Art: Akatsuki Ayako
Chapter One:
Doctor Strange stepped forward out of the shadows,
where he had been concealed since before the ritual had begun,
and said,
"You have called upon forces beyond even your control, Victor Von Doom.
These magics are too deep for you."
Doom turned on him with a snarl.
Beneath his mask, his lips were doubtlessly twisted into an unpleasant sneer.
If he still had lips.
"Moralizing fool, do you know what your interference has cost me?"
Chapter two:
*With all due respect, sir,* Dugan said;
and that was a definite invective, since Dugan never bothered to pretend that he respected Tony.
*Getting yourself killed wonft help the situation any --*
*The armor ought to protect me,* Tony said.
*Itfs designed to withstand fairly high-level blasts.*
*...9...*kzzt*...8...*kzzt*...7...*
He was thirty yards away. So close.
The shock-wave hit Tony like a stone wall, along with a searing heat that he could feel even inside the armor.
He was thrown, tossed like a rag doll, the force cart-wheeling him through the air.
Chapter Three:
Tony looked back over his shoulder at Steve again -- still standing there,
still surrounded by assorted Avengers -- then turned back to Fury.
Chapter Four:
"You were dead," he said, almost inaudibly. "I saw your body."
Steve froze, not knowing what to say; Tony was crying because of him. "Tony, I'm --"
Chapter Five:
"What do I have to do to make you stop hating yourself so much that you keep screwing us all over?"
Steve shouted, grabbing the collar of Tony's shirt in one fist and shoving him back into the wall.
And then Steve kissed him.
Chapter Six:
They stayed like that, kissing, pressed against one another for long minutes,
before Steve pulled back a little. He untangled Tony's hand from his shirt,
bringing it to his lips, and kissed it.
Chapter Seven:
Steve pulled the chopsticks from Tony's grasp, setting them pointedly on the table.
"If you're going to keep working on that laptop," he nodded at the open computer on the bed,
lines of data still scrolling across the screen,
"you could at least pretend to type," Steve said,
turning Tony's hand over and tracing his thumb across the ball of his wrist.
Chapter Eight:
"Not Fury," Steve corrected him. "Stone." Then, anxious to erase the cold,
empty look that had come over Tony's face while he spoke about SHIELD,
he slid one hand onto Tony's knee and leaned forward,
cupping the other hand around the side of Tony's face and laying a brief kiss on his lips.
Chapter Nine:
Little as he liked the guy, Danny was willing to admit that with the four-hour communications blackout rule in place,
Stark did have a reason to look tired.
Which was probably why he was eating the coffee straight out of the tin.
"Hey," Danny said, leaning against the door frame,
"are you eating the instant coffee?"
Chapter Ten:
Fifteen minutes later, he was lying utterly motionless on top of the bedfs garish floral coverlet,
one arm thrown over his eyes. There were still traces of blood under his fingernails.
Steve thrust the last spare shirt into his knapsack -- Tonyfs shirt,
but at this point their clothes were so thoroughly mixed up that it wasnft worth the effort to separate them out --
and sat down on the bed next to him.
Chapter Eleven:
"Fine," Tony's voice had lost the echoing quality;
he must have switched to a narrow band frequency so that they could speak without half the SHIELD network overhearing.
"Unless you count having the Mandarin on my doorstep. Carol and I are on our way to deal with him." He paused for a second,
then, voice low, "Look, if we can't stop himc" he trailed off, the link carrying nothing but a faint crackle of static for a moment,
then said, very softly, "I love you."
Chapter Twelve:
He took a deep breath, readying himself to resume the chase,
and then the headset he'd forgotten he was wearing crackled to life, and the sound of screaming echoed in his ears.
Steve had known Tony's voice before he'd ever seen his face;
it was the first thing he'd heard when he'd woken up from the ice. He would know it anywhere,
even through the crackle of the Extremis, distorted by pain.
It took a hell of a lot to make Tony scream like that.
The sound cut off as abruptly as it had begun, the line going dead again.
Chapter Thirteen:
Tony was not going to cry. Not with Luke Cage watching.
"That's going to take some time," he managed. "It's going to be a major construction project."
"I know," Steve said, looking sad for a moment.
Then he grinned again, that wide smile that could light up an entire room. "But it will be worth it."
