Jaune Chat's Life, the Universe, and Everything

The Naked Legion

2019-08-13T06:50:19Z

Title: The Naked Legion
Author: jaune_chat
Fandoms: Original Work
Characters/Relationships: Original male character/original male character
Rating: NC-17
Word count: 10,302
Content Advisory: Space Marines, Aliens, Tentacles, Tentacle Sex, Ovipositioning, Object Insertion, Concentacles, Symbionts
Disclaimer: Not mine, just playing.
A/N: Written for wipbigbangWIP Big Bang 2019</a>. Inspired by an idea from heeroluva. Thank you to brighteyed_jill and princess-of-the-worlds for betaing!
Art Link - Right here from Taste-is-Sweet!
Summary: In the distant future, Stellar Marines are fighting a war against aliens whose nature makes them impossible to negotiate with and a nightmare to fight against. Those who bond with symbionts become the vanguard in the war to keep people safe, but only if they're the kind of person who wants everything the symbionts have to offer. Rio is about to join his husband Shen in: the Naked Legion.

Read it here: On Ao3

Tie a Ribbon Around Me

2019-08-13T03:35:06Z

Title: Tie a Ribbon Around Me
Author: jaune_chat
Fandoms: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Characters/Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Rating: NC-17
Word count: 8,154
Content Advisory: Alpha/Beta/Omega dynamic, courting, fashion and couture, no-power AU, alternate history
Disclaimer: Not mine, just playing.
A/N: Written for Cat Solari for Marvel Trumps Hate
Art Link - I commissioned some lovely artwork by LeeHanJi for this fic!
Summary: It's the time of the annual Courting Galas, and Tony Stark, former weapons manufacturer, has sponsored one ever since he changed the direction of his company. Never looking for anyone himself since his change of heart, he finds a sudden interest in veteran and artist Steve Rogers, who finds him just as intriguing...

On Ao3

Broken and Beautiful

2019-05-06T15:24:03Z

Title: Broken and Beautiful
Author: jaune_chat
Fandoms: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Characters/Relationships: Peter Quill/Thor Odinson, Guardians of the Galaxy crew
Rating: NC-17
Word count: 2,538
Spoilers: Avengers: Endgame
Content Advisory: Hate Sex, Hate to Love, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Romance, Fluff
Disclaimer: Not mine, just playing.
A/N: This lovely post used as a prompt - all credit to original ideas to Viperbranium.

Summary: In the aftermath of dealing with Thanos, the Guardians of the Galaxy take on a new crew member in Thor Odinson. He gets along well, too well, and Peter is tired of feeling like a fifth wheel on his own ship. He solves it the only way he can think of, but what starts as a challenge and a battle is hiding something much deeper...

It’s too much. Five years gone in an instant, brought back only an hour after learning about Gamora’s death at Thanos’ hands with an opportunity to go after the sonfoabitch. Seeing her again, but it’s just like the first meeting. They’d won, but he’d still lost Gamora, at least the Gamora he’d known.

Instead he’d gained Thor, and found out his ship was no longer his own. Rocket had been piloting the Milano for five years, and Quill couldn’t even fit in the seat anymore since it’d been modified. Somehow it hadn’t felt as bad as he’d thought. He didn’t exactly remember the time he’d spent as dust, but he’d remembered seeing most of his friends dissolve before his eyes. Arguing who got to be called the captain seemed petty after that.

He still did it anyways, because Rocket enjoyed arguing.

They travel up one side of the galaxy and down the other, all of them too restless to sit still. Despite their win against Thanos, there’s still a shit-ton of trouble going on everywhere, and plenty of work for the Guardians everywhere they go. The work let them keep moving forward towards a goal, which is something they could all use.

Thor slots into their little crew of broken things with barely a rough edge. He talks weapons with Drax, gets Groot to contribute more than sarcastic comments, laughs with Mantis about everything she finds funny (which is a lot), works with Rocket on the ship, talks about family with Nebula. He talks about grief with all of them; it’s the thing that brought them together in the first place. It’s the one thing they have in spades. It comes up in casual conversation, spliced between the finer points of knifework and the latest game on the cosmic ‘net. What’s worse is that Thor isn’t ignoring him. There’s always a “Hello”, a “Good Morning”, a question about some little piece of something onboard Peter’s picked up from his travels, a little story about something he’s seen in his long life, a joke and a smile. None of it is in the slightest bit ironic or sarcastic, but every little question about pain Peter just swallows in silence and changes the subject.

Thor wasn’t immune to the grief they shared, either. He still drank, but from the look on his face once he’d hit four beers and tried to stop, he was trying to moderate. Mantis helped immensely by being able to sense when he was about to tip over the line from “casual social drinking” to “drowning his sorrows”. She solved it in a typically Mantis way (aided and abetted by Rocket, Peter was certain); she snagged the fifth beer before Thor could and drank it herself.

Four hours in close quarters with a lightweight, tipsy, giggling empath was enough to stiffen the resolve of anyone. Not that Thor needed it, but it helped cut down the necessary stops to get beer down to once a system, rather than twice a planet. Peter started a game night to fill that void with something other than talking deep subjects, teaching the others poker from half-remembered rules learned from his grandfather, along with another half-dozen other betting games learned from Kraglin and Yondu (helpful to keep bored Ravagers occupied in ways that didn’t involve fighting each other or accidentally blowing something up). Rocket cheated, Peter made up new rules on the fly, Drax made his bets on a system of logic only comprehensible to him, Groot participated at random intervals based on his mood, Nebula was a damn card shark, Mantis saw through every bluff, and Thor was pleased beyond all reason no matter how badly the game goes. It was the last, for whatever reason, that made Peter snap one night.

“A fine game,” Thor said as they were walking back towards crew quarters. “Mantis is most gracious in her victory.”

“Yeah, somehow,” Peter muttered. He’d made up three rules on the spot to try to swing things in his favor, and she still managed to trounce them all. He would have made up a fourth rule, but Nebula had started to glare daggers at him, and he quit before she started throwing daggers at him. Thor only gave a slight chuckle, his voice richly amused as he ducked under one of the low beams in the passageway. He had surrendered his bet without a fight.

The once lean, half-shaved pirate angel no longer had the Hollywood physique of an idealized Greek statue, but he seemed the happier for it; he’s no less strong, but it’s within a body that allows for relaxation along with the strength, instead of being constantly on the edge of battle. His hair and beard are long, luxuriant and well-cared for. Mantis seems to take delight in braiding it, and teaching Nebula and Drax to do so as well. Nebula seems to do it as a sort of meditation, Drax for the reason of showing off Thor’s accomplishments. (Apparently Drax’s people have a whole language of showing their history through hair and scars, except Drax has whatever the equivalent of male pattern baldness is for his race, hence his scarification from scalp to toes. Yes, Peter has seen all of it, and not by choice.) Peter caught flowers in it once or twice, which means Groot was in on it too. Thor seemed to enjoy it, but Peter felt himself getting irritated every time he heard Thor and Mantis laughing, or saw Thor and Rocket with their hands in the Milano’s guts.

“I very much enjoy these game evenings. My friends used to have something like it…” Thor trailed off, a flicker of sadness coming over his face, “And it is good to have something like that again.”

Peter doesn’t want to show his cards (metaphorically speaking, this time), but damn it’s hard to not feel like Thor is stealing what he thought was his. Thor’s lost more than him, not just his mom and his ideal of what a father could be, but his brother and homeland, and even his girlfriend chose to leave him. Peter doesn’t have a speck of moral high ground, can’t even win at the game of “who’s the most miserable?” He feels like a stranger on his own ship, and it makes him want to break something.

He glares sideways at Thor, at his widening smile that almost looks smug, and something twists in Peter’s belly. He shoves Thor up against the wall, and Thor goes with it.

“Yes?” Thor asks, as if shoving were a totally normal thing to do to start a conversation. “You have something you want to say?”

It’s not sarcastic, it’s an opening to speak, to lay a little of that pain on Thor’s broad shoulders.

But Peter is doing just fine hauling his pain around like hot rocks in his guts. He closes the distance too fast, realizes what’s going to happen at the last second, and quietly goes, fuck it.

He kisses Thor hard, teeth and tongue and open mouth, drawing a surprised grunt out of him, then a growl of challenge. That, Peter can deal with, and he punctuates that with yanking at Thor’s shirt, his pants, heedless of his fingernails, wanting a game where he can win, or at least try with a level playing field. He wraps a hand in Thor’s braided hair and yanks, surprising Thor into a gasp. That does more than a little something for him, and Peter closes the gap to press against him, hips tilting to rut against the muscles of his thigh. Thor just growls again, freeing the hand not holding onto the wall to clasp against Peter’s ass, encouraging him to keep going, to finish it. It’s rough, hot, and messy, and leaves Peter’s head spinning and reeling when he comes.

“So there,” Peter says, and it’s not the greatest comeback line in all of history, but the dampness in Thor’s disarranged shorts says he managed to win at least one battle. A little pebble of the hot rocks vanishes when Thor smirks at him, looking utterly pleased.

That kicks off a campaign of competition measured in little cheerful wicked barbs and dented walls, in game nights that end up christening and re-christening parts of the Milano, in ripped clothing and shirts and underwear found in odd corners, in Mantis blushing when she brushed by either of them, in scratched skin and swollen lips, in skin decorated in sucking bruises, in little tally marks that Rocket was keeping track of that Peter resolved to ignore.

And it’s enough, it’s enough to carve out a space for himself again, to be a Guardian again. He’s got his friends, and he’s got his thing with Thor, and it’s all just enough until the latest battle somehow ends up in Peter’s bunk. He hadn’t realized he’d been avoiding going there, not until he’s on his back with Thor’s tongue in his mouth and his leg between Peter’s thighs, and then looks over and then there’s the things on his shelf – the tapes, the Walkman, the troll, a dagger from Gamora decorated with her etching, a note from his mother, a dried flower from Ego’s world. The noise that wells up from him isn’t a sexy moan, but more the cry of a wounded animal.

“Peter, something troubles you?”

“Fuck you!” he nearly snarls, trying to sit up. Thor lets him, but doesn’t let him go, pulling him against his solidity. The hot rocks inside of him are burning, searing, forcing themselves out of him via scalding tears, and he hates it. “I don’t want this! I don’t need this!”

Thor’s arms are around him as he twists to try to get out, to leave, too strong to resist. “None of us wanted this,” he says quietly.

“I hate it!” It was the cry of a child whose mother was stolen from him, whose father betrayed him, who was stolen from his world and had his childhood turned upside down by a man who could only manage to show he gave a damn through rough sympathy under a veneer of indifference. Peter realizes his face is wet with tears and goddamn it, he can’t be doing this. But Thor is pulling him to his shoulder, letting him cry into that long, soft hair, and it’s too nice, it’s too sweet, it’s too soft for what they’ve been doing.

It’s like pulling out a single thread, and Peter unravels, talking into Thor’s skin, unloading the rocks so they no longer burn, but just make him feel empty inside. Thor’s hands caress along his back, soothing and calming, but when Peter can finally pull back and look up, Thor’s eyes are as wet as his, his own face marked by tear tracks. Peter realizes what he’s done and wants to think about panicking, like, at any time now. Thor brings them closer, kissing him softly, so softly, and God, Peter can’t handle that. He’s too open right now to even try to close up again, too raw to want to push back. He thinks about squirming away, because there’s always an out, but Thor shifts himself so he’s supporting Peter fully, arms fully circling him, taking his weight, holding him.

Peter’s hand spasms on Thor’s shoulder, almost curling into claws, into a fist, then drifts up to his hair and caresses the strands. Soft. So soft. He moans into the kiss and melts back into Thor’s arms, into the bed, realizing what he’s doing an instant before he does it. He hasn’t felt surrender like this, the desire and trust, the want and caring, for a long, long while. He hadn’t wanted it, didn’t know if he could find it again, but here it was, built up through dozens of little battles over the past long months, and now he can’t stop it.

“…Love you,” he breathes, because he’s already dumped his heart out on a plate for this man, so why shouldn’t Thor have those words too? Thor response with a rumble deep in his chest as his hand comes up to caress him. Little tingles of lightning mark its passage, and Peter feels like his skin is coming alive. It’s better than the fiery marks that come from scratching and clawing at each other’s skin, and Peter lets himself fall open to Thor’s hands, dragging him down for another kiss, not quite as soft, but more sincere, more true than he has been in a long time.

“I have much I want to give you, love,” Thor murmurs, and Peter’s breathing gets faster, because he knows he’s ready for this (because he’s been preparing himself every damn day like he couldn’t realize he was falling so hard for this man, like an idiot), but Thor’s sparking fingers are edging closer and closer to his hole and Peter knows he doesn’t have the control to handle what comes next.

So he spreads himself wider and tips his hips up to Thor, cock heavy and leaking steadily onto his stomach. Control is fucking overrated. Thor smiles that brilliant, beautiful smile and slides two fingers inside him. The thick stretch is nothing in comparison to the small shockwave that hits his body as Thor’s spark-laden fingers brush over his prostate, and then he’s coming without another touch. Pleasure thunders through him as spurt after spurt of white stripes over his chest and belly as his back arcs in a perfect bow. Peter laughs weakly in joy, a sound he didn’t think he still had in him. Thor toys with him a few moments more, then withdraws his hand from inside him. When he gets his breath back, Peter turns his head, hungry mouth open, and licks his lips. He only has to gesture once, and Thor shifts to straddle him, feeding the substantial girth of his cock down Peter’s throat. He chokes on it willingly, tears pricking at his eyes, working it over with hands, lips, and tongue. He keeps one hand on Thor’s cock, sliding the other up Thor’s belly and chest just to feel all of him that he can. It’s a lot, but a good amount of a lot, and Peter hums a lot and gags a little until Thor is thrusting very shallowly, overflowing Peter’s mouth with a shout of ecstasy. Peter swallows and swallows the flood of bitter salt down until Thor pulls out and lifts him up to kiss him again, so easy despite the mess.

They’re lying down together, instead of separating at the first opportunity, and Peter finds it simple to let Thor pull him so he can rest against Thor’s chest and hear his heart beat. Thor’s arms curve around him, and the empty feeling is gone, filled by something right next to where he has Gamora’s name. Peter winds his hands through Thor’s hair again, and tries to braid some loose strands. He can’t quite get it to work yet (couldn’t either when Gamora had asked him to), but he thinks he’ll figure it out soon. Thor just smiles at him, a little beautiful and broken and healing, and gives himself over to Peter.

Love in the Time of Hydra - Masterpost

2019-03-13T03:10:44Z

Love in the Time of Hydra

Author: Jaune-Chat

Artists: Thank you so much to lili-flygirl (Art post 1, Art post 2) and saltyemrys (Art post 1, Art post 2, Art post 3) for their amazing and beautiful artwork! They were such a delight to work with!

Beta: Much thanks to ensignanna for her thorough and incredibly helpful betaing of this fic!

Relationships: James “Bucky” Barnes/Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers & Red Skull, Steve Rogers & Wanda Maximoff

Warnings: Graphic descriptions of violence

Rating: Teen and up (PG-13 to light R)

Word Count: 20397

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Hydra (Marvel), Suicide Attempt, Angst, Brainwashing, Minor Character Death, Propoganda, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending

Summary: Steve Rogers was blown out of a train car in the same attack that took Bucky’s arm. With Steve dead, Bucky took over trying to take down Hydra, eventually plunging to his apparent death to save the USA from an Hydra assault. But when he’s unfrozen 75 years later, he discovers that neither Steve nor Hydra ever died, his best friend has become the face of a terrible regime, and the rebel Avengers need his help to put the world right again.

Author's Notes: Written for Stucky AU Big Bang 2018

Thank you so much to lili-flygirl (Art post 1, Art post 2) and saltyemrys (links forthcoming) for their amazing and beautiful artwork! They were such a delight to work with!

Also much thanks to ensignanna for her thorough and incredibly helpful betaing of this fic!

Finally thank you to vallisagarwaen (whom I won at Marvel Trumps Hate) for translating the needed dialogue into proper German!

WWII Cap Hydra by lili-flygirl

Better than coffee - by saltyemrys

Hydra Map by lili-flygirl

Who the hell is bucky - by saltyemrys

...For All He's Worth

2018-07-27T02:21:18Z

Masterpost - Where We're From, There's No Sun

2018-05-29T13:15:06Z

Title: Where We're From, There's No Sun
Author: jaune_chat
Fandoms: Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D./Marvel Cinematic Universe
Characters/Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Daisy Johnson, Agents of SHIELD team
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 9,664
Spoilers: Goes from late S1 to the midpoint of S5.
Content Advisory: Alternate Universe, Canon Divergence, modern-day Bucky, swearing.
A/N: This story was written for Cap Reverse Big Bang. Amazing art by Princess of the Worlds. Thanks for cheerleading and betaing as well!

Art:

Summary: During the aftermath of the HYDRA reveal, the agents of SHIELD find what would have been the newest Winter Soldier. Rescued and recruited into rebuilding SHIELD, Bucky Barnes finds himself working alongside Daisy Johnson as they try to keep people safe from the strangest threats the world can throw at them.

Story Link: On Archive of our Own

How Can You Go On With Such Conviction? - Master Post

2017-11-05T15:22:23Z

How Can You Go On With Such Conviction? - Chapter 4

2017-11-05T15:16:31Z

Title: How Can You Go On With Such Conviction?
Author: jaune_chat
Fandoms: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Characters/Relationships: Steve/Bruce, Steve/Natasha, Steve/Tony, Steve/Thor/Jane, Steve/Clint, Steve/Bucky, Sam Wilson, Darcy Lewis, James Logan (Wolverine), guest appearances by some Agents of SHIELD, Fury, and Coulson.
Rating: NC-17
Word count: 23,057
Spoilers: Uses elements through Captain America: Civil War.
Content Advisory: Alternate Universe, Alpha/Omega/Beta dynamics, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Sex Work, Identity Porn, implied past abuse, action/adventure/violence, references to mind control.
A/N: This story was written for marvel_bang. Amazing art by laughtillwecry. Thanks to brighteyed_jill for betaing!

Art: Amazing art by laughtillwecry can be found here. (Link coming soon)

Summary: Steve Rogers is a professional alpha with an unfortunately famous name. A veteran who specializes in people with top-secret clearance, he’s been having some particularly interesting clients lately. This brings him to the attention of SHIELD, who think an alpha like him could be just the person to help a very ill Asset they have. But Steve has more up his sleeve than just one set of skills when it comes to helping the people he cares for.

On Ao3 or below the cut

Steve toweled off his hair roughly, seeing the two shadows of the agents guarding the door through the frosted glass. He wondered which one had been given his kill order. Pierce couldn’t afford to let anyone outside of his own loyal circle know about his pet project in the basement, and no matter Steve’s clearance, no matter how many NDAs he signed, nothing was going to convince Pierce his secret was safe until there was a bullet in Steve’s brain. Idly he wondered how Pierce would manufacture an excuse to get him away. Likely a faked urgent call from another embedded operative, and suddenly Steve would be needed again before he’d had time to make his call to Sam. Steve would have no choice but to take some back exit to a secure underground garage, right into the welcoming arms of his executioners.

Well. He’d see about that.

He took a small bottle from his bag and sprayed himself all over, popped in the nasal flare filters, and put on his robe, holding the pheromone ampule openly in his hand. Then he opened the door and submitted himself to the pat-down by his “guards.” Keeping his expression neutral was very hard, when all he wanted to do was snarl.

--

The asset had been cleaned by the simple expedient of hosing him down. There was a mattress on the floor, and nothing else. His dark hair hung in damp tangles to his shoulders, obscuring the impersonal mask and goggles. He was nude, writhing in discomfort and pain, the metal arm flailing, the metallic sounds pinging off the walls.

“We can restrain him, if necessary,” Pierce said. “Power down the arm.”

Steve looked at the asset to avoid looking at Pierce. The man didn’t want a professional alpha. He wanted plausible deniability, a programmable fucking machine to get his secondhand prototype back up and functional. That Steve’s life was forfeit after he walked out the door was certain. No amount of NDAs would make Pierce feel safe about having Steve walking around with this knowledge. He’d seen the Asset’s body, could identify him, could identify Pierce as being in charge of the whole operation.

Steve had seen enough.

“That won’t be necessary,” Steve said, and walked through the door. It shut and locked behind him with an ominous clang.

The man’s head came up when Steve walked through the door, wary and alert even as the smell of him was thick enough to taste even through the nasal flare filters. He didn’t get up, just kept crouching on the mattress as if afraid to leave it. Steve fought down anger as he saw that despite the water from the Asset’s impromptu shower, the man was already drying from the fervency of his need as his body radiated heat. Despite that, his hole was untouched by slick, his cock barely half-hard, even as his body was flushed with need. There was such an air of neglect about him, of being left alone or denied over and over again, that Steve ached for him.

“Hey there, soldier,” Steve said, crouching down and trying a small smile, trying to give the Asset some friendliness. “I’m here to help you. My name’s Steve.”

“You don’t need to talk, just do your job,” Pierce’s voice cracked out over the intercom, most of his politician’s tone gone in favor of a military bark. Steve ignored him; if he wanted any less from Steve, he’d have to strap him to a table.

The Asset’s impersonal mask and goggles didn’t let Steve see his expression, but his body had a posture of subservience and expectation, with the tension in his muscles that seemed to be braced for something bad. That only bore out everything Pierce had revealed about the Asset’s past, testifying to years of torture and abuse that left Steve feeling sick inside on the man’s behalf. He refused to let that show, and instead closed the gap between them until they were close enough to touch, kneeling down on the mattress and raising one hand slowly.

“May I touch you?” Steve asked softly. The Asset jerked back a bit, probably in surprise, and went still. A minute went by as his blank, masked and goggled face revealed nothing, and finally nodded. Steve gently touched the man’s shoulders, one fever-hot, the other cold, articulated metal, and slowly caressed down them. That made the Asset shiver, but also lean into the touch, a muffled moan coming from behind the mask. How long had it been since anyone had treated him with a little kindness? Years? Decades?

Steve kept up the soft touches for a long time, and only gave encouraging nods when the Asset dared to shift his body to let different skin be touched. Steve listened and watched and learned, following the Asset’s desire as his long-frustrated heat ratcheted up another level. He leaned in closer as his hands descended from the Asset’s scarred back and shoulders to his muscular ass and thighs. Steve could see the Asset’s hole was hot and dry and tight, no doubt from congested slick glands from decades of repressed heats. God, what were they thinking? He could have died from this.

Steve would do everything he could to fix it.

“May I taste you? Use my tongue?” Steve asked, and got a moan of desire as the Asset stilled, thighs trembling. Steve didn’t hesitate as the Asset knelt up and presented, gently parting the Asset’s cheeks, then leaning in and swiping his tongue wetly over his hole. There was sheer relief in the Asset’s voice as Steve licked and lapped, slowly opening up the tight pucker. Damned be to Pierce, who had been sternly trying to make other comments that Steve had ignored for the past fifteen minutes, Steve used the cover to dislodge the nasal flare filters, curling them in two of his fingers to hide them. He needed to be able to know what was going on. There was a tang of metal and blood, a faint hint of musk, but none of the rich, sweet heat that should have been filling the room. Steve redoubled his efforts, getting the Asset wet and slowly, agonizingly slowly loosening him, at least enough for a finger.

Steve left off just long enough to ask again, “May I put my fingers in you? I want to ease your glands open-.”

“Yes!”

It was an actual word, short, rough, and not terribly eloquent, but it was clear speech. What followed after Steve eased his first finger into the tight passage was more of a scream. But a scream of relief as Steve found and pressed down on the first tight, swollen gland. Slick suddenly trickled out, coating Steve’s whole hand, and soon Steve could put in another finger, then another, seeking out one gland after another and coaxing them into opening. The scent was incredible; Steve felt like he was drowning in cotton-candy sweetness with the underlying tang of metal and musk. It was making it hard for him to hold back, but he would rather die than cause this man another second of pain.

“More,” the Asset said, this time his voice very soft, the word less of a demand and more of a question. His head curved back to stare at Steve through the blank goggles and mask, and Steve just smiled at him beatifically. Obedient to the command, Steve folded his thumb and pushed in deeper, the Asset’s ass swallowing his hand. After so long a dry spell, and with so much slick needing to be expressed, this was the best thing for him medically and therapeutically, and apparently personally as well. The Asset tossed his head back and forth, sometimes dropping it to the mattress, his gyrations finally catching the goggles and dislodging them to drop on the floor. When he looked back at Steve in wonder, Steve could see his eyes were blue-gray, full of gratitude and relief. He was so beautiful he made Steve’s heart ache.

“You’re doing so well. You’re so good,” Steve said warmly, and the Asset looked almost incredulous.

“Mr. Rogers,” Pierce’s voice interrupted, loud enough this time so Steve couldn’t ignore it. “Before you get carried away, the pheromone ampule, now.”

Steve nodded once, but he wasn’t going to hop to. If Pierce had wanted to do this himself, he would have already.

He ran his free hand over his neck, then leaned forward to put more strength into his thrusts from his arm inside the Asset, slick gushing down even over his elbow as he eased the congestion in those long-dormant glands. He shifted a few more times as the Asset moaned in pained relief, bracing himself on his thigh, swiping his hand across his sweaty throat, brushing his hair back into place. He lifted his hand to show the window the flash of white plastic in his palm from the pheromone ampule. He flicked the catch on the Asset’s muzzle and closed his hand in a gesture that would crush the ampule. Then he brought his hand to the Asset’s nose and mouth letting him smell and taste the scent there.

At the same time, Steve whispered a few phrases of encouragement and praise into the Asset’s ear, then ended with a more audible, “May I, please?”

The Asset nodded frantically, and Steve eased his arm out. He shifted backwards enough to line himself up, then penetrated him in a single gorgeous slick slide home.

The Asset’s breath hitched, and tears were running down his face as Steve leaned down and breathed a question in his ear.

-

Bucky was writhing against Steve, keeping his voice as quiet as he could. Their apartment walls were paper-thin, and they didn’t want to deal with neighbors banging on their doors, demanding they keep it down. It was all Steve could do to keep things together, holding onto Bucky with deceptive strength for his slight frame, draping himself over Bucky to get as much contact as he could. He could rarely get himself out of scrapes, but damn if Bucky could ever get out of Steve’s grasp. Especially now, when he would have had to have been dragged away to let go.

“I want you to,” Bucky said, turning enough to give Steve an awkward kiss. He saw a shadow on Steve’s face, an echo of some old arguments, and smiled at him instead, putting every ounce of sincerity in his baby blues as he could. “No one else for me, not ever. Come on, Alpha!”

Confidence surged in Steve’s expression, and he leaned over Bucky’s neck, breath hot exactly where Bucky wanted it. “You want me, Bucky?”

-

“Alpha, yes,” he gasped, an echo of his answer some seventy years ago, and Steve bit down hard over an old, nearly invisible bondmark on Bucky’s neck. He only had to shift his hips once before they were both gone, clenching together in orgasm, locked as one with pleasure. He could hear muffled shouts behind the glass, banging on the locked door, now mysteriously not responding to their key cards.

“Rogers!” Pierce thundered over the intercom, “Let him go immediately or it will go worse for you.”

The lights went on in the observation room, revealing his face, as well as a group of STRIKE agents waiting for orders.

“No, Secretary Pierce,” Steve spat, holding Bucky gently, his tenderness belied by the gleaming metal arm now held at an angle to protect them both from attack. “I know my own mate.”

Pierce paled, but the STRIKE team next to him aimed their guns at Steve through the glass. Steve laughed out loud; the glass was bulletproof and shatterproof. They wouldn’t have dared place the Winter Soldier in here otherwise.

A hollow boom from above broke the standoff.

“What’s going on?” Pierce demanded.

A weedier man in the corner, probably one of the technicians, glanced at his phone and winced as he talked, eyes going wide. “Sir, the computers, someone found Zola, and the lab at-.”

Pierce cut the man off with a wave and stared fixedly at Steve, realization dawning rapidly. “No… You’re him.”

Steve smiled grimly, a smile at least seventy years old.

“You’re Captain America?!”

---

Seventy years ago

The Valkyrie hit the water like a crashing train, the impact throwing Steve out of his seat and onto the deck. He could hear water rushing in and he was cold, so cold. He wished he could have said something more to Peggy. She hadn’t deserved to hear him crash. Hear him die. He missed Bucky fiercely. He would see him soon, both of them having met their end in the cold. If they could have lived, maybe things would have been different. Maybe…

The plane settled lower, tilting slowly as she slid to her final resting place. Steve couldn’t move from the shock of the impact. He didn’t want to; he didn’t have anywhere else to go. The water rushed over him, so cold it stole his breath and numbed his mind. So cold he couldn’t even twitch. So cold he could finally rest.

--

Some time later…

Scrape Soft but insistent.

Blackness. Scrape. Louder.

A distant grunt. More scraping. Light and darkness.

SCRAPE! So loud. Cracking sounds. A nearly forgotten sensation.

Warmth. It burned

He burned with it, dying a hundred more times as heat and more scraping invaded his senses. Then lightness, weight he hadn’t even been aware of coming off of him. Pale light all around him, shining through his closed eyes. Awareness. His body, cold and soaked but alive. Barely warm water on his head. And finally, sight. He squinted as an impossibly bright glare retracted down to a single small flame, held within the globe of a lamp. A dark blur behind the flame took longer to resolve, finally revealing a man in heavy winter clothing back to him, tending a fireplace with a cheerful blaze burning in it.

Steve stared at the flames for a long time, mesmerized by them, until he finally found the wherewithal to move his head examine his surroundings. The walls were rough wood, the ceiling relatively low, small windows showing white outside. The place looked like a single-roomed cabin, like Steve had seen in a few mountainous places in Europe, small, functional, and plain.

There was a bed covered with an old quilt with blankets folded at the foot in the corner, a couple chests at the foot. A table and a couple of chairs, a healthy pile of wood near the single door, a basin on a smaller table with a tiny mirror above it, a short counter and sink, some cupboards, a stove with something savory on it bubbling away in a pot. A coffee pot enameled flecked blue and white was kept warm on the stove next to it. When Steve tried to crane his head just a little to get a better look at the silhouette next to the fireplace, he felt several thuds as chunks of ice shed themselves from his body.

He looked down at himself. He was in a simple canvas cot, uniform still on, shield still in his hand, lying in a puddle of cold water with ice chunks still stuck to parts of body.

Ice? How? his mind wondered. Where?

The man turned around at the noise from Steve’s movement. He was scruffy-looking, with heavy sideburns, thick stubble across his chin, his short brown hair in strange puffed peaks on his head. He was short, strong, and looked vaguely familiar.

“Hell of a homecoming, Captain,” he said. He was speaking English, his accent American. He looked Steve up and down, nodded, grunted, and walked over to the stove. He came back with a steaming cup of black coffee he pushed into Steve’s cold hand, the one not holding his shield. Steve couldn’t detect anything wrong with the coffee, no poisons or drugs, and drank down the hot, bitter liquid gratefully, trying to place, well, anything as the frost in his mind cleared out with every swallow.

If this was an enemy, some member of HYDRA, this was certainly not their style. They didn’t go for the soft sell. And why did the man look like someone Steve knew?

The man turned back to the stove and then came back with a bowl of thick stew. The smell awakened agonizing hunger in Steve, and he couldn’t smell a thing untoward in the delicious aroma. Steve still had his uniform on, still had his shield, wasn’t restrained, and the man wasn’t between him and the door, which only had a latch, not even a lock. Steve saw no tell-tale bulges of a concealed weapon, and there was no other weapon in sight. Besides, if the man had meant to kill him, he could have done that before bringing Steve in from the cold. For the moment, Steve felt safe enough to devour the stew, and the next four helpings the man dished up without comment. He followed that with another cup of coffee before finally sitting down backwards on one of the chairs and examining Steve minutely.

“Better,” the man grunted, nodding. “You know who you are?”

“Steve Rogers.”

“Good.” The man looked begrudgingly satisfied.

“Who are you?” Steve asked.

“James Logan. My unit worked with your Commandos a few times.”

That explained the familiarity. Occasionally the Commandos had gotten support from any number of Allies and any number of military branches. James rattled off his Canadian infantry unit and rank, and Steve blinked, remembering them teaming up with the Commandos to mop up one of HYDRA’s bases. That brought a few things into focus, and a lot more questions.

“Where am I?”

“Canada. Northern Territory. About as north as you can get and still have trees. Not my land, but I’m friendly with a couple of the tribes up here, so they let me stay for a while every now and then.” Nothing in James’ face said he was lying, and the little Steve could see outside the window showed snow-covered tall pines as far as he could see. No mountains, no rocks, no icy plains that had been all he could see when he put the Valkyrie in the water-.

“How did you find me? What happened?” Steve demanded.

James leaned over to the counter and grabbed a newspaper to put in Steve’s hand. “It’s about three weeks out of date, I don’t think that’ll matter.”

Steve stared at it, ignoring the local headline in favor of the date.

January 15th, 1974

Nearly thirty years. Damn.

James took the small mirror from above the basin and showed Steve his own face. He looked back at himself, his face unlined and familiar, the same as it was when he’d gone into the ice. Steve blinked as he realized that James couldn’t possibly be as old as he should have been.

“I guess putting that plane down in the ice, plus whatever juice they put into you, stopped you from aging. I found you in a chunk of ice on the coast, and you looked too damn alive. So I dragged you back here.”

“But you-.”

“I was born different. I heal quick, don’t age the same way. By the time you were born, I could’ve been your great-grandfather. I’ve been fightin’ in damn near every war that comes around. Born to battle, I guess.”

Steve sat back in his wet uniform on the cold, sodden cot, trying to process that. Trying to understand anything. James kept talking, even if by his terse descriptions it wasn’t his usual bent.

“Last war, in Vietnam, damn clusterfuck from the beginning. I ended up showing what I was when Victor did something stupid, both of us got shot for it. Didn’t take. Ended up in a ‘special unit.’ Commander was an asshole. Left ‘em. Came here to clear my head for a little while.”

Steve had so many more questions, many of which James likely either didn’t know or wouldn’t be inclined to answer, but he tried anyway. “Did… did we win? After I went down.”

“Yeah. Drop two atomic bombs on Japan to do it. Hitler committed suicide in a bunker. We found out he’d been shipping people to camps to be worked, tortured, or gassed to death. Millions of ‘em, Jews mostly, plus anyone else he didn’t like. I helped liberate one of those camps. Still gives me nightmares. Holocaust, they called it. But we won.” James fished in a drawer until he found a cigar, and held it at the stove until it lit, puffing on it briefly before adding a pointed, “Fucking hell.”

He gave Steve more coffee and went to a chest, seemingly oblivious to Steve’s feeling of being hollowed out. God. He’d been so focused on HYDRA and had missed some of the other atrocities…

James came back with clothes and handed them to Steve. “Get dry. I’ll dig out some old newspapers, try to catch you up.”

“How were you sure I was alive?” Steve asked, not ready to face anything else yet.

“Smelled you under the ice.”

James walked off to dig through another chest. Steve wondered if he should be surprised. Or worried. But then he thought that anyone trying to pull wool over his eyes would probably try to come up with something less fantastical and more plausible.

Maybe most of him was still just numb.

Steve peeled himself out of his cold, sodden uniform, pulling on the shirt, sweater, jeans, heavy socks and boots, the last a bit too snug. They looked like something he’d seen in movies with hunters up in the woods, maybe not so surprisingly. He laid his uniform over the back of a free chair to dry for now, and reveled in the dry warmth. He hadn’t realized how cold he had had been until he felt his body actually relaxing in the crackle from the flames.

James came back, thumping a bundle of newspapers and magazines on the table, then shoved Steve aside. He used old towels to mop up the big puddle of water, tossed chunks of ice into a bucket, and nudged the wet cot closer to the fireplace to dry. He grunted in the direction of the last chair, and Steve sat, taking another swallow of warm coffee. James flung the ice out into the wintery landscape outside, then returned to the table, nodding at the papers.

“That’s the short version of your time under. I kept a few of the biggest events, enough to get you started. There were a couple smaller wars, lots of politicians, lots of good people trying to change things for the better, some who didn’t make it out, some music that got pretty big. One president got assassinated. Oh, we put a man on the moon.”

“What?!”

“Time Magazine. Front page.”

Steve could read incredibly fast when he wanted to, thanks to the serum, and he absorbed the last thirty years highlights in a few minutes as James rummaged in the clothes chest, bringing out a few more things. A blue military uniform straight out of a Civil War history book, another that could have belonged to Steve’s father, a few sets of dog tags, some medals and awards from wars he didn’t recognize.

“You pick what you carry with you,” James said, taking a brief look at his possessions before putting them back neatly. “It’s hell sometimes, and I’ve got my brother in the same damned boat.”

“Your brother-?”

“Victor’s got a bloodlust streak a mile wide. Vietnam let him take the leash off, and when we ended up in that special unit, it turned out to be a kill squad for some ambitious government prick. I was the first to go, but I know I wasn’t the last to leave. That kind of work suited Victor, not me.” James leaned over to pour himself his own cup of coffee, drinking it black and far too hot, his expression closed except for brief flashes of anger, pain, and loss. “You’ve got now. Take the time to figure out what you’re doing to do.”

“Do?”

“It’s a hard time for America. You think they need their Captain back?”

Steve was silent for a long time as he perused the papers and magazines with more care. He asked some clarifying questions and got more of James’ terse, truthful answers. James didn’t get much in the way of radio out here, but he did have a surprisingly compact record player with some of the new music that had gotten some people in such a twist.

Steve was sort of in sympathy with them, but it wasn’t all bad. At least it was music, voices that weren’t their own, singing of love and rebellion and feeling mostly removed from the ice and blood and mud and pain Steve had known.

Inside, Steve marveled at some of the advances, like television (in color!) that people could have in their homes. He quietly raged against the atrocities he hadn’t known about, hadn’t been there to try to stop or at least help. Felt shamed when he realized how many people had struggled and suffered just to be acknowledged as equals in America, and then what had been done to Dr. King… There was more, much more, and James left Steve to it. Steve couldn’t stay still for long, though, and soon joined James in cutting wood, hauling water, any of a dozen necessary tasks to keep the little cabin in shape.

That was also where he got to see James powers in action. Healing was only one of them. Steve had watched in slack-jawed surprise as James has smelled out, then hunted down a pair of rabbits for dinner one night. Not with a gun, but with bone claws that emerged from the backs of his hands, skewering them with lethal efficiency.

“I know what you’re thinking. I’m not an experiment. Told you, I was born like this. My brother too, though he’s got actual claws on his fingers. We’re not the only ones.”

“I wonder…” Steve said, once he’d managed to master his surprise. “If someone born different was where Dr. Erskine got his ideas for the serum.”

“Maybe. Not my area. Don’t really want to be a science experiment.”

Steve caught a tiny smirk on James’ lips, and laughed. It had been nearly thirty years since he’d last done that.

“So, what now?”

Steve considered the mental list he’d made, one that if it had been paper, would have been erased, scratched through, and redone so many times there would have been holes in it.

“I still have friends. They’re alive, I hope.”

James made a grunt of agreement as he gutted and skinned the rabbits, then got them ready to go into tonight’s stew. “And?”

Steve looked back at the cabin, where he knew his uniform and shield were sitting neatly on the cot by James’ fireplace. “Maybe they can help.”

James gathered up the rabbits and both of them went inside. “Help with what? You need them to tell you what to do?”

Steve didn’t let himself bristle. James was prickly, far more so than Bucky ever had been.

“They’re my friends,” he said simply.

James looked at him sideways. “And the fact you look the same?”

“They know about the serum.”

“Your funeral,” James said with a shrug, sweeping the rest of the ingredients he’s prepared into a pot and turning on the stove.

“No, they already had that.” Steve waggled a copy of the New York Times with his name at the top. “It was pretty fancy.”

James actually gave a dry laugh at that. He cracked open a window and passed Steve a beer that had been cooling in a snowdrift. “If you aren’t taking up that shield again right away, what’re you gonna do?”

Steve idly flipped through the papers before setting them back down, all thirty years’ worth of change. “I’ve got some ideas.”

Another grunt. “We’re going tomorrow. ‘Bout time I get out of here too. I’ll get you to the border. I’m done here for now.”

“What is this place, to you?”

“Where I hide until they forget about me. It’s not too hard.” James walked out to get more wood, and Steve sipped his beer, knowing James didn’t want help, he probably wanted to be alone. A moment later, something flew through the air, and Steve caught it reflexively. It was a bar of light blue soap, a little nicer than he’d had in the Army.

“I’m stoking up the bathhouse. Wash off the alpha scent before you hit the border.”

Or he’d be a walking problem. Steve knew the drill.

Tomorrow then, he was going home tomorrow.

--

Three days ago

Steve reflected it was a damn good idea that curiosity and planning had done a lot to get these five people in the same room. It would have taken the last of his resources and exposed him more than he’d like to have gotten everyone here, if a certain one-eyed, very sharp director of SHIELD hadn’t employed the biggest Captain America fanboy on the entire planet. That… had loosened up some resources.

It had not been unexpected that Director Fury already had the five people he’d been looking for already under observation. Somebody was likely going to gather together people like him, either to keep an eye on them, or get them to fight on their side. Luckily, this time, Fury was on the side of the angels. Steve had been very worried about the opposite being the case.

It turned out that Fury had not only had those five special people under observation, he’d already brought them together to fight the fights that “no one else could.” And when he’d heard why Steve wanted to talk to them, he’d only nodded.

“You’re the only one who’s had experience with these assholes, Captain. So you get first crack at HYDRA. I’ll get the Avengers together. You’ll have to convince them of what’s going on yourself.” That Fury was testing him, Steve had no doubt. But he wouldn’t back down. He hadn’t ever been able to back down.

When all five Avengers had walked in to find their one-time alpha partner in a combat-ready red-white-and-blue uniform, Steve had had a lot of explaining to do. None of it quite softened the blow of the knowledge that the Steve Rogers look-a-like professional alpha was actually nearly a hundred years old, the original Captain America, and he had a mission for them. Skepticism was healthy and warranted, even with Nick Fury’s blessing on this operation.

For better or for worse, it was time for Steve to put all his cards on the table if he wanted to be believed.

“Just like that?” Clint asked, eyes narrowed at the story he’d just been spun, from the Valkyrie’s crash to Steve waking up in Canada.

“Gabe was living in Detroit, Dum-Dum in Columbus, Jim in Sacramento. We’d exchanged addresses during the war, and I still remembered them. I tracked them down, and they got ahold of Peggy.” Steve smiled, bittersweet. “She had a husband and grandkids, and gave me the dressing down of a lifetime. Then kissed me on the cheek and we started laughing and-.” He stopped, waving the rest of the reunion away. “It was too dangerous to come back as Captain America. Vietnam wasn’t over yet, and we didn’t know what they might try to use me for. So I helped Peggy with whatever she needed, usually undercover.

“HYDRA’s ideals weren’t gone. I’d helped take down their bases, but they had their sympathizers everywhere. We tried to find out where they’d gone.”

“How’d you avoid detection?” Natasha asked.

“Hair dye and a beard, up until 2005. Then I took my own name again, just altering my birth year.”

“Hair dye and a beard is all it takes to fool the world?”

“Well, no one was looking for me,” Steve pointed out.

“Dad was,” Tony said, his voice stiff.

Steve coughed a little, and Tony looked furious for a moment before sighing.

“Are you kidding me?”

--

“It’s really you.” She reached out, touching his face with hands still somewhat callused and strong, though now more wrinkled with age. Steve bent down as she gave him a kiss on the cheek, all too aware of Daniel’s eyes on him from his seat on the opposite sofa. They weren’t accusing or jealous, but Steve had been out of the picture for thirty years. They’d had more than his remembered lifetime to become a solid couple, to love each other the way he wished he’d gotten a chance to. He smiled down at her and took her hands in his, kissing her forehead before letting her go.

“How?”

“I was frozen. The ice – I didn’t die, it just put me in suspended animation, I think it’s called. Someone found me-.”

“Who?” And there, the suspicion and fierceness in her voice and expression, that was the Peggy who must have fought her way through every short-sighted and small-minded idiot who’d ever tried to get her way at SSR. SHIELD now.

“Someone who has as much trouble dying as I do. I’m not going to name names. I’ll say he’s a friend, he knows what it’s like to be different, and he won’t tell a damn soul about me.”

“What are you going to do, Steve?” she asked. Behind her question, Steve knew she already had a dozen possible plans laid out, but she was waiting to see what he’d say. She was the old hand at this now, but she still respected him.

“I need some way to find what we missed. You told me old HYDRA members are out there, and I have to find where they’ve hidden themselves. And if they’re in plain sight, then I can’t hide forever. And I can’t do this alone. Going in guns blazing won’t work.”

“Good. I was afraid you’d try to punch your way to the truth.”

“That worked pretty well, most of the time.”

She smiled with a hint of sadness, and Steve looked away. Bucky. Daniel held her hands, rubbing a thumb over hers in an old gesture of commiseration.

“More practically,” she said, turning brisk, “is the fact that you need a new identity, and you’re going to need money. Daniel and I are well enough off, but not enough to bankroll finding HYDRA’s sympathizers on our own, or even just on your own. Also, I have a pesky feeling that you won’t age gracefully like the rest of us, which means you’re going to need a new identity every ten years or so until you decide to take up your real identity again.”

Steve opened his mouth and shut it again. Well. He hadn’t even considered that. Strange, after fighting so long to be accepted as who he was, and now he had to hide.

“I’m going to call Howard. He took your death hard, Steve. To know that you’re alive… I think it might help. He got married, you know. He has a son, seven years old. Tony.”

“Howard? Married? And kids?” Steve said, both surprised and delighted.

“He tries. Not as hard as other things, but he tries. To know he didn’t fail with you… I think that might help.”

---

HYDRA Base, now

“I don’t die so easily,” Steve said, glaring at Pierce.

“We’ll see.” More crashes and bangs from up above, more calls for help over other PA systems, and Pierce took a few moments to issues a rapid-fire series of orders with the sound to the Asset’s room turned off. Steve spent the precious time whispering encouragements and reassurances in Bucky’s ear, knowing that despite the rebonding, there was still so much that was confusing and painful in Bucky’s mind.

“It’s me, Steve. I came back. I swear I won’t let them get you again.” Bucky shuddered and relaxed, trusting on a level of instinct, even if his tortured brain didn’t have many words while still in the throes of heat.

“Alpha. Mine?”

“Yet, yours.”

“Steve.”

He squeezed his hand. “Yes, I’m here now.”

“They’ll make me hurt you!” he said, eyes wild with panic.

“No.” Steve gave him a shallow thrust against their knotted tie, and Bucky moaned, pushing back. “I can do this all day.”

A dry, rusty laugh exploded out of Bucky’s throat as the lights came back up in the observation room. Pierce was holding a red book with a black star on the cover, and Bucky snarled at the sight of it.

Slowly, with great care, Pierce began to speak random-sounding Russian words, words that made Bucky go rigid with shock and mental pain. Steve interjected his own, covering’s Bucky’s ears, telling him how strong, how loved, how beautiful he was. Loudly. Bucky kept his grip on Steve, grounding himself in his mate’s touch.

Then the ceiling caved in.

--

Three days earlier

“Wait, wait,” Tony said, putting his hands out palm first to slow the conversation down. “Upon finding out you were alive, you, Steve Rogers, whom my Dad devoted way too many hours of his life searching for, and now I know that half of that was feigned, Dad and you decided that the best way to fight for truth, justice, and the American way was with your knotted dick?”

“Sounds about right, actually,” Natasha muttered, and Tony shot her a glare.

“The other ways to get in were rank-and-file field operative, politician, or military personnel. And I was going to age out of my credentials before I ever could get a face-to-face with anyone higher up at SHIELD by any of those routes. Besides, omegas had it way worse than even me growing up. In some ways, they still do. You’ve got more laws, but a lot of attitudes haven’t changed, even if it isn’t so blatant anymore. I could help people who needed it. I could help anyone I wanted,” Steve said, sounding a little wistful at the last.

Natasha looked at Steve for a long moment, then looked back over at Clint. He nodded thoughtfully. “If we cross-reference your work location with upticks in mysterious hooded figures rescuing people from bad situations, there’s going to be a very suspiciously high correlation, isn’t there?” Natasha asked. Steve nodded without hesitation.

“I still don’t like bullies. But the job was more than that. I’m very good.”

“I say without fear of contradiction and with fond memories of lovely orgasms that we won’t argue with you on that count,” Tony said. His skepticism had gone down another half-notch. He eyed the shield Steve had flat on the desk, and reached out to touch it. Nothing felt like vibranium; the peculiar stillness of the metal was undeniable. Tony nodded sharply for Steve to go on.

“I was good enough to get the kind of money I needed to make a background able to withstand a SHIELD backstop investigation. Enough to make me look legitimate to any HYDRA operative. Enough to get me that interview with Pierce.”

“The Secretary of Defense is a HYDRA operative?” Natasha didn’t sound surprised, but then again she was a past master of sounding like whatever was best at the time.

“As one of its heads. I… specialized in military personnel in IPA. I kept my mouth shut, but my ears open, and I’m a very good listener. Once SHIELD started employing me more and more, I heard a lot. HYDRA doesn’t seem to think much of omegas, but they had some in key positions, and people under that kind of pressure didn’t dare have their heats anywhere near a base. I was on a word-of-mouth safe list.”

---

A few years’ earlier

--“All that damn work to get into flight school, and all I got for it was to be surrounded by a bunch of leering meat-heads while stuck up in a floating platform with nowhere to hide. I didn’t even want to do it, but they needed one more person in case of emergencies and I was the best candidate.”

She huffed a little, and Steve went through his usual gentling routine to try to keep everything calm while they were tied.

“Sorry about your assignment,” he said. Curious that SHIELD would put someone on a Helicarrier who didn’t want to be there. Their psychological screening process was very thorough, not only to make sure people would want to do their assignments, but would be able to work well with the people around them. SHIELD was selective enough with its candidates that it saw no need to have people distracted by interpersonal conflicts. A little petty office politicking was one thing. A hostile work environment when everyone was either a trained killer or some variety of technical genius was another. A little adjustment to a new team mix was expected, but Warrens sounded like she had been biting her tongue for a long, long time.

“If it wasn’t so important, I would have told them where to stick it, but you don’t say no to the Sec-.” She jammed her mouth shut, her body going rigid, but Steve never changed his hold.

“Bosses. Can’t live with ‘em, illegal to kill ‘em,” he said, and Warrens laughed, relaxing again. With the relaxation came more complaints; she was seemingly just happy to have a captive audience. Steve just listened. And remembered.

--

Three days ago…

“And why us?” Bruce asked. He tried to keep his expression neutral. “Did you know about us before you-?”

“Bruce, I was in Brazil following up on a lead, but I ran into you by accident, I swear. But after I realized I was being tailed after I had been with you, I made sure they saw me as someone to be trusted. Because I needed to find people to believe me…” Steve took a deep breath and looked right at Tony. “Because on December 16th, 1991, Howard and Maria Stark were killed. By HYDRA.”

Tony lost all color in his face, his hand gripping the arm of his chair until his knuckles were white. “Did they sabotage their car?”

“That would have been too easy.” Steve picked up his phone beside him and punched in a code. “I already told you I was working with Howard.” His glance at Tony, full of remorse, stopped some of the recriminations that Tony probably had on the tip of his tongue. “We had hoped to make more of the super-soldier serum and find good people who would use it wisely and well. Howard had spent years on the project, a lot of it convincing me and Peggy that we could find good people. He finished it, and was bringing it to me secretly. Somehow HYDRA had been spying on him.”

--

December 16th, 1991

“Steve?” her voice sounded sleepy and groggy.

“Peggy. Howard’s not here yet. He should have been here twenty minutes ago.”

A pause, and then, “I haven’t had any other calls.”

“I’m going after him.”

“Be careful, please.”

Steve backtracked the route on his motorcycle, heart in his throat when he smelled the tang of gasoline, oil, and fresh blood on the wind. This was the most isolated part of the route, and Steve and Howard had picked it because of that very reason, hoping to avoid as many people as possible. Under a streetlight, Steve found them. The car was crashed, but not bad enough to have staved in Howard’s skull, or crushed Maria’s throat. Tony… god, Tony was an orphan.

Steve held onto the side of the car as tears burned down his face. It was a long time before he could look in the trunk, but as he’d expected, it was empty. This was targeted. Someone had found out what Howard had been up to. Trying to think, Steve smelled the faintest whiff of gunpowder. The Starks hadn’t been shot. Steve’s head went up, and he searched around carefully. There was no brass from the shot, but up on the pole, there was a fresh scar from a detached camera mount.

Part of the reason Howard and Steve had chosen this route was because of the storage facility just off of the road, which included a good security system. The assassin had destroyed the camera, but maybe, just maybe…

Steve found the storage office undisturbed, except for the missing security tape. He smiled grimly; he had things in storage at this facility, as a convenient depot between Howard’s house and places he was investigating. And he knew the owner had a back-up in case one of the VCRs ate the tape. He kept it in a backless old filing cabinet, because he hadn’t wanted to clutter up another desk. The copy was still there. The image was poor, but what it showed was all too clear. Steve didn’t remember much of the trip back home.

Bucky was alive. And being used by HYDRA. It couldn’t be anyone else.

--

Three days ago…

Steve handed the phone to Tony, the video file ready to play. Tony took it off into a corner and watched it. Everyone waited an uncomfortably long time for Tony to come back, stiff-legged, eyes dry, cuffs damp.

“Who-,” Tony started angrily.

“The person they used as their weapon is Bucky Barnes,” Steve said flatly. “And the person who signed off on the assassination order was Alexander Pierce.”

“Jesus,” Barton said softly.

“Barnes is dead,” Natasha said.

“Captured, cyborged, brainwashed, tortured, and popped in and out of cryosleep. The Winter Soldier, the Fist of HYDRA,” Steve said, repressed sorrow and rage under his even tone. He showed a capture from the video in a side-by-side comparison to an old picture of Bucky. Aside from the long hair and severe lack of animation in his face, they were identical. “I got my hands on one of his former ‘handlers’ and asked some questions. They’ve been using him as an assassination tool for decades.”

“Why tell us this? Tony needed to know, but do you have proof positive against Pierce? What about this handler?” Natasha asked. Clint looked only a little uncomfortable, but he got why Natasha was asking. They worked best in the shadows, and for all of what Steve had claimed about Secretary Pierce, the man mostly lived in the spotlight.

“The handler, Karpov, is in a very uncomfortable but safe jail cell in Germany. But Pierce? He’s going to give me evidence of his own free will in three days,” Steve said, and every head came up in surprise. “I have it on good authority that I’ll be getting an IPA meeting with someone very high in the DoD, which is double-talk for the SecDef, for a, and I quote, ‘difficult asset.’ I’m not in SHIELD, so I’m expendable once I fix their problem. HYDRA never had many omegas in combat positions, and from what Karpov said, the ‘Asset’ was transferred to full American control only a few years ago. That’s the same time they lost one of their key scientists to old age. Bucky’s an omega. Things get lost in transport, including records and drugs.

“When they take me to him, that will be proof positive of how far HYDRA goes. And you will be able to stop them when they’re exposed.”

“Would they retaliate in public?” Bruce asked, looking worried.

“They’ll have to, against all of you, and soon,” Steve said. “Fury put you all in this Avengers Initiative, didn’t he? Against the Secretary’s advice. He knows who you are and what you can do. He wants his Winter Soldier back to lead the attack when HYDRA makes their move. All of you will have to be the first to fall; they can’t have you messing up their plans.”

Bruce looked stricken, because he knew how that would probably turn out for everyone. Tony looked furious, ready to spit nails in anger. And Thor, he just looked very, very ready. All of this talk of Earth politics had little to nothing to do with him, but Natasha must have given him a short summary of HYDRA’s greatest hits. And for a man who wanted to help protect Earth, well, making sure HYDRA never gained control was essential.

“Are you absolutely positive this Winter Soldier is Barnes?” Clint asked.

“I’m sure enough to stake my life on it.”

“And ours,” Natasha said pointedly. “If our first public debut is overthrowing SHIELD because of a HYDRA infiltration and we’re either wrong or have no proof, we are going to go down in history as America’s worst terrorists.”

“Bucky is my bondmate,” Steve said, clenching his hands together. Tony looked up out of his haze of grief and anger, briefly shaking his self-focus. “I can reach him. I can save him and take away their weapon at the same time. And if I do that, you’ll have all the proof you need.”

“That’s why you took up your name again, wasn’t it?” Tony asked.

“I’d been a spy, an agent, a vigilante. I’d freelanced as an alpha a few times, but when Howard died…” He paused, and Tony could see that his father’s death still hurt. Steve had known his dad a lot better than he had, in some ways. A part of Tony resented that, and probably always would. But there were other things to life besides resentment. “When Howard died, Peggy was retired, Daniel had died some years before, and since Howard had been funding our search on the sly, the money dried up. Jarvis couldn’t get access to those accounts without alerting Stane, and then he passed away a few years later. I freelanced as an alpha in Canada, Mexico, and a lot of Europe for over ten years, trying to stick to the plan.

“Then you were shot,” Steve said, looking at Natasha. She raised her eyebrows, and he clarified. “Trying to get the scientist out of Iran, when he was killed by the Winter Soldier. I had enough contacts to hear about it, decent rumors at least. That was my second sighting. This was no longer just HYDRA sympathizers and people with personal agendas, this meant something much more coordinated; the organization I thought I died to try to stop. I wormed my way into eastern Europe, and eventually found an ex-Soviet operative with Hydra ties, Karpov. He knew HYDRA had grown inside SHIELD. And he told me they’d moved the Winter Soldier to America after the fall of the Berlin Wall.”

“Wither thou goest, love,” Bruce said softly.

“Yeah,” Steve said. “I needed to be high in SHIELD’s trust. So I used my last, best set of papers, and became myself again, mostly.”

“And what, worked your way up the ranks?” Tony said with a dangerous amount of blandness. Steve faced Tony squarely, and spoke without flinching.

“HYDRA was going to target anyone capable of taking them out, anyone with any ties to SHIELD whom they couldn’t break. I found Bruce purely as a fluke, I’ll admit, but when I realized who Natasha was, I knew I’d gotten my chance. I wanted to help, and I wanted you to know you could trust me. At least that was what I hoped. Some of the people I had as clients were HYDRA’s operatives within SHIELD. People spill secrets in heat. I listened. That’s how I found out about Pierce.

“But when I found all of you…” Steve sighed, not a sign of exasperation or weariness, but of relief. “There were so many people I’d met who I was pretty certain were enemies. You were the first who might be allies. Or… friends.”

Steve could tell, they got it. That, one way or another, to one degree or another, they forgave him his deception. Because for all Steve’s careful, long-term planning to protect people from HYDRA, he’d been going at it with little support or backup. Suddenly he had real hope, and help, and a chance of not only fulfilling a mission, not only saving a part of his past, but of finding people to stand by once again.

“What do we do now, that we may capture all of these foes in a single sweep?” Thor asked, stepping forward to clasp him on the shoulder in a warrior’s greeting. The scowl on his face didn’t bode well for HYDRA; there was no doubt that if Jane Foster wasn’t able to give them information they wanted on her space-bending wormholes or any other potentially dangerous knoweldge, they wouldn’t have any trouble crossing her off, and Thor with her. None of them were fighting just for themselves, but also for anyone even remotely attached to them.

“It means we have two days to plan how to take down HYDRA and get that sonofabitch Pierce,” Tony said tightly.

“Believe me, I wanted to go after him then and there when I realized what they’d done. Peggy talked me down. The only evidence I had of HYDRA was Bucky, and all the tape did was implicate Bucky alone as an assassin. No one else would believe some defunct World War II Nazi death cult was still around.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Tony asked, his voice tight. “Why didn’t she tell me?”

“I wish we would have. Peggy wanted to spare you being targeted. If you’d known, they would have gone after you. And I didn’t know if I could protect you.”

“Why not-.” Tony cut himself off and shook his head.

Steve answered the unfinished question. “You weren’t Iron Man until after I met you. I didn’t want to lose you too… I- I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.

Tony walked away and faced the door for a minute. Then walked back, eyes wiped dry.

“You know how to take them down for good?”

“Fury’s on our side. Capture Pierce, and we can use him to unlock the files on everything HYDRA was doing inside SHIELD.” He eyed Natasha as he spoke, and she smiled smugly.

“I want Pierce,” Tony said, in a tone that booked no argument.

“Leave enough eye, fingerprint, and retina to work,” Natasha reminded him.

--

Now

The STRIKE team left to protect Pierce were no fools; they started shooting immediately, but hit something metallic. Then the STRIKE members started going down, hit with arrows or a sneak attack in the dim light. Out of the gloom emerged the glow of the arc reactor in the chest plate of Iron Man. Pierce’s face went bloodless, and the book dropped from his fingers.

“Don’t move,” Tony said, his voice metallic behind his faceplate, and as uncompromising. “Natasha?”

She gave a final love-tap to one of her victims on the floor, and stepped up to press a retinal scanner to Pierce’s eye. Steve’s body finally let go of Bucky, and he disengaged enough so they could stand. Barton opened the door to Bucky’s room, tossing them bundles of clothing, armor, and weapons.

“How did you turn him?” Pierce asked, incredulous that Steve Rogers had somehow managed to suborn his prize asset while naked. “How?”

--

Earlier

Steve sat in the locker room, toweling off. The scent-blocker pill had run its course and been metabolized out of his system in ten minutes. Luckily he had brought a scent-blocking spray that would last until he got to the omega’s room, a common enough toiletry for a professional alpha who didn’t want to advertise. The guards outside the door were holding the ampule, but Steve had another concealed in his palm, this one full of plain water.

He had swapped his fake for the real one en-route, dropping the real one under the mattress. When he’d held up his hand to the window, all Pierce had seen was a flash of white plastic. He hadn’t even registered Steve running his hand over his most-scented areas of his body, and that was what he had let Bucky scent. Those lessons from Vegas had come in handy after all.

--

Now

“You boys want to put on some clothes if you want to fight evil today?” Clint asked.

Bucky arrayed himself in the reinforced, bulletproof leather of the Winter Soldier, armed to the teeth, and covered Steve’s back in easy coordination as they moved out. He didn’t move like Steve remembered him, now more purposeful, more fluid, balanced on a hair trigger of violence, but they shadowed each other as well as they ever had. It would take some getting used to, but Steve felt some part of his heart that had been frozen since his fall finally thawing.

“Nat and Tony are taking down the computer system; it went berserk when they cracked Pierce’s files. Thor and Bruce are managing the dumbfucks who tried to come in with heavy artillery while getting the rest of the civvies out. We’ve got to go after the leaders now, before they scatter.”

“We’re coming!” Steve said firmly.

“Thought you already did,” Clint said, and Bucky laughed, a short rusty thing, but a laugh, a real one. Steve wondered what Sam and Darcy would make of Bucky, and how exactly they were going to take Steve’s little misdirection on his birth year. Hopefully well enough that he’d still have an apartment to take Bucky home to.

Steve knew it would take a long time for Bucky to feel like his own person again, maybe another lifetime. And to work with the Avengers would take its own kind of persuasion. But they would do it. In time.

He’d been on a much longer journey.

But he didn’t have to do it alone anymore.

Side by side with Bucky, Steve Rogers loped down the corridor to join the rest of the Avengers.

-------

Chapter 3
Master Post

How Can You Go On With Such Conviction? - Chapter 3

2017-11-05T15:10:15Z

How Can You Go On With Such Conviction? - Chapter 2

2017-11-05T15:04:15Z

How Can You Go On With Such Conviction? - Chapter 1

2017-11-05T14:55:55Z

Fandom Loves Puerto Rico - Buy Me!

2017-10-18T21:57:23Z

Hey guys, I'm participating in a charity auction. From Fandom Loves Puerto Rico:

"Puerto Rico is in super bad shape. Hurricane Maria has destroyed entire towns, wiped out their electrical grid, trashed hospitals and roads. Right now, ten days after Maria made landfall, more than 40% of the island currently lacks access to drinking water and electricity. It's estimated that it will take up to six months to repair the electrical grid and get power back to the island. They will need sustained, committed aid.

Fandom has come together and done amazing things in the past - from Sweet Charity to Fandomaid to @fandomtrumpshate. Let's show some love to Puerto Rico and help them get back on their feet."

Bidding will be going on from Oct. 17th through the 23rd.

I'm offering two MCU (or crossovered or AU) fics, between 1-5k, starting at $25! Bid on me here!

Worthy Verse Master List and Art Post

2017-07-22T10:18:35Z

This is my master post for my Alt!Vengers stories - where the Avengers' powers and some of their backstories have been changed, but still band together to fight the fights we never could.

Worthy - When Tony nearly died in the desert, he was saved and found worthy by a very unusual artifact.

The Captain and the Soldier - Where Captain America was not a boy from Brooklyn but a girl from Brighton Beach, and the Black Widow could more accurately be called the Black Widower.

Monster and the Archer - Where Bruce Banner didn’t experiment on himself, but a volunteer soldier named Clint Barton. And when things go wrong, he won’t let his mistake ruin another’s life.

Assembling - The Avengers Initiative is assembling: The Thunderer - Tony Stark, Iron Man - Thor Odinsson, Captain America - Natasha Romanov, and The Black Widow(er) - Steve Rogers are being thrown together to go after one Clint Barton, who can become a rage monster known as the Hulk, and his bow-wielding protector, the radiation scientist Dr. Bruce Banner. Together these six people might just be able to save themselves and the world they've taken by storm.

The second half of this story written for wipbigbang (first 11k written in 2013, last 17k finished in 2017). Amazing art by ensign_c. Also on Tumblr here.

Thanks to brighteyed_jill for betaing!

Art: Amazing art by ensign_c can be found here.

Assembling - Chapter 5

2017-07-22T10:11:43Z

Title: Assembling
Author: jaune_chat
Fandoms: The Avengers
Characters/Relationships: Tony, Steve, Bruce, Thor, Clint, Natasha, Maria Hill
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 28,728
Spoilers: Uses elements up to The Avengers.
Content Advisory: Action/Adventure, medical emergency
A/N: The second half of this story written for wipbigbang (first 11k written in 2013, last 17k finished in 2017). Amazing art by ensign_c. Also on Tumblr here. Thanks to brighteyed_jill for betaing!

Art: Amazing art by ensign_c can be found here.

Summary: The Avengers Initiative is assembling: The Thunderer - Tony Stark, Iron Man - Thor Odinsson, Captain America - Natasha Romanov, and The Black Widow(er) - Steve Rogers are being thrown together to go after one Clint Barton, who can become a rage monster known as the Hulk, and his bow-wielding protector, the radiation scientist Dr. Bruce Banner. Together these six people might just be able to save themselves and the world they've taken by storm.

On Ao3 or below the cut

Director Hill could handle damn near anything, from Asgardian runes being burned into the deck of the Helicarrier, to the very unwelcome news that sonic mind control was only the tiniest part of the shitstorm about to be unleashed somewhere on Earth by people whom she had employed.

“I’ve got every search algorithm you specified going across every SHIELD site, satellite, and lab. We’re pinging some possibles off the Eastern Seaboard right now, so the Helicarrier is rerouting that way as we speak. Soon as we get a pinpointed position, you six are on a Quinjet and gone to stop this thing before it starts. Go suit up, I don’t think it’s going to be long.”

--

“This way.” Natasha lead the way into a room not far from the hangar bay, this one lined with lit, Plexiglass-fronted cases. Thor’s armor stood in one, the chest reactor glowing softly. Natasha’s red, white, and blue uniforms were displayed in another. There were more, each one labeled with a name in the Avenger Initiative, each one full of selections of armor, weapons, and tools. Clint moved to the one with his name on it, touching the ID panel next to it in reverence. The cover whooshed up to give him access to the sniper rifle, the varied ammunition, the scopes, tripod, gauges, and other accessories of a sniper’s kit. It was very unlikely that they’d need a sniper for what they knew was coming, but Clint’s shoulders relaxed just getting his hands on the gear. There was an irony not lost on anyone that the towering rage monster inside Clint could be quelled by instruments of death. He checked everything over, then set is aside with a sigh of satisfaction. Next to the rifle case was an armor stand, a vest on it in the same deep purple as Clint’s old squadron, with a subtle “A” patch on one shoulder.

“Not much need for this,” Clint said, shaking his head. “Even when the Hulk’s not in the driver’s seat, he keeps me whole no matter what.”

“Whether he likes it or not,” Bruce muttered, too soft for Clint to hear across the room, but audible enough to Natasha. He looked haunted when he said it, and Natasha didn’t need it spelled out how lonely and desperate both of them must have gotten during their time on the run.

“You have combat experience, and if you can get the Hulk to stay down if the vest takes a hit, that’s one less Incident for you,” Steve said. Clint turned to look at him, surprised. “We’ll need him from time to time, but if Dr. Banner is needed to shut down whatever device they’re using to open the Tesseract, then we’d like you to have options on how you want to protect people.”

Clint started and stopped a half-dozen times, trying to find words. After gaping like a fish for a few moments, he finally got out, “I get a choice?”

“We aren’t General Ross,” Natasha said, speaking the name with distaste. She’d had her fill of the arrogant general within one minute of meeting him, back when she’d first thawed out. He reminded her of some of the worst people she’d met in the war, particularly when she’d been playing a secretary and had seen them at their most arrogant. “You know what’s coming. You seem like someone who wants to help, rather than hide.”

Clint grabbed the vest with steady hands, and turned to Dr. Banner, beaming.

“We’ve got you covered, Doc,” Tony said, getting a gleeful gleam in his eye as Bruce opened up his own compartment. There was a quiver of unusual size, bristling with enough arrows to take down the expected army of nasties, and the bow had buttons on the grip to let him select the type at will without having to fumble for them. Slightly tinted glasses to protect his precious eyes, and a full suit of protective gear, cut for maximum mobility, in a green slightly reminiscent of the hunting camouflage he used to wear, and a protected Starkphone in a shatterproof case rode on his hip, along with other compact survival supplies.

“If that phone has anymore bells and whistles, you’ll jingle all the way downtown,” Tony said with pardonable smugness. “It’s connected to a secure mainframe I designed, so you have all the tools you need on the road.”

Bruce looked at the protective suit, cut to allow his arms free movement, and took a shaky breath. “You didn’t have to do all of this.”

He meant that, Natasha could tell. He hadn’t expected that they would take any steps to protect him.

“We want to protect you, Doctor. We’re not doing this without you. We need you,” Natasha said, catching his eyes and holding them. “And we’ll need you to watch our backs too. You can do that better if you don’t always have to worry about you every second.”

Clint was grinning on the other side of the room, shrugging into his new vest, then pausing as he caught his arm in the armhole. He took a closer look, and started laughing.

“Would you believe me if I say I’ve muscled up since the Army?”

Natasha laughed and went to readjust Clint’s vest, while Steve took over getting Bruce into his gear. She pulled a few tabs to give him some more room, settling it against his shoulders before he zipped himself up.

“I had to do this myself a few times,” she confessed. “The costumers for the war bond show looked at my face and just assumed my size. The girls and I had to re-stitch half of our costumes so we wouldn’t get accused of indecency. I thought that wouldn’t happen now but…” She nodded at the most brightly-colored of her costumes. “That’s my ‘action figure’ costume, the one I wear if I’m doing public appearances. The first version… Saying it was painted on would have been too generous.”

Clint chuckled, because Natasha’s combat uniform, the one she’d worn in Canada, was still stylized, but definitely practical armor, not something to be marketed as a child’s toy (or an adult’s dream).

Bruce was getting used to the weight and movement of his vest. Steve made sure there wasn’t anything that was going to scratch or catch or irritate, because they didn’t know how long it was going to take to stem the tide of what was coming.

“All right?” Steve said finally, thumping Bruce on the shoulders to be certain nothing was going to move.

“Yeah,” Bruce said, breathing out slowly.

“I’ve only really been wearing armor for the past six-seven years,” Steve said suddenly. “Before then, I was rocking a pocket protector. It takes some getting used to, but we made sure this was custom-made for you.”

“I don’t know if I can picture you in a pocket protector.”

“You didn’t see him when he was spying on my house,” Tony broke in. “Dressed down as a dweeb accountant. By the way, Doc, that phone should be able to take just about anything. Up to and including Thor stepping on it in armor.”

“Which we tested,” Thor said, smiling. “You have acquitted yourself well as a warrior, friend Bruce. Now you have the armament of one as well.”

Bruce didn’t protest that this was something he hadn’t wanted. It had started out that way with him, but now… He was a lifetime away from a boy who had hunted in the woods, and his bow was no longer just a way to spare himself pain, but to protect the people in his care. And that circle had just widened to more than just Clint or Betty. Now there was a city somewhere below him who was waiting for help they couldn’t get from anyone else.

“I think I’m ready.”

“I know you are,” Thor said, and pointed a small square of metal at his armor. With a few mechanical whirrs, it opened, and he stepped inside, the armor folding around him, leaving his face exposed for now.

Tony thunked Mjölnir on the deck as he shrugged into a flexweave Stark vest, one Steve recognized from one of the pitch videos at SHIELD.

“I thought you were already bulletproof,” Clint said. “No, scratch that, I know you are.”

“I am, at least against regular stuff. But my clothes aren’t. And as fun as it would be to save the world in the buff, Cap won’t let me do it.”

Natasha flipped Tony the bird without a blush.

Steve held out his hand, four small irregular lumps of plastic rolling in his palm. “Earwigs. I want everyone communicating. Tony, the one with the gold stripe is for you-.”

“I know, I designed it,” Tony said flippantly, jamming the offered communication device into his right ear. “Had to make sure it could withstand some high amperage.”

“Check?” Natasha said.

“Check.”

“Check.”

“Check.”

“Check.”

“Check,” with metallic overtones from Thor’s synthesized voice through the mask.

“All right people, let’s go save D.C.” Maria Hill’s voice said suddenly.

“What?!” Bruce said, head coming up sharply. “I was sort of hoping Loki was joking…”

“No such luck. Looks like Killian had the Tesseract moved to-- Rogers you’re going to love this --the labs at the Triskellion.”

Rogers cursed in what sounded like four languages.

“Hating it too. Looks like he’s powering up and about to unleash hell on the capital. If you can capture Killian and Ross alive for me to skin personally, I’d count it a favor. Quinjet is ready in the hanger, let’s go, go, go!”

--

The white buildings near the National Mall stood out against the greenery below like tombstones, and Bruce suppressed a shudder as the Quinjet began its descent. All the readings clearly pointed here, to the labs below the Triskellion and soon. If Killian had just been working with Earth technology, he would have needed a massive power source to open up the Tesseract’s portal. But with Sif inadvertently opening up some of the other realms to him, he had made his bridge without causing the ripples that would have alerted anyone to his presence sooner. They were just going to make it, and probably not in time to stop him before he started.

“Anything yet?” Steve called out from the front. He was piloting because Tony and Thor were going to have to be deployed first, and Steve would need the mobility to get to the Triskillion and see if he could get to Killian. Everyone else would be stopping D.C. from getting destroyed. Bruce hung onto the grab loop and took in as much as he could at a glance. Even warned, he nearly missed it at first, but after a few seconds, no one could have missed it. A lance of blue light was beaming out of the middle of the Triskellion. Glowing ripples were expanding along the banks of the Potomac River across the bank from the building, and from them were emerging gleaming bodies, like a horde of metallic ants. Even from this distance, Bruce could see they weren’t nearly as tall as the Destroyer, and they glowed blue instead of the inferno that had raged inside the Asgardian construct, but there were dozens, and more coming out every second. Thank God SHIELD had gotten the evacuation order out in advance of the Avengers’ arrival – it didn’t guarantee a clear field of fire, but the DC police were getting people moving away as fast as they could. As for the agents themselves, Bruce had to hope they had a better sense of self-preservation than the idiots Ross has sent after him and Clint.

“Across the bank, and incoming!” Bruce called, and held on tight as Steve spun the Quinjet in a tight arc.

“Thor, Tony, try to bottle them up so we can land!” Natasha called, and Bruce flattened himself against the wall as Thor blasted out of the door, Mjölnir and Tony following a second later. Clint was there a right after, rifle in his hands, watching the action below with single-minded intensity.

There was a series of bright explosions, the booms echoing around the river and reverberating off the monuments as a dozen of the metallic things blew up. Thor pulled out of his dive and blasted higher as Tony came in after him, lightning smiting the ground and taking out another wave. For a moment, there was no movement on the ground. Then Thor jerked in the air, and Tony wavered in his grip on Mjölnir as they stared down. In the blasted riverbank, the pieces of metallic rubble were glowing with blue energy, making spiderwebs of power that reached out to the pieces next to them, drawing them closer, in alignment…

“Sorcerer’s Apprentice!” Tony shouted. “These Destroyer-bots aren’t going to stay down!”

“We need to disable them and stop their advance while we try to close this gate,” Natasha said. “Steve, head for that portal device, Banner, cover us from the top of the Triskellion. Clint!” He whipped his head around to stare at her. “You and I are going to have to plug that gap from the ground while Thor and Tony do it from the air.”

Clint took a second look at the horde and put the rifle down easily, unstrapping his vest. He cracked his neck and loosened his shoulders, focusing on the chaos below. If there was ever a need for the overwhelming force of Clint’s alter-ego, this was it. “Got it, Cap.”

“Drop Bruce off then get to that portal machine, Rogers,” Natasha said, and flipped her bracers into position. Not into the upright diamonds to shield her from projectiles, but with the diamonds pointed out over her fists, to act as daggers. She intended to rip these tin cans open from top to bottom.

“In five!” Steve said, and Natasha crouched, then sprung as the Quinjet neared the ground, a huge green roar and the thud of enormous feet behind her as they ran at the Destroyer-bots still struggling to pull themselves together.

--

The Hulk’s roar made Natasha’s bones shiver, but she couldn’t let that stop her. Her arms were aching and going numb as she ripped open one after the other, but she made herself move faster, block harder, keeping just ahead of the Hulk so he could keep the Destroyer-bots off her back. They had to press them back, keep the gap open long enough to force these things back into it, long enough for Steve to find the Earth-side controller that was keeping the gate open. And if they didn’t keep them hemmed in, then they were free to range wherever Ross and Killian had programmed them to go. Beyond the banks of the Potomac the rest of D.C. beckoned, and only the immediate area had been evacuated. There were hundreds of thousands of people in the crossfire if even one of these things passed the Avengers.

So not one of them could

Bruce was up on the top of the Triskellion, courtesy of Steve, raining down a careful selection of arrows to keep the worst of them off of Natasha and the Hulk’s back. None of them had thought to outfit his quiver with more of the expanding-foam crowd-control arrows, with was unfortunate because those were the most effective at keeping the Destoyer-bots contained. She heard him cursing as another pale blue blob bloomed in her peripheral vision, and knew before he said it that he was down to arrows that exploded or melted, which never seemed to keep them down for long.

“Rogers, where are we?” she demanded, winning another step forward as Thor landed by her side, going back-to-back to force another wave of ‘bots to give ground. His own arsenal was long depleted, his repulsor beams on low power by the dimmed glow in the chest of his armor. With a shout, he flipped something out of the right arm of his armor, a damned sword of all things, and roared like a berserker, chopping heads and limbs left and right.

--

Steve peered around the corner, seeing two slack-jawed agents standing in front of a door where blue light was shining from every crack. The Triskellion had been evacuated, but Steve had found evidence of Ross’ interference in more than one mind-melted former co-worker trying to kill him. He’d laid out six of them with shots from his Widower’s Bite as he’d worked his way down to this floor, and was still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Ross and Killian might have become so warped by working with an otherworldly power source that they were trying to take over D.C. with a robot army, but he couldn’t count on them being so stupid that they’d only leave a few guards to protect them.

He slid a taser grenade down the floor, timing it carefully. He rushed in on a count of five, just as the remaining guards were flopping on the floor into unconsciousness. The electricity had also done double duty to disengage the lock -this wasn’t a secure floor, only offices- and Steve slammed through, ducking and rolling, coming up with shocker disks in each hand.

Sitting in the middle of the floor was machine about the size of a small car, its heart pulsing with power and throwing out an eye-smiting beam of blue through the shattered window. Next to it was the sharp-faced Killian, between him and the door was Ross in a disheveled dress uniform, both of their eyes a solid crystalline blue.

Steve hurled one shocker at the General, making him drop his sidearm and spasm on the floor, then vaulted over the machine to tag Killian. The scientist moved with surprising speed and strength, grabbing at his arm and trying to twist it in to give Steve a dose of his own medicine. Steve dropped the shocker without a second thought and went down, bringing Killian with him. Shifting, he scissored his legs around Killian and squeezed long enough to make the man let go in order to try to fight to breathe. Steve disengaged fast and punched down into Killian’s shoulder, making the man arch as his Widower’s Bite dug in and delivered its payload. In his uncontrolled flailing, Killian’s knee hit the loose shocker on the floor, and a rush of electricity blasted them both.

Steve’s vest was built to keep his weapons from being used against him, but he smelled scorched insulation, felt an instant of muscle-locking agony, then felt a deep, dangerous pain inside himself. Killian collapsed to the floor, mouth sagging open, lights out, and it was all Steve could do to keep from joining him. On the floor a few feet away a tactical radio squawked. Steve listened through surges of pain, then cursed.

--

Through her earpiece, Natasha heard a series of grunts, a sizzling sound that sent a squeal of feedback through her earpiece, a few thuds, and finally Steve’s voice, breathless, saying, “I’ve got myself barricaded in the control room for now, but Killian and Ross have more human back-up on the way. I’ve got both of them unconscious and cuffed, but this machine is still going strong. I’ve got maybe two minutes, max, before I’m going to have to move position.”

There was another click on the line, one that heralded Steve switching to a private channel. “Cap, Killian didn’t go down easy, and I got sideswiped with my own shocker. My vest didn’t short-circuit all of it. I think it damaged my pacemaker.”

Natasha’s heart skipped a beat even as she pinned another ‘bot down and ripped off its head with one of her shields. Next to her, Thor was roaring and slashing with his sword, the head of a Destroyer-bot in his other hand as a makeshift shield. She had gotten used to seeing Steve as unflappable and invincible, even with watching him take all of his drugs and injections necessary to keep his unruly body on an even keel. “You can’t move position,” she said flatly.

“Oh, I can move. But not far, not fast, and if I take the adrenaline dose I have as back-up, I doubt the AED I have built into my vest is going to keep me from clocking out unless someone gets to me.”

Steve’s voice was so matter-of-fact, Natasha understood immediately. Tony’s plan was a good one, but they didn’t have time to make all the conditions perfect. Barton was going to hate this when he woke up.

“Time for Plan B.” The gap was as narrow as it was going to get, and however many ‘bots were on this side, they were just going to have to deal with. “Bruce, get to Rogers! Tony get to the gap, we’re going to have to plug it ourselves! Thor, we have to keep the perimeter contained, and I don’t care about monument damage right now. Hulk!”

The enormous green rage monster turned, spitting out the head of one Destructor-bot as he crushed another in his huge green fist. Natasha pointed to the shining blue gap bridging their world to where Killian’s machine was pouring out a stream of death from Asgard. “Smash!”

The Hulk actually smirked and leapt so high and so far that he cleared the crowd of ‘bots in a single bound, landing with an earth-shaking thud near the gap as Tony thundered in. Both of them yelling, they smashed the gap itself, disrupting the energy flow between worlds, Tony using Mjölnir, Hulk just using his fists to smash at power so thick it manifested in physical form. Between them, they could act as a physical block against the power, as long as Steve could shut down the Earth-side AIM device. Natasha dug deep for her fourth or fifth wind as Thor punched with his ‘bot head and lashed out with his sword all around her, between them keeping the ‘bots hemmed in. For a moment, everything seemed to be working, the gap narrowing even more until it was just a bright blue line of light.

“Rogers, Banner, now, now, now!” she shouted. Over the comms, there was a curse from Rogers, and Natasha’s heart sank.

--

Steve hadn’t felt this bad in five years, sweating, hands shaking, skin an unhealthy pallor, a weakness in his core he hadn’t experience since getting his health as right as he could. It was times like this that reminded him to be humble, that he was living on borrowed time every second.

“Hit breakers two, three, seven, and twelve!” Bruce said over the comm, his voice sounding a little breathless as he was making his way down to Steve. He’d been walking Steve through disabling the device without blowing up the Eastern Seaboard for the past two minutes, but Steve’s vision kept blurring and there was someone pounding at the door he’d wedged shut. There was a nice little explosive surprise for when they finally forced it open, but at this point Steve wasn’t sure his damaged ticker was going to manage another shock. At least it would destroy this thing, if Steve failed.

“Bruce,” Steve said, and had to pause to take another breath. “Get here soon!”

---

“Can’t hold it!” Tony shouted, and suddenly a gleam of white metal flew back past Natasha to points unknown.

She shoved down another two ‘bots, and said reluctantly, “Was that Mjölnir?”

Tony didn’t answer, his attention caught up with trying to keep the gap shut with the Hulk’s help. The Hulk was roaring in pain, and Tony’s face was rigid with agony, but he was still holding on. He was, as Thor had said, different. And that made him strong enough to bear the load.

The ‘bots were slowing, some of them turning to look back at the portal, and Natasha heard the welcome lowering whine of the Earth-side device powering down. But the light from Asgard was still shining far too bright.

“The pressure is holding it open!” Thor shouted. “We need to get to the other side!”

“No one is going through that in one piece!” Tony gasped out. Then she saw him suddenly look surprised, and redoubled his efforts. “I can see through! Sif is there!”

“What?!” Thor shouted.

“She’s there! In chains, with a spear, making mince of everything from that side. Close it, guys, we need a heavy strike!”

The Hulk was more than happy to oblige, but Natasha could see that even with the Hulk’s boundless strength, they were going to need a boost. They could hold it, but they couldn’t finish it.

---

Steve slumped over the machine gratefully as it powered down, and managed to keep from jumping out of his skin as Banner, and Mjölnir, arrived through the window at the same time. Banner landed gracefully at the end of a grappling-line arrow. Mjölnir thudded through the broken window, then the door door, taking the explosion and whoever had been near it down the hallway. Bruce blinked at that as Steve raised an eyebrow in surprise.

“…we need a heavy strike!” Natasha’s voice thundered over the comm, and Bruce ran towards the smoke and fire down the corridor. Steve cursed in six different languages and staggered to the door, only to see Bruce running back, smudged from the smoke and shedding a few robot parts, but clutching Mjölnir’s short handle.

“I’ve got it! Incoming!” Bruce went straight to the blown-out wall, cocked his arm back, sighted on the brilliant spot of light on the bank of the Potomac, and threw the Asgardian artifact into the breech.

---

Thor shouted in exultation, Tony in surprise, and the Hulk in anger as Mjölnir slammed into the thick light. There was a soundless explosion that sent Natasha’s legs out from underneath her and blacked out the world around her. For long moments afterward she didn’t quite feel ready to think, or open her eyes, or stand up. As there were no screams, cries for help, or anyone trying to kill her, she stayed lying down until Thor, sword reincorporated into his armor, limping slightly, came into her slitted field of vision. She found enough strength to raise her hand and grasp his outstretched one, levering her into a standing position. All around the banks of the Potomac were the collapsed and crushed bodies of the ‘bots, along with scorched grass and churned-up earth. Above, in the Triskellion, a shattered section of window about halfway up had two waving figures in it, one supporting the other.

“We’re good here. Natasha, you ok?” she heard Bruce say.

Tony came up behind Thor, Mjölnir in a loose grip in one hand, and the Hulk trailing along behind him, snorting as he looked left and right for enemies. Natasha turned to look at him, and smiled. “We won.”

The Hulk snorted again, and then sat down right in the dirt, body starting to shrink into one very woozy Clint Barton. He blinked at everyone and formed a weak thumbs-up before leaning back and quietly passing out.

“Yeah, we did,” Tony said, as Thor opened his faceplate with a smile.

---

“I can’t believe he did this,” Natasha muttered.

“Yes, you can.” Steve crossed his arms, and took in the view of the mansion on a hill with appreciation. “You would probably know better than anyone.” Two months later and you couldn’t have told that he had been on borrowed time during the Battle of the Potomac. Amazing what modern medicine could do. Visiting Steve in the medical wing of a Maryland SHIELD facility she’d been able to appreciate how hard he’d been holding on during that fight; everyone had, really. If there had been any lingering ill-will from Steve’s initial deception, they’d been gone by the time he was out of danger.

Natasha was silent for a moment, just out of principle, then unbent enough to nod. “Yeah, Howard did things like this.”

“This” was Tony’s newest home, a mansion outside of New York City, more than spacious enough for everyone to have their own apartment, along with a generous (if not embarrassing) amount of room for training areas, labs, common rooms, storage, and vehicles.

“I’m standing right here,” Tony pointed out.

“It’s impressive,” Bruce said, and looked as if he meant it. Despite the grandiose size, it was reasonably tasteful, and thankfully didn’t include the new Avengers logo on any of the outbuildings.

“Damn right. The labs are a handy jog from your quarters, Banner, so you can science away at any hour. I was going to put this whole complex plumb in the middle of the New York office, but then had some second thoughts. If someone decides to get cute and want some revenge, I’d rather not put Manhattan in the crossfire. Besides, the commute is nothing between Mjölnir, Iron Man, and the Quinjet.”

“Or your entire car collection,” Clint said, jerking his thumb back at the three fancy sports cars Tony had brought to the half-repaired Triskellion so they could drive up here.

“Oh sweet summer child, those are just the everyday workhorses,” Tony said, shaking his head in mock-despair.

“What did you guys hear back from Asgard?” Natasha asked, before Tony could start waxing eloquent on his cars. She’d seen the list of vehicles somewhere in his file, and it was exhausting to read.

“Ah.” Thor’s expression softened from pride and glee at the new facility to something more meditative. “My brother was able to find where Killian and Ross had chosen to build their lesser children of the Destroyer, but with the Tesseract already connecting our worlds, it had created a dangerous aura as they fed off of its energy before plunging through to our world.” He looked away for a moment, jaw working, expression flickering over several emotions. “He offered Sif her spear back if she would fight to correct the damage she had caused. As Tony saw through the gate, she fought with everything she had. When Mjölnir hit the breech, it cut off the energy to the creatures. She was able to destroy them, at a cost. She was wounded, but not unto death. Even now, she recovers, if slowly. My brother greatly desires to speak with all of us again. I believe… given how I have managed to find a place on Midgard, he has been thinking we might have room for another.”

Natasha considered that, surprised, and looked over at the others.

“Being screwed over by people seems to be sort of a job requirement for this crew,” Clint pointed out. “Depends if she still hates your guts, Tony. Or ours.”

“Her hate is against those who betrayed her.”

“I’m open to the idea,” Bruce said. “But a lot depends on her. And if Director Hill minds another alien invasion. No offense, Thor.”

“None taken. We have time to consider and convince who and what we must, both here and on Asgard,” Thor said.

“Speaking of Asgard, my mentor, Fury, he had a thought everyone might like: send Killian and Ross to Asgard for their sentences. Keep them away from any allies left on Earth,” Steve said, arching an eyebrow.

“Perhaps. Or maybe my brother knows of a place even less hospitable. Hela has certain places in her realm for oathbreakers.”

“I’m sure the Director would approve of something to get those two out of the possibility of any latent Earth allies trying to get them free,” Steve said.

“Then it’s really official? Those CNN reports weren’t just blowing smoke?” Bruce asked.

“The Army finished the last of their paperwork on Ross this morning. In addition to solitary at a super-max prison until the end of time, he’s dishonorably discharged,” Steve said with a small smile on his lips. “If that super-max happens to be out of this world, I doubt anyone’s going to object.”

“Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy,” Clint said, grinning.

“Killian got the same sentence. The U.S. government takes a dim view of treason, particularly not when they were abusing black-ops resources to boot. SHIELD’s going to be under heavy review while we track down exactly who Killian put under his mind-whammy.”

“Good,” Natasha said firmly. A little more oversight probably wouldn’t have prevented those two from acting on their ambitions, but it sure as hell would have slowed them down. Even so, she couldn’t blame SHIELD for not knowing about the personal beefs Ross and Killian had had towards Bruce and Tony, as they’d taken pains to conceal them. There were some things you couldn’t calculate for. She looked over at Tony and Thor as something else occurred to her. “I’m more worried about them blaming some alien artifact for their behavior. Overrunning D.C. with robots was dramatic, even for what I know of them.”

“They didn’t need Tesseract influence to develop sonic mind-control,” Tony said, crossing his arms. “Besides, if anyone is going to be able to detoxify their minds from anything the Tesseract suggested, it sure as Hel isn’t going to be anyone from Earth.”

“Let them try their games in Hela’s realm. She will humble them,” Thor said a smirk. “And once we are certain they are free from the Tesseract’s shadow, then perhaps they can return here for a most uncomfortable duration.”

“I’m all for it. And I’m pretty sure we’re having a party to celebrate, even if the only thing we have is music and whatever Tony has in the fridge,” Steve said.

Natasha favored Steve with a withering look. “If you think a Stark can’t whip up a blow-out extravaganza on no notice, then you’re a terrible spy.”

Tony was looking extravagantly gleeful, and everyone else started laughing. “Challenge accepted, Spy McGee.”

Thor laughed as he swept his arm back towards the cars. “Then let us ride, my friends. We have much to show you whilst Tony plans our revels.”

Natasha ended up with Steve in a fancy Mustang with exactly too much testosterone in its styling, but Steve seemed to like driving it. Ahead of them, the road curved and meandered to take full advantage of the scenery (and make tactical approach by ground entirely inadvisable). She approved whole-heartedly.

Natasha sat up straighter as the true scale of the Avengers’ complex became evident; this was more along the lines of a small village! All three cars pulled up at the entrance to the largest building, the front seemingly made from little more than glass and wire and light. Thor vaulted out of his car without the need to open the door, waving his hands and bowing to the others like he was welcoming them to Asgard. Tony was finishing up typing something on his phone, looking entirely too pleased with himself.

Clint bounded out of his car, Bruce following at a more sedate pace, and paused. He turned and waved Natasha and Steve up as Tony said something into thin air. The door opened as a crisp English accent said, “Welcome home, sir. The party will be starting shortly.” Steve chuckled slightly, and Bruce looked at him sideways.

“If that’s Stark’s home AI, I think I’m going to get locked into a few rooms.”

“I’ll bust you out of them,” Clint said breezily, slinging his arm around Steve and Natasha’s shoulders, Bruce leading the way as they walked up to join Tony and Thor.

“Welcome home, everyone,” Tony said with a smile. Thor grinned at everyone as they entered their new home together.

---

Chapter 4
Chapter 3
Chapter 2
Chapter 1
Master Post

Assembling - Chapter 4

2017-07-22T10:05:33Z

Title: Assembling
Author: jaune_chat
Fandoms: The Avengers
Characters/Relationships: Tony, Steve, Bruce, Thor, Clint, Natasha, Maria Hill
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 28,728
Spoilers: Uses elements up to The Avengers.
Content Advisory: Action/Adventure, medical emergency
A/N: The second half of this story written for wipbigbang (first 11k written in 2013, last 17k finished in 2017). Amazing art by ensign_c. Also on Tumblr here. Thanks to brighteyed_jill for betaing!

Art: Amazing art by ensign_c can be found here.

Summary: The Avengers Initiative is assembling: The Thunderer - Tony Stark, Iron Man - Thor Odinsson, Captain America - Natasha Romanov, and The Black Widow(er) - Steve Rogers are being thrown together to go after one Clint Barton, who can become a rage monster known as the Hulk, and his bow-wielding protector, the radiation scientist Dr. Bruce Banner. Together these six people might just be able to save themselves and the world they've taken by storm.

On Ao3 or below the cut

The Helicarrier did not fail to impress, a floating behemoth held up with roaring engines larger than some small towns, with air-masked technicians and pilots tethered on running safety lines as they tended to different aircraft secured to the deck. Inside, it was even more advanced, the space more generous than a sea-going vessel, the corridors large enough to not induce claustrophobia, the main command deck looking like something out of a science fiction movie, with screens and floating holographs allowing the dozens of agents to tend to their duties in style. Despite the bustle and the fact that everyone was armed, Clint didn’t feel the reflexive wariness that had become part of his life for so long. Maybe because it was the lack of the usual military uniforms, or the fact that while no one was obviously running ahead and clearing the corridors, no one was giving him the side-eye of “I wonder how fast I can put a bullet in this guy’s brain?” No ostentatious, or even subtle, guards around him. People were looking at him, so he wasn’t being deliberately ignored, but they were also looking at Tony and Thor, Natasha and Bruce too. Even Steve, though that was with more respect and familiarity. The glances were neither hostile nor cheerily welcome, but just reserved and respectful.

Clint hadn’t felt respected by people at large in a while.

They were meeting on the command deck, at a huge round table right behind the commander’s station. Standing there when they arrived was a woman maybe a few years older than Natasha, fit and strong, dark hair pulled back in a no-nonsense knot, her uniform similar to Steve’s, with a quiet SHIELD logo on her shoulder.

“Director Hill,” Steve said, nodding. She turned around and looked at each of them in the eyes before gesturing to the table.

“Stark, Banner, the lab’s that way if you want to-” Hill didn’t even get the rest of her statement out before Tony and Bruce exchanged a look and popped out of their seats to the lab visible through the glass wall behind them.

“It’s been a while since he’s had a real lab,” Clint said. He shot a look at Natasha and stopped trying to slouch. This wasn’t the Army. He didn’t need to slump and hide his profile from cameras, at least for now.

“I figured. Barton, thank you for helping with the Destroyer.”

“What was I supposed to do? Just let it burn up Canada?”

“I know this wasn’t your first choice of life path,” she said, and that actually made Clint smile a little. “But that’s not what we’re here for. Let me show you what happened up here. Stark and Banner are getting a similar play-back in their lab.”

A screen dropped down from the ceiling, and a scene of security footage started playing. It started with a long shot of the Destroyer, along with accompanying audio of people watching it approach, trying to warn it off, firing warning shots, and finally firing shots meant to destroy the unknown bogey. The hits did nothing more than deflect it slightly, and the Destroyer abruptly flew in right to one of the firing turrets. The scene switched to inside as the walls cracked, some people getting crushed or sucked out, others clinging to parts of the room desperately.

“In the name of Loki, King of Asgard, where are the Avengers?” it thundered, the voice metallic and loud enough to hurt people’s ears, judging by the wincing on tape. When no one answered in a way it liked, it pushed its way further in, making another person lose their grip and go flying out into the sky. It focused on the remaining agents, a peculiar green light coming from some device clamped to its shoulder and back. The sound went wonky for several long minutes, and one of the agents’ mouths was seen working as his eyes stared dully. The Destroyer finally stood, then leaned forward and plucked every one of the remaining agents from their perches and threw them out the hole it had created. Then it turned and blasted away.

The Hulk stirred in Clint’s subconscious, and he thought very fiercely, when we find who’s responsible for this, we are going to smash them so hard. The Hulk gave a wave of fierce assent, and Clint was able to turn his attention back to the others. The others looked very grim, Director Hill most of all as she split the screen so Bruce and Tony could be seen from the lab.

“Damn. Who sent the death-package? I don’t think it was Loki, no matter what the Destoyer said. My memories of him don’t exactly have him going in for direct confrontations like this. Also, never even met the guy personally, and the rest of you he doesn’t know from Adam, so I have no idea why he’d want the rest of you or anyone in SHIELD dead. It’s not like the rest of you have any beef with Asgard or any other of the Nine Realms.”

“Indeed, this does not have the stamp of my brother’s work,” Thor said thoughtfully.

“Expand on that?” Steve prompted.

“Loki,” Thor said, “my brother is known for his cunning, intelligence, and clever words. He is a skilled magician as well as a warrior, but when in battle, he is far more subtle than this. He would be more likely to concoct a ruse to have us fight and eliminate each other, had that been his aim.”

“Yeah,” Bruce said softly. “If whoever is behind this wanted us dead, finding something to set off Clint and then making sure all of you were nearby… Maybe Tony could have given the Hulk a run for his money, but Thor, even you wouldn’t last long against him. No offense.”

“Having seen him in the flesh, I doubt it not,” Thor said, nodding at Clint.

Clint could only shrug. It was a sound tactic, and had it been someone other than him, it would have been an easy call to make. Much better to have your enemies eliminate each other.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t want to go up against him either. Ever caught a baseball thrown by a professional without a mitt? I felt something like that even through Mjölnir’s haft when I hit the Destroyer after the Hulk tossed him up. A punch straight from him would definitely not make my day. Your boy’s got talent, Banner.”

“…thanks, I think,” Bruce said, raising an eyebrow.

“I’m right here,” Clint said, but he didn’t mind them talking over him. At least he knew they gave a crap.

“More importantly, the Destroyer has no ability to extract information. It is like an attack dog. You tell it of its target, and it destroys it. It does not bargain and threaten and read thoughts,” Thor said. “Nor would my brother announce it, I think. If he truly desired our destruction, and had planned it out as he does all things, he would have wished to see the fruits of his labor.” He waved his gauntleted hand. “We are alone.”

“Are we?” Natasha asked. Steve raised an eyebrow, but nodded.

“We didn’t have overwatch for this mission, no,” he said.

“Heimdall could have found us from Asgard with no need to use Midgardian sources,” Thor said. “If there was anyone of Asgard directly involved.”

In the background of the lab cam, Bruce carefully separated something from the main mass of melted electronics, compared it to something on another screen, and brought Tony over to look. “These look like…” he trailed off, then locked eyes with Clint, “sonic cannons, but modified. Ross tried to use some of those against Clint.”

Clint breathed in and out through his nose, nodding tersely. His memories of being the Hulk were always very foggy and fragmented, but he remembered the sounds that had nearly flattened him at Culver College.

“They’re supposed to be non-lethal crowd control, but there were some theories if you could focus them, certain sound waves could be used for a lot more versatile purposes. Most of which would have been banned by the Geneva Convention, which is why the sonic cannons were shelved,” Bruce said, looking like he was trying very hard not glare at Tony when this was clearly a surprise to everyone.

“Stark Industries did shelve them. Ross pulled out a bunch of experimental crap after he raided the black-bag budget when he was trying to run down Bruce and Clint. Pepper about melted people’s ears off when we saw our stuff on the Culver College footage. Thing is, is this Ross?” Tony asked.

Bruce very reluctantly shook his head. “How could he have known about Loki? Or you, Tony? Or any of the rest of you?”

“Not to put too fine a point on it, but I haven’t exactly been keeping a low profile. I’ve kept Mjölnir out of my public appearances, but that’s about it. Now, for Mr. Black-Ops, here, that’s another story.”

Steve just gave Tony a look. “My public profile is best by being non-existent.”

“Someone knows about Asgard, enough to get one of its weapons out of storage, and enough about us to get our location just as we’re assembling. This is more than just wanting to break us up, this is an opening salvo of war,” Natasha said.

“Then we need lines of communication open,” Hill said, and looked at Thor. “Is there a way to get to Asgard?”

Thor looked at Tony, who set Mjölnir on the lab table with a heavy metallic thud. “Yeah, there is. Get us back on the ground, and let’s go see what the king has to say.”

“What about that tech?” Steve asked. “If we already have sonic mind-control on the table, it would be really damn useful to know who has their hands on that. No one who has that is going to stop using it.”

“Baseline is Stark Tech, but it’s definitely been modified, and whoever did it was no slouch. I can think of a half-dozen names off the bat to check,” Tony said with confidence. “And I can have a countersignal made within a couple hours. Until then, use earplugs.

“Give the names to me,” Hill said. “We’ve had a few other incidents world-wide that now suddenly make a lot more sense. I’ll get Fury, Coulson, and May to spearhead the teams to check out your possibles while you’re abroad.”

“Steve mentioned those,” Natasha said quickly, seeing the way Hill shifted meant she was about to turn them loose. And they hadn’t gotten nearly enough answers yet. “What incidents?”

“Taken separately, small glitches. Operatives gone rogue. Double agents turned triple. By the time Rogers had them pegged as something more coordinated and less typical than our usual suspects, well, we had more things to worry about.” She made a small wave at Thor and Tony and Clint.

“But now what were anomalies suddenly make sense,” Steve said, picking up the thread. “What had been audio interference or something else that could be explained away now fits.”

“With Stark and Dr. Banner’s counter-signal for us to stop any further uses of that tech, we need you all to check out Asgard and figure out who’s trying to start a war between worlds,” Hill said decisively.

“Why all?” Natasha said, watching Hill closely. Steve, at least, would outwardly be of much better use here.

“Because if someone comes for us again, best we not be here,” Clint said flatly.

Hill’s nod let him know he was right on target. “So, get off my planet. And see if the king of Asgard has any answers for us.”

---

When the cascade of rainbow light and wind had finally left them standing on a golden floor in a room that looked like the inside of a Faberge egg, Natasha made sure to stand as straight as she could, nodding to the golden-eyed man unsheathing a huge sword from the center of the room.

She would not be intimidated by anyone, not even interdimensional gatekeepers from another dimension. Also she would definitely not lose her lunch on Asgard’s golden floor.

“Heimdall!” Thor said cheerfully, his faceplate popping open. “Long has it been since I’ve seen you, my friend.”

“And longer since I’ve seen you.” Though Heimdall’s voice was resonant and deep, it still sounded somewhat faint. Possibly because Tony was standing just to Thor’s side, casually tossing Mjölnir from hand to hand, and whistling. Her eyebrows raised a moment later as she realized the tune was, “It’s a Small World, After All.”

Even though it had been written after her time she had heard that song far too much after some well-meaning SHIELD agent took her on a tour of the country that had included a stint at all the major theme parks. Unfortunately she couldn’t kick Tony from this angle.

Rogers looked like he was utterly unaware of Tony, but that was part of his job. Banner was either ignorant, or a really good actor. Barton was desperately trying to not laugh.

“Indeed,” Heimdall said finally. “Things have been interesting here since you left--”

“’Interesting’ isn’t the word for it,” Tony said. “I ended up with this lovely lady,” he patted Mjölnir fondly, “instead of Thor here, he ended up joining me in a new job, both of us got recruited by Super Spy and a frozen national icon, picked up a pair of fugitives who can give all of us a run for our money, and then we get blindsided by an Asgard vault guardian who engaged in a little recreational murder and mind-reading before dropping by to try to kill us. Oh, and he did it in your king’s name.”

Tony just raised an eyebrow to punctuate the sentence, waiting for Heimdall to make the next move.

“The king is waiting for you. The answers you seek are his, not mine.”

“And my father?” Thor asked, his voice a little softer.

“Still sleeps. It has been long since he has been in the Odinsleep,” Heimdal said. “Your mother watches over him. And your brother has been ruling aptly.” Heimdal paused, and then looked over at everyone else. “There is transportation waiting for you outside.” He gestured to the glittering rainbow road that lead from the chamber, and Natasha could just see a glimpse of blue sky and fantastical golden buildings outside. Banner was looking antsy, though Barton less so. Maybe being in a place so big felt less confining for the Hulk. She shot a glance at Rogers, and he started to move them out, her following a breath behind. This place had protocol, and they already had violated it by merely existing, she suspected. Natasha was not going to risk an incident on another world, nor intruding in on Thor’s family questions.

“Have we done something to anger him?” Thor asked, his voice echoing down the chamber tunnel.

“Not you,” Heimdall said, and then his voice faded away to a murmur. Tony stomped out a second later, subsiding his irritation into interest as he saw the red and gold winged… open-topped planes? that were apparently their transport. He jumped into one, his hands moving slowly at first over the controls, and then with sudden confidence.

“Come on,” he said, waving them in. “Between Mjölnir’s help and their very nicely intuitive interface, I can have us to the palace in no time.”

Natasha looked over at the bewildering array of buttons, flashing panels, incomprehensible labels, glowing floating shapes, and hovering bits of metal, back up at Tony, and sighed.

“Tony,” Banner said, shaking his head, “when you have an automatically-translating Asgard-to-

English dictionary in your head…”

“-I could still outfly you,” Tony said without missing a beat. “But I dearly look forward to you proving me wrong, later.”

Rogers turned his head away to hide a bit of a smirk. Thor emerged from the Bifrost gateway a moment later, looking solemn, and sat down beside the others without a word.

“Let us go. We have much to discuss with my brother.”

---

“I don’t see much family resemblance,” Rogers murmured, sotto voce so as not to be overheard by any of the Asgardian court.

Natasha didn’t say anything in response, but she agreed with him. Loki was built on much more slender lines than his brother, far more lithe and fox-faced, clean-shaved with long dark hair. Despite the armor and elaborate helmet, he didn’t look like nearly as much of a fighter as Thor. But if what Thor had told them was true, between Loki’s magic and the weapons of Asgard, he didn’t need to be.

“Well met, brother. I see Midgard has been kind to you,” Loki said. His voice gave away nothing.

“But Asgard has not. What of the Destroyer?” Thor demaned, his armor flashing under the throne room’s lights. They’d all been given Asgardian court dress before being allowed into the throne room, and Thor was in something that must have been close to his princely armor before he’d been exiled. Natasha could see where the design for the Iron Man armor had come from.

“Not sent by my hand or will,” Loki said. He tapped his staff twice on the ground, and the crowd of courtiers abruptly filed out, leaving them alone. “I would have alerted you to the theft from the vaults, brother, but things had become rather complicated.”

Tony scowled darkly as Loki’s eyes slid over to him. “Sorry to rain on your parade, but Mjölnir made the choice, not me. If you’ve had tall, dark, and golden-eyed spying on my every move since Afghanistan, then you damn well knew where to drop a letter, Fresh Prince.”

“What theft?” Barton asked urgently, his voice skipping over a chuckle. Likely that was another reference to add to the list.

“The Destroyer itself. Which would not have gone, if someone had not had the means to move it, then take it over.” Loki pointed his staff at the floor between them, and an image of the vault appeared, strange artifacts in alcoves, some glowing, some floating, with the Destroyer at the end of the room, solid and implacable. And then it glowed blue as a perfect circle appeared, sucking it through backwards into a void, a brilliant pale blue that left Natasha’s face bloodless.

“The cube,” she whispered, and Loki looked up sharply.

“The woman out of time,” he said, nodding. Another gesture with the staff, and an image of a glowing blue cube appeared, floating in mid-air. “The Tesseract. It had been hidden on Midgard for many centuries. Until your time. Then it was lost again, until the Destroyer was taken.”

Rogers was looking at her sharply, but Natasha would have to explain later. “Why couldn’t you find it?!”

“Things such as that defy finding. They sometimes have minds of their own. You know just a fraction of its power. Its wielder is unknown to me.” It seemed to pain him to admit the last.

“The Tesseract? That… holy crap, Dad worked on that thing. That’s what Red Skull was using to fuel Hydra tech,” Tony said. “I thought you dumped it in the ocean.”

“I did,” Natasha said tersely. “It was too powerful for any person to have, and if it hadn’t dropped right through the deckplates of the Valkyrie I would have probably chucked it in myself.”

“Back up,” Rogers said, palms out. “Forget this Tesseract thing for a minute. How did whoever has it on Earth know about Asgard, the Destroyer, the vaults, and you? Why tell everyone it was doing everything in your name?”

“One of your people?” Banner asked.

“Possible. More interesting to me is that it declared its intentions and forced information out of those who would have refused. The Destroyer was adaptable and self-repairing, but it does not speak, has no will, and cannot control the mind.”

“That, we figured.” Tony said. “Someone co-oped some of my tech, then added their own twist. We’ve got a few names we’re running down.”

“It also narrows our suspects. The crossover between who knows enough about the Asgardian vaults to get out its protector, and only that--” Natasha said.

“Nothing else was taken? You don’t break into the local equivalent of Fort Knox and not take any gold,” Clint said, shaking his head.

“No one would care to know that more than I,” Loki said. “But why attempt to start some conflict with Midgard? You offer little challenge.”

Tony looked ready to jump in at that, but the last thing they needed was to get into a pissing match with the ruler of Asgard. Luckily Barton broke in before Natasha had to intervene.

“Did offer little challenge,” Barton said. The others turned to look at him. “Between all of us, we took down something I don’t think the Army could have even dealt with. That’s no damn coincidence. It wanted us dead, and if we’d happened to be somewhere populated, I don’t think it would have even hesitated about casualties.”

“There must be some way to see if someone has left Asgard for Earth other than Thor, or if someone communicated with someone here,” Steve said. His fingers flexed, and Natasha knew he was itching for a way to connect to the Asgardian databases, anything to get the answers they needed.

“Then allow me to scry. There are ways of seeing into the past that I can invoke – they are not done lightly or easily, but it is clear this had moved beyond just the concern of Asgard. I will call for your return when I have managed to find what I can.”

--

Loki’s guards guided them to several side chambers, warning them that it would be several hours before Loki could complete his work. Tony was examining some Asgardian… something-or-other in one of the outer chambers, a thing of hovering bits of metal and light that moved in strange patterns. Natasha wasn’t sure if it was a scientific device or a child’s toy, only that it was well out of her range of knowledge. Bruce had pulled Steve aside for an intense discussion while Clint was hovering nearby, putting in a pointed comment every few moments. Whatever they were talking about, it didn’t look like an argument, and Natasha let them be. Likely both of them had a lot of questions for Steve about SHIELD, and he was by far the best to answer them, despite his secrecy that had to be a reflex by now. But Thor had gone to a balcony overlooking a garden below, and Natasha joined him. She wasn’t likely to get a view like this many times in her life, even as strange a life as it had been.

“They have much to discuss, all to the better, I think,” Thor said, nodding in the general direction of Clint and the others.

“They deserve answers. Both of them have been working without a net for too long,” Natasha said. Steve was likely a fantastic liar when he had to be, he couldn’t have been what he was without that skill, but here, out of the range of any Earth surveillance, she hoped he could drop his habitual caution and get Bruce and Clint all the answers they needed.

“This journey, it is likely to mean something very different at the end, for all of us. Like Clint said, our power has been acknowledged. Soon more than our enemies will know.”

“And everything will change,” Natasha said, leaning on the balcony next to him.

“We are all changed. Tony is… changed,” Thor said, looking out over the balcony meditatively. “He went through great tribulations in his captivity, and that would be enough to make any man or woman change their outlook. If Mjölnir had not chosen him, and if he had survived, I believe eventually he would have conceived of this armor and power source on his own, and used it to rectify the wrong in the world. But he was indeed found worthy, and changed in other ways.” Thor looked at his hand, and drew the dagger at his side. Of all of them, he looked most at home in the vaguely medieval clothing and weapons they’d been offered to wear. He scored his arm lightly through the gaps in his armor before Natasha could protest, and beads of blood welled up.

“When I was cast from Asgard, I was stripped of the powers of my people, not just of Mjölnir, but the abilities of any Aesir. The flesh of my people is dense, and a normal Midgard blade or projectile would not bother us in the slightest. We have the All-Speech, and can understand any language spoken, and be understood in return. And we live a very long time. I had not kept close track of what was happening on Midgard when I was young, but from what I do remember, and why my friend Jane Foster had determined, I am over a thousand of your years old. Maybe far older than that, but the calendars of Asgard don’t correlate well with Midgard. And now I find myself as a Midgardian. Blades cut, bullets hurt, even a skilled fist or something as simple as a taser can lay me low. There are tongues I do not know on Midgard, and now in coming back to Asgard, find I cannot understand some of my own people. And I know I will grow old, that I will age and die in what will be the twinkling of an eye for my brother, my mother, my father.”

Natasha would have found Thor’s explanation unbearably sad if he hadn’t been so calm, so matter-of-fact. She knew he was a man of great passion, but for other things, he took a long view that betrayed his real age.

“All of this I learned when I realized Mjölnir was in the hands of another, and all that I no longer had, I mourned for and was able to eventually let go. Then, I met Tony. And realized he had gained what had changed in me. I do not say lost, for I have received gifts as a Midgardian I would have not been able to as an Aesir. But Tony doesn’t always understand what has happened to him. He is mighty and strong, very hard to hurt, but Mjölnir has also planted within him some of the knowledge given to any Aesir, taken from my memories so that he would understand who had chosen him, and why. He is very different, physically, emotionally, and mentally. Not that any of this has made him less. Indeed, I think it has made him a great deal better as a person. But very few around him understand what has happened to him.”

“I think we might,” Natasha said. She looked at Thor sideways, and took off one of the decorative sashes on her dress, prompting him to turn towards her as she wrapped the slight wound on his arm. “All of us have been changed, for a lot of reasons.”

“And that is why this initiative, this gathering of heroes, will work. We have much in common. I even think that in some ways, I am the opposite of you.”

She looked up at him, and raised an eyebrow of inquiry.

“You had determination and heart, but not much power, and were given it to protect your people. I had great power, and used it at the end for my own pride. It was taken from me, and I had to learn humility and compassion, and find a new way to protect the people I had come to care for. It is a journey I don’t think I would wish on anyone-.”

“But you’re glad it happened to you anyway,” Natasha said, putting her hand back on his arm, above the bandage. Thor put his hand over hers lightly, covering it completely. Having seen what Tony could do, she could guess that Thor must have been utterly terrifying with Mjölnir at his side.

“Yes. I believe fate drew me here.”

“I’m starting to believe in fate,” Natasha said. “I wake up from something that should have killed me only to find out that the Cube is suddenly active? If I didn’t see something at work there, I’d be an idiot.”

“And you are not that, Natasha,” Thor said. “You are our inspiration. And my friend.” He leaned down and took her hand, gently kissing the back of it. She kept ahold of his hand for another moment, then slowly let go, the heat of it lingering.

“When things get a little less hectic, let’s talk about that some more,” she said. It had been a very long time since 1945. And longer than that since she’d had the freedom to think of more than survival.

“I would care for that very much.” He tilted his head back towards the doors as one of the attendants opened them. “Let us see if the searches have borne fruit.”

--

“What are we looking at?” Steve demanded.

“A viewing of the past. It seems the Tesseract was within a Midgard facility for quite some time.” Loki’s voice was calm as he stretched out his hands over a pool of water that had appeared in the throne room since they had left.

Shadowy images swam in the bottom of the pool, and Steve pressed his lips together. “I know that place, more by reputation than anything else. It’s a top-secret communications array parked out in the desert in New Mexico.”

“Someone was experimenting with it, attempting to withdraw power from it, as it had been before.”

“Replicating Schmidt and Zola’s weapons,” Natasha said, with venom in her voice.

“However, at a recent point, the experiments became a great deal more focused. The power was being withdrawn for something more specific. Around that time, the Destroyer was taken. It was taken some months before the six of you all met.”

“That’s disconcerting,” Bruce muttered.

“There were patterns to the power, and though I can’t track the Tesseract directly, I can track how the power flows. See here.” Loki twisted his hand, and lines of glowing blue threaded up into the outline of a vaguely humanoid figure with a glowing blue heart…

“Someone was making blueprints,” Tony said decisively. He blinked once, and then said, “Oh, man.”

“If they were making copies of the Destroyer…” Natasha said, appalled at the idea of a legion of those things on Earth.

“They succeeded, because they sent the Destroyer after us. Which means what they have isn’t quite as strong, or isn’t ready yet, but they have all the information they need. They just couldn’t wait to field-test. Or they wanted to make sure people wouldn’t be looking to Earth for the source of the problem,” Bruce said.

“How, though? If this thing and the person were in a SHIELD facility, they still have to be getting in supplies to make their destroyer-bots. That stuff doesn’t come cheap,” Clint pointed out.

“Have you ever seen SHIELD’s budget?” Steve said.

“…right. Anyway--”

“How did whoever did this know about the Destroyer at all?”

“Because during their experimentation, they found the true purpose of the Tesseract,” Loki said. “It is meant to transport things, to pierce the walls between worlds. Including Asgard. They were able to contact someone here who told them.”

“Who?”

Loki looked over at Thor, his expression suddenly softening. “Your exile was hard on many, you realize. Some never got over your absence.”

“Who?” Thor demanded.

Loki nodded to one of the distant guards, and he returned in a moment with a woman in armor, her hands shackled in front of her in elaborate gold-colored manacles. Her long dark hair was tied back tightly, and her expression could have been carved from stone. When she caught sight of Thor, she blanched, and Thor looked stricken.

“Lady Sif,” Loki said, very gently.

Tony’s expression said very clearly, oh shit, and he leaned over to give a quick whispered explanation of, “One of Thor’s closest friends before he was exiled.”

Oh shit indeed.

“Why?” Thor asked, taking a few steps towards her, but stopping himself abruptly. “Sif, what would possess you to do this?”

Loki just looked at her, not willing to give her any relief, and she finally caught Thor’s eyes. “You left us.”

“It was my own fault, my own arrogance. My father was right to punish me so,” Thor said, his eyes glistening with tears. “I tried to do something unforgivable.”

“Why couldn’t you find Mjölnir again? Why did you stop trying to get home? You know how dangerous that power could be in the hands of a Midgardian.”

Tony’s mouth opened, and Bruce put a hand on his wrist and shook his head. As Natasha had expected, that didn’t stop him. “Lady, I know in ways I didn’t even know were possible before a few years ago. I’ve been trying to stop violence, not give some guys on Earth blueprints to a nearly-indestructible death machine.”

Sif shot him a hate-filled glare. “And before that? You reveled in death. In your hands, we could have seen Mjölnir battering down the gates of Asgard.”

The insult stung, Natasha could tell, but Thor rallied quickly before Tony could speak. “Because she found Tony worthy and chose him, not I, to wield her.” Unexpectedly, Thor took a few steps back and flung his arms around everyone, urging them forward. “My friend, my path on Midgard lead me to these people, each of whom is fighting for justice in their own way. We have all endured our trials of fire or ice, betrayal or exile, and I believe we were brought together by fate. We will avenge Midgard, if we must, from those who would see it destroyed.”

Sif looked down as Natasha could see the others standing straighter. “I… did not know. The ones I conversed with betrayed me, went back on the vows we swore. How was I to know your new friends wouldn’t do the same?”

“Who did you talk to?” Bruce asked. He stepped forward until he was a few feet from Sif, and Natasha could see Clint trying to edge forward without seeming too obvious. Manacled, guarded, or not, Sif was Aesir and could probably break Bruce with a single punch.

But apparently Sif had seen something in Thor and the other Avengers.

“One was a scientist who worked with the long-lost Tesseract. His name was Killian,” she said, barely looking up. “The other was a warlord, a general. His name was Ross.”

Bruce and Clint’s expression went fairly murderous, and Natasha didn’t blame them. Steve jerked his head slightly in surprise, and Tony looked furious. Ross. Despite his failure to capture Clint or Bruce, the man still had plenty of power within the government and the Army. She didn’t know how. She suspected blackmail. If Ross didn’t end up behind bars or worse after this, she was going to get Steve to find out why.

But the other name…

“Killian…” Tony said, shaking his head.

“Aldrich Killian?” Steve asked. “Advanced Idea Mechanics? He took some of SHIELD research contracts for weapons development when Stark Industries bowed out.”

“No good deed, or bad one, goes unpunished. I snubbed the hell out of him some dozen years back when I was drunk off my ass and he approached me with some wild theories. I barely remember that night, to be honest, but when AIM went public a few years ago, he did a nice, polite ‘screw you’ to me in public. Brought some of that back. That was right before Afghanistan.” Tony looked torn between embarrassment and anger.

“And after, since Stark Industries stopped making weapons, AIM ended up getting real tight with some of SHIELD’s R&D,” Steve pointed out.

“Ross would sure like to work with someone who hated your guts, because that would get him what he wanted too,” Bruce said.

“It seems that Asgard, in this cavalcade of villains, is little more than a convenient scapegoat for their ambitions,” Loki said thoughtfully. “A source of information and power, perhaps even a place to work, but more a distraction for you than anything else. They would likely need someplace out of Midgard to make enough of these Tesseract-fueled Destroyer-copies without being detected. That amount of power would draw too much attention. They could be brought to Midgard—”

“In numbers and force as soon as they’re ready with their endgame,” Natasha finished.

“Which is… what?” Bruce asked.

“World domination?” Clint said sarcastically. Loki nodded, and Clint blinked at him.

“They are working with the Tesseract. It tends to warp one’s view unless one has very exceptional protection.” His eyes slid over to Lady Sif for a moment. “If you are unprepared, it can turn your whole world inside out.”

“Is the Tesseract still on Earth? Can you tell that much?” Natasha demanded. Her heart sped up and her stomach sank. They’d gone from a walk to a sprint in a matter of seconds.

“I believe so. We of Asgard will try to find where they are building these copies.”

“And we shall find the Tesseract and those abusing it. If they attempt to open a pathway, it will be obvious, yes?” Thor said, looking over at everyone else.

“Now that we know what we’re looking for, plain as the sun in the sky,” Tony said. “Damn, we need to get back, now.”

“Heimdall is ready for you,” Loki said, as the images in the pool subsided into nothingness again. As everyone was filing out as quickly as they could, Loki called out, “Best of luck, brother!”

---

Chapter 5
Chapter 3
Chapter 2
Chapter 1
Master Post

Assembling - Chapter 3

2017-07-22T09:59:50Z

Assembling - Chapter 2

2017-07-22T09:54:07Z

Title: Assembling
Author: jaune_chat
Fandoms: The Avengers
Characters/Relationships: Tony, Steve, Bruce, Thor, Clint, Natasha, Maria Hill
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 28,728
Spoilers: Uses elements up to The Avengers.
Content Advisory: Action/Adventure, medical emergency
A/N: The second half of this story written for wipbigbang (first 11k written in 2013, last 17k finished in 2017). Amazing art by ensign_c. Also on Tumblr here. Thanks to brighteyed_jill for betaing!

Art: Amazing art by ensign_c can be found here.

Summary: The Avengers Initiative is assembling: The Thunderer - Tony Stark, Iron Man - Thor Odinsson, Captain America - Natasha Romanov, and The Black Widow(er) - Steve Rogers are being thrown together to go after one Clint Barton, who can become a rage monster known as the Hulk, and his bow-wielding protector, the radiation scientist Dr. Bruce Banner. Together these six people might just be able to save themselves and the world they've taken by storm.

On Ao3 or below the cut

Steve could only hope that after months of observation from SHIELD they had a better handle on what really made Bruce Banner and Clint Barton tick. SHIELD had needed Stark and Thor and Romanov in case of an incident when they tried to make contact. But from everything he had observed, an incident would be the very last resort.

Banner and Barton didn’t believe in wanton war and destruction any more than Stark, Thor, or Romanov. The danger they represented was one of teasing a sleeping bear – everything was fine until you started jabbing it with a stick.

How General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross managed to keep his position when he had wasted an untold amount of money, manpower, and lives on trying to recapture Barton and Banner over the past three years was something of a mystery. Steve had theories that he held blackmail material over quite a few powerful people, otherwise how could he have hounded the two this long? His efforts had driven them to Saskatchewan to hide, and nothing was going to make them break cover unless they were forced. They had absolutely no interest in letting Barton be turned over to the US Army, or indeed any army, and Ross should have been thanking his lucky stars that Barton was keeping his head down.

On the one hand, Steve could see a few coldly practical reasons why Ross was still pursuing Barton and Banner. For one, Barton could be an unparalleled weapon in unpredictable terrain, provided he ever got himself under control. What now took dozens of soldiers and thousands, sometimes millions of dollars’ worth of equipment could be taken care of by a single Hulk. But they’d never know if they never got Barton and Banner back. For another, the US couldn’t afford to let any other country capture the two men. Letting them run free wasn’t an option, because there wasn’t an asset that existed that someone wouldn’t try to exploit.

On the other hand, what had happened to Barton was a tragic accident, and him, Banner, and Ross’ daughter had been screwed over repeatedly and with malicious intent to create the Hulk. Barton had signed up to be a volunteer soldier, not a monster, not to have his freedom deprived from him on a whim, not to be used as one-man army to slaughter anyone who was unfortunate to be in his way when his captors decided to loose him. Banner and Dr. Ross had been trying to help soldiers stay safe in the field, not turn them into living weapons.

Staying hidden for the rest of their lives wouldn’t work. There was no place they could go where they couldn’t eventually be found. Curing Barton could be difficult or impossible, and even if it worked, or even especially if it worked, no one would let any of them alone until they’d managed to repeat the experiment. Banner and Barton were going to have to make a choice, and SHIELD was probably the safest one. They were used to dealing with corner cases, with unusual decisions, out-of-the-box thinking, and unorthodox solutions. With SHIELD as their shield, Barton and Banner might be able to have some semblance of a life, which they wouldn’t get anywhere else.

Besides, Steve could understand how someone would want to change themselves for the better. So could Natasha, Stark, and Thor. That was the whole point of this operation; it was a job offer. It was a chance to show them they could do some good and not have to hide.

The trick was they had to make that offer very, very carefully so they didn’t spook.

Steve traipsed down the mountain at an immoderate pace, letting twigs snag at his too-new name-brand outdoor clothes and get caught on his bulky, overloaded backpack. At the forced flailing pace, he grew sweaty and dirty in no time, looking for all the world like an inexperienced city boy trying the Great Outdoors with whatever he’d picked out of an Eddie Bauer catalogue. He pressed himself over his limits so that when he deliberately thrashed out of the trees his throat was starting to close in an impending asthma attack. He stumbled to a stop in clear view of the cabin and rummaged in a frantic fashion through the ridiculous amounts of pockets in his vest until he “found” his inhaler. Instead of quietly taking a few hits so subtly you’d never notice he’d even been gasping, he played up the attack (not to the point of looking faint, just more civilian) and “spied” the cabin with a look of pure relief. After a brief rest, he marched straight for it, openly.

“Hello?” he called. “Anyone home?” The curtain moved, but no enormous green rage monsters emerged, nor did an arrow fly out to skewer him. Good. The two men hadn’t become completely paranoid yet.

--

“Who the hell is that?” Tony said, squinting through his binoculars. He hit the power switch on the side to increase the magnification. “Got a hiker that just came out of the woods.”

“Let’s wait. I don’t want to crowd them,” Natasha said, peering over Stark’s shoulder from their vantage point partway up the valley.

“He looks like Preppy McFrappe from Yuppyville,” Tony announced decisively, and derisively. Thor and Natasha looked at each other in bewilderment. Even ignoring technical jargon, half the time they didn’t know what Tony was talking about. Tony looked over at them and sighed. “He looks like a city guy who’s only ever seen camping supplies in a store. No experience. How the hell did he get out here alone?”

“Boneheadedness?” Natasha suggested, and Tony smiled.

“Maybe. Maybe not. He does anything hinky, it’s going to be hammer time, just saying,” Tony said, and continued watching.

Natasha felt little prickles of unease at the unspoken lie. It was too far to make out Steve’s features even through the binoculars, not past the turtleneck sweater, coat, and hat, and she hadn’t said a word about knowing the mysterious hiker. She was growing to like Tony and Thor, and having to keep her mouth shut about SHIELD in general and Steve in particular was beginning to wear. Not that she hadn’t kept as many secrets during the war for the same gravity of reasons. Working for the army was one thing – a spy organization, something else.

There was more freedom in working for SSR- or rather, SHIELD- than there ever would have been in the regular army. The army had never really had plans for people like Natasha; witness what they had tried to do to Barton! Stark hadn’t contradicted her explanation for working for the new SSR, which was, strictly speaking, true. Or that they had asked her to find people to talk to Barton that could handle him if he reacted badly. She just hadn’t mentioned SHIELD’s scope and budget had gone astronomical in the seventy years since she’d known them. She didn’t mention they were being watched as much as Barton and Banner.

But she also didn’t assume Stark or Thor was stupid. They had to know someone would be watching them. At their level power, a certain amount of danger could be shrugged off. No subtle, clandestine attempts to hurt them could succeed, which left betrayal or all-out assault. They hadn’t let Natasha into their confidence enough for the former and anyone who had ever seen the two of them in action would think very hard about initiating the latter. In short, they might know or guess that Natasha had been more secretive than she was telling and didn’t care, or cared enough to wait for her to say for herself.

Natasha sighed mentally. She enjoyed the two men’s company – Thor had the manners of a prince and though Tony might look, he did not leer, and accorded her the respect of soldier without seeming to have to try. It was a nice change, and in the past month she’d gotten to know them, she almost felt like she had friends again.

She could only hope revealing the Black Widow wouldn’t be a setback for them. They needed him; he was stealthy and subtle, something they rest of them were not. He was hard and practical, with few illusions. And he could smooth the way for their own peculiarities as easily as breathing. Tony was brash and loud, Thor a monument to an alien world, and Natasha was a living historical icon. They needed a man in their corner, a silent partner, a bridge, an interpreter.

Someone to look out for the freaks of the world.

“Aaaand he’s taking a hit off of his inhaler. Least, I think it’s an inhaler, unless it’s a teeny tiny bong, which I would totally not put past Mr. Yuppie. If he legitimately got lost this far out that would completely make sense… Nope, no smoke, regular inhaler.”

“I would dare a closer look, but I believe they would hear me,” Thor said with a sigh, pressing his eyes to his own binoculars.

Down in the valley, Steve smiled and waved as the door opened. The person inside didn’t seem to want to come out, but there was just enough light spilling into to see a faint reflection off eyeglasses.

“That’s the good doctor,” Natasha said quietly.

“Bad news for us. His houseguest could be anywhere,” Tony said.

“You do not believe they are both inside?” Thor asked.

“Banner’s more vulnerable. Why answer the door unless he had to? Barton’s face isn’t on the news.”

All of them must have missed Barton’s departure, both Steve at his own post, and them at theirs, had all managed to let him slip by. Natasha cursed inwardly and knew that down in the valley Steve had to be doing the same. The initial plan had Steve making contact, confirming the two men’s identities and getting their attention, and then Natasha would lead the others in after Steve left. Armed with more information, they could approach with open hands and know any sore spots to avoid. The last thing she wanted to do was go in cold if she didn’t have to.

“Good reasoning- hsst,” Natasha said, catching a hint of movement off to the side. All three turned as a sandy-haired man with a rifle in his arms just barely came into view. Barton. Natasha thanked her lucky stars that she’d been able to convince Thor to keep the suit in its case and wore her own armor and vibranium bracers under regular clothes. They were here first and foremost to talk. Fighting was the last thing they wanted to do, even if they were so very remote up here. The presence of a “civilian” at the cabin should help motivate everyone to keep their tempers.

--

Barton easily cradled the rifle he’d picked up earlier from the cabin. Though a far cry from the kinds of weapons he’d used in the army, the old hunting rifle was nevertheless a good companion. Reliable, not hard to clean, the hunters up here swore by them. Minimal practice had let him take his share of rabbits and game birds, along with the occasional deer in the six months they’d been up here. A little bargaining in the nearest town, and they were reasonably self-sufficient. It was a quiet life, a good one, and no one had found them until now.

But it was still a life dominated by the giant green rage monster in the room. Clint had had no trouble seeing the wisdom in getting a solid handle on his condition before trying to sneak into the kinds of labs Bruce needed to try to cure him. And they still had Betty on their side, who took the samples Bruce smuggled to her and did everything she could. She’d been able to suggest a few things to avoid, chemicals, some foods, anything that exacerbated Clint’s control and put stress on the Hulk; that had kept things from getting worse. But the rest was in his hands alone.

He’d heard the jokes that snipers were the loneliest guys in their units, and by and large that had been true in the field. Just him and his calculator, or maybe a spotter, for hours or even days on end. But at the end of that time he still got to go home. He could meet his unit at the bar and have a beer, head out for a game or a concert, maybe find someone who wanted to have a mutual good time. He could go back to his apartment and watch a show, listening to the downstairs guy’s choice of heavy metal and smelling the killer barbecue from the family in 304. He could help the super hang the Christmas lights in the winter, swinging himself up onto the roof, or lob baseballs off the balcony for the kids below in the summer…

You never really realized how much a loner you weren’t until you were truly forced to go at it alone. Not that Bruce was bad company, not at all. He was intelligent and had a dry sense of humor that struck chords with Clint’s own, and they could, and had, talked marksmanship all day. But both of them were laboring under a mountain of guilt and seething with anger at Ross’ betrayal. It meant silences could be anywhere from awkward to unbearable. Hence why Clint spent so much time out of doors. It kept both of them from rubbing their emotions raw.

They’d chosen this place for its seclusion, and to have it broken by three others… no, four; Clint spied another stranger at the cabin door and his heart skipped a beat. The Hulk growled in his mind, alert at the danger sense that prickled at his neck. Not yet. No danger yet you big, dumb dope. The Hulk continued to grumble, but stayed back, for now. As long as he could keep his adrenaline from spiking, that seemed to help keep the Other Guy down.

There were two well-built men and a slightly shorter woman in front of him, all three dressed for a long hike and carrying what looked like camping equipment. The man near the cabin looked to be the same. The three people in the clearing looked harmless enough, but Clint couldn’t afford to be that careless, not now. He raised the rifle a little and put on his sternest voice.

--

“This is private property,” Barton said flatly.

“Didn’t see a sign, Lone Ranger,” Tony said, crossing his arms. Natasha privately thought Tony could have looked more worried – Barton was unarmed, they were ostensibly not, and the loners up here had plenty of land to bury a body.

“There were no marks of ownership anywhere, and we walked quite far,” Thor said. He hefted his binoculars and added, “We were watching birds.”

Natasha somehow managed not to choke as Thor pulled out a Birder’s Guide to Saskatchewan. Tony also valiantly did not whip around to stare at Thor like he was crazy. As a matter of fact, after two heartbeats, he joined in the insanity.

“He’s been on this kick for months. What were you talking about this time, the red-breasted titmouse?”

“The Northern Hawk Owl, which you well know as you were grousing about it not an hour prior.”

“Birds, grousing, ha ha,” Tony said, rolling his eyes.

“Theo, Anthony, if he doesn’t shoot you, I’m going to start throwing rocks.” Natasha might not have had any ambitions to go to the stage as a child, but she’d learned how to play a role very early on, and after the serum she’d gotten very good at improvising when she’d snuck into officers’ meetings. She didn’t know where Thor had gotten his idea (or, for that matter, the book) but she would run with it for a touchdown if Barton let her. She hoped the others didn’t mind a name change, but “Thor” was too distinctive and if she said “Tony” outright, Barton might look past the flannel shirt and hat to see Tony Stark.

They needed to ease Barton into the idea of meeting people who were different, not drop everything on him at once. That could end up being… messy. They hadn’t wanted to be spotted at all, so there’d be less lies to untangle later, but suddenly revealing there were three super-powered people in Barton’s backyard when he was armed, alone, and on high alert would be even worse.

Natasha just looked up at Barton and tried to look long-suffering, a good friend dragged out to do something she had no real interest in. Barton took a long, slow look around and lost some of his wariness. Not all of it by a long shot, but some.

“Further west,” he said brusquely. “Valley that way.”

“That your place?” Tony asked, waving at the cabin.

“Why?”

“’Cause I would totally love to sit on something that isn’t a rock or a log or end up with more pine needles in my food than actual food.”

“You dropped it in the fire. That was your fault,” Natasha said, with a little smile for remembering the night Dum-Dum had done the same, and then just ate it with a shrug, ignoring Gabriel’s gagging sounds.

“It was my food and I’ll whine if I want to. Anyway, could we trade you some chocolate for renting a chair and table for an hour?” Tony said plaintively.

“Sorry, no. Looks like we already have company.” Barton jerked his chin over to the cabin just below. “We really don’t do visitors.”

“It’s really awesome chocolate,” Tony said with a sigh of resignation, getting up to leave. Thor stood too, the heavy pack he was wearing making his muscle obvious even through his sweater and coat. Even for Natasha’s unusual strength the Iron Man suit was heavy, yet Thor could and would bear it, unpowered, without complaint. The wide, reinforced straps caught Barton’s eyes, and Natasha took advantage of the distraction to kick some debris over Mjölnir. Tony’s mystical hammer was damned inconvenient in that Tony was the only one who could pick it up. He couldn’t carry it around in a bag or leave it dangling from his belt, he had to hold it in his hand. And picking up a giant sledgehammer that made your hair stand on end if you got too close and carting it away in front of Barton wouldn’t look good for establishing peaceful intentions. At least it could fly back to Tony once Barton had cleared the area.

“Came up here for quiet, not for chocolate,” Barton said.

“Yeah, yeah, not the droids you’re looking for, move along,” Tony said. Barton stiffened, and even though Natasha hadn’t a clue what Tony was referencing, it clearly meant something to Barton. Tony, not being stupid, just shouldered his pack and walked away, looking grumpy. Thor headed off next with a smile and a murmured thanks about the location of the hawk owl. Natasha was the last to leave, and took her path close enough to Barton so she could offer a Hershey bar. It had been the little things that had kept her guys in good spirits when they were so far from home, and from what they knew of Barton’s background, he was very, very far from home.

Barton took the chocolate quickly, returning his hand to the gun stock. “West,” he said again, nodding where Tony and Thor had gone.

“I’m Natasha,” she said, waving good-bye.

“Francis,” he said reluctantly.

His middle name. Well, since over the half the people in this scenario were using aliases anyway…

“It’s just nice to know there’s someone around up here,” she said cheerfully, and took her leave. Barton muttered a response so quietly that if Natasha’s ears hadn't been so keen, she would have never heard it.

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

She wanted to turn back, wanted to tell him he wasn’t alone. All she could do was smile at him, smile and maybe make him realize that not every stranger was out to hurt him. Maybe he’d be able to remember that. She just hoped that Steve was having better luck.

--

Steve could nearly hear whoever was on the other side weighing his options. The door finally opened a crack after a lengthy pause.

“Hey there,” Steve said, warmly as he could while letting himself wheeze. “Don’t suppose I could bother you for a drink?” The inhaler was imperfectly concealed in his hand, still in view of the door. “My eyes were bigger than my stamina, I’m afraid. Overdid it.” He wheezed a bit more for effect, but that was mostly for show. The drugs had done their work, and he’d learned to deal with his asthma a long time ago.

The door opened another few inches, the sun just barely illuminating a rumpled-looking man with salt-and-pepper hair, glasses perched on his nose.

“Are you doing okay?” Banner asked reluctantly, not coming fully into the light. Steve hid his alarm at being greeted by the good doctor. If Barton was off roaming the hills, that could be bad. He must have slipped out of the house somehow, even though Steve had been observing it for the past several days, and Steve mentally berated himself for the lapse. It would have made more sense for Barton to be the one to greet strangers, because it was unlikely for Barton to be physically hurt. Banner was all too mortal, and if Barton lost his advocate and protector, he’d have to go at it alone. Solo operation was hard as hell, Steve knew that more than most, and to be entirely cut off from resources to boot along with acquiring a rage monster inside your own body… he needed the help. Anyone would need help.

“A little better, but I could use some water, if you have it,” Steve said, letting his wheezing wind down. Regardless, Barton was out and Steve-the-asthmatic-tourist didn’t know there were two people that lived here. The others would either be able to handle Barton, or not. Steve couldn’t afford to warn them through the earbud, and they were all watching him anyway, even if only one of them knew who he really was. He trusted their intelligence enough to be on the lookout regardless.

Banner finally pointed to a split-log bench and said, “Sit down; I’ll be right back.” Steve collapsed with a look of gratitude, feeling the hard cartridges of his Widower’s Bite against his wrists. Concealed by the thick cuffs of his coat and sweater, he still had a way to incapacitate Banner if everything went wrong.

Of course, if everything really did go that wrong, it would probably just be more advisable to run.

Banner returned with a pitcher and tin cup, dripping wet, and Steve took it and sipped it carefully. It was tooth-achingly cold and tasted of minerals, but he couldn’t detect any obvious poisons. If it was something more exotic, it would take time to affect him, in which case he had antidotes in his supplies. He drank the water down with every evidence of gratitude, and accepted another cup as Banner kept looking all around the valley. Expecting helicopters and men in combat gear, most likely.

We wouldn’t do that to you, Doctor. You aren’t guilty of anything but being a good man. A hell of a lot better than most of the people you know.

“Thanks,” Steve said, leaning back and letting the faint breeze cool the sweat on his face. “I really didn’t mean to overdo it that badly.”

“Don’t you have a hiking buddy or something? It’s dangerous up here for the inexperienced…” Banner dropped off, realizing Steve could take offense, and he laughed to put him at ease.

“Yeah, it’s my own fault, I know. I’m supposed to meet some people just west of here. There’s a valley…”

“Oh,” Bruce said, looking over that way. “Right.” He didn’t sound terribly convinced, but when was the last time someone had hiked up out of nowhere out here?

“I solemnly swear, I’m only up to good things,” Steve said, and pulled a couple empty water containers out of his pack. “Could I trouble you…?” He put on his best puppy dog eyes, and Bruce reluctantly went back into the house. As Banner opened the door, Steve could see a little more inside, including the computer with the satellite hook-up. So that’s how they were communicating with Dr. Ross all the way out here. He wondered who had hooked them up with the equipment.

“How you end up out here?” Steve called.

“Needed to get away from it all,” Bruce called back. “The usual.”

“All couldn’t be farther away,” Steve agreed amicably. “But don’t you miss anything out here?”

Banner came back out, handing Steve back his containers, and looked a little haunted. Steve could easily imagine what was going through his mind at that moment.

Betty Ross, my labs, food I didn’t have to cook myself, stores, a job, and any sense of self-worth.

“Grass is always greener, no matter where you are,” Banner said with a shrug. “It’s not bad out here.”

“At least you’re away from all those jerks at the office,” Steve said, nodding sympathetically. “Or store or school or wherever.”

“Right. You feeling better?” Banner asked. Steve stood up and took a few deep breaths to show his lack of wheezing. “Good luck finding your buddies.”

Steve smiled and turned to go. Phase one, complete, if modified on the fly. If everything went well, Steve-the-yuppie-tourist would “inadvertently” intersect one of the two during the next couple of days, and then hike out past their cabin again. Non-threatening contact initially established, he’d introduce Thor, Tony, and Natasha as his friends during one of those times, and they would be able to quietly, carefully reveal themselves for who they really were in a controlled environment. Assuming revealing Steve’s identity to Tony and Thor worked out, after all. This wasn’t just about bringing Barton and Banner in, it was about revealing the point of SHIELD and what they needed everyone for. The world was, in the words of Steve’s mentor, “stranger than you already know.” And Steve knew a wide range of strange at this point.

Far better to do this here, where there was nothing to do but face the consequences, instead of in Malibu or New York. Under the stars, amidst the wild, it was easier to step away from the distractions of the greater world.

Feeling fairly confident, Steve started to walk away.

That’s when a thunderclap from above nearly deafened him.

He quickened his pace.

--

Barton waited until he saw the others had moved off west, waited a good while longer to make sure they weren’t going to double back, and then took a quick turn around the little clearing they’d been using to do birding. Maybe they were just what they said they were, hikers out in the great wilds of Canada looking for something off the beaten path. Or maybe they were spies for the General.

Damn it, he really didn’t want to have to leave again.

He hunted for clues in the leaf litter, looking for anything that didn’t match their story. MRE wrappers, army boot footprints, cigarette butts, GPS locators, even wireless cameras, any of those he might have suspected. He didn’t expect to kick over some leaves and stub his toe on a gleaming silver hammer that looked like something straight out of fantasy movie.

How the hell did that fit it anything he’d seen today? Clint reached over and pulled on it, and nearly wrenched his shoulder out of its socket. The thing might as well have been mounted in cement for all he budged it.

“The hell?” he muttered.

Then he looked closer at the hammer, and his jaw dropped. He knew he’d seen that somewhere before. There were a few very blurry pictures of this hammer, or something like it, in Tony Stark’s hands when he’d returned from his international ass-kicking of all terrorists great and small. He’d heard a few stories about it in passing; picking up gossip from soldiers’ message boards and conspiracy websites. And “Anthony,” how dumb had he been not to have recognized that goatee?

Above his head, thunder growled. Clint looked up in alarm – where had that come from?

--

Tony jerked to a halt so fast Thor nearly ran into him, and turned around. “He’s got her,” he said, paling.

“Who-?”

“Mjölnir. He’s got his hands on her.”

Thunder growled in response to Tony’s outrage, and Natasha could see lightning crawling in the bases of the sudden swell of thunderheads above.

“He cannot move her, Tony. She judged you worthy, not him. He cannot harm her,” Thor urged.

“I’m not worried about that! But there are pictures of me with her. He knows we’re not who we said we were.”

“Run or come clean?”

“Come clean.” Steve broke out of the woods next to Natasha, and started shucking his pack and outerware with casual grace.

“Legal? What the fuck are you doing here?” Tony demanded.

“Steve Rogers, agent of SHIELD,” he said, black armor and Widower’s bite becoming visible as he stripped away his hiker persona.

“He’s with me,” Natasha said, cutting through Tony’s irritation and Thor’s growing ire. “We needed the help. We needed someone subtle. And you were pretty adamant about not having any official presence, so what did you think was going to happen?”

“And SHIELD sent you. Just you?” Thor said, eyeing Rogers up and down, testing his fitness with his eyes.

“She only trusted me around you,” Steve said.

“Wait, go back, you were in my house,” Tony said, clearly irritated enough not to let this drop. Storm clouds were still gathering, and this was not exactly the time or the place, but Tony wasn’t going to move until he got an explanation.

“Can we focus on the important things here?” Steve asked.

“You lied,” Tony accused, looking more at Natasha.

“I did not,” she said. The thunder boomed overhead, and Natasha looked over her shoulder. Tony might have been able to summon Mjölnir with a thought, but hadn’t wanted to startle Barton. And now, with the weather going, and Barton apparently standing right next to the hammer, he didn’t dare try to tip Barton over the edge. Natasha loosened her coat and dropped her pack, pushing off her outerware so she could move freely. If worse came to worse and Barton lost control, they had to be able to run. “I said I was working with SHIELD, which is true. I said they needed us to look into Barton and Banner and offer them a place and a job, and I said I needed help if something went wrong. I said I wanted to be respectful, and I said we’d be using SHIELD information.”

Tony held up a finger, as if about to protest, thought for a second, then dropped it. Then he pointed it at Steve. “Okay, ‘Nathan-’”

“You damn well know SHIELD wasn’t just going to give you their intel and say ‘good luck.’ I came to help, like she said.”

Tony still looked rebellious. “I don’t think we need any jackbooted government thugs here.”

“I don’t wear jackboots. If I were what you thought I was, I would have subdued Banner and used him as a lure to get Barton in your clutches, and hope the three of you could subdue him long enough to get him transported to a cage. You watched me. What did I do?”

Steve kept his face very calm and composed in the face of Tony’s growing anger, until Thor put a hand on his shoulder.

“He spoke to Dr. Banner. That was all he did.”

“Everyone with the right security clearance knows what happened to the last five capture squads Ross sent after Barton. Banner was the one that warned them off, and then struck back as soon as they showed their intentions. He spared Barton from transforming at least twice during those attempts, because he was plenty dangerous on his own. We’re not trying to capture them, because they have evading that down to a science. We need them to talk to us. They deserve a choice.” Steve stared straight at Tony. “They deserve a chance to do some good. I know they want to.”

Tony’s expression softened and the thunder above eased off slightly.

“If what you say is true, they have rarely been offered that,” Thor said. “It is a common thread in all our stories.”

“Look, I lie a lot in my job; it’s necessary life skill for what I do. But I don’t lie about things like this, or people like them.”

“Do you think Banner would have talked to us?” Natasha pointed out.

Tony nodded reluctantly, and then started as Thor abruptly thumped his pack to the ground and loosened the zipper, the metallic gleam of his Iron Man suit visible through the gap.

“We will have the opportunity momentarily to see if that is true,” Thor said. Natasha looked over her shoulder to see Dr. Banner advancing through the trees. With his bow. Her heart sped up; if Barton followed them to see if Mjölnir was the real deal, this was going to get very awkward. And violent.

--

Clint swallowed as he cleared the trees and saw a colorful group of four people in a loose circle. The woman had stripped down to a patriotic suit of red, white, and blue, looking uncannily like Captain America – one of his history teachers had had a reproduction poster of her, or at least what she was supposed to have looked like, on the walls of his classroom. Tony Stark and Theo were seemingly ignoring her colorful costume change in favor of arguing with the fourth man, the hiker who had been at the cabin, who was now in government commando black.

Clint felt the Hulk throw himself at the walls of his mind at the sight that had always brought pain, and fought down the surge of fear and panic.

It’s one man. I’m strong enough for one man, Hulk. I can handle one man. Please, I’m strong enough for one – I can save myself, please!

He repeated that over and over, torn between keeping ahold of the gun to convince the Hulk he could defend himself, or tossing it aside so he wouldn’t crush it if he couldn’t hold the transformation back.

MORE THAN ONE. NEED HULK. SAVE BARTON, SAVE BANNER!

What if Clint didn’t want to be saved? What if Clint was tired of running, of fighting, what if he wanted to remove the temptation of the Hulk from the unscrupulous? He’d thought of that before, back when Bruce and him had only weathered the second attempt to capture them, and in a moment of weakness had pressed the cool, smooth barrel to his chin. He’d thought maybe he could give Bruce back his life if he was gone. He’d caught Bruce slipping tiny personal notes into the packages he’d gotten smuggled back to Betty, and looking at the one picture of her he had with all the longing in the world.

But Clint hadn’t pulled the trigger. His sniper training had held, that you always had to have a full plan, that after the kill, there had to be an extraction, an escape route, and those could be even more elaborate than setting up the shot itself. If it worked, if Clint was gone, it wouldn’t save Bruce a thing; it wouldn’t give him his life back. Ross would haul him back and set him to making more Hulks, and without Clint there, Bruce wouldn’t be able to protect himself. Without Bruce to keep him sane, Clint knew he’d lose himself in the monster inside.

There was no easy way out.

It was Clint and Hulk together that screamed at the intruders into their world. “Go away! Leave us alone!”

The woman turned towards him, her hands empty, and next to her the commando did the same. Behind them, Tony and Theo were looking over their shoulders, and with a sinking heart, Clint realized Bruce was advancing from the opposite side, working his way around to Clint.

“Go, get out of here. Now!” Bruce yelled, an arrow knocked, his bow pointed at the ground for now, but Clint knew how quickly he could fire, and how deadly he was at that range. Bruce might not have been a soldier, but he’d been taught harsh and painful lessons that had brought his skills to a high peak at a very young age.

From the way Tony and Theo were looking at him, they respected that skill. Good; Bruce had put enough holes in enough people that they should respect him by now. Clint just prayed, with what tiny amount of himself was not occupied with holding back his transformation, that they wouldn’t hurt Bruce.

The Hulk roared again in his mind, and Clint realized that imagining Bruce lying bloody on the ground was the last thing he needed to think about. Sweat started to trickle down his face as Clint cast the rifle aside and tried to hold onto his humanity with everything he had.

--

Natasha’s heart sank as Barton collapsed to the ground, his clothing straining to hold him as he struggled against the monster inside him. They hadn’t wanted to do this, hadn’t wanted to provoke him, dammit, they hadn’t even had a chance to come clean yet! But in the face of an impending Hulk, they couldn’t afford to be anything less than fully prepared. Behind her, Natasha heard the mechanical clicks and whirring as Thor armored up, and thunder rumbled overhead as Tony held out his hand for Mjölnir. Banner stared at them all, wide-eyed, and Natasha was very, very glad that Barton’s head was down as Tony’s hammer went whizzing by to slap into his palm. Thor was extremely intimidating as Iron Man, and thunder growled softly overhead as Tony held Mjölnir at his side. If anyone could give the Hulk a run for his money, it would be those two, and Banner was more than smart enough to see it.

“We’re not here to hurt you,” Steve said, keeping his hands open and away from his sides. “Dr. Banner, please, we’re not trying to capture you. We wanted to talk; I wanted to ease you into things, so that’s why I didn’t start out in uniform.”

Banner’s bow was up and though Natasha was not exactly familiar with the ancient weapon, it looked very substantial, more than enough to punch a hole clean through her or Steve with ease. She twisted her wrists the right way and her bracers opened up slightly, forming two small diamond-shaped shields. She hadn’t wanted to be burdened with anything that would tend to get lost in the field, or that she would have to fling at an enemy – guns served well enough for long distance, but for close-up work, she relied on agility as much as strength. Howard had designed the vibranium bracer-shields to let her deflect bullets without weighing her down.

But Steve had no such protection, and bulletproof vests didn’t do well against sharp objects.

Banner looked between Thor, in his silver, red, and gold armor, Tony with his massive magical hammer, Natasha in her red, white, and blue, and back to Steve in his government spy black. If they had been a new version of Ross’ Hulkbuster squads, they should have opened up, guns blazing, well before this. Their restraint made him hesitate to start firing, but unwilling to drop his bow. Barton’s panting was harsh in the background, but Steve’s soothing words, plus the lack of people starting to shoot, seemed to be giving him more time to regain control.

But he was still struggling, and the hands gripping the long meadow grass had taken on a decidedly greenish tinge.

“Cap?” Tony muttered very quietly. “I really don’t want to hit this guy, but you squishier people are way too close for comfort.”

Natasha waved Tony back. “We’re not running.”

“You may have to,” Thor said, sliding back his face plate. “Captain, Agent Rogers, we will do Barton no favors by tallying more deaths to his conscience. His other form is a berserker; he will be unable to give us mercy.”

Thor had a naturally carrying voice, and Banner’s head swiveled to him, eyes wide with shock.

“Oh God…” Barton’s voice, a broken growl, broke the tableau. “Go! Go away!”

There was something in his tone that pulled on Natasha from seventy years ago. One of the 107th whom she’d rescued during that first mission had been experimented upon by Schmidt’s pet scientist Zola, and he’d cried out in the same way as whatever chemicals and variations on the serum had burned through his blood, trying to change him.

He’d ended up dead later, fallen off a train on foreign soil, never knowing what had happened to him in the HYDRA base but unwilling to sit on the sidelines. James Barnes had been his name, like Steve's friend, and all that young man had wanted to do was serve his country, be a good soldier, just like her.

Just like Barton. If she’d been born in this time, or he in hers, who knew? He might have been in the Howling Commandos, or she might have served with him in one of the hot, sandy, uncertain wars of this century. They might have been brothers-in-arms. Instead he’d been changed as James had, and had everything familiar ripped away. He’d just been trying to become better to serve his country.

Natasha stepped forward and let her voice take on the bark of the drill instructor who’d whipped her into shape and helped her get Dr. Erskine’s attention. Sargent Dain had been hard as nails, but fair and even as the scales of Justice, about as far away from General Ross as she could imagine.

“You stow that crap right now, soldier!”

Banner shifted his bow to cover her, eyes wide, and she could feel the stares of the others burning into her back. Barton suddenly looked up, his face distorted, too large, too green, but with a hint of hope through the mask of rage and despair that creased his features.

“Do you think this is a joke? Is that a smile I see? I am not here for your amusement! On your feet and salute your superior officer!”

Barton snapped to his feet with the reflexes of someone who’d learned to follow his drill instructor in basic even when dog-tired and half dead. He stared at her, the green of his eyes slightly tinging with his normal blue.

“Soldier! At ease.” She let her parade-ground inflection soften only on the last word, and Barton used that, and the sight of the others holding very still in the face of Banner’s unwavering aim, to wrest full control back of himself. He collapsed to his knees, breathing in huge gasps of air that he slowly began to relax, the Hulk fading back inside him. The gratitude on his face, the relief, nearly made her dizzy.

Everyone was on edge, standing still yet quivering with tension, and something had to break. When Natasha flipped her shields back down, Bruce’s wire-tight reflexes snapped, and the bow twanged in her direction. Time seemed to slow as she tried to jump out of the way, slow enough that she could see Banner’s horror as he uselessly grabbed for where the arrow had been. Barton’s mouth gaped in shock, and Steve lunged in her direction, trying to shield her with his body. Natasha could see that Banner’s aim was too good; it would skewer them both through.

Suddenly Mjölnir flashed between the two groups, destroying the arrow in a spectacular display of well-timed overkill. It plowed into the ground a good five yards to Banner’s side as Natasha hit the ground, Steve sprawled on top of her protectively. He swore in three different languages as he rolled off her and to his feet, eying Barton warily. Natasha picked herself up as Banner started to apologize, his face looking bloodless with shock.

“Don’t,” she said, shaking her head, giving Tony a grateful glance. Thor could have easily shielded her too, or blasted the arrow to ash, but a look back at him, with his stoic and solemn countenance, told her why he hadn’t. She most likely could have survived an arrow hit long enough for him to fly her to a hospital, but firing energy weapons or guns very close to the man who’d just managed to rein his rage monster not two minutes prior would have meant more than just one arrow wound.

Thor claimed to have been trained as a prince; he understood the needs of the many versus the few. That kind of wisdom could be so rare; knowing you had strength and not always using it was why Dr. Erskine had chosen her.

They had, after all, come to talk, not to fight. Not if they could help it.

“My God,” Banner said finally, and laid his bow on the ground with shaking hands. “I didn’t mean…” He stopped himself from trying to apologize again, and just let out a long, slow breath, turning to Barton. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” He also clearly wasn’t going to get up any time soon, and Banner seemed to be all right with that. Natasha echoed Barton’s reassurance about her health before Banner could ask her. Still shaking his head, Banner went to Mjölnir. Tony opened his mouth to warn him about her immovability, when Banner carefully pulled her up from the ground and carried her back to Tony.

Tony’s mouth remained open, and Steve’s jaw sagged a little as Banner handed the hammer back. Thor strode up, grinning widely, and slapped Banner on the shoulder with a care for his metal gauntlet and robotic-enhanced strength.

“It seems we have found another worthy friend, Dr. Banner,” Thor said. “For Mjölnir only lets herself be lifted by those most deserving.”

Barton finally staggered to his feet and closed the gap between him and Banner, putting his hand on Banner’s other shoulder. “That’s totally you, Doc.”

“What…?” Banner said, blinking in confusion. Tony reached out and took Mjölnir from him, cradling her in his arms as Thor took his hand away.

“It looks like you just got a Golden Ticket, Brucey,” he said, his natural banter resurfacing after that revelation.

“Tony Stark?” Bruce said, exchanging a look with Barton as he finally registered who was cradling the massive weapon.

“In the flesh.” Tony may have flexed a little, Natasha was sure of it. “Killer thesis, by the way.”

“And the rest of you?”

“Thor Odinsson, of Asgard, now known as Iron Man,” Thor said with a bow.

“Fits you better than Theo,” Barton said, and Thor smiled.

“It was only meant as a gentle deception, to keep from alarming you. I hope you can forgive me.”

Barton gave an expansive shrug; alarming was all a matter of perspective with all that had happened today.

“Natasha Romanov, Captain America,” Natasha said, raising her chin.

“Holy shit,” Barton muttered.

“Yeah, sort of my reaction too,” Tony said sympathetically.

“How?”

“Ice,” Natasha said succinctly. “Thank global warming for me getting out.”

Barton nearly laughed.

“Steve Rogers, agent of SHIELD. We came up here to offer you a place,” Steve said, between one blink and the next going from shocked to all business, and Natasha swore she could faintly hear him rapidly compartmentalizing. “There’s a program called the Avengers Initiative. You wouldn’t have to run anymore. Ross wouldn’t be able to touch you, either one of you. And no experiments.”

Tony and Thor exchanged glances; this was the first they’d heard of the offer either. Steve turned towards them. “No more lies about the important things.”

“Offering us a place to do what?” Barton asked, eyes narrowing.

“To fight the fights we never could,” Steve said. “The fights no one else is capable of. People who can’t be matched and won’t be reasoned with-.”

“Like me?” Barton said ominously.

“You weren’t trying to take over the world the last time I checked,” Steve said so blandly that Barton nearly cracked a smile.

“I’m here to help Clint, not to turn into some kind of government assassin,” Banner snapped.

“Doc,” Barton said, a peculiar world-weariness in his voice. They exchanged a look that held an entire conversation in it, something they’d talked about before, Natasha was sure of it. Maybe Banner had actually begun to enjoy tricking Ross’ men into underestimating him, and hadn’t liked that revelation about himself. Maybe it was about Barton himself, that if they hadn’t found a cure in three years it was likely one didn’t exist.

“And who said anything about government?” Steve added. “The threats we’re talking about… are not exactly local.”

That got everyone’s attention.

“Another world has challenged Midgard?” Thor asked, looking stormy.

Steve was about to respond when he froze, the look on his face meaning someone was contacting him over his earbud. He lost a little color, and looked at the group, focusing on Thor.

“Do you know someone called Loki?” he demanded.

“My brother, the king-” Thor began, looking shocked

“Something just landed on deck in the name of Loki, got our location out of one of our agents through means no one is ready to understand, and went flying straight for us.”

“ETA,” Natasha said, Barton echoing her almost simultaneously.

“They’re saying less than five minutes at its current speed.”

Thor flipped down his faceplate and scanned the heavens, the Iron Man mask fixing on one point in the sky.

“The Destroyer,” he said, his voice sounding hollow and sad even through its synthesized filters. “Brother, what have I done to anger you?”

---

Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 1
Master Post

Assembling - Chapter 1

2017-07-22T09:38:43Z

Timely

2017-05-11T16:05:09Z

Title: Timely
Author: jaune_chat
Fandoms: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Characters/Relationships: Steve Rogers/Natasha Romanov/Sam Wilson
Rating: R
Word count: 1,155
Spoilers: Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Content Advisory: Threesome, feelings
Disclaimer: Not mine, just playing.
A/N: Written for a prompt from avengerkink.
Summary: When on the run from HYDRA and hiding at Sam's house, Steve and Natasha don't have a lot of time. But all three realize they can use whatever they have.

On Ao3 or below the cut

They don't have time for this.

HYDRA is within SHIELD, Steve's former teammates are trying to kill him and Natasha, Fury is gone, there's some shadow assassin in the mix, and they have nowhere to go but Sam's. There's no one else they can trust. They need to regroup, to sleep and eat enough so that they'll be more than walking zombies. Sam makes them breakfast, they both sluice off in the shower, and everything catches up with them. Despite the pain, they have to sleep.

They don't have time, but they do it anyway.

Sam's got a spare bedroom and a decent sofa. Steve insists Natasha takes the bed. He wakes up an hour later, hearing her making tiny sounds in her sleep. Tiny little denials. “ No, no, no, please, no...” Unheard cries that probably echo in her head when her defenses are down. Steve is no stranger to that. He goes into her bedroom, wakes her slowly.

"Didn't think you needed another nightmare."

Natasha's expression says volumes. It reminds him of Bucky, of Sam, the old, don't kid a kidder. Steve lets his pride go and Natasha can see his vulnerability in his expression. "I get the same sort of thing."

She nods, and hugs him close. He hadn't been expecting that, but it's nice. Not just because she's willing to let him, but because he can lean on her too. They're both shaking a little, because right now they can. They don't need to be superhuman in this moment. He tilts his face down against her cool, smooth hair, and she meets him, lips against his. Unlike earlier, there's no awkwardness.

They don't have time for that.

Then it's nothing but kisses against each other, light and soft, then harder, hotter, and if earlier today wasn't Steve's first kiss since 1945, then these are undoubtedly the best ones he's had. Best ones he's given too. He's a damn fast learner when pressed. Even when the door opens. Was already open. Steve hadn't closed it, and Sam has been standing there. Eyebrows aren't even up.

A dozen possible responses run through his head. A dozen protestations to distance himself, just to keep both of them from looking vulnerable. But Sam's already seen them looking vulnerable. He's already shown his vulnerability to Steve without knowing him more than in passing, just to help. Because that's the sort of person Sam is. And Natasha knows that.

She doesn't seem interested in stopping the kissing. Steve isn't either. He locks eyes with her long enough for her to nod, and he waves Sam over, pulling him onto the bed with them.

"Ok with this?" is what Sam asks, and there's two murmured assurances.

They don't have time to wait.

It's just kissing and warmth between them, until Sam's hand slides over the skin of Steve's stomach, and they all want to feel more, be closer. Steve tugs at the hem of Sam's shirt in inquiry, and soon enough that's gone, then Steve's is up over his head and flung away by Natasha's hand, and Natasha's shirt is already gone, because she wastes less time than either of them.

Then it's just comfort and sensation, hands awakening each other's skin, nails scratching along Sam's side, smoothing over Natasha's stomach, lips trailing down from Steve's neck to the sensitive peaks of his nipples. Gasps of pleasure are garnered like flowers, made into bouquets to be admired and then gathered again. Natasha arches under Sam's lips and Steve's hands, Sam whispers, "I love you guys," and Natasha whispers it back in Russian, and Steve smiles and hugs them both close. It's not awkward; they don’t mean it in the fairy-tale sense. They don't need forever and only and always. Love right now, trust right now, that still means the world.

Steve knows there's a touch of hero-worship in this, he knows the signs and Sam's well aware of it, but it's not something he can get away from. The heights and depths of his past are with him. Natasha can't get away from what she was, Sam from all he's been. But they don't need to.

Pants go next, none of them removed by their original owners, and soon there's an ocean of naked flesh that needs to be explored. Steve goes first, because Natasha was the one who'd woken up, and both her and Sam gasp when Steve buries his face between her legs. Steve hears something about, "Condoms, lube?" in Natasha's breathless voice, and Sam's warmth vanishes for ten seconds while he finds what they need. Steve doesn't relent, following Natasha's directives from her hand buried in his hair, bringing up a hand to thrust two fingers into her wetness as his mouth sucks on her in steady rhythm. Steve paws blindly on the bed, and Sam slaps a condom in his hand as Natasha pulls him down for a hug, whispering in his ear.

Steve hears everything she says, he can't not, and changes his angle of attack until Natasha gasps, pouring more wetness onto him. He can finally look up, and Sam's looking flushed and marvelous, Natasha pleased and determined.

They don't have time to hesitate.

Steve lets himself be hauled up, helping Natasha get the condom on him before she swings a leg over him and sinks down on his cock. She's amazing, but he barely gets time to adjust before Sam's thighs bracket his chest. Eager, Steve lifts his head to lave around the head of Sam's dick, sucking at him with pleasure as Natasha's arms circle him to caress. One hand dips lower to help keep everything going smoothly, and now Natasha's hand and Steve's mouth are meeting over Sam's hardness, Steve's hips thrusting up slightly against Natasha's subtle rolls of her body.

Sam curses softly, head lolling, as Steve takes him deep as he can, paralyzed for a moment as Natasha tightening around him makes him see white, body lighting up with pleasure. It's too much for Sam, and Natasha smiles against his neck when she feels him pulse into Steve's hungry mouth, tongue chasing after every drop of his spending. Braced against both men, Natasha can let herself go finally, too operationally disciplined to relax until her targets were in their afterglow. But this time they're there for her, Sam with a kiss, Steve with his hands around her.

It's a few more minutes of sticky warmth together before Steve chivies them up long enough to rinse under the hot shower spray. They end up in Sam's slightly-rumpled bed, lacking only a few hours to having to rejoin the world. Natasha sighs into the tangle of limbs, Steve curls his arms around them both, and Sam smiles uncontrollably in his half-conscious dose. Soon enough, they'll have to awaken to plans and plots and far too much to do just to stay alive and free.

But they had time for this.

A Dirty Dozen

2017-03-25T14:52:33Z

Title: A Dirty Dozen
Author: jaune_chat
Fandom: Sherlock (BBC)
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock/John
Length: 545
Rating: R
Spoilers: None really
Warnings: Edging, D/s elements
Author's Notes: Written for come_at_once’s 24-hour porn challenge for the prompt: "Six of one, half a dozen of the other"
Summary: Sherlock has to choose his battles. He chooses all of them.

On Ao3 or below the cut!

“It’ll be six of one, half-dozen of the other.”

“That’s not a legitimate comparison, John.”

John just smiled, just a very little smile, more of a smirk than a smile, and Sherlock looked as if he was personally affronted by the very existence of the universe.

“It benefits you either way, so why don’t you choose?” John asked. He held out his closed hands again, resting the backs of them against Sherlock’s stomach, feeling the tension in his muscles, the slight jerk of his body as something about John looming over him strained his control.

Sherlock’s tongue darted out, wetting his lips as he considered his choices, flicking his eyes up at John, kneeling between his spread thighs on the bed. He looked as if he were considering trying to hook one shapely limb around John and tug him closer, but reconsidered at the last second. The consequences of that were likely going to be less pleasant than any of the proffered choices, and Sherlock knew it. Not uninteresting, of course, but perhaps not something he would have done with a naked John in his bed.

He eyed the hands resting on his belly: one was a trifle more closed, another a bit warmer to the touch, the first a hair closer to him, the second a bit nearer to John. In an instant, Sherlock realized he knew which hand John wanted him to pick, and John’s smile got broad as he opened his right hand to reveal a hinged ring.

“That does not seem to be a half-dozen, or six, John,” Sherlock said, using his hand to trace John’s slightly calloused and scarred fingers and knuckles. He raised the hand to his mouth and kissed the tips of the fingers, just to know everything he could.

“It’s more of a placeholder.” John’s hand withdrew slowly, making its way down from Sherlocks mouth.

“You mean that literally,” Sherlock stated flatly, and got a hitch in his voice when John closed the ring around the base of his erection.

“I want to see how close we can get you, six times,” John whispered to him. Sherlock’s thighs crushed against John’s hips as he pulled John to him, folded him in his body, cock throbbing hard against its confines. “Well. One already,” John chuckled, and got enough space between them to kiss Sherlock. This was only the beginning; they had all the time in the world, time that John would stretch out to infinity.

“What is the other?” Sherlock demanded, trying to contain his excitement, his hands running down the length of John’s body to find one fist still loosely closed. “The ‘half-dozen’?”

“Don’t tell me you want that too? Never mind,” John interrupted himself, bringing his hand up to reveal the half-dozen thin strands of black silk in his hand.

Sherlock looked at them, glanced briefly down to where a firm band of dark metal was holding his erection hostage, back at John, and swallowed.

And nodded in gratitude.

And kept still as John tied the thin, easily-breakable strands to his limbs, then to the bedframe, a gentle reminder of six reasons to keep control as John crouched over him again, ready to finish reminding him of a dozen different ways in which he loved him.

Rivets - Master Art Post

2017-01-21T14:03:06Z

Title: Rivets
Author: jaune_chat
Artist(s): notallbees
Fandoms and Spoilers: The Avengers (film),Captain America: TFA, Captain America: TWS
Characters/Relationships: James “Bucky” Barnes/Steve Rogers, James “Bucky” Barnes/OFC, James “Bucky” Barnes/OMC
Rating: NC-17
Word count: 12,517
Spoilers: Film
Content Advisory: Violence, piercings, explicit sex, uncertain memories
Disclaimer: Not mine, just playing.
A/N: Written for a prompt from avengerkink. Written for journeystory. Thanks to brighteyed_jill for betaing!
Summary: The Winter Soldier was starting to remember, and would stitch himself back together any way he could.

Master Story Post

Buy Me at Fandom Trumps Hate!

2017-01-14T14:00:41Z

Fandom Trumps Hate Auction is now underway!

What is it?

An online fanfic/fanart auction to benefit a variety of organizations helping populations targeted by Trump and his administration. (Such as the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, Trans Lifeline, and the National Immigrant Justice Center.)

How does it work?

You bid on us to create a piece of art and story for YOU. The winner will donate their winning bid amount to one of the charities listed in the FAQ at FandomTrumpsHate (at Tumblr), then send me email proof of their charitable donation (e-mail will be provided in the form). Once you’ve donated, the we’ll get to work on your item! If you’ve seen previous auctions to benefit AO3 or Haiti, it’s kind of like that. (Or Sweet Charity, if you remember that.)

Below is my form of what I'm writing (um... most things, minus a few pairings that just Aren't My Bag), along with links of how to bid on my and whatnot.

The bidding ends on January 20th, so bid soon and bid often!

Jaune_Chat - FTH Contributor Page
See Jaune_Chat’s works here and here!

To contact the seller before bidding, please email at jaune.chat@gmail.com

If you have a very specific prompt and are not flexible, it’s best to contact the seller before bidding, even if it fits within their listed parameters. If you are asking for a specific kink, always ask first.

Charities these auctions benefit: Bidder’s choice of any of the listed groups

(See full list at our FAQ)

Jaune_Chat’s offerings:

Jaune_Chat Auction #1

Type of fanwork: fic
Fandom(s): Marvel Cinematic Universe, Heroes, Firefly, Sherlock (BBC), Leverage
Rating(s): G, Teen, Mature, Explicit
Length/size: up to 5k words
Especially interested in: I’m up for nearly anything.
Will not: I don’t do Loki pairings or Coulson pairings for the MCU, otherwise I’m good for all other pairings and subjects.
Notes: I can write anything from light, humorous gen to dark explicit material (even Hydra Trash Party-type prompts, if desired). I also do AUs and crossovers.

Auctions run from 12 January 2017 (Midnight, EST) to 19 January 2017 (Midnight, EST). Bids before or after this period are invalid and will not be counted. If you would like to bid on this auction:

Step 1: Check the bidding spreadsheet to find out what the current high bid is. (Note: It may take up to five minutes for a bid to appear.)

Step 2: Fill out the seller’s bidding form with a bid that is higher than the current high bid. If you want to make it harder for someone to outbid you, bid higher! You will NOT be notified if someone outbids you, so please bookmark this page and check frequently. You will only be notified if you are the high bidder after the auctions end.

I'm screaming

2016-11-09T19:35:32Z

I am so incredibly stressed out from this election of the one of the most horrifyingly possible people to the office of president, that even the mild additional stress of trying to call my doctor's office and preparing to host a party have me literally screaming at the walls, bursting into tears, and wanting to fling things. I don't know think I'm going to be able to sleep today, and I have to work tonight. I should probably put myself on the line (I'm the shift supervisor, but we're expected to work most of the time), but if there's any possibility of not, I don't think I'd be any good for anything.

A House is a Home

2016-09-14T15:44:57Z

Ah... I haven't been keeping up much with all that's been going on with me, so lemme catch people up, for all who are still reading me.

The husband and I have bought a new house!

This process started over a year ago, as we had thought selling our old place wouldn't take terribly long. So we packed up half of our stuff in order to stage the house, and it stayed there until about three weeks ago. As our house was a starter home (1100 feet, one-car attached garage, slab house, no basement or second story), we figured it would be bought by someone buying their first home, or a retiree looking to downsize. But man, it was looooong time in finding a buyer; we had to switch real estate agents in the middle of the process to find someone with more experience. We eventually had to spring for a kitchen upgrade, as well as new carpet and paint in some rooms, just to get it to sell. And even then we sold it for several thousand less than we wanted, and were jerked around by potential buyers (well, one potential buyer who at the 11th hour of the process asked for something that was expensive & not necessary according to the house inspection; didn't sell to her).

In trying to find a house, we must have looked at 60+ homes, and ultimately put in offers on three. The first one took a long time to fall through (the sellers' real estate agent was a jerk; even our agent thought so), the second seller wouldn't negotiate, but the third house...

By that point in our hunting process both the husband and I were tired and frustrated. We weren't looking in a price bracket beyond our means (it took the husband a little while to realize that, but he got there eventually), and knew anything we would buy would probably require some projects. However, we had specific wants.

1. Bigger than our last place. While we both would have liked to entertain more people, and did entertain to our limits, there were definite restrictions as to how many people we could host and how. When you got more than a couple of guests, pretty much everyone had to come in and sit down immediately. Only one or two people could circulate at a time without bumping into each other, and hosting a large family meal (like Thanksgiving) would be impossible at any time. There just wasn't room for a big enough table. I also wanted to get a piano, something we hadn't had the room for our entire marriage.

2. More than one bathroom. With only one toilet, sometimes there were sharp words and near pants-filling incidents of one or the other of us kicking someone off the pot in order to use it themselves. The single time we had overnight guests for more than a few nights, there was also a lot of time trying to schedule who got a shower when, or when someone could brush their teeth.

3. Bigger kitchen - specifically more counter space. When I decide to bake, I tend to bake in large quantities. Around Christmastime, I will bake a dozen different kinds of cookies, and had to press every flat surface into service to hold cooling racks and cookie sheets: dining room table, top of microwave, buffet, coffee table, shelves in the garage... For once I wanted enough counter space to be able to roll out cookies or work with dough without having to place a game of kitchen-counter Tetris.

4. Storage, preferably basement, partially finished a big plus. Having only had a crawl-space attic for extra storage, we were looking forward to being able to get at our holiday decorations without it being a huge production of ladders, grunting, squeezing into small spaces and trying to wedge boxes in and out of small hatches in the ceiling. Having a finished basement would also give us a second living space to decorate in a more unconventional fashion. Specifically, we wanted a room or a corner of a room to do our role-playing games (Dungeons and Dragons, etc.). We have a lot of fantasy art that would look great grouped together, but it not quite appropriate for one's living room.

5. Space for guests. This went hand-in-hand with the storage. Our old house did technically have three bedrooms, but due to our excess of stuff, the second bedroom eventually became a hybrid workout/library/storage room. The third bedroom was my den, but we really couldn't squeeze a bed or even an air mattress in there.

Of the sixty houses we looked at, some were very run down, others had tiny kitchens or horrible parking situations, no second living space to speak of, or a basement (if it had one) straight out of a horror movie.

Our first house we put an offer in on checked off most of our boxes, and had a fantastic kitchen (though the bathrooms needed work), but because it took so long for our house to get sold, it was sold out from under us. The second house was more updated and had a bigger living room, but had a smaller basement. That one was sold out from under us as well, as the people buying our house at the time starting demanding things at the 11th hour, and both deals fell through.

We'd approached both of these first two offers very slowly and methodically, going back for second viewings with my parents, taking our time to be certain we could be happy in that house. By the time we'd reached what would become our third offer, we were getting fairly frantic. We'd accepted an offer on our house, one that was seeming to stick, and either had to make an offer of our own very soon or face being homeless.

Thusly came The Third House, a three-bedroom ranch with a half-bath off the master, a walk-in shower in the main bath, a big kitchen and living room, a connected dining room, and an addition that gave it a sunken family room with a fireplace. Plus it had a partially-finished basement. Unlike so many we had looked at, it had somehow avoided having all of the utilities (furnace, water heater, etc.) in the middle of the basement, giving the center room (the finished one) huge dimensions while still giving us gobs of storage all the way around it in the unfinished parts.

We had an offer submitted within the hour, no second viewing required. Good thing too, it had an open house the next day, and six other people showed up, but by then we'd come to a mutually agreeable offer from the seller and had the house locked up.

We've been in it nearly 7 weeks now, and even were able to empty our storage unit to get all of our stuff back under one roof. With the addition of some new furniture, we are, I would estimate, maybe a couple weeks away from having everything totally done. I think I have done more than my husband has, in terms of putting away things, but I have a very low tolerance for Not Being Able to Find My Shit. Besides, at least two of the rooms are mine, almost exclusively. Husband has his little media pod in the family room (duel-wielding a desktop and laptop in his big chair-and-a-half) and I have my office. I have painted furniture and hit months' worth of garage sales to help fill the games in our household, and the place is looking great.

We also now have an Ultimate Achievement as far as being role-players - our own dedicated gaming room. This is a nerd badge you can shine up really nice and display to the jealously of all other gaming nerds you encounter. I decorated it as a "Magic Tavern," pulling out all my gaming props and then raiding the local thrift stores for tankards and goblets, candles and wooden bowls, baskets and platters to give the place a semi-authentic feel.

I am a motherfucking ADULT with my OWN HOUSE that I decorated MYSELF!

Suck it, world!

...For All He's Worth

2016-05-20T14:46:51Z

Title: …For All He’s Worth
Author: jaune_chat
Fandoms: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Captain America: The First Avenger
Characters/Relationships: Steve Rogers/Red Skull, Steve Rogers/Peggy Carter
Rating: NC-17
Word count: 7,500
Spoilers: Captain America: The First Avenger
Content Advisory: Non-con, male lactation, shady scientific experiments, HYDRA being dicks, shady governments
Disclaimer: Not mine, just playing.
A/N: Written for a prompt from avengerkink.
Summary: When Steve is captured by Red Skull, the head of HYDRA has an experiment in mind to reproduce the super-soldier effect in a way no one ever expected. Trapped in a changing body, Steve wonders if he'll ever be free, and what will become of him then.

On Ao3 or below the cut

There had been a reason Steve Rogers had been afraid of hospitals. His father had died before one could help him. His mother worked in one, and that had led to her death. Steve had been in and out of them most of his life with minimal help for the myriad of problems that had plagued his health. Allowing Dr. Erskine to pop him in a metal coffin, pump him full of drugs and having Mr. Stark bombard him with Vita Rays had taken every ounce of courage Steve hadn't even known he'd possessed.

To wind up in a HYDRA medical facility, strapped to a table like Bucky had been, had Steve reaching deep for the courage that had sustained him through Project Rebirth. Bucky's death had made Steve reckless, he knew that, but it had been enough to thwart Red Skull's attack on American soil by disabling the Valkyrie plane before it had taken off. It hadn't been enough to prevent Red Skull’s escape, or his own capture when he’d gone ahead of the others, too focused on stopping Schmidt to think about the consequences.

He counted the exchange a small one for the safety of Peggy, the Commandos, for America. For Bucky.

"...And you think this will work?" someone muttered in German, just out Steve's line of sight. He'd been drilling the language with Gabe for the past couple of years, along with French from Dernier, but he wasn't sure if HYDRA knew of his fluency. That could give him an edge, if he played dumb long enough. God knew most of HYDRA seemed very willing to believe the image of the big, stupid American soldier.

"We've already attempted blood, bone marrow, spinal fluid, even semen, but no transfusion or infusion is bringing results," another voice said matter-of-factly. Steve went ice-cold as he tried to look at himself from his pinned-down position. How long had he been under? How long had they had him? He felt sore all over, and was humiliatingly nearly naked aside from monitoring equipment, a line in his arm, and something around his pelvis, tubes inserted in him to keep his waste from messing the table, but he couldn't see any scars or marks from their alleged tests. Had he already healed? Or were they talking about some kind of future plan?

"The serum's effects... are tricky to transfer. Herr Schmidt's own experiences were very unpredictable. A repetition of that will make him unhappy."

"Another failed attempt will make him more than unhappy," the second voice said more sharply. "We have compounds to put our volunteer's immune systems into a receptive state. It's a risk, but if this injection works on Rogers, it will be worth it. It is not a drug that his body will think to reject, not at first, and possibly not ever. All research and observation shows, if this is successful, the experiment will be self-perpetuating." A satisfied chuckle. "He may even grow to enjoy it. That would make Herr Schmidt very happy indeed."

"Do it. We have little else to try that will make repeat attempts possible."

Footsteps. Two men in laboratory coats came into view, flanked by four HYDRA soldiers. One uncapped a syringe full of something slightly green, and plunged it into the line that led to Steve's arm, the line that had to be keeping him hydrated and fed and alive. His veins burned a little as whatever-it-was entered his bloodstream, and then the presumed scientist prudently stepped back as Steve lunged against the restraints. They did not creak, and the table did not move, and he had to give up after a few moments to catch his breath.

"This should make a new man out of you, Captain," the man said with a tiny little smile. "And if all goes well, new men out of HYDRA too."

With that ominous statement, they left Steve alone.

----

The isolation was worse than being dragged in front of Schmidt and beaten, worse than being thrown in a cell and jeered at. If he’d been on display like that, his presence would have been known, talked about, and someone would end up leaking his location, knowingly or not. But being kept close, it suggested worse.

He ached all over from his capture and forced passivity, strapped thoroughly to a tilting table like a specimen staked out for examination. With the care that he’d been tied down and his needs anticipated, there was little need to touch him, move him, give him any opening to escape. They meant to keep him.

It made him go hot with anger, that he’d gone after Schmidt and his alleged super-weapon, had brought down a plane before it could take off and bomb the entire Eastern Seaboard, had done everything he could to take Schmidt down, to destroy the organization who’d killed Bucky, who’d been at the root of so much misery and pain... He’d failed. He’d failed Bucky, failed the Commandos, failed all of them. Steve breathed deep and pushed away his growing sense of despair, gripping the strength of anger and keeping it close to warm him against the cold isolation of fear.

Time was difficult to tell in a room with no windows, but he thought it might have been three days before he saw another person again. The lines running to his arm disappeared into the ceiling, so he never saw anyone changing bags of nutrient fluid, and the times he kept up his testing of his restraints didn't seem to come to anything, only exhaustion with no ground won. Perhaps they'd been ordered to keep him isolated for this experiment. Perhaps there was something in the nutrient mix that was knocking him out for as long as it could so they could check up on him while he was unconscious.

Maybe they just wanted to keep him frightened and guessing what their plans were for him. If so...

He realized on what he figured was the third day, when bouts of what he thought were fever and soreness began to concentrate from an all-over ague to a tight heat in his chest muscles. Then just his pectorals. Flat on his back, his chest had just looked oddly swollen, but during that third day, table abruptly had come to life, tilting him forward. His chest shifted, sagged, and he couldn’t ignore the painfully tender swells anymore. They ached, and he barely had to flick his eyes down to see them hanging heavy and prominent off his chest like a woman's breasts. He felt like the skin was ready to split, like the slightest touch would crack them open.

Finally, the door opened. The shadowed hallway couldn't hide the silhouette of Johann Schmidt as he stared at his prisoner, arms crossed. Despite hundreds of desperate attempt to free himself, tugging at the restraints had caused nothing. Less than nothing. Steve didn't know what material they had been made from, but something in the metallic mesh made him suspect that Schmidt had gotten ahold of some very advanced material.

It was thinking of little things like that that kept Steve from nearly screaming at the relentless pressure and pain that was distorting his body.

"Ah, Captain. This is a sight I'd never expected to see. For this alone almost makes up for your ruining of my plans. But you may be of yet more use, even as you are. Let us test the results, and see if our theories are correct," he said very thoughtfully.

"What the hell did you do to me?" Steve demanded.

"You shall see." Schmidt reached up and tugged off his gloves with a series of slow, deliberate movements, then reached into a pocket to retrieve a glass flask. He crossed the room, and Steve knew a moment's wild hope before he saw no less than six HYDRA soldiers standing behind Schmidt in the hallway. Even if he could somehow overpower Schmidt in his restraints, there were too many potential rescuers at hand for that to work for more than a few seconds.

Schmidt reached up to Steve's aching chest, flask held close to a distended and swollen nipple, and brushed it with one finger. Steve screamed through a closed mouth as a powerful stream of something white sprayed violently into the flask, bringing an immediate relief so strong it was almost crippling with pleasure. His other nipple began to drip enthusiastically, and Steve slammed so hard against the restraints the table rattled. Schmidt barely seemed to notice, only bringing out a second flask and touching it to the other nipple, turning the drip into another hard spray. Steve caught himself moaning in sheer, animal relief before catching himself, watching in shuddering disbelief as Schmidt filled two flasks from his body.

He'd... He'd milked Steve. He'd turned Steve's body into a factory to produce milk for... experiments? The serum? Just to humiliate him? Steve was flushed red as he realized how strongly his body was reacting to the pull on his new, sensitive body parts, how hard he was within the waste-collection device around his loins, how he had been heartbeats away from climaxing at his enemy's hands.

"Get away from me," Steve growled. His voice almost broke on the last word as Schmidt took his hands away, stopping the relief Steve had just realized was almost necessary.

"I shall be back, Captain. For my future," he said, left.

Steve collapsed in his bonds, breathing hard, watching the line in his arm, and nearly able to feel his chest filling up again. He took a few shuddering breaths, and closed his eyes.

Someone had to be looking for him. Did they think he had died? Did they think him and Schmidt had taken each other out and weren't looking for either of them? Surely someone would want to find his body...

Blank spaces in his awareness continued to dog him, from sleep that was more like passing out, to seemingly small slivers of unconsciousness which sometimes heralded changes. After his single time talking, he had awoken to his head strapped back and a tube in his throat. Something warm and semi-solid would pour down it several times a day, filling him to uncomfortable fullness, feeding him whatever was needed to keep him fueling HYDRA’s experiment.

He tested his restraints whenever he was aware and alone, always pulling, always hoping the mesh would weaken, the fibers would start to fray, the metal start to fatigue. Unless HYDRA's soldiers were willing to come into the room and unstrap him to change his bindings, they would never know. And their paranoia about Steve Rogers seemed to prevent them from doing that. Slow patience might solve what all the violent punching in the world would not.

Because slow patience was all he had. His chest hurt nearly all the time as his milk continued to fill it in an inevitable flood. His body had taken to the HYDRA scientists’ formula with gusto, and there was never an hour in which he couldn’t feel the inevitable swelling, filling sensation. The pain he could endure, up to a point, and straining against his bonds, however futile, was he only exercise. His body could survive it, producing the milk. The only relief (he would never call it kindness) was when Schmidt would arrive with his entourage. It gave Schmidt the duel pleasure of collecting components for his experiment, as well as watching Steve's face as he tried, and sometimes failed, to keep his composure. After so much pain and inactivity, his body seized on the act of milking as the ultimate release. Milk would begin to trickle in a steady flood down his stomach when Schmidt would enter the room, the sight his signal his pain was at a temporary end.

Schmidt wouldn’t even grant him the reprieve of not being forced to look at his humiliation: between the tilting table and a strategically-placed mirror, he had to watch Schmidt harvest from his body as well as feel it, had to fight the anger from overwhelming him as well as the fear and despair from dragging him under. And most of all he had to fight the relief, the God-be-damned agonizing, wonderful relief of the milk coming out, a sensation so powerful, so primal, he had to fight from climaxing at Schmidt’s touch. Schmidt never seemed to react much more strongly than a sneer, as if he’d expected it, like he knew what his lab rat would do for a reward. Like Steve couldn’t help himself, and he’d expected no less of him. It made every time Steve held back a tiny victory.

But at the same time, Steve wasn’t sure how much more he could take. This had gone on for weeks, months, and his spirit was battered black and blue.

“Ah, Captain, it is good you are so enthusiastic to see me,” Schmidt said one day with mock gentleness, slowly tugging on Steve’s nipples until the rising tide of pleasure made him thrash against his bonds, trying not to moan, trying not to come, trying not to give up and whimper in his enemy’s presence. Trying, always, to pull hard, then harder on his bonds, hoping that this time they would finally break, finally let him get his hands on Red Skull’s throat.

He knew his first act would be to free himself. His second… oh God help him, his second would be to…

Steve always stopped himself before he thought too far along those lines, keeping as stoic as he could, hating every tremor, sound, squirm, and inevitable spasm of relief/pleasure that left him limp in his bonds, any evidence that gave Schmidt a hint of anything he wanted.

“You should be proud, Captain,” Schmidt said, as he casually wiped Steve’s milk off his fingers, after handing flask after flask to the HYDRA soldiers in the hallway. Despite his pleasure at Steve’s humiliation, Schmidt tended to his experimental task mostly as if Steve were a prize goat that gave unusually rich milk. He had lost track of how much his body had produced over the endless days or weeks, but it had to have been dozens of gallons. Maybe more. His serum-enhanced system could apparently out-produce any human woman, and even some cows. “The experiment is proceeding as designed. Perhaps more slowly than our own transformations, but far faster than trying to modify babies before birth. Look upon your children and mine, Captain, and see how they’ve grown!”

Schmidt held out a picture of a dark-haired young man, no more than eighteen, standing in his underwear in front of a wall with a height chart upon it. He was neither particularly sickly, nor overly strong. To identify him at the bottom of the picture, someone had written the initials “D. H.” and “Week 0.” Schmidt flipped to another picture. Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, until the time totaled up nearly three whole months. In each picture, D. H. looked stronger, fitter, a little taller, broader, his eyes brighter. The changes were far more dramatic than could be explained by even the fiercest training regimen, and the contrast between Week 0 and Week 13 a damning piece of evidence that the HYDRA scientists had hit upon a successful way to transfer the serum’s effects. Schmidt continued to show him picture after picture: W. P., U. O., G. H., R. B., A. W., a dozen other young men who’d developed the bodies of super-soldiers upon drinking Steve’s milk. A dozen soldiers for HYDRA.

“A rousing success. And we have these to thank for it.” He caressed the sides of Steve’s breasts in a sickening gentle gesture before abruptly taking two more flasks and pulling savagely on Steve’s nipples to fill them, the milk leaping out to a feeling of profound relief.

Black despair closed in around Steve’s heart. Freak, Steve thought to himself, seeing Schmidt’s red flesh, his own breasted body, the milk flowing to fill more of HYDRA’s soldiers with strength and vitality they would use against his country . He’d betrayed Dr. Erskine’s final admonition somehow in his need for revenge for Bucky’s death, and that must have been partially responsible for this nightmare.

“No,” he said, hardly above a whisper and twisted hard against the bonds he’d been working at for months. Every fiber strained as Steve brought up a last, wretched howl of defiance from the core of his body.

Something creaked. Schmidt hesitated. Steve didn’t. The restraints failed almost simultaneously, and Steve’s hands closed so fast on Red Skull’s neck that Schmidt was dead before he’d had proper time to register his surprise. The flasks slipped from his nerveless fingers to shatter on the floor, spilling Steve’s precious milk everywhere. The soldiers outside the door fumbled for their guns, their reactions dulled from seeing Steve as little more than a piece of meat for far too long. He grabbed the nearest soldier and tossed him into another, balance a little off from his new center of gravity and breasts hurting from being hurled around, but too on fire with adrenaline to let a single one escape alive. It was a short, fierce fight, and not a single bullet was exchanged to alert the base that their prize was now free.

Steve dropped to his knees by Schmidt’s body, and the first thing he did was touch himself, milk himself, using long, gentle pulls to coax out every single drop of the damn milk and spatter it over Schmidt’s body. Schmidt had never emptied him completely, and the relief was completely overwhelming, enough to bring tears to Steve’s eyes. His cock, always hard from someone touching his aching breasts, now free from its confines, twitched and came in sympathy, finishing glazing Schmidt’s corpse in white fluid.

Steve was gasping on his hands and knees, nipples nearly touching the floor, by the time his body was done reacting to freedom.

Then he stole clothes from the dead soldiers, not able to close any shirt over his chest, loaded himself up on weapons, and went to find a radio. And his “children.”

---

He found the radio first, and barricaded himself in the communication room with a nice little stockpile of guns, ammunition, and explosives. The remaining HYDRA soldiers still might have been able to smoke him out and recapture him, if someone hadn’t found Schmidt’s body. That had sent the base into a panic, compounded by realizing that their position had been compromised when Steve had started calling out their coordinates on every frequency he could reach. The HYDRA soldiers had cut and run, leaving behind nothing but echoes. Steve’s thoughts of retaliation for his long captivity had cooled when he realized how weak he was – months of inactivity had taken their toll, only partially compensated by forced-feeding and the strength of anger. There would be no time to go looking for his “children” now, not if he wanted to stay alive.

The SSR had been close (they had never given up looking for him, and he cursed himself for ever thinking that they had abandoned him), and the sweet sounds of Dum-Dum’s “Waa-hoo!” had been music to Steve’s ears. His “children” had already scattered by the time the Howling Commandos had raided the base, too valuable to risk in a fight just yet. Steve had only been able to take his frustration out on those HYDRA soldiers left behind, grabbing a spare blanket he’d found to protect whatever dignity he had left when Dernier and the others had broken through the door to meet him.

---

Colonel Phillips had hustled him to a secure base and infirmary, one gruff smile his only change in expression when he said, “You survived. Good.”

At least he’d let Peggy in to see him privately, before all the doctors would come by with their news. After all, she was a non-official part of the Commandos now, and she would give them the news that Phillips would try to keep from them.

Steve kept the blanket around his shoulders firmly held in his hand, hiding his changes from Peggy as he leaned down to kiss her. It was a softer, sincerer kiss than it had been in a speeding car running after a plane, born of more than adrenaline. A hot tear splashed against her cheek, and he pulled back. Peggy didn't let him though, putting her hands along the side of his face. “Steve, I know. We captured the experimental files from the HYDRA scientists.” He nodded into her hair. Of course they would know. Of course HYDRA had probably been taking pictures of him while unconscious, or unaware. He could have had the entire press corps in the doorway while he had been in the throes of being milked and he likely wouldn’t have noticed.

“Can the SSR…?” he asked, trailing off.

“Howard’s looking into it. He’s hopeful after he analyzed the drugs you were being given that he can find a counter-agent. Steve, does it hurt?”

“No,” he rasped out. “Not like… no.”

She put her hands on his over the clasped-together blanket and looked up at him with a question in her face. He breathed in, then let the blanket part, the swells of his breasts clearly visible. She’d already seen him at his worst, when he’d been small and half-killing himself in basic, and this couldn’t be much uglier than that.

“Oh, Steve,” she said, pinking a little, though he wasn’t sure it was because of embarrassment or something else.

“Just… hurts when they’re full. Is…” he had to ask, a thread of fear running down his spine. “Does the Army know? Do they want me, my milk? The HYDRA experiment worked. There were at least a dozen soldiers in the trial.”

He hadn’t missed the locks on his doors, ones designed to keep him in, rather than out. Peggy looked uncertain, and Steve remembered the coldly calculating words of Colonel Phillips upon Erskine’s death, who had declared that Steve was useless alone. He’d proven him wrong, but not in the way anyone had expected. Now the Army could get their money’s worth from Erskine’s research, and not just in the form of one dancing monkey in a uniform, or one super soldier leading a squad.

“I don’t know what they’re going to do. I’m worried, Steve. Howard is trying to see you, but-.”

Howard Stark, no matter his intelligence and influence, was only one man. Steve Rogers had promised to serve his country, and they would take their pound of flesh, or gallon of milk, in any way they could. They were trying to keep him calm with a nice room, Peggy’s presence, and the pretense that they were looking into a cure, but Steve knew things were about to go wrong again. Not even Colonel Phillips could let this temptation go by.

Steve knew the SSR couldn’t hold him against his will, not really, but they could try. The might couch their request in any number of ways, appealing to his loyalty, his patriotism, his sense of fairness, that he could give others an edge over the HYDRA soldiers that were sure to be arrayed against them. Many of the arguments would be fairly reasonable, and after all, the dirty work had already been done. “Might as well make the best of a bad situation, son,” he could almost hear someone saying in a soft and kindly voice.

Steve already knew his answer. He already knew who could be trusted with Dr. Erskine’s formula, and who needed to be stopped. He would not let the serum be blithely given to anyone else, not distributed, not patented, not doled out to every Gilmore Hodge in the barracks. Steve had been the one to pay the price for it, and Steve would be the one to share it with the few people who’d earned it.

Steve interrupted Peggy, keeping his mouth next to her ear. “Did you get ahold of what they were using on the HYDRA soldiers to make the experiment work?”

Peggy went very still, and nodded stiffly. Of course she would. She had a nose for trouble like no other.

“Do you have it with you?”

She reached into her pocket, and he heard a faint rattle as she came up with a white tablet on her finger, which she surreptitiously slipped under her tongue. From her expression, Steve guessed it was very bitter. He touched his right nipple gently, gathering up a few drops and tasting himself for the first time. God, he was sweet.

“If it’s going to be anyone, Peggy, let it be you,” he whispered. “Just be a good person, please.”

She looked up at him, stunned by the responsibility he was laying on her. “Steve-.”

“I know you can do it, and so do you. You’ve always known. Please,” he begged her, and shrugged the blanket off completely. “Empty me.”

Peggy touched him with infinite gentleness at his nod of permission, her cool hands bliss on his swollen breasts, and he gasped as milk started to spill out. She leaned up to kiss him again, soothing the tender pain. Steve felt his skin get sticky under her hands and broke off, whispering, “Don’t waste it.”

“I won’t.”

Steve had expected her to take one of the flasks or vials they’d left in his room to use. Instead, Peggy put her lips to his nipple, her eyes on him and sucked, getting full mouthfuls of rich and creamy milk. Steve moaned and sighed, hard inside his pants as she drained him suck by suck, first the right, then the left, more than anyone had ever taken at once, gentle and persistent pressure with her small fingers caressing him the most intense pleasure he’d ever known.

“God,” he whispered, caressing her dark hair, almost enjoying everything. He couldn’t believe she wanted to touch him like this. Her hand was braced against his inner thigh, and he blushed as his aching erection twitched, nearly touching her. She paused in her drinking to look up at him more fully.

“It’s all right.” There was a wealth of understanding and desire in her eyes, and Steve breathed out a shuddering breath as he stopped holding back. “I want to.” She really wanted him, and not out of pity; Steve could spot that a mile off. That made him a little dizzy with relief. Steve hadn’t thought much of his looks before the serum, and while he hadn’t really considered himself vain, after the changes, he’d actually liked how he looked in a mirror for the first time in his life. And then to have his body change on him again, it had brought back a boatload of uncertainty. Peggy lifted all of that off of him with a look. If she hadn’t wanted him this way, she would have found a dozen other ways to help him as a friend.

“Yes, please, Peggy.” His words only came out in fragments as she slipped her hand into his underwear and closed in around him. She stroked him as she suckled, and Steve barely held back cries of relief as he let himself feel for the first time in months. He came hot and sticky into her hand at least three times as she drained him, smoothing his spending into his own skin. Held so intimately close, the edge of dangerous anger and fear he’d been holding onto for endless weeks stepped down, and Peggy eased the worry and diamond-hard focus she’d had to maintain for too long with the touch of Steve’s skin under her lips, his hands on her head, his faith in her. Her refusal to give up on him.

Her face came up, lips smeared with a bit of translucent white, subtle changes happening to her even now, Steve could tell. So much taken from the source would give Peggy an edge anyone else brought in wouldn’t be able to match.

“Come back, take more, give it to the Commandos,” he panted, coming down from his high. He took a packet of papers from his pocket, sketches he’d made of his “children” during the wait between radio call and rescue, faces and bodies and initials of those that needed to be captured before HYDRA could use them in the war, and pressed it into her hand, along with his shield, liberated from a HYDRA trophy room. “Lead the Commandos. Find the others from the experiment before anyone else does.”

Peggy got a look of steely determination on her face, one she’d had since the first time he’d seen her. “Will you be all right?”

Steve straightened up his spine as he felt the weight in his chest start to increase again, a trickle of confidence from having been able to do something giving him back his strength. “I can do this all day.”

“We will come back for you,” she said fiercely. “We didn’t lose you to HYDRA just to lose you to anyone else.” She rose, kissing him again, and walked out.

Steve just smiled as she left, her heels already tapping more sharply on the ground than before. More than one person had tried to take him for all he was worth. Now they’d see what he really had to give. He closed the blanket around his breasts again, right now the only shield he needed. Hopefully, very soon, he’d have his real one back again. He just hoped Peggy was willing to share.

----------

Steve spent a month recovering every bit of strength he’d lost, testing his body and driving himself back to fighting condition. Despite no longer being confined and forced-fed, it seemed his body didn’t want to let go of the changes it had undergone, and Howard hadn’t been real sanguine about being able to find a solution.

“Give me enough time, and I’m sure I could,” he said. He had been tasked to take samples of Steve’s blood, but Steve had watched Howard cheerfully take samples of nothing, and swap empty vials for full ones from some other source. Apparently the SSR higher ups had managed to piss him off enough to rebel, disgusted at how they were treating one of their own. “But the SSR wants me on a whole different tract. Luckily, I work a hell of a lot faster than that.”

Working on a counter-agent could take months, maybe years, but in the interim, Howard had made something for Peggy to make it easier to smuggle Steve’s milk out, a waterproof bag that looked like a normal briefcase. All three of them had been adamant about not giving anyone else in the SSR the slightest amount of the serum, and the higher-ups’ nominal sense of propriety, that they were waiting for Steve to say yes on his own, let them stall long enough for Steve to get fighting fit, and the Commandos to be ready.

Steve had come to some sort of peace about the fact the SSR didn’t want him back to normal; he would make the best of a bad situation, and he would do it his own way. He left the SRR a month later, walked out the door, a coat around his shoulders and his head held high. He hadn’t had to punch more than a few people. The Howling Commandos had been having fresh milk for breakfast and dinner for a month. They were willing to punch a lot more for him.

“We have leads, Captain,” Gabe had told him in greeting, the fit, smiling faces of his squad mates looking nearly ten years younger all around him. Peggy was in their ranks, looking very comfortable with his shield.

“Then let’s get to them.” That was all it took. He felt like a soldier again.

Technically, they were AWOL. Technically, they were disobeying orders, violating several laws, and might even be able to be accused of treason. Realistically, the Allies had better things to do than to try to arrest their national war icon, particularly when he was tracking down Nazi super-weapons and enhanced soldiers that could torpedo carefully-laid battle plans. Out of respect, fear, or maybe just benign neglect, no one was willing to say a thing. They had not precisely been disavowed. But no one was condoning them either.

Steve counted that as fair.

Dernier, with a scavenger instinct second to none, had found a blue cape to add to Steve’s uniform. With fingers clever enough to make bombs or alter uniforms he had even sewn on Steve’s star, giving him his Captain America mantle back. It was a cross between a formal nurse’s cape and a cloak from a Victorian postcard, loose and short enough to allow him to fight and throw his shield unimpeded, long enough and close-fastened enough in front to hide his new endowments. He wasn’t about to show himself to the world. He saved that for the people he trusted.

The Commandos all knew, of course. Peggy had made it ruthlessly plain what was going on when she had brought out the bottles he’d given to her, and any squeamishness at the source of their new source of vitality and strength had been subsumed in trust and need. Their Captain had come out of the other side of hellish captivity with something that could help them finish their jobs and go home. Now the Commandos’ experience and unique talents could be backed up with the resilience to take on blows from the unexpected as well.

Steve had learned a lot about how to fight from each of them, his fighting experience before Project Rebirth mostly being watching a few boxing matches and being on the losing end of far too many fights. Now, he could test them and their strength from memory, fiercely glad to see Falsworth’s boxing at speeds that were a struggle for even him to block, for Dum-Dum’s strongman strength to nearly rival his own.

“’Bout damn time someone took you down a peg, kid,” Dum-Dum said, upon winning his first arm-wrestling bout with Steve. Steve smiled, tight and focused, and knew the Commandos were more than ready to take on anything HYDRA could throw at them. They’d keep fighting, and he’d keep giving them the edge they need.

----

The Commandos received their milk from Peggy’s hands, but she still took hers from Steve himself.

Falsworth had accidentally walked in on them with some bit of news, slipping into Steve’s tent quietly in enemy territory. He’d come up short at the sight of Peggy kneeling at Steve’s side on his bedroll, head bent to his concealed chest, his hand stroking her head, her hand kneading at this thigh. Rogers’ expression was torn between bliss and fierce protection, nevermind that Peggy could spar equally with Dum-Dum now.

Falsworth was strongly reminded of a Roman legend he had learned as a schoolboy, of how the twins Romulus and Remus were cast into the wilderness, then rescued and nursed by a she-wolf. There had been a picture of some ancient woodcut that looked just like the scene before him. He cleared his throat delicately. They both looked up, unashamed, and James suddenly wasn’t either, despite the intimacy of the scene.

“Enemy on the move, here within the hour, Captain. Morita says we need to be getting a move on.”

Rogers shifted enough to button his cape, then grabbed his shield, while Peggy slipped his pistol in his holster before grabbing her own rifle. In a moment, the tender lovers had become Commandos again.

Falsworth found that marvelous.

“Let’s go,” Steve said, and turned to lead the Commandos into the night.

---

Five HYDRA installations later, chasing rumors of super-soldiers while dismantling weapon-making facilities, Howard managed to smuggle some news out to them from his lab at the SSR, both good and bad. Blood drawn from Peggy and the others (at their one rendezvous with Stark weeks earlier) showed some of the effects of the serum, but its longevity was in doubt. The pills that made their bodies “receptive” were dangerous, leaving them open to possible infection that even infusions of what was like serum-heavy colostrum might not work to combat. Everyone was decidedly stronger and faster, healed more cleanly and quicker, but past a certain point, if Steve suddenly ran dry, it wouldn’t necessarily last.

That wasn’t all to the bad. Steve’s “children” would slowly lose the enhancements that made them so dangerous. And after the war, the Commandos would be able to leave the army behind and have a normal life.

Steve rubbed his aching breasts absently as he digested the news Peggy had told him. “But not now,” he said into Peggy’s hair. She tilted up her face to look him in the eyes, shifting closer to him to bring him into contact with as much of her bare skin as possible, the both of them tangled up in his bedroll and her blanket.

“I know,” she said, resting her head on his chest. “Steve, we’re doing this for more than you.”

That made him feel a lot better, that the burden of this rested on all of them equally, but they still trusted him to lead them. He trailed a hand down Peggy’s leonine muscle in her arm and down her leg, touching a ticklish foot that she impatiently twitched out of his wandering hand. She was still warm from their lovemaking and the serum both, a little sticky from his milk that never really let up when her hands were on him. He ran his hands back up to cup her own breasts gently in absent-minded fondness that made her smile. She pressed a kiss to his palm and turned back to look at him a bit ruefully. Time to get up, and they both knew it.

“Thank you,” he said, “Love you, Peggy.” He sighed as she pushed herself upright, and stroked a hand down her back, over a knot of scar tissue from a bullet she had taken a few months back. He’d seen her go down, almost hesitated, until she rolled back up in the same motion, driving herself forward as a human spear to take down the shooter in a display of furious grace that made him keep his mind on his own job. She was steadier than he had been his first time in a real fight, and if there had been any way it had been possible, Peggy should have been in the Vita Ray chamber long before Steve.

He’d been able to give her this, though, a fraction of what she deserved, to help show what she was already capable of. And Peggy… he’d been waiting for his right partner. She never stopped challenging him, even when he’d been a string bean, and hadn’t bothered to stop now. It almost possible to feel a kind of normal. Steve reached for the clean canteens by the bedroll as Peggy cleaned herself off and slipped behind him, wrapping her arms around him so she could help him fill them, emptying his aching fullness, sighing luxuriously as his body poured out its bounty to his friends.

“Come on,” she said, putting the canteens aside so Steve could get dressed. “There was more news from Howard I wanted to tell everyone at once.” There was a faint shadow in her expression, and she put a hand on his shoulder as he finished fastening his cape. He looked up at her, and suddenly realized what it had to be about, “It’s about Bucky.”

---

“They looked,” Peggy explained, as the other Commandos passed the canteens around the campfire, and Steve sat heavily on a log between Peggy and Dum-Dum. “They wanted to send him home to his family. But the pass was treacherous. There were… some signs of the fall. But none of his body.”

Steve hadn’t expected them to find anything, if he was honest. The fall had been impossibly long, and what distance didn’t take care of, scavengers would have. He hadn’t really been able to put a final stamp on his mourning, caught up too much in revenge and then torture and then mission after self-imposed mission.

“Bucky…” he said quietly, and Morita spoke up before Steve could finish.

“Dirtiest mind in the squad,” he said.

“Best taste in music,” Gabe said, raising his cup in a toast.

“Damned good with his rifle,” Falsworth said.

“Sneaky bastard in a fight,” Dum-Dum added.

“A good heart for his friends,” Dernier said, his French making his eulogy very melodious.

“Never afraid to fight for who he believed in,” Peggy said, and turned to Steve.

Steve raised his own canteen, “To Bucky.”

“To Bucky,” everyone said. Steve realized they’d been waiting to mourn him too, not just him. No matter that he’d known Bucky longer and maybe better, they’d known him as fellow warriors long before Steve had gotten to the front. Bucky’d had them out here, watching his back and him watching theirs, before Steve had managed to find him again. And they had, finally, found each other again, and they’d been able to fight side-by-side for a while. They’d had that. A little balm came to his soul, far better drinking with his squad than alone in a bombed-out bar.

He actually chuckled a little, seeing milk moustaches on everyone. “He would have been teasing the hell out of me.”

“What, about keeping abreast of the situation?” Peggy asked with a perfectly-raised eyebrow.

Steve was startled into laughter that quickly grew contagious around the campfire, and put his arm around Peggy, half in comradery, half in something more, and suddenly felt a lot better about the world.

----

The final raid of the shadowed Commandos had them chasing after the blue cube Schmidt’s remaining followers had been using to fuel HYDRA’s weapons. The war had shifted in the Allies’ favor, and the Commandos were going to make sure it stayed that way. After HYDRA’s failure with the Valkyrie plane, the remaining HYDRA command tried to use a ship to smuggle the cube out of the country, hiding under false flags and dodging through blockades to the north until code-breakers had discovered their transmissions didn’t match either their civilian cover or anything from Nazi high command.

Someone on staff still believed in Captain America, and the Commandos had been forced to parachute into battle at the last possible minute. Their aerial assault met a shocked contingent of HYDRA soldiers whose faces everyone knew – they’d been studying drawings Steve had made of them for six months. These dozen young men, hyped on near-religious fervor of a madman’s dream and fueled by residual serum, refused to go down easily. Young as they were, Schmidt’s experiment had worked more thoroughly on them than it had on Steve’s friends.

But the Howling Commandos had more years, more missions, more determination than blind obedience. They had Dum-Dum’s hammering fists, Dernier’s clever sabotage, Falsworth’s rifle skill, Gabe’s careful coordination, Morita’s ferret-quick takedowns, and Steve and Peggy plowing through the ship like a pair of tanks. Even so, it was a tough, nasty fight, one that had left Steve chasing one of the last soldiers, D. H. if he remembered right, down into the bowels of the ship. He had the cube, the deadly thing in a solid-looking box that still leaked energy, and looked to escape with the prize in a miniature submarine that would launch from underneath, taking him God knew where. What HYDRA could do with that thing didn’t bear thinking about, and if Steve let the man escape, there was no telling where he would end up.

Steve leapt off the catwalk to land in front of D. H., shield on his arm. The startled HYDRA soldier backed off slightly, then widened his eyes when he realized who was standing in front of him. There was less fear in his gaze than Steve would have wanted, more of a sneer curling at his lips.

“Mutti,” D. H. said, his gun coming up blindingly fast. Steve had enough time to register disgust before the shield slammed down just as fast, cutting the barrel of the gun and making D. H. stagger backwards. Mutti – Mother, God damn Schmidt. D. H. turned his stagger into an efficient, backwards scramble, vaulting different levels of stairs and catwalks as he focused on getting to the sub. Steve didn’t hesitate, and flung himself down hard enough to catch D. H., landing them both hard inside the cockpit. D. H. kicked out frantically, catching the controls to seal the sub and release it through its launch bay.

They tumbled down together, fighting for the controls, and Steve could hear the engines kicking into life, taking them farther and farther away, diving down, down, and down. D. H. writhed, getting out of his grip and raising the cube container, smashing it against Steve’s shield. If there was a German U-Boat anywhere near here, they could scoop up the cube and D. H. both, then blow Peggy and the rest of the Commandos sky high. Steve couldn’t take that chance. If HYDRA escaped with the cube, there was no telling what they would do with it. They’d been ready to take out half of America before – now they’d likely settle for nothing less.

Peggy, I’m so sorry.

Steve stopped trying to struggle for the controls, and instead smashed his shield upward, past D. H. And flooded the vessel.