steve laugh.
XXXXX
As always, Pepper was the one to roam into Tony's sunlit conservatory of a workshop, and point out that had he looked up from his latest project he would've noticed that Thor and Loki had come to visit. The griffin Aerie usually floated over the wild country that made up the kingdom's border, sometimes venturing closer to the town where Tony stayed when he wasn't on a bender in the capital, and other times, the Aerie would simply weave up and down the countryside, venturing nearer to the other villages.
The griffin rider's made a point of visiting the other towns alongside their route, and with all their disdain for anything that wasn't magic very deliberately kept away from Stark's town. Thor was the only rider Tony had seen in years, though he didn't care about science or magic, just about Jane. (She had gone to examine the workings of an Aerie in Thor's country, and when she came back, he had followed her. Thor did his duty by reporting in to the local Aerie and riding out with them when his gifts were needed, but then he spent every spare moment he could on the ground making Jane smile.)
After all these months, Thor and his griffin had become familiar guests in the town, but the man Loki had just let drop from his claws was new. Pepper gasped at the sudden drop, but Tony just turned and roamed outside. Before Loki even released the man, the griffin had changed the tilt of his wings ready to dive down and catch him. Tony had spent hours out by the lake watching Loki and Thor go through their maneuvers, and Tony's analytical mind had cataloged all of Loki's movements, working to incorporate them into his own designs. Tony roamed out into the bright day and down to the stretch of flat land that separated Tony's manor from the lake, where Loki usually came in for his landing.
Though, for all his familiarity with Loki, Steve hadn't been expecting the griffin to drop the man a second time, this time with no intention of catching him.
Tony could hear Thor shouting in a panic, but judging by Loki's mental vibrations of pleasure, the dropped man wasn't wounded. Whatever other analysis Tony might have done of the situation was swallowed up by the sight of Loki's cargo bursting out of the water, sending up a storm of drops. The man slogged his way out of the lake, blonde curls tumbling into his eyes, and his non-uniform white shirt clinging to the lines of his chest in a way Tony planned on daydreaming about later on.
When the man looked up to see Tony staring at him with interest in his eyes, he turned a shade of red that Tony had thought you needed to be a young maiden to reach. Tony smirked and the man gulped out a, "H-Hello."
"Remind me to gift wrap some sheep for Loki."
"Huh?" The man stumbled, still calf-deep in the lake.
"He deserves a reward for bringing me a present like you."
The man's eyes widened briefly before he looked away in embarrassment, and Tony shared a smirk with Loki while the griffin landed. Thor jumped off Loki's back and ran straight into the water, wrapping the soaked man into a hug. "Steve! Are you well?"
Steve laughed, and patted Thor on the shoulder, "I'm fine."
"Did you finally find a rider you like, Thor?" Tony asked.
Thor wrapped his arm around Steve's shoulder and dragged the man on to dry land. "Tony, my friend! This is Steven Rogers, my fellow Rider thought lost to a spell of ice."
Tony smirked like he expected Thor to let him in on the joke, but when Loki didn't chime in with his own teasing, Tony paused and stared at Steve for a long moment before he breathed out, “How did that happen?” Tony pulled out a small piece of mostly clear glass that he tapped with a pulse of magic and spread his fingers to expand to several inches. He began to wave it methodically all around Steve, who could see lines of runes appearing like writing the more Tony held it near him.
"What are you doing?" Steve asked.
"You're the Captain. You're the Captain, and you died, but apparently you didn't because you're here and you're gorgeous, and I want to know why."
Loki had a spark of amusement that obviously meant, 'Know why he's gorgeous?' and Tony muttered, "Shut up, Loki."
Steve was quiet for a moment, watching Tony's work worn hands move smoothly over the glass, shifting it so he could could see the whole of Steve within the glass edges, and with a quick tug from Tony's magic, an outline of Steve appeared at the center of the runes. Tony ignored how Steve was watching him, and how Thor was pestering Loki that Jane was waiting for them. The intensity of Tony's stare, looking at him but not quite seeing him, made Steve interrupt, "I was at the Jess."
"I know. Everyone who could, went to see you. Though most people thought it was a little morbid that we kept your ice-covered body as a statue."
"You didn't?"
Tony shrugged, "You were dead. I figured you would've rather been useful instead of a statute."
"They said someone melted the ice."
Tony tilted the glass, tapped, and skimmed quickly over what it was he had found before. "Yup. Looks like a variation on the preservation spell." Steve tried to ask, but Tony went on, talking to himself now. "Tailored to melt the ice, but to preserve the freshness of whatever's inside of it."
Loki sent a question and popped up beside Tony, nudging him until Tony tilted the glass so the griffin could read along. "I recognize some of these markers from the spell used to preserve food."
Steve couldn't take it anymore, "Markers?"
Neither Tony nor Loki looked up, so Steve prodded again, and Loki nipped at Tony until he answered, "Spells effect things, changing them from their natural state.But if you know how to look, you can see where those changes were made, and if you're very, very good, like me, you can recognize what those changes were meant to do from where they are.”
"So, they tried to preserve my freshness because…?"
"So you'd be just as delicious when you came out of the ice as when you went it. Why they wanted you edible however, I have no idea." Tony's gaze flicked up from the glass and gave Steve a look that made him flush again, "Other than the obvious."
Thor clapped one of his massive hands against Tony's back, and declared, "Come, Tony! Put away your device and walk with us. The day is bright, Steven is free, and my lovely Jane waits for us!"
Loki gave an amused snort, but he didn't take off like Steve had expected him to. Tony leaned up against Steve, his hot breath against his ear as he whispered, “Loki likes Jane.” Loki nudged Tony, sending him stumbling forward, but didn't deny Tony's statement.
Thor tossed his arms wide, and declared, "All adore my Jane! She is light, and joy, and genius personified!"
They all laughed good-naturedly at Thor's enthusiasm before heading up from the shore and into the town proper. It was clean and well organized, and despite the town being relatively small, judging by the workmen who occasionally roamed by them, it was still growing. The houses looked different than from what Steve remembered, some of them brick, while others were made of metal, unlike the wooden homes Steve had been accustomed to. And many of the houses in town weren't just homes, but also had a barn-like structure built along side of them. Tony stepped away from whoever he'd been exchanging pleasantries with when he caught Steve staring and explained, "They're labs. It's dangerous to conduct experiments where you live, so most of us have another space."
The more Steve watched the houses, the more he realized nothing was quite the same. There was a dog chasing a mechanical cat down the street, ("Henry likes having the dog but hates to walk it," Tony explained) another yard had short metal windmills turning beautifully in the slightest breeze, ("Bruce makes stuff as part of his meditation."), and a hovering carriage with no need for horses ("I don't really ask why Clint makes what he makes."). All the changes were subtle, just enough that if you weren't looking for the difference, you would never have come across them. Tony could see the questions flickering over Steve's face, and always tried to intervene before confusion set in.
"That house over there," Tony said, pointing passed Steve to a large manor at the outskirts of town up on a hill, "That's Charlie's. You know how magic is divided up into four main categories?"
"Fire, water, wind, and air," Steve replied.
"Exactly. Well, over the last few generations, witches and wizards have been getting more diverse in the way those categories are expressed. It used to be that a fire wizard would just be better at spells that involved heat, but then a few generations ago, people started popping up with different kinds of abilities."
"Like, their fire was stronger?"
"Some. But there were others who were actual fire starters, or fire controllers. And others who didn't have a lick of magical ability, couldn't cast a proper spell to save their life, but they could control fire."
"But, that's impossible," Steve retorted.
"Nope. Charlie's even got a student who can create ice, another who can cause windstorms, and one who can cause small earthquakes. Charlie studies what makes it possible to have all of these different expressions of magic, and why they've been cropping up more often." Thor caught sight of one of the labs, and started up the hill. Tony laughed, "And then, of course, there's Jane."
"My lovely Jane," Thor crooned. "She studies the intricacies of the heavens."
"So, you're all… scientists."
Tony tried to pretend the question didn't give him pause, but Steve caught the slightest hesitation before he replied, "Most of us study the world through wholly un-magical science, but there are still plenty of scientists here who also practice magic. Charlie, the one who's trying to figure out why powers have been mutating, he's a Reader."
"So," Steve puzzled out, "you don't mind magic?"
"Of course not. Sometimes magic is the best way to get things done, and sometimes its holding us back."
Rather than let Tony take Steve on a tour of everything magical in the town, Thor grabbed him by the back of his shirt, and ushered them along. "Didn't they have non-magical stuff when you were around the first time?" Tony asked.
Steve rolled his eyes at the question, "Of course they did, it's just, it's all so different."
"Of course it's different. It's been seventy years."
"But it's not 'of course'. The Aerie hasn't changed at all."
"When you say 'at all,' you mean-"
"Everything in the whole building is exactly the same as it was when I…" Tony let him trail off rather than try to come up with a vague euphemism for 'mostly died'. "I thought it was just the way of the world, but everything down here is different."
Tony snorted, "Of course the Aerie hasn't changed. They refuse to. The riders here are all wrapped up in their traditions and their magic, and they refuse to do a thing any different than they ever have."
"How do you, I mean…"
"No, I wasn't a Rider. When I was young, I went to the capital to study as a wizard. They wanted me to stay on as a sorcerer, but I couldn't take it anymore."
Steve set aside his ingrained impression at people with magical skills like that, especially considering how powerful Tony must have been to be asked to become a sorcerer. Standard practitioners of magic were called magicians, while those who went to school were called wizards, and only the absolute best were known as sorcerers. "What happened?"
"All the school cared about was keeping the traditions alive. There were new ways, better ways, to do the magic they were doing, but no one wanted to listen. No one cared about innovation, or involving the whole new realm of science. Just doing things with the same blind faith they always had."
"So you left."
"Came back home and started my own practice of magic. And I made the village a place where other scientists, and other innovators could come and work without getting told they were heretics."
"Isn't heretics is a little harsh?" Steve asked, and a woman's voice interrupted him.
"If anything, heretics isn't strong enough."
"Jane!" Thor shouted, and spun the woman around in his arms.
"It's only been three days!" Jane protested halfheartedly, still pressing herself into Thor's chest and smiling at the sight of him.
"Any time apart from you is too long."
Tony smirked at the display and headed into the open barn Jane had been in, skirting past Thor who was making heartfelt declarations of eternal love. "Come on, they'll be doing that for a while." Steve smiled, believing him completely. Tony leaned in a little closer, speaking to Steve in a soft voice, "Jane is a scientist, not a drop of magic in her. Well, unless you count what Thor leaves behind.”
Steve blushed furiously and proceeded to whack Tony on the shoulder. "You can't say that about a lady!"
Tony rolled his eyes, and moved on, "She's not a lady, she's a scientist. And being a scientist got her in trouble with the Aerie."
"What kind of trouble?"
"She's got a theory, something about stars and griffins and their relationship-"
"Something?" Steve smirked.
"Hey, I don't do stars, I do mechanics," Tony retorted. "Anyway, Jane wanted to go to the Aerie and study their magic, but your friends floating ten minutes away refused to let her in."
"So she went to Thor?"
"Thor's homeland, but yes. They invited her into the Aerie to study, and Thor was smitten."
Steve just laughed because that was the moment Thor shouted that they needed to come see what Jane was working on.
XXXXX
Steve spent the rest of the afternoon being dragged by Tony to meet any scientist Steve might find interesting, only to get distracted by playing with the children, and laughing while Loki kept interrupting Thor in his pursuit of Jane. At one point Loki paused mid-lunge (some brave child had tagged him 'it'), and turned to stare in the direction of the Aerie. Steve felt Loki grumble, and Thor called out to them both that they were being summoned back to the Aerie. Thor dropped a fiery kiss on Jane's lips, and Tony gave Steve a brief peck of his own, Steve stood there in stunned silence before he was snatched up by the ascending griffin.
By the time they made it back to the Aerie Steve was still red, and Loki was loudly projecting smug triumph about how perfect the day had gone. The trio landed at the Nests in the Aerie only to find Maria Hill waiting there to glower at them. Loki paused for half a breath so that Thor could slip from his back and Steve didn't drop face first to the ground, and then stormed off, closing down his emotional projection and leaving the humans to deal with Hill all by themselves.
"You took him to see Stark." Hill spat at Thor.
Thor paused for just a moment while Loki gave him directions, and Thor adopted an innocent expression. "No Madame. Loki wanted to take him flying, and I wanted him to meet my lovely Jane. Meeting Tony was entirely coincidental."
Hill glowered at him, "You're going on a ride with Fury's pride in half an hour. Go report to him. Now." Thor gave Steve a pat on the back and stepped away, leaving Loki to send Steve a thrum of solidarity. Hill waited until Thor had moved out of range before she turned and fixed her most disdainful glare on Steve. "You will be given leniency because of the position you used to hold Rogers, but that won't get you very far in this day and age. You would do well to remember that in this Aerie, you're nothing more than a nomad." Steve flinched, a whole world of pained memories rushing back at the derogatory term for a rider without a griffin.
Hill stomped off, the other riders doing their best to avoid looking her in the eye. Steve stood there in shock, ignored by the other riders who had overheard their conversation, but were unwilling to make it right.
Clint, an occasional friend of Thor's, waited until everyone's attention was elsewhere before sliding up to Steve, silently guiding him away from the middle of the room, and over to where his own griffin, Hawk, was curled up in her nest, keeping track of everyone through heavy eyes. Clint leaned close, and in a hushed breath said, "Let's pretend I'm giving you the run down on why Stark is supposedly so dangerous."
Steve gave him a brief smile of gratitude, "And what will we really be talking about?"
Clint smirked, "How you learned to fly like that, and maybe why we're supposed to stay away from Stark."
Artist: made_of_tin
Author: sunryder
Beta: keelover
Rating (both art/fic): PG
Universe: Comic-esque
Word Count: ~16,000
Warnings: Abuse of Canon
Link to Art: Stunning, stunning artwork HERE Really, you need to go see it, it made my brain explode!
Fic Summary:
On to Part 2 | On to Part 3
"This isn't freedom Thor, it's kidnapping!" Steve objected, trying to sound forceful while hanging from the claws of Thor's griffin. It didn't really work since he could hear Thor laugh at his objection and feel Loki, the griffin, doing the same. ">
She glided over the smooth ground, feet touching the floor so lightly she left no trace of her presence. She had cast a spell out before her to smooth the way, drowning the guards in the overwhelming urge to sleep, and to keep their failing to themselves. There were pathetically few guards protecting the Jess, though why she'd assumed these pathetic griffin riders would have the common sense to properly defend the building that housed all their treasures, she didn't know. Hidden deep within the Jess were records of all the riders to come before, secrets and stories known only to their people, artifacts that had made their history, and at the center of it all was the frozen corpse of Captain Steven Rogers.
The Captain had been crafted of magic beyond the skill of anyone still yet living, and the Sorcerer who'd made him had died with his refusal to ever make another like him. The Captain had fought a battle to the death against the abomination of magic he was created to destroy, and as his target lay dying, he cast one last spell against the Captain, trapping him in a pillar of ice, and killing him instantly.
Or so the story went.
The riders kept the Captain in his pillar of ice, tucked away in the depths of the Jess where, in theory, only the most honored were allowed to see him. (In truth, guided tours went through the building at least once a month, with a stop to try and chip away a piece of his ice to sell as a relic.)
Never had she seen the Captain in person, but she had always been curious, and that curiosity had paid off well for her. One night she stole a memory from the mind of a rider, a memory of the Captain trapped in his ice, and she knew, his heart still beat within his prison.
She used her powers as a sorceress to trample the will of many a rider until she found her way into the Jess, and stood uninhibited before the ice that held the Captain caged. He was a beautiful man, bright face still burning with the flush of youth, and for a moment she thought of keeping him for a time after he woke, taking a little pleasure from his frame still humming with magic. But he was far too perfect an ingredient to waste with waiting. His block of ice sat in the center of a room surrounded by layers of defunct protection spells made by lesser wizards. Some spells were shapes etched into the ground, and others were runes painted into the walls. But with the passing of time and the coming of tourists everything in its turn had been scratched out, leaving the good Captain unprotected.
Everything, that is, but the ice.
She sauntered forward, reaching out with her magic to get a feel for the weak points in the ice, stepping in a smooth circle around it until she found the perfect place that could give her a path through the block to where the Captain waited. She traced her finger along the ice, burning the grooves of a rune wherever she touched. When the mark was inscribed she rested her palm against the flat surface of the ice and chanted under her breath.
The reaction was immediate, as though the magic that created the ice had been impatiently waiting all this time for someone to give it the order to break. Within moments outer chunks of ice slicked off the block, like glaciers dropping into the sea. She stepped back, trying to keep out of the way of the sudden rush of water, but the spell was too enthusiastic, melting away the water and soaking the hem of her long, green skirt. She hissed in displeasure and looked down to shoot another spell to tidy her dress, and by the time she looked back up the Captain was already free of his icy enclosure, slumped down to the ground, taking in the long, slow breaths of deep sleep.
A quick flick of her magic banished away the rest of the unwarranted water, though she consciously left the Captain damp so his clothes would cling to the lovely planes of his chest for her own amusement. She knelt down beside him, and appreciated the view for a moment (a woman ought to have some pleasures before she killed a man in order to eat his heart).
She pulled a box from within one of the enchanted pockets of her skirt and cracked it open before setting the box down beside his body. The box was spelled to keep his heart fresh once she cut it out from within his chest, letting no time pass so that the organ might be as fresh as possible when she added it to her spell. She reached into the same pocket and withdrew a long, curved knife with enchantments so strong it glowed in the pale light of the room.
With a push of her magic she rolled the Captain on to his back, and put her hand upon his chest to open the clasps of his armor, only to pause when she felt the warm thrum of his heartbeat underneath her palm. She hissed in displeasure and dropped the knife to rip open the sturdy, enchanted fabric that gave him protection, and pressed her hand straight to his chest, getting a feel for his heart undiluted by the armored spells.
She cursed under her breath at this discovery. His heart was beating, yes, but it was tired. When the spell had hit him, preserving him well enough to be reached by her all these years later, the Captain had resigned himself to death. His heart kept beating, but the good Captain wasn't truly alive.
No, no, this just wouldn't do. Her final spell, for which the Captain's heart was absolutely vital, wouldn't do it's job well if his heart was not full to bursting. A heart like this, no matter what it may have done before being exhausted, would crumple under the pressure and ruin her chances.
She gathered up her skirt and stormed out of the room, leaving the Captain alone and alive on the floor where she'd put him. His heart needed to live again, to thrum with meaning and strength, and given her track record of dead lovers, she was not the person for the task.
But she knew precisely who was.
XXXXX
"You have need of freedom, Steven!"
"This isn't freedom Thor, it's kidnapping!" Steve objected, trying to sound forceful while hanging from the claws of Thor's griffin. It didn't really work since he could hear Thor laugh at his objection and feel Loki, the griffin, doing the same.
Steve had stumbled out on to one of the Aerie's many balconies, desperate for a breath of fresh air. The only time he'd left the rider's floating base in the month since he'd woken was when he had been taken from the Jess to the Aerie, and he'd been going steadily insane ever since. He aimlessly paced around halls that hadn't changed in over seventy years, looking for the long dead riders of his pride around every corner he turned. The loneliness and expectation tore at him, but Madame Hill had given orders that Steve was to stay concealed in the protection of the Aerie, leaving him trapped.
All of the riders kept Steve confined as they were ordered, save for Thor.
The second Steve stepped out onto the balcony for his moment of freedom, Loki dropped from his perch where he had laid in wait, and silently dove straight for Steve. Before he knew what hit him Steve was wrapped in Loki's talons, suspended over the countryside below and on his way to freedom. Communicating like all griffins, Steve could feel Loki projecting smug triumph at catching the rider unaware. Loki broadcast this emotion to Thor as well, and the rider came darting out an upper window, trying to see what his griffin was up to now. Steve felt the mental hum of the griffin and his rider having a conversation unto themselves, but instead of Steve being restored to his position on the balcony, Thor smirked and took a flying leap out the window as Loki darted over to catch him. Loki gave a burst of irritation at having Thor's bulk thump upon him from above, but didn't waste time complaining, and instead fluttered his wings for the nearest town.
Steve gave himself a moment to enjoy the thrill of flying, the wind rushing past and granting him the pure bliss of freedom before he started shouting up to Thor that he really should be getting back to the Aerie. Loki and Thor let this go on for several minutes, with Thor shouting back his own brand of logic, and Loki projecting a little louder each time that he thought Steve was being ridiculous.
Eventually Loki couldn't take it anymore and twisted into a barrel roll, waiting until the peak of his momentum to release Steve, and let him launch up into the air, free of the safety and restraint of the griffin's talons. Steve reached the top of his arc and floated there, weightless with his arms outstretched for one perfect moment, before the earth seized control again and pulled him back down.
Loki was a talented griffin, Steve had spent enough time over the last few weeks watching his fly to know that. (It was a small comfort to know that griffins were mostly the same as they had been all those years ago, though that was rather more soothing than the predictability of other things.) Now, just as then, there were griffins who had been trained to do nothing more than fly fast and dive hard, but whatever they taught in Thor's country had given Loki more agility than Steve had ever seen in a griffin (though Loki might have learned it all on his own to ease his mischief). Loki positioned himself under Steve, talons up to catch him, and tucked his wings into his sides to join Steve in a drop, close enough to Steve's speed that the griffin caught him without jarring, then rolled and again, with a spread of wings, raced back up into the sky.
The earth below them was thick forest slowly thinning into green fields as they moved away from the floating village that was the Aerie and closer to civilization. Steve vaguely recalled a village lying this way when he'd been a rider, but in truth he'd never been to see it. Steve felt Loki send him a burst of questions, and Steve had spent enough time around griffins to know that the emotion was meant to ask how Steve knew his maneuvers when no one else at his home in Aerie knew them. Steve shouted up, "My pride had riders from all over, and they taught me."
Loki paused for a moment, not sending Steve back into the air when he expected it and instead gliding while he sent another gentle pulse of questioning. Rather than use words, Steve let Loki in to his mind to feel the hollow ache of a bond that never was, all Loki needed to understand that Steve had never bonded with a griffin of his own to share the skills with. Despite how the other riders found Loki difficult, the griffin felt for Steve, and rather than pestering Steve with questions, tossed him back into the air, trying to make Steve laugh.
XXXXX
As always, Pepper was the one to roam into Tony's sunlit conservatory of a workshop, and point out that had he looked up from his latest project he would've noticed that Thor and Loki had come to visit. The griffin Aerie usually floated over the wild country that made up the kingdom's border, sometimes venturing closer to the town where Tony stayed when he wasn't on a bender in the capital, and other times, the Aerie would simply weave up and down the countryside, venturing nearer to the other villages.
The griffin rider's made a point of visiting the other towns alongside their route, and with all their disdain for anything that wasn't magic very deliberately kept away from Stark's town. Thor was the only rider Tony had seen in years, though he didn't care about science or magic, just about Jane. (She had gone to examine the workings of an Aerie in Thor's country, and when she came back, he had followed her. Thor did his duty by reporting in to the local Aerie and riding out with them when his gifts were needed, but then he spent every spare moment he could on the ground making Jane smile.)
After all these months, Thor and his griffin had become familiar guests in the town, but the man Loki had just let drop from his claws was new. Pepper gasped at the sudden drop, but Tony just turned and roamed outside. Before Loki even released the man, the griffin had changed the tilt of his wings ready to dive down and catch him. Tony had spent hours out by the lake watching Loki and Thor go through their maneuvers, and Tony's analytical mind had cataloged all of Loki's movements, working to incorporate them into his own designs. Tony roamed out into the bright day and down to the stretch of flat land that separated Tony's manor from the lake, where Loki usually came in for his landing.
Though, for all his familiarity with Loki, Steve hadn't been expecting the griffin to drop the man a second time, this time with no intention of catching him.
Tony could hear Thor shouting in a panic, but judging by Loki's mental vibrations of pleasure, the dropped man wasn't wounded. Whatever other analysis Tony might have done of the situation was swallowed up by the sight of Loki's cargo bursting out of the water, sending up a storm of drops. The man slogged his way out of the lake, blonde curls tumbling into his eyes, and his non-uniform white shirt clinging to the lines of his chest in a way Tony planned on daydreaming about later on.
When the man looked up to see Tony staring at him with interest in his eyes, he turned a shade of red that Tony had thought you needed to be a young maiden to reach. Tony smirked and the man gulped out a, "H-Hello."
"Remind me to gift wrap some sheep for Loki."
"Huh?" The man stumbled, still calf-deep in the lake.
"He deserves a reward for bringing me a present like you."
The man's eyes widened briefly before he looked away in embarrassment, and Tony shared a smirk with Loki while the griffin landed. Thor jumped off Loki's back and ran straight into the water, wrapping the soaked man into a hug. "Steve! Are you well?"
Steve laughed, and patted Thor on the shoulder, "I'm fine."
"Did you finally find a rider you like, Thor?" Tony asked.
Thor wrapped his arm around Steve's shoulder and dragged the man on to dry land. "Tony, my friend! This is Steven Rogers, my fellow Rider thought lost to a spell of ice."
Tony smirked like he expected Thor to let him in on the joke, but when Loki didn't chime in with his own teasing, Tony paused and stared at Steve for a long moment before he breathed out, “How did that happen?” Tony pulled out a small piece of mostly clear glass that he tapped with a pulse of magic and spread his fingers to expand to several inches. He began to wave it methodically all around Steve, who could see lines of runes appearing like writing the more Tony held it near him.
"What are you doing?" Steve asked.
"You're the Captain. You're the Captain, and you died, but apparently you didn't because you're here and you're gorgeous, and I want to know why."
Loki had a spark of amusement that obviously meant, 'Know why he's gorgeous?' and Tony muttered, "Shut up, Loki."
Steve was quiet for a moment, watching Tony's work worn hands move smoothly over the glass, shifting it so he could could see the whole of Steve within the glass edges, and with a quick tug from Tony's magic, an outline of Steve appeared at the center of the runes. Tony ignored how Steve was watching him, and how Thor was pestering Loki that Jane was waiting for them. The intensity of Tony's stare, looking at him but not quite seeing him, made Steve interrupt, "I was at the Jess."
"I know. Everyone who could, went to see you. Though most people thought it was a little morbid that we kept your ice-covered body as a statue."
"You didn't?"
Tony shrugged, "You were dead. I figured you would've rather been useful instead of a statute."
"They said someone melted the ice."
Tony tilted the glass, tapped, and skimmed quickly over what it was he had found before. "Yup. Looks like a variation on the preservation spell." Steve tried to ask, but Tony went on, talking to himself now. "Tailored to melt the ice, but to preserve the freshness of whatever's inside of it."
Loki sent a question and popped up beside Tony, nudging him until Tony tilted the glass so the griffin could read along. "I recognize some of these markers from the spell used to preserve food."
Steve couldn't take it anymore, "Markers?"
Neither Tony nor Loki looked up, so Steve prodded again, and Loki nipped at Tony until he answered, "Spells effect things, changing them from their natural state.But if you know how to look, you can see where those changes were made, and if you're very, very good, like me, you can recognize what those changes were meant to do from where they are.”
"So, they tried to preserve my freshness because…?"
"So you'd be just as delicious when you came out of the ice as when you went it. Why they wanted you edible however, I have no idea." Tony's gaze flicked up from the glass and gave Steve a look that made him flush again, "Other than the obvious."
Thor clapped one of his massive hands against Tony's back, and declared, "Come, Tony! Put away your device and walk with us. The day is bright, Steven is free, and my lovely Jane waits for us!"
Loki gave an amused snort, but he didn't take off like Steve had expected him to. Tony leaned up against Steve, his hot breath against his ear as he whispered, “Loki likes Jane.” Loki nudged Tony, sending him stumbling forward, but didn't deny Tony's statement.
Thor tossed his arms wide, and declared, "All adore my Jane! She is light, and joy, and genius personified!"
They all laughed good-naturedly at Thor's enthusiasm before heading up from the shore and into the town proper. It was clean and well organized, and despite the town being relatively small, judging by the workmen who occasionally roamed by them, it was still growing. The houses looked different than from what Steve remembered, some of them brick, while others were made of metal, unlike the wooden homes Steve had been accustomed to. And many of the houses in town weren't just homes, but also had a barn-like structure built along side of them. Tony stepped away from whoever he'd been exchanging pleasantries with when he caught Steve staring and explained, "They're labs. It's dangerous to conduct experiments where you live, so most of us have another space."
The more Steve watched the houses, the more he realized nothing was quite the same. There was a dog chasing a mechanical cat down the street, ("Henry likes having the dog but hates to walk it," Tony explained) another yard had short metal windmills turning beautifully in the slightest breeze, ("Bruce makes stuff as part of his meditation."), and a hovering carriage with no need for horses ("I don't really ask why Clint makes what he makes."). All the changes were subtle, just enough that if you weren't looking for the difference, you would never have come across them. Tony could see the questions flickering over Steve's face, and always tried to intervene before confusion set in.
"That house over there," Tony said, pointing passed Steve to a large manor at the outskirts of town up on a hill, "That's Charlie's. You know how magic is divided up into four main categories?"
"Fire, water, wind, and air," Steve replied.
"Exactly. Well, over the last few generations, witches and wizards have been getting more diverse in the way those categories are expressed. It used to be that a fire wizard would just be better at spells that involved heat, but then a few generations ago, people started popping up with different kinds of abilities."
"Like, their fire was stronger?"
"Some. But there were others who were actual fire starters, or fire controllers. And others who didn't have a lick of magical ability, couldn't cast a proper spell to save their life, but they could control fire."
"But, that's impossible," Steve retorted.
"Nope. Charlie's even got a student who can create ice, another who can cause windstorms, and one who can cause small earthquakes. Charlie studies what makes it possible to have all of these different expressions of magic, and why they've been cropping up more often." Thor caught sight of one of the labs, and started up the hill. Tony laughed, "And then, of course, there's Jane."
"My lovely Jane," Thor crooned. "She studies the intricacies of the heavens."
"So, you're all… scientists."
Tony tried to pretend the question didn't give him pause, but Steve caught the slightest hesitation before he replied, "Most of us study the world through wholly un-magical science, but there are still plenty of scientists here who also practice magic. Charlie, the one who's trying to figure out why powers have been mutating, he's a Reader."
"So," Steve puzzled out, "you don't mind magic?"
"Of course not. Sometimes magic is the best way to get things done, and sometimes its holding us back."
Rather than let Tony take Steve on a tour of everything magical in the town, Thor grabbed him by the back of his shirt, and ushered them along. "Didn't they have non-magical stuff when you were around the first time?" Tony asked.
Steve rolled his eyes at the question, "Of course they did, it's just, it's all so different."
"Of course it's different. It's been seventy years."
"But it's not 'of course'. The Aerie hasn't changed at all."
"When you say 'at all,' you mean-"
"Everything in the whole building is exactly the same as it was when I…" Tony let him trail off rather than try to come up with a vague euphemism for 'mostly died'. "I thought it was just the way of the world, but everything down here is different."
Tony snorted, "Of course the Aerie hasn't changed. They refuse to. The riders here are all wrapped up in their traditions and their magic, and they refuse to do a thing any different than they ever have."
"How do you, I mean…"
"No, I wasn't a Rider. When I was young, I went to the capital to study as a wizard. They wanted me to stay on as a sorcerer, but I couldn't take it anymore."
Steve set aside his ingrained impression at people with magical skills like that, especially considering how powerful Tony must have been to be asked to become a sorcerer. Standard practitioners of magic were called magicians, while those who went to school were called wizards, and only the absolute best were known as sorcerers. "What happened?"
"All the school cared about was keeping the traditions alive. There were new ways, better ways, to do the magic they were doing, but no one wanted to listen. No one cared about innovation, or involving the whole new realm of science. Just doing things with the same blind faith they always had."
"So you left."
"Came back home and started my own practice of magic. And I made the village a place where other scientists, and other innovators could come and work without getting told they were heretics."
"Isn't heretics is a little harsh?" Steve asked, and a woman's voice interrupted him.
"If anything, heretics isn't strong enough."
"Jane!" Thor shouted, and spun the woman around in his arms.
"It's only been three days!" Jane protested halfheartedly, still pressing herself into Thor's chest and smiling at the sight of him.
"Any time apart from you is too long."
Tony smirked at the display and headed into the open barn Jane had been in, skirting past Thor who was making heartfelt declarations of eternal love. "Come on, they'll be doing that for a while." Steve smiled, believing him completely. Tony leaned in a little closer, speaking to Steve in a soft voice, "Jane is a scientist, not a drop of magic in her. Well, unless you count what Thor leaves behind.”
Steve blushed furiously and proceeded to whack Tony on the shoulder. "You can't say that about a lady!"
Tony rolled his eyes, and moved on, "She's not a lady, she's a scientist. And being a scientist got her in trouble with the Aerie."
"What kind of trouble?"
"She's got a theory, something about stars and griffins and their relationship-"
"Something?" Steve smirked.
"Hey, I don't do stars, I do mechanics," Tony retorted. "Anyway, Jane wanted to go to the Aerie and study their magic, but your friends floating ten minutes away refused to let her in."
"So she went to Thor?"
"Thor's homeland, but yes. They invited her into the Aerie to study, and Thor was smitten."
Steve just laughed because that was the moment Thor shouted that they needed to come see what Jane was working on.
XXXXX
Steve spent the rest of the afternoon being dragged by Tony to meet any scientist Steve might find interesting, only to get distracted by playing with the children, and laughing while Loki kept interrupting Thor in his pursuit of Jane. At one point Loki paused mid-lunge (some brave child had tagged him 'it'), and turned to stare in the direction of the Aerie. Steve felt Loki grumble, and Thor called out to them both that they were being summoned back to the Aerie. Thor dropped a fiery kiss on Jane's lips, and Tony gave Steve a brief peck of his own, Steve stood there in stunned silence before he was snatched up by the ascending griffin.
By the time they made it back to the Aerie Steve was still red, and Loki was loudly projecting smug triumph about how perfect the day had gone. The trio landed at the Nests in the Aerie only to find Maria Hill waiting there to glower at them. Loki paused for half a breath so that Thor could slip from his back and Steve didn't drop face first to the ground, and then stormed off, closing down his emotional projection and leaving the humans to deal with Hill all by themselves.
"You took him to see Stark." Hill spat at Thor.
Thor paused for just a moment while Loki gave him directions, and Thor adopted an innocent expression. "No Madame. Loki wanted to take him flying, and I wanted him to meet my lovely Jane. Meeting Tony was entirely coincidental."
Hill glowered at him, "You're going on a ride with Fury's pride in half an hour. Go report to him. Now." Thor gave Steve a pat on the back and stepped away, leaving Loki to send Steve a thrum of solidarity. Hill waited until Thor had moved out of range before she turned and fixed her most disdainful glare on Steve. "You will be given leniency because of the position you used to hold Rogers, but that won't get you very far in this day and age. You would do well to remember that in this Aerie, you're nothing more than a nomad." Steve flinched, a whole world of pained memories rushing back at the derogatory term for a rider without a griffin.
Hill stomped off, the other riders doing their best to avoid looking her in the eye. Steve stood there in shock, ignored by the other riders who had overheard their conversation, but were unwilling to make it right.
Clint, an occasional friend of Thor's, waited until everyone's attention was elsewhere before sliding up to Steve, silently guiding him away from the middle of the room, and over to where his own griffin, Hawk, was curled up in her nest, keeping track of everyone through heavy eyes. Clint leaned close, and in a hushed breath said, "Let's pretend I'm giving you the run down on why Stark is supposedly so dangerous."
Steve gave him a brief smile of gratitude, "And what will we really be talking about?"
Clint smirked, "How you learned to fly like that, and maybe why we're supposed to stay away from Stark."