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The Avengers got to Wakanda and slept. There was no indication of anything wrong until the fourth day, when T'Challa strode in and demanded they leave immediately."What the hell?!" Clint snarls. "You gonna turn us over, too?""T'Challa," Steve begins, "at least tell us what's happened."One of the guard women whose name Steve cann't remember snarls at him. "You will address the king as 'Your Highness,' or not at all."T'Challa continues. "You told me that, in Siberia, you had left Antony Stark unharmed after a brief, as you put it, 'squabble.' Would you like to elaborate now?""What do you mean?" Steve frowns. Did Stark tell tales to everyone? Lying maniac. He wished he'd bashed his face in, not his chest-"He's not going to say it, brother." The little girl who thinks she's clever. God, Steve hates her. The whole royalty thing is un-Democratic and it's clearly corrupted the whole nation- he should've seen it sooner. "Listen, doll-""You will not speak to the Princess in such a manner!" The guard woman butts into his personal space, so he elbows her.She and two others immediately react- it's unnatural is what it is, the way they fight- and Nat and Clint and Wanda and the Ant Guy and Sam are all joining in. And then, suddenly, they aren't, and he's drifting off to sleep."I'd been looking forward to trying out this new tranquilizer, to be honest. Thank you for the testing," the princess says. Sarah? Sari? Yeah, that's her name. Sari.The last thing he takes in as he sleeps is being strapped to a stretcher and somebody announcing liftoff.
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Wanda fights them. She definitely isn't the second to go down, right after Steve. She most certainly remains conscious as they put the collar on her.Ugh. Well, it's not like the collar can take away magic already in other people's heads, right?.Clint opens his eyes and doesn't know where he is. A prison? Nah, too sterile. A hospital? Too empty.Then he remembers- the battle. He must've been injured..Wanda shrieks, alone in her prison cell, feeling her influence break..A nurse walks in, so he decides to ask. "'Scuse me, ma'am, but how long have I been out?"She raises her eyebrows, and for some reason he's getting the sense of open hostility. "After the altercation, you were sedated for the trip.""Trip?" He's frowning now. "You mean the pizza?""From Wakanda to here.""Wakandawhat now?"Sullenness is replaced with dawning concern that turns to fear, painted across her face like lipstick. Hey, where's Laura?
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"Let me get this straight. You still have it?""Several large glass bottles full." Elektra runs a hand through her hair and wills herself to be patient.Matthew knows no such thing. "Well, we have to bring him back! And we can't just keep calling it 'the substance.' What about, I don't know, dragon dust?""Technically, it's more like marrow.""Gross." He makes a face. Sometimes Elektra wishes he could see the faces he makes, just so she could tease him about it. "Do you think it would work, though? It's been a week.""I think we should try.""Elektra. What aren't you telling me?"Damn her heartbeat. "Well... we might not have enough. And I was hoping to give this to your little spider friend- and Dr. Banner- that they might play around with it.""Okay. So we'll enlist them, make sure we can save some of it.".Steve wants to scream. He hasn't actually screamed at anyone, unless you count the guard, and she surely doesn't count. (The guard, who said that Clint and Sam had surrendered. What the hell was that supposed to mean? Wanda wouldn't control any of them. That guard was a liar, same as Stark.).Wanda uses her Sweet Young Girl routine (not that she'd tell anyone she calls it that, of course) to get a guard to take her collar off. She kills fourteen people- her count, they'd probably lie and say more- before they shock her and put a new one back on. It's heavier, she notes, and smells like gun oil. She slips into unconsciousness, and the last thing she remembers is a bald man in a blue wheelchair watching her from across the room..A woman pets an alien cat and debates whether or not to get coffee. Dark roast, with maple syrup and vanilla- nah, she can get it after this meeting. It won't be longer than twenty minutes at most. She'll relay the information and get gone, and Rogers will rot in prison..A woman walks into his cell. "Mr. Rogers.""Captain Rogers," he corrects automatically."Actually, according to our records, 'Captain America' was a stage name given to you, not an actual military rank. You did not complete training, and therefore have not earned a military title.""Oh, and you have? Doll, let me tell y-""You will address me as Captain Danvers, as I have actually served in the United States military and have proven my capability in the field."Steve is appalled. She couldn't... could she? "You're a woman.""I am aware of that, yes. And you are a former Avenger who has attempted to serve our country and planet before, which is why i'm here. Now, since you won't be speaking at the trial-""The trial?"She's confused. "Yes, for Anthony Stark's muder.""He was fine! Why does everyone keep saying that?"She rubs the side of her head, wishing she'd brought coffee..In a laboratory somewhere in Stark Tower, a group of people study a substance. They take DNA samples from three people: one who got his powers from it (his hands glow absentmindedly yellow under the white fluorescent lights, and Peter takes a picture on his phone,) one who was healed/resurrected after less than a minute of being dead (crushed under a building,) and one who was resurrected after a day of death, run through by blades.Their group is motley, but they're getting work done, and that's what matters.."The Accords-""Stark was in the government's pocket!""The United Nations is not the fucking government!""Language-""I am a grown woman, Mr. Rogers.""Captain.""Something I am, and you are not!".Samuel Wilson accepts his dishonorable discharge with his head hung and his mouth set. His trial will not be for several weeks, but at least the prison isn't too terrible- at least, until he finds out that his family refuses to visit him. His mother hangs up when he tries to call, and he looks up at the ceiling at night wondering if maybe he made the wrong decision..The woman- Steve refuses to think of her as a Captain, and he doesn't know her first name- leaves, and he thinks he's won for a minute..She comes back perhaps ten minutes later with a cup of coffee. "I'm supposed to tell you that your lawyer is meeting with you tomorrow. That's all."She leaves again, and Steve is alone.
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Wanda is in prison and suddenly Clint is contrite- what the fuck is up with that? Is he really gonna claim she influenced him that whole time? Steve hates them both.And why does everyone keep claiming Stark is dead?
("Yes, he's completely brain-dead," a reporter tells him after breaking into his room. It's really just a cell, but they're careful to call it a room. "They've got him on life support- working on some miraculous new cure that likely won't do a thing.")
Bullshit. That lady who pretended she'd been a soldier, the reporters, the lawyers- all of them, speaking nothing but bullshit. He hates them all.."This is insane." Peter says.Elektra eyes him, almost amused. "What, bringing Tony back?""No- I mean, yeah, but also, look at the structure of this! It's completely unlike normal bone marrow- it's like, like, if you took bone marrow and mixed it with plasma, but with extra stem cells and it's also fat tissue at the same time! Just look at it!" He gestures wildly."I can't," Matt quips, "I can't look at anything."Elektra smacks him..Bruce holds up a vial. "You think this'll really work?""I think we've got to try now," says Betty Ross.They look at Peter, who squares his shoulders and places the vial carefully in his pocket before they all head to the car. To the hospital, where his mentor is waiting..Clint has been in this mental hospital for two days now, and is no less confused than he was when he came in. Apparently, he joined forces with a HYDRA member, was a fugitive for two weeks, and his wife divorced him, but apparently it's all irrelevant because he was mind-controlled?After Loki, he doesn't understand how the other Avengers could even believe he'd willingly follow another mind-raping psychopath.He's not allowed to say the word "psychopath," here, which he guesses makes some sense since it's a mental hospital. He's not supposed to say "mental hospital" here, either; it's "care facility" or "psychiatric care facility." He knows the truth, though: he can't remember the last year, and somehow the mind-controlled version of him fucked things up so badly that there are armed guards right here in a mental hospital..Wanda knows she's smarter than everyone around her, even those dumb "Avengers." She knows how to adapt, how to play the system. How to play games.It isn't hard to get a guard to take her collar off.
("Just for a minute," she begged, "just so I can feel my magic again and you can put it right back on after, I promise.")
Briefly, she wonders if that guard had had a family. She hopes not, so that she won't have to feel bad about it later.
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He is floating, pulled between places. He is in turns floating and anchored, crossed between an island and a cloud and sea foam itself.Thoughts are bits of shells, washing to a shore he'd quite like to reach but doesn't know how to.
(He hated water, once. And before that he didn't mind it, could swim quite well.)
All those things are lost to him, however. There is only the water beneath, above, and around him. He breathes it in and it fills his lungs.
(Not long ago, he breathed in snow until he ceased to breathe at all and his limbs went from tingling to numb. Not long ago, there was a sharp splintering pain running through his heart.
What was a heart, anyway? What did it matter, reinforcements and alloys and implants, if they kept him going?
What did the added strength matter if the heart could still be pierced?)
.What's in a soul? That which makes up a human's mind by any other name would still have meaning.
(His heart had briefly stopped beating. Not for long; they started it up again. But the rest of him was left behind, there in the water of whatever a human soul was made of.)
Consciousness, perhaps. But he isn't conscious, hasn't been since just before his heart stopped beating.If he were aware, perhaps he'd be wondering what became of his friends..Pepper, the love of his life.One of the few people he'd ever been romantically attracted to, which in itself was a bit of a feat.One of the few people who loved him unconditionally, with all his faults and flaws and fears.Rhodey. Jim. His best friend, loyal forever, always there to pull him back from the edge..
This is how they tortured him, once.
He drowns and he does not drown. Going, going, gone..("-turning into a giant green rage monster.") Radioactive, the element of air. Always running away.Gone, gone, gone..He has fallen over the edge. It's off of a cliff, this water, it seems. There are rocks below and, perhaps, a shallow beach not too far. If only he could swim. If only he could reach the surface, take in a breath of air-.Peter, the teenage boy trying to take on the world. Tony's favorite spider.Peter's aunt, who he'd only met briefly when Peter first took on the internship but who looked at Peter like he was made of gold and could do no wrong.(Peter, the teenage boy who Rogers had nearly killed. Honestly, it was a miracle he was okay after that. God, Tony hated himself for taking Peter to the airport that day.).Tony does not know if he believes in any sort of God. In his mother's religion, there was a savior that walked on water. He doesn't believe that's possible, but he also doesn't know how it's possible for him to stay under for this long..An assassin, born and bred to kill.Much like his least favorite spider, but with far more bloodlust and far more remorse.Two lawyers, determined to do some good in the world: one constantly underestimated, hated even, for being transgender, the other for his disability. Their secretary, who carried a gun next to her lipstick.(Tony didn't personally know Frank Castle, but when Castle got together with Karen and Matt and Foggy and Elektra he'd sent the man a card.).
(Elektra, he knows, is a Buddhist. Nirvana or reincarnation. And Matt's irredemably Catholic, even more so than Maria Stark was.
Pepper's a pagan, Rhodey's an atheist, and the Parkers are Jewish. He doesn't know much about any of those.
He asked Bruce once, not long after Loki came down to work for Shield. All top-secret, of course. Bruce shut down into a panic attack, and he did not ask again.
Tony does not know what he believes in, other than science. He is not ready to find out yet.)
.Reporters and writers and agents, some of whom he'd even liked..The water turns to ink, staining his skin and eyes until he metamorphosizes into something good, something better, stronger. But he's human, and heavy, and he sinks.(Stark men are made of iron.).And a very long list of the dead..(Stark men are made of iron.) But that's never really been true, has it?.The words he hates are what remind him: iron may sink, but he is not only a machine but a human. Tony Stark is a human, and humans can float.Tony Stark is not yet ready to die..A twitch. A gasp. A hand in his own. Pain, everywhere..And in his mind, he washes ashore onto a beach of warmth and people who will stay.
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"Hey, I think I hear his heartbeat," says Matt Murdock, perched on the hospital roof.."Holy shit," says a custodian, in the middle of a late-night round."Is that what I think it is?" gasps a nurse, getting his phone out."What the fuck," mutters an underpaid technician."YEET!" screams Peter B. Parker.."Hey, I think I hear Peter shrieking with joy," says Elektra Natchios, perched next to Matt..They put more tubes in Tony, til you can barely see his skin; there's an oxygen mask on him again.They take him off life support, but not for the reasons they'd originally planned to. Pepper is grinning the whole time, especially when Tony blinks up at her blearily. Two days later, his first words have to do with mermaids and she doesn't quite understand but it's okay, he's okay, he's alive..Wanda pants, there in a street corner. She doesn't speak the language here- ripping the necessary information from the locals' minds is tiring, and she really needs more sleep than she's getting. Draining their energy is an acceptable substitute for now, though..Bruce is working with a full team on the dragon substance, Karen is working on the press release, and May is making sure Peter gets some sleep.."You know," Matt tells his partners, "I've been thinking a lot on what this means. Human resurrection-"Foggy throws a beanbag at him so he'll stop thinking..Pepper Potts is livid. Pepper Potts is enraged. Pepper Potts is borderline homicidal, when she hears that Maximoff broke out.(Pepper Potts is fucking terrified that the HYDRA bitch will come back and finish what Steve Rogers started. Pepper Potts will not allow that to happen, not as long as she lives.).Pepper Potts stations Deadpool by Tony's bed.