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The thing was that the walking dead were nothing compared to a repulsor blast. At close range it would take the head right off of anything that came near people for example, let alone something that was already battling decay. Probably only the Hulk could shrug it off at close range.
No the problem was that there were just so many of them. New York had become one huge, hungry people trap.
The United States of America had destroyed the Greater Las Vegas region in a desperate attempt to stem the tide but it hadn’t worked (they hadn’t known about it until the footage came on television, Tony heard it from Jan, just how furious Steve had been. He never approved of stop-gap measures. They were only lucky that Thor hadn’t caught wind of their plans before hand, at least Nevada had been a desert to begin with so there wasn’t much to fuck up there.) So many mistakes too early during the plague, a government that refused to acknowledge what was really going on when apparently gamma-energy monsters was in the realm of possibility while the walking dead was the line.
Tony Stark was pragmatic, as he was with most things and with end of the world scenarios, he’d looked at the evidence and come to the conclusion that mathematically this was more likely real than a hoax. Breaking it down logically, if it was a hoax, someone was putting a lot of energy into a prank, the easiest answer wasn’t always the right one but this time he was quite sure it was. The only problem was the sheer man-power and resources needed to run the Iron Man suit. Super heroes were good with huge, in your face kind of invasions. Epic, earth-shattering battles with the winners standing righteous and back-lit over the bodies of the wicked. Very ’wham-bam-thank you ma’am’, but on a grander scale.
This happened at a slow crawl, infection seeping and growing in the slums, under rocks and the places where no one wanted to look. No one knew what to do with that.
They lost Jan last week. Tony hadn’t hated her, almost respected her as a scientist (it’s nothing against her personally, he didn’t like the fact that biology hovered on the edges of soft science- more of Biology aversion.) It stung.
S.H.I.E.L.D. had fallen apart at the seams, figuratively cannibalised by its own people before the actual face-eating began. Hysterical finger-pointing until the fingers being pointed were being bitten off and no one was left to try and stop it. Still, he was here and so was Steve. Hawkeye was a semi-suicidal mess after they had been too late to save his family but was still with them, at least until he found himself a task big enough to throw himself away on.
Black Widow had vanished just before everything took a nose-dive for the insane. Tony half wished he’d taken her up on the offer to just leave with her. It was a fool’s task to say here, a cabin somewhere deep in the woods with nothing to do but have sex while the world burned. Thor never said it, but implied ‘I told you so’ so loudly that it didn’t matter, now did it.
“I’m fine to go out again.” Hawkeye said, he’d sat there in the corner quietly cleaning his guns with the sort of meticulous focus you saw on serial killers in films. At this point he wasn’t even sure where he was hiding the ammo for those. Tony was idly toying with an empty bottle of alcohol, there was probably more hidden around here somewhere but Steve had taken the last glass and thrown it at the wall so hard it shattered falling spraying liquid everywhere before he stormed away. It’s been a miserable three days since then, someone should give him one of those ‘I’ve been sober three days’ badges by now.
“Okay. Stark?” Steve looked at him and Tony continued to fiddle, using his hands was soothing allowed the illusion that all problems could be beaten into submission with his pure genius. He could put the suit on, but it would probably be the last time unless they could find a better backup generator. His technology was not created to exist in a void and he’d not been joking about the resources and man-power issues. The enormity of the task loomed huge, and he was exhausted just thinking about it. He thought of Natasha all alone in a cabin somewhere (wistfully) and just shrugged.
“If you need me. Suit is going to run out of juice.”
Steve scowled. The bruises were healing smudges of yellow around his right eye, another two hours and any trace would probably be gone. Clint had taken a running jump off of a roof when he’d been cornered, Steve caught him, but neither of them came out of it looking well. Steve healed fast and Clint, Clint didn’t give a fuck. Who was Tony to deny someone the option to go down in a blaze of glory, it would be ultimately hypocritical.
“What do you need?” Steve asked terse.
A martini and a supermodel in a Jacuzzi. Barring that, a gun loaded with a single bullet and a nice quiet place away from the moaning, stumbling hoard of the undead that beat themselves senseless against the front door. Something to think about besides the myriad of painful deaths that his future had funnelled down to.
“A lot of help getting into the suit and somewhere with more resources, power specifically.”
Nuclear plants could run unattended for a little while, not a long while but it did give a short grace period. They wouldn’t be able to save everywhere, not without the power grid. He really should have devoted his life to alternate forms of energy; clean energy would have been a nice legacy to leave behind, and really how hard could it be? That Richards kid, he’d been looking into harvesting energy from alternate realities. How close was he to a viable model? Would there be time to enact it? (Probably not, that kind of thing was an engineering wet dream.)
The Baxter building had state of the art defences, meant just as much to keep the brilliant little terrors in as it was to keep people out. There was a chance that if they had been smart and locked down as soon as everything hit code red then they would be able to hold out in there. Of course, even if it was filled with geniuses, it was an installation run by the U.S. Army and therefore probably overrun with the undead feasting on some premium grade A craniums.
Tony blinked slowly and watched as Steve ran over the options in his own head. He hadn’t been able to find the words to talk about the nuclear power stations, failing hospitals, the fact that while New York burned Steve had brought Bucky and Gail into their little ware-house den. Nothing against the elderly, but he doubted they would be much use in a fight, vet or not. There was just so much to do.
“Radio stations are down, if we could take over one, we could organize people.” The leather of Steve’s glove creaked under the strength of his grip. He had grim, determined look on his face that Tony was beginning to think was mostly a bad sign. What good could determination from a man who rode a warhead into an ocean be? “Could you work a radio station?”
“I could build you one with the right parts, the main problem we’ll have is power. It’s been two weeks since the grid went down; I can’t tell you what the status of every back-up generator in the city will be.” (In the beginning Tony had mostly holed himself up in his penthouse and tried to work out a model where the government managed to keep a lid on this themselves. That was until Steve found him and guilt tripped him into working the front lines with him like a good little trench monkey. Tony had been so close to finding a way to keep the power at the prison, god knows how many super powered villains were free now?)
Steve rocked on his toes. This wasn’t a problem you could punch in the face. It wasn’t a matter of just hitting something harder or in the right spot. The infrastructure to America was failing with a shocking swiftness.
Tony was exhausted. It had been a bad day before the zombies really gained a foothold. That was three weeks ago and he hadn’t really slept since. He was running on fumes and people kept asking him questions. Implicit disappointment when he didn’t have the answer, like a magician out of a hat. It reminded him painfully of when he’d been young and his father was still trying to drill ‘don’t let them see you as anything but perfect’ into his head. Only he was failing over and over again and the strain was getting to be a little much to deal with without a bit of ethanol-fuelled support.
“Leave the suit, we’ll check it out on foot.”
“What-- no way.” Tony said. He wasn’t going out there without hard metal between him and the zombie hoard. There was a small chance his altered genetics would stop the virus from being transmit, but that wasn’t something he wanted to gamble on. Las Vegas was a smoking crater that would make a nice tourist trap in a few years, assuming they survived this, there was no excuse for odds like that. Even if he didn’t turn they were getting vicious, hungry now that the heard had thinned a little and they would rip him limb from limb. Just no. First, he can’t grow back limbs anymore, second-- no.
“We’ll leave the suit for when we really need it.” Steve continued, railroading over his objections.
“No.” Tony said, if he had been standing up he would have crossed his arms, as it was he sat up straighter despite the knotting of muscles in his back.
He was probably exhausted, that would be why he wasn’t expecting the way that Steve pulled himself up to his full height towering over Tony eyes flashing with anger. It was only years of squaring off with people that wanted to kill him that stopped Tony from flinching away from the raw rage in Steve’s eyes.
“We’re going to need you there.” Apparently this was different than the usual times they argued about strategy.
“I’m telling you there is no way in hell.” Tony snarled. He did stand up now. He wasn’t as tall as Captain America, but he wasn’t shorter by much, this way they were eye to eye. Don’t let them see your weaknesses.
Tony was actually shocked when Steve bodily grabbed him and shook him. He never had really been the best with people, they never quite fit the logical boxes that Tony made for them. Tony managed to get his hands around Steve’s wrists, unable to pry them off his shirt, and effectively clinging to him as he tried not to let Steve do any actual harm. He forced his hands to let go, playing limp in Steve’s grip, glaring from behind his lashes.
“Be ready to head out in an hour. We’ll zipline as close as we can get.”
Steve let him go without another bone-jarring shake and Tony dropped onto his feet, irritated that Steve could lift him bodily so easily. It was cheating, using strength like that. Tony was used to Steve at least listening to his objections.
“Sure thing, doll.” Tony drawled to hide the way his heart was thumping, despite the way his joints ached and his stomach twisted and rolled.
“Are you any good with a gun?” Clint asked, having stayed quiet through the entire exchange.
Tony scoffed at him. “I was an arms dealer.” Tony said, but it came out more tired than scathing.
“A headshot on a moving target takes a lot of skill. Try to take out the legs to slow them down.” Clint said practically. He wasn’t offering any more sage advice so Tony turned on his boots and left.
Tony’s war with the idea of mortality had brought him through every iteration of the suit, back when he had been young and next to impossible to kill through to now when he was all too frail and human. Tony stood high on the roof where Thor was meditating, watching as a women in business attire was being eaten by a fat balding man. The man hadn’t been dead long, not long enough to look like he was really rotting, he wasn’t a Romero zombie quiet yet, waxy pale under the dark maroon of old blood but not shambling. Up here the snow was thicker except in the patches where it had slid like a landslide over the edges, they were both standing in one of those very spaces.
From this high he could hear the obscene pleased noise he made as he ate, little gurgles like a child, the air was still and there wasn’t anything else to drown it out. The snow around her was splashed, the blood turning it to slush around her cooling body.
Great, just what they needed more snow to deal with. It was slow-going on the streets as it was.
“Is this the end of days?” Tony asked, not really expecting Thor to answer, he had never bought that Thor was some sort of all seeing, all knowing demo-god anyways.
“It does seem a lot like hell on earth.” Thor rumbled and Tony hummed. What did they call the apocalypse again? Every faith had their own term for it.
“I should have expected that the world couldn’t actually go on without me.” Tony grinned, morbidly amused by the idea.
“It does seem that way Stark.” Thor replied easily. Tony had seem him grab two bodies and slam their heads together so hard that the whole thing had exploded into a mess of bone and brains, blood spraying with a Tarantino effect, so much over-ripe melon everywhere.
“Steve thinks we can still save things.” The city looked dead, only smoke rising sluggishly into the sky giving it an illusion of movement, sunlight glittering over the snow-covered buildings in the distance. At night it was the choice between fires and freezing to death. It was a good thing he didn’t believe in god, only a cruel deity would plague them with the undead during winter.
“What else is there to do?” Thor asked.
Tony thought again of Natasha and the cabin in the woods. He would have been safe there, until he died, it was only a matter of time now, no medication, weakening muscles. There was no doubt that she would have left him to his fate as soon as he stopped being useful.
Two hours came a lot faster and a lot slower than Tony would have liked. Bucky and Gail crowded near the door. Steve was murmuring to them eyes huge and blue, an expression he reserved for them and only them. Clint was a walking armoury, face grim and determined, probably even a little hopeful. Thor looked much the way he always did, like it would take a little more than the end of the world to really rattle him. Hell, maybe he was a god. (The jury was still out on that one.)
Tony felt naked in a way that had nothing to do with the Kevlar vest that was snug around his ribs and the way the holsters felt awkward strapped to his thigh. It all fit awkwardly under and over his suit, the last suit he had that wasn’t caked in the inertial dampening fluid from inside the Iron Man. He had been flying it mostly naked lately to save his clothes. The fluid kept him from battering himself against the electronics every time he stopped rapidly. It was partially to stop him from snapping bones, and partially to protect the suit which wasn’t as durable on the inside.
“Clint, you’re point, Thor you take rear, Tony, stick to me.” Steve said as they headed out. Steve was carrying a pack with some food in it, things he had scavenged from the surrounding warehouses. They had decided to tackle on of the bridges instead of attempting a tunnel. Either of them were choke points but at least they would die with the sun blazing overhead. It was a long way to go without the armour and Tony hated this plan.
Still, Steve was a man possessed.
The first creature they saw was a middle aged woman, plain to a point, brown hair, moaning and pulling herself along the snow with arms, one hanging at an awkward angle. One leg was missing below the knee, bone and gristle dragging through the snow leaving a deeper pattern, the other was hanging at a twisted angle, obviously broken. She moved slowly but surely pointed straight at them, mouth open and moaning with desperate hunger. If she could move faster she would be all over them.
Hawkeye crushed her head with one heavy boot leaving a spray of clotted blood and chips of bone like a halo—she obviously wasn’t threat enough to waste a bullet on. Tony took a half step closer to Captain America, they were too vivid and too real outside of his suit and unfiltered through cameras. He swallowed the swell of panic and trudged after Steve who had not even stopped when the woman crawled out from around a tip.
The bridge was a horrible fucking idea.
Tony ran after Steve trying to keep up to him. He clutched the gun with hands gone numb from the cold and tried to focus on watching his back and peripheries. Hawkeye was perched on top of a bus, anything that he had a clear line of sight to was dead, more dead. Thor was further behind them, taking care of whatever was attracted by the sound, crawling out of cars and from overturned vehicles. Captain America was near the front. He’d stopped throwing the shield as they closed in, instead using it to slice and bash. He could shatter a shoulder with a shove forward, bones sticking through skin as they attacked until the brain stem was destroyed. The snow around the, wasn’t white, muddy brown and sticking to his feet making it hard to keep moving.
Irritatingly Hawkeye had been right, with how fast they moved Tony was hopeless with headshots, emptying an entire clip in the effort to bring two down before they got too close. He was decent on the range but those were paper targets that moved in predictable patterns. In their single-minded desire they did follow a sort of inherent logic, but he still wasn’t fast enough.
For the most part he kept himself out of trouble and helped where he could. If he wasn’t in the company of the rest of the Ultimates, he would be irritated by how useless he was outside of the costume. It was a bit appalling how little he could do, how they made him look so plain and human when he was far less human than Clint was.
It was only a second’s distraction. A human noise stuck between all the animal sounds like one badly played key. It was all the distraction that was needed, Tony went down with a grunt, falling backwards into the snow with a muffled sound. It was a soft landing at least, but the body that followed him down was anything but soft.
He’d been a teenager, tall and gangly, half of his face ripped away, skin peeled back to show the shine of light on wet bone. The terrified sound caught in Tony’s throat and shoved both his arms up just to keep him away. You’d think the undead would be brittle, muscles like so much weak spaghetti maybe it was the whole desperation to chew on his face that gave them the motivation but they were strong. Tony yelled, a short exclamation of pure horror, it was drooling on him, stringy and cold, pink with blood, sliding over his cheek.
Steve sliced it in half with the sharp edge of his flung shield, its legs going heavy as the spinal cord was cut through severing nerves. It didn’t even seem to notice, arms around Tony’s shoulders trying to pull him up to snapping jaws. In a move of unforeseen intelligence it turned its head and sank teeth into his arm instead.
Without legs to brace it Tony was able to roll them over, flinging himself away from it tearing his arm free from his jaws. There was snow down the back of his jacket and his ass was wet from the puddle of slush. His gun was lying in the snow not too far away from his knee. He picked it up with nerveless fingers and shot, one, two, five times. He only hit it twice, his hands were shaking so bad but it stopped trying to crawl towards him dragging it’s almost completely severed legs.
Silence answered the last shot.
The battle was over.
“Come along Stark.” Thor said, reaching down to help Tony to his feet. Nothing but sheer determination kept his knees from buckling instantly.
“Stop.” Steve called voice sharp and hard.
Tony flinched, pulling his arm close to his chest.
It was unsurprising to find both of Clint’s hand guns aimed at his head. “You were bitten.” Steve said, he was scowling, but it looked brittle around the edges on the verge of crumbling. He hadn’t took loosing Jan well and there was a small petty part of Tony that wanted to laugh, to rub it in, to hope that Steve hurt because Tony was dying anyways but he didn’t want it to be like this.
“I told you this was a bad plan.” He said instead, his voice was muffled and far away. He was going into shock, how embarrassing, how plebeian.
“Tony.” Steve said tightly, and Tony was curious to see what kind of platitude covered this situation. You’re going to turn into a zombie, sorry about that, here’s a fruit basket.
“There is a chance I won’t change.” Tony said voice scratchy and uneven.
“Everyone wants to believe that.” Clint said roughly. There was nothing like having to watch someone shoot your own children in the head because they were coming back and out for blood. Not that Tony would know, his own genome was too messed up to reproduce.
“I mean it. I’m not exactly... human.” Tony admit, his voice wavered. This wasn’t how he expected to reveal himself to-- well anyone. Steve stared at him, too much hope to be actually hard looked a lot like Steve Rogers and not Captain America, rigid partitions nowhere to be seen.
“Explain.” Steve’s eyes were bluer than the sky, peering at him like they could see through him, all the way down to his mutated DNA.
“It’s a long story, bad lab safety procedures and some unethical science. You saw them, the riots when this started, some mutants are immune.” It was a long shot in the dark with a moving target.
“Keep a close eye on him. I’m not going to lose someone else without trying. I’ll take point, Clint watch Tony, Thor you’re rear again, let’s move out.”
He couldn’t make out Hawkeye’s expression, the sun was glaring off his glasses hiding his eyes. Tony gave him a smile that felt more like a grimace. He wiped the saliva off his cheek and wrapped his sleeve closer around his wounded arm the wound throbbed and felt hot already. Things were not looking up for his continued survival.
He staggered to his feet and wondered if it was all in his head or if he could actually feel the virus flooding through his system.
“Steve, a word.” Tony said, he could feel Clint’s eyes like a cross-hair between his shoulders. It wasn’t exactly comforting.
“Stark.” Steve said, looking at him out of the corner of his eye, his eyes danced up and down his form as if he stared hard enough he could see the sickness spreading through him.
“Near the mansion there is a military base, it used to be a top secret think tank for highly gifted children.”
If Steve was surprised he didn’t say anything, just nodded tightly. He probably knew where Tony was going with this but wasn’t going to interrupt him. Tony really wished he would.
“Recently it was converted to a base of operations for inter-dimensional research, but is still home to some very gifted scientists.”
“Stark.” Steve finally said, looking uncomfortable. He shifted his shield, rotating his shoulders. They continued to slug through the snow, it was getting more difficult to push forward, you never knew how much snow removal was an asset until the end of the world started and no one could be bothered to grit the roads.
“Reed Richards.” He continued, amused at the look of discomfort on Steve’s face. “Another product of unethical science gone wrong and Sue Storm too they probably survived, if anyone could help, it would be them. There isn’t a chance in hell any of you could fix a radio tower.” Jan might have been able to rig something up, Hank or Bruce definitely, but for genius was often tempered with a fair bit of instability.
“Understood.” Steve nodded sharply. He was still watching Tony carefully.
The walk seemed to go on forever. Or maybe the virus was eating his insides. He felt weak and tired, the idea of putting one foot in front of the other seemed like far too much work. The buildings rose out of snow, close and claustrophobic, too many corners and shadows for things to hide. If something came at them he wasn’t going to be able to run.
Tony focused on putting one foot in front of the other. He could see the solid shape of Steve ranging in front of them, winter campaigns were nothing new to him. Tony was pleased to find that he didn’t want to eat him any more than he normally did (wide shoulders and big hands, he wasn’t blind). He’d been using it as a bench mark ‘on a scale of 1 to 10 how edible did Steve look’, taking notes in his head, hot and cold flashes, most likely running a fever, skin burning, cold feeling like needles across his flesh, spikes of sensation that at the very least keep him focused.
They ran into a hoard, a mass knot of creatures stumbling towards a building on fire. Steve’s jaw was tight.
Tony sagged trying not to look like he was unduly hungry lest Clint decide that it was time to put Tony down.
“I can’t.” He said, “not like this.”
Steve’s mouth went, it hadn’t seemed possible, thinner. He glanced over at Tony, looking oddly guilty. “We’ll go around.”
A loud, living, scream tore through the noise inciting the moaning and wailing up into a frenzy, it cut off as suddenly as it began-- wet and gurgling. They wouldn’t have had the time to save them even if they had decided to cut straight through.
Tony saw the radio station, made it as far as the front gate before gasping with the sudden cold, breathing was like shoving needles through his throat, realizing only moments later that he had fallen face-first in snow. Everything went a little fuzzy after that, the sensation of movement, sky and ground flip-flopping dizzily as normal things like thought slipped through his fingers.
He couldn’t point out the moment he went unconscious, far too used to drinking himself to oblivion to even be properly worried about it.
Coming back, that was something else entirely. Everything hurt, a full-body hurt that made him want to gag at the thought of ever moving. Being shot in the head had actually hurt less and that was saying a lot.
He tried to move anyways because he wasn’t in his bed and waking up after a real black-out anywhere but home never ended well.
A gunshot rang out, sudden and loud like the soundwaves were splitting his skull open. It must have been close to him because bits of plaster flew off, little stings as it hit his bared arms.
“Shit.” Tony swore, rolling away from the shot that had taken the wall out beside him.
“You weren’t lying.”
Tony opened his eyes and the lights danced painfully, resolving into an image of Clint leaning against the far wall gun still aimed straight at his face, his aim didn’t waver even a little. Tony let his eyes close again. The poster of the cat above him ‘keep hanging in there’ was too much for him to take.
“Thanks for the warning shot.” He managed to say at last.
“No problem.” He replied breezily with a small completely fake smile.
Sitting up hurt too much so Tony slumped against the wall, breathing through the pain the way he learned to do when he was a kid and the bio-armour was his only defence.
“I guess I’m glad you’re not dead.” Hawkeye offered awkwardly and Tony huffed not quite a laugh, but a sentiment he could appreciate.
The wall was cold and he was still flashing too-hot, fever raging through his system. His immune system was short a miracle of nature, twisted and mutated to adapt to his unique physiology as his genome was. It had been a gamble, admittedly the kind of shot that only someone of Hawkeye’s skill could have pulled off.
If he was honest he was surprised that Steve had left Hawkeye with him. The logical thing to do would have been to just kill him, they were preciously low on man-power. Unless of course Steve and Thor were dead, it would take a lot more than some walking dead to take down Captain America and the god of Thunder, so that was just plain ridiculous.
Tony rolled his head along the wall and focused on the slow thump of his heart beat until he felt better, well less like he was being pulled apart at the atomic level. “How long?” He asked. They were in some sort of break room, the table shoved out of the way and pressed against the far wall.
“Two days, they left about four hours ago to find the Baxter building.”
“Would it be in poor taste to say I was hungry?” Tony asked, giving Clint a slow, malicious smile.
“Not funny.” Clint replied but dug around a small sack at his knee until he could reach a meal bar, he tossed it across the room and it landed and skidded to a stop just far enough away that Tony would need to move to grab it. He stared at it, debating moving versus if he could keep the food down if he did get to it and decided against it. He’d been mostly joking anyways.
“Au contraire darling, I thought it was hysterical.” Tony managed back and he could see the disgusted face Clint pulled even in the half-light that spilled in through the one window.
Tony woke up again with hands touching his face. He shoved them hard, pulling away (hands reaching for him, teeth sinking into his arm, they want the meat from his bones, neurons high in fat content holy fuck) his head rang as he smacked it off the wall in the haste to get away.
The next hands held him down, one against his shoulder the other wrapped around his wrist, even as he tugged he couldn’t budge like being pinned down by a statue.
“Stand down.” Steve snarled at him and Tony gave a few more tugs just to be irritating, licked his lips and carefully opened his eyes. Steve’s scowl was much too close to his face, he was covered in gore and smelled to high heaven. At some point in the intervening time he’d apparently had a bath in zombie innards.
“Come here often, gorgeous?” He said to the blond slip of a woman who was crouching behind Steve, far too close, like his little burst of anxiety didn’t scare her off.
“He’s running a fever.” She said to Steve, Steve nodded he let go and Tony shivered, suddenly cold where Steve had been to warm a moment ago. At least a fever would account for his hot and cold flashes.
“I’m fine.” Fine being a relative term, he felt a lot better than he did the last time he woke up and still didn’t want to eat Steve’s face so he was willing to label that crisis averted. There was a small comforting in knowing that this still wasn’t how it was going to end. Steve was still too close, pressing into his personal space with huge shoulders and huge hands. He was like a goliath.
There was no glib way to show gratitude for not being summarily shot in the cranium, and Tony wasn’t very good at anything deeper so he just managed a small smile for Steve, confused when Steve returned it.
“So I hear you’re immune.” The girl said again, and the interest would be flattering if he didn’t recognize it as purely scientific. Then he recognizes her, Sue grew up fine. He wondered if she still had that ridiculous crush on uber-nerd Richards. “Mind if I take a look?” She continued, ignoring his leer.
“Not worried that I might bite?” Tony asked, he was too weak to actually help her as she grabbed for his arm. Steve looked pained, still standing too close giving neither of them space to breath.
“I can handle myself.” She said with a smirk.
--
Tony got in a vicious argument with Richards.
He was still barely standing, had choked down two of Clint’s horrible meal replacement bars, they tasted a lot like chalk, but he was still on a flat 0 on wanting to eat his team mates so yay. The only upside being that Sue saw him as less of patient and more of a specimen. There was no way he could handle any sympathetic babying, unless it meant she was going to give him a blowjob and there was something soothing about a purely scientific interest.
Maybe that was why Richards was in such a state. He really needed to sort out his priorities.
Either way. Tony had saved the generator from Richards’ attempts to improve the output. In theory his model would have worked but the infrastructure for the building wouldn’t have been able to handle the excess power for long, a few weeks at most before something blew. That was the difference between theoretical physics and practical engineering.
“Status?”
“Tower is almost up and running.” Tony replied, he needed to be able to bounce the signal across the USA which meant scanning for active stations and setting up a reverse interface.
“ETA?”
“Two hours max, now that I have Richards out of my hair.”
Grimm and Storm were using what was left of the fantasticar’s (who even let Richards name things?) fuel reserves to go get the suit and the Barnes. Tony just didn’t have the energy to make the trip himself. He’d feel a lot better with his armour in arms’ reach again even if it wouldn’t run. The world’s most expensive security blanket.
“And you?”
Steve was doing that thing where he was in Tony’s space again, huge and smelling mildly better now that he’d found a way to wash the rotting meat off of him, but still days without a proper shower. This close his facial hair was growing in, blond and soft looking, unless they got society running again he was going to end up looking a lot like Thor. Still, if he insisted on hovering like this Tony was going to have to start complaining.
“Just great.” Tony lied. “I’m beginning to think you care.”
Steve’s gloves were rough, grabbing his chin and pulling him so their faces were much too close, closer even than before only a fraction of an inch separating them. Blue eyes and pale blond lashes, he actually looked tired, worn around the edges like even his perfect body was having trouble keeping up with what he was demanding of it. “I’m not losing anyone else.”
“Sir, yes sir.” Tony joked and Steve made an irritated bitten off noise.
He’d sort of expected that to be it, for Steve to leave him to his work. Only Steve was pressing their lips together, his hold on Tony’s chin too hard for him to break out of without hurting himself, so he let Steve kiss him. There were worse things.
Worse things that wanted to eat, than Steve biting down too hard on his bottom lip. Tony jerked, he was already crowded against the wall and there wasn’t anywhere else he could go. “I appreciate the sentiment, but really?” There are jokes in here somewhere, last man on earth and all that.
Steve looked like he had something to say, but wouldn’t let it out, eyes intense and almost angry. Tony refused to quail, instead he just set his jaw and feathered his fingers across broad shoulders. Three, two, one.
As if on cue, Sue made a startled sound like something small and furry being stepped on. She’d been coming back once an hour, every hour to the minute to collect more blood so when they got to a lab she could watch the progression of his immune response to the virus. Tony still hated needles more than anything else but he was an adult now, capable of ignoring the tightening in his stomach. At the very least she had a scientist’s eye for time trials that he could appreciate.
Steve didn’t jump away like he was scalded his fingers tightening on Tony’s jaw a fraction before he let go slowly. Well that was interesting, unexpected. “I, oh, well.” Sue stammered, suddenly nothing like the ‘woman of the world’ persona that she clung to.
“Did you need something?” Steve said, commanding and she jerked, coming to attention without even knowing it. Tony would have laughed if he hadn’t been so damnably sober.
“Blood.” She blurted, correcting herself right away. “I need more of Tony’s blood. I’m tracking his immunity, I’ve got time points.” She finished, trailing off again, uncertainly. Admittedly not many people knew how to react to Captain America other than to jump when he barked. It was an interesting talent.
“Come find me when we’re broadcasting.” Steve said, searching Tony’s face, Tony remained carefully blank about it. Steve left, shoulders held straight and chin held high, determined not to be embarrassed.
“So.” Sue began uncertainly.
“Don’t ask me, sweetheart.” Tony replied. She pulled the syringe and vials, setting them in neat little row, they were already labelled.
“I wasn’t going to ask anything.” She said too quickly.
Tony just breathed through the faint sting of the needle going through his skin.
There wasn’t much that needed to be done once they got the generator up and running, just adjusting the signal output and figuring out where the on-switch was. Two hours had been a generous assessment, but gave him forty-five minutes to decide if he wanted to send someone else to tell Steve that it was ready, or to go poke the lion himself.
“Thor, my man. Just the one I wanted to see. I need you to hit the tower with a little jolt, I’ve set up the generator to take a charge, just don’t over-do it. We’re going to need the juice.” Not really true, but if this worked then he might be able to rig up a system where Thor could charge the armour and then he was never going outside without it again.
He hadn’t seen Clint since he’d been relieved of ‘shoot Tony in the head if he moves’ duty. Thor nodded at him slowly, he was taking what looked like a t-shirt to the edges of Mjolnir. Flakes of dried blood and gunk were falling everywhere, encrusted into the fantastically detailed etch-work on the sides. Tony made a face but deigned not to comment.
“You’re immunity is fortunate.” Thor gave him a smile, and Tony shrugged. It’s the reason he’s dying in the first place, there is a sort of cosmic irony that Thor would probably appreciate somewhere in there.
“Yeah, not shuffling off any mortal coils any time soon. There is always tomorrow for that.”
Thor huffed a low laugh and it was one hell of a coincidence that it managed to sound just like the low rumble of distant thunder, his touch was gentle when he pat Tony’s back and for that he was glad, his fever made him feel like one huge bruise, more so than usual. A three on his usual scale of one to ten.
He should be more worried about the rest of the plan, but he didn’t have enough energy to do anything but react. Thor probably knew what was going on. Tony found that he really didn’t care. Which left him with one huge, national icon shaped question.
“You seem to be holding up well.” Tony began and Thor nodded with a faint shrug.
“I was aware it was only a matter of time, you cannot let industrialism run rampant and not expect something to go wrong.” Tony half figured Thor was just waiting to be able to say that. Fair enough when the big guy had a point.
“Three cheers for unethical science. At least when this is all over I’m in a very good position to make a killing repairing the infrastructure.” Thor just smiled at him indulgently. They had a certain kinship that involved a lot of rubbing their personal philosophies in each others’ faces. It should have been antagonistic but somehow came out teasing and fond. What was left to be seen was if there were enough people to be able to rebuild.
Some silent tacit agreement stopped them from talking about the worst-case scenario. In all his wildest imaginings he couldn’t picture the world without people in it, cities left like so much dust in the wind. New York was just so alive it was insane to imagine it dead. Maybe that crazy Magneto-guy that had been on the television before they all went down was right and this was the moment that mutants inherit the earth. (Doesn’t Tony just know that they were going to have to deal with him eventually, and the thought was just exhausting.)
“So, Steve.” Tony began, going with the assumption that Thor would fill in as he pleased.
“The Captain,” Thor paused looking troubled, “I believe he has not accepted the loss of the Wasp well. Still, he is very skilled at compartmentalizing.”
“That’s what I thought.” Tony rolled his shoulders back. Thor just gave him a long assessing look.
“It would be cruel to judge him for clinging tightly to what is left.” He finally said, with all the gravitas of a sage delivering a prophecy. Tony should probably protest being a zombie apocalypse rebound.
Still, Thor did have a very good point and so Tony went to find Steve on his own, finding him covered in snow, water dripping from his nose and cheeks as he shook out his armour.
There were a number of ways he could approach this. Alas, planning had never been his forte, head-on assaults always seem to work the best at any rate. Steve’s mouth was cold, lips frozen giving the most intense contrast to how hot it was inside as Tony pushed his tongue inside.
Cold fingers against the skin on his hips even through jacket was enough to send a jolt of pain through him Steve’s hands were improbably cold. Tony bit down on Steve’s bottom lip ignoring cold hands to focus on licking into his mouth. Steve was sucking all the warmth out of him, leaving a clammy sort of cold behind. “Tony? What are you doing?” Steve said, frowning as he bodily lifted Tony off of him, putting him down on his feet at arms’ length.
“Let’s not talk about it.” Tony offered, tipping his head back a little so he could better watch Steve’s face. Not that it helped at all, his eyebrows doing something complicated before it smoothed out into a sort of grim determination. That was all the warning he got before he was kissed again.
This time they were both trying, Tony’s hands on Steve’s cheeks, Steve pulling Tony closer until they were pressed as tight as they could be. The slow glide of tongues and lips threatened to leave Tony breathless, or maybe it was the last vestiges of the virus sizzling through his system. Either way he gasped a little when their kiss finally broke, breathing hard and finding himself tilted back and held up entirely by arms around his waist as Steve pressed his face to his neck breathing soft and quick.
The last thing on his mind was ‘talking this out’ when Steve groped him through his pants he apparently Steve was of a similar mind, scraping his teeth over the skin of his neck. Tony shivered, dug his fingers into thick shoulders and tried not to laugh. That would probably be a little insulting, and he was at the never-very tender mercies of Captain America. Besides, he wanted this.
“You’ve got fifteen minutes before Sue wants more of my blood.” Tony said, pressing the sharp edge of his smile to Steve’s jaw. Fingers tightened on his hips, he was bodily lifted an inch of the ground the toes of his boots scrapping the floor. Tony grabbed his shoulders holding himself up with a grunt of exertion that cut off into breathlessness when Steve pushed him against a wall.
“She’ll wait.” Steve said, low and dangerous. It was a tone you didn’t argue with, protocol be damned. Tony just let out a shaky laugh. With Steve pressed like this along his front, thigh shoved between his, and the wall at his back Tony couldn’t move if he’d been crazy enough to want to. He was pinned a lot like Hank’s butterfly collection.
Steve cut off Tony’s next remark with his mouth, it was a good one too words bitten right from his mouth. He tasted like the chalky chocolate of their meal replacement bars and instant coffee. Tony chased the taste, trying to worm his fingers under the edges of Steve’s costume and not making much progress. It was designed to withstand just that kind of thing. Steve kissed him like he was absolutely desperate, like Tony was the last kiss he would ever have, making little sounds in his chest, pushing further into his space until it was getting hard to focus on anything but Steve.
Tony was literally made of brains, but Steve was huge and impossible to ignore, focused completely on taking Tony apart completely with his mouth. Someone with a boy-scout image shouldn’t be able to kiss so filthy. It took him by surprise, left him off balance, unable to manage anything but to trying not to cling like a damsel and give as good as he got.
Tony managed to get a handle that much.
Sucking on Steve’s tongue until he made a desperate sound pushing his dick into Tony’s stomach and rocking against him in tight little movements that shoved Tony roughly back against the wall. Steve bit at his jaw scraping his teeth through his beard. He’d seen Steve be gentle with Jan, touching her lightly despite knowing what kind of damage threshold she had, and this wasn’t that at all. He was shoving back up against Steve, rocking against his solid thigh with what leverage he could manage. There was something almost attractive about the lack of finesse. Without any warning Steve dropped to his knees.
“Shit.” Tony gasped, sagging against the wall staring down at Steve’s face pressed against his thigh, blond hair soft and fuzzy under his hands, not nearly long enough to tangle in.
“I just--,” Steve growled, visibly gave up on it as a lost cause and roughly tugged Tony’s pants open.
“Yeah, okay. Sure.” Tony replied, letting his hips be jerked around as Steve shoved his trousers and boxers down. He was almost completely hard already, no point in being ashamed about the fact that he got off on being pushed around. There was a good chance this was just a fever dream anyways. After all, Captain America went to his knees for no one.
He also wasted no time, taking Tony into his mouth with one dip of his head.
He was talking, words spilling out of his lips without input from anything else, smoothing his fingers restlessly across Steve’s ears and jaw unable to keep still. ’Fuck yes, how did you get so good at this? Just a bit more, yeah babe, take it a little deeper.’ Talking to the image of Steve’s blond head shifting and bobbing. He couldn’t stop their flow any more than he could pry Steve’s fingers from the death grip they had on his hips.
It was ruthless-- if a blow job could be described as ruthless (the way Steve gave them they most defiantly could be). He was single-minded about it, huge hands gripping his ass, pulling him closer and closer. If he was a sentimental man he’d wonder about that. Instead Tony just scratched at Steve’s scalp lightly hissing out a stream of obscene endearments.
It was fast, could only be with the way Steve seemed intent on bullying him into orgasm.
One moment all he could focus on was the wet heat, suction and Steve’s fingers pressing close to his hole as he used a grip on his ass to control him. The next was that breathless stretch, stomach pulling in tight, pleasure so sharp it was threatening to flay him.
Tony curled forward bent over Steve, breathing sharply once before he came, scrabbling at Steve’s shoulders gracelessly the material sliding slick under his fingers without giving him any purchase. It seemed to go on forever, hollowing him out until he was limp, leaning hard on Steve to even stay standing. It didn’t seem to bother Steve at least, man-handling Tony until he was at least resting most of his weight against the wall and resting his forehead against Tony’s stomach.
In the aftermath everything was oddly silent, Tony breathing hard and tight, heart beat thundering in his own head loud enough that Steve had to be able to hear it. He laughed weakly, running his hands across Steve’s scalp again, rubbing softly behind . “Do I even want to know, darling?”
Steve scowled up at him, the normal dour effect lost a little weight with the fact that his mouth was swollen red, his chin shiny with saliva, and cheeks flushed pale pink. Tony dragged his thumb through the mess and Steve shook him off, pulling himself straight. He was obviously hard, also, well hung he couldn’t help but notice. Tony lazily began straightening his clothes watching Steve through his lashes. Steve adjusted himself and rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth in a move that should have been shameless and just looked practical on Steve.
“Want a hand with that?” Tony offered licking at his teeth, it was only polite, even if he felt about as stable as a wet noodle.
“Later.” Steve grunted. Still he let Tony grab his wrist and reel him in for another kiss. There was something almost narcissistic in licking the taste of his own spunk off of Steve’s tongue. “I’m glad you’re alive.” Steve said against his mouth, eyes shut. It felt a lot like Steve hadn’t even meant to say it.
Tony didn’t know what to say to that so he said nothing just sighed against Steve’s mouth. This could become troublesome if everything got back to normal. Still, it would have caused Betty Ross to throw a conniption, so it couldn’t have been all bad. Wonder if she survived, without S.H.I.E.L.D. where would she have gone? Didn’t really matter in the end.
“I’ll come find you after, we’ll make Stark Industries HQ, that way you don’t need to go out without the suit.” He sounded almost apologetic about it.
“I’ll still need help getting in and out of it.” Tony said, and Steve rolled his eyes but shrugged.
“That’s what I’m here for.”
Billions of dollars in government research being put to good use.
With that Steve left him there, standing in the sunlight.
It was glittering off the snow brighter than the sky itself, threatening to blind him when he made the mistake of looking at it too long.
Sue Storm found him not even five minutes later when he hadn’t bothered to move, she must have been waiting-- it was almost funny. The very careful way she didn’t mention Steve was funny anyways even if she didn’t think so.
After, they met up with what was left of the super-powered citizens. Johnny Storm was like the exact male counterpart of his sister, blond with big blue eyes, slim-shouldered with a baby face. He also had the irritating habit of lighting his fingers on fire and putting it out over and over again, the mutant equivalent of fidgeting with a lighter. Ben Grimm couldn’t seem to stay still, as if he was afraid if he did people would assume he was just a gargoyle, oddly it was less irritating than Johnny’s fire thing. Reed drew the line at wrapping around his girlfriend but he did hover, giving Tony puppy eyes. Tony should have never mentioned he remembered him from the few times he’d visited the Baxter Building with his father, back when it had still been a think tank. Admittedly he probably shouldn’t have proceeded that with ‘well you didn’t grow up as amazingly, must be a Storm thing’ (her brother looked like something out of a gay porno shoot, probably getting his ass pounded by someone who looked a lot like Thor).
Clint was perched by a window tracking the outside world, goggles cutting the glare, or so Tony assumed. Thor was leaning against a wall ignoring the way that Johnny Storm was trying his hardest not to stare but seemingly unable to stop himself. The fire at his fingertips fizzled out again as he shifted his weight, leaning towards Thor and then jerking back.
The radio they’d pulled up from some poor SOB’s desk crackled, the constantly static fuzz shifting and deepening for a moment before Steve’s voice came on.
“To everyone left alive, this is Captain America, I’m talking to you from New York.” He began and Tony smiled a little, letting his head tip back against the rest of the rolling chair he’d stolen. “This is only the beginning of the war, I’m not going to lie to you and tell you everything is going to be alright, but we can beat this. Stay calm, stay alive, now more than ever America needs each and every one of you.”
Hell, Tony’s inspired and he was half sure the whole thing was a load of horse shit. Johnny Storm looked like he was about to wet himself with sheer excitement.
“Hide when you can, and destroy the spinal column when you can’t.” He continued in the same tone.
Tony didn’t bother to pay attention for the bit in the middle. Rallying the troops drivel, he did catch the end, Steve’s decent, even, all-together level tone saying, “and god bless America.” Like, to him the words weren’t something you tacked on the end to a statement to show your spirit, but like it meant something.
Tony smirked at the ceiling, the others were talking all over top of each other the Fantastic Four like a bunch of eager teenagers. He was contemplating the fact that Steve had just given his whole inspirational speech while his breath smelled like Tony’s jizz.
Hell, maybe everything would work out. Just to spite him.