The Corrupt and the Pure; Chapter 22: The Clash
[INFO]Title: The Corrupt and the Pure
Author: Del Rion (delrion.mail (at) gmail.com)
Fandom: The Avengers & Captain America (MCU)
Timeline: post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Genre: Drama, action, hurt/comfort
Rating: MA / FRAO
Characters: Steve Rogers (Captain America), Tony Stark (Iron Man). Also: Bruce Banner (Hulk), James “Bucky” Barnes (Winter Soldier), Clint Barton (Hawkeye), J.A.R.V.I.S., James “Rhodey” Rhodes (War Machine), Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow), Thor, Sam Wilson (Falcon)
Pairing: Steve/Tony
Summary: When the Steve Rogers from an alternate universe appears in the middle of the Avengers Tower, two worlds are about to collide: one where Captain America became the tool of HYDRA and fell into a relationship with the hero Iron Man - and one where Tony and Steve are tentatively getting along. The latter are forced to reconsider their relationship when the Commander kidnaps Tony to replace his dead lover.
Complete.
Written for: A story commissioned by Susanne (ChickenHax @ AO3 / starkred @ Tumblr).
Warnings: Rape/non-con, major character death (alternate universe), graphic canonical violence, M/M sexual content, language.
~ ~ ~
Chapter 22: The Clash
Tony stopped mid-step and stomped his foot down, hard gravel shifting beneath his shoe. “I’m tired of walking,” he declared.
The darkness moved as the Commander turned, their single light source weakening by the hour. Tony expected to be backhanded or scolded, but the super-soldier simply took a step towards him, his eyes moving over his body.
Tony stood his ground. For the time being, he was completely unrestrained, but he had no illusions that running away or trying to find a weapon lying around would get him anywhere. He had enjoyed the limited freedom of walking on his own, but he was reaching his limit. “What’s the plan?” he asked the Commander bitingly. “Are you going to punch me out and carry me, caveman-style, or maybe threaten to drag me by my hair?”
“That would hurt you unnecessarily,” the Commander replied. “I don’t want that. I can see that your feet are weary and your body aching; there’s no reason to apologize for that.”
Tony felt the heat of shame on his face for being found out. He didn’t think the other could see it in the dark, but there was something the Commander had to be seeing, the way he was looking at him. “Then I suppose we’ll take a break,” Tony ventured to say.
“Perhaps,” the Commander mused, taking another step towards him. The way the light was pointed, it left half his face in shadow, and Tony could see the parts that were identical to the Steve Rogers he knew. He looked perhaps a second too long because a smile teased the stern lips. “What do you see, when you look at me?”
“A whole lot of ugly,” Tony replied, with as much spite as he could.
He got a chuckle in return. “Yes, that is what people see. Not very stealthy, and it certainly has made my life more difficult. It’s a good thing I’m adaptable.”
“Clearly not enough because you keep going after the same thing,” Tony muttered.
“You’re more human than he ever was,” the Commander stated, taking the last step that brought them chest to chest. Tony tried backing away and felt an arm wrap around his waist, keeping him right there. “I forget, sometimes.”
“Well, I’ll be happy to remind you. Also, should you decide I’m just an inferior version of him, feel free to just leave me right here and keep on walking; I’ll find my way out,” Tony said.
Another chuckle, and then the Commander leaned forward and laid a tender kiss on Tony’s forehead. There was no other way to describe it, and Tony wanted to shudder at the sensation, but his body was too worn out to execute the command. Or, his body just didn’t think it necessary, even though it really should have, all things considered.
“I don’t have anything else,” the Commander murmured, breaths ghosting against Tony’s hairline. He was so close Tony could smell him, and if he had ever been close enough to Steve to smell him, he could have compared whether the two were the same. It certainly wasn’t the scent of apple pies that filled his nostrils, but it wasn’t pure evil oozing out of his pores, either.
There were times Tony had a hard time telling himself to hate this man; to blindly ignore the fact that he was a human being who had gone through something terrible and couldn’t really be blamed for any of it. No more than Steve was blaming his old pal Bucky who was now the Winder Soldier.
“I’m sure you could find other things if you tried hard enough,” Tony mused, forcing his body to stay tense and not accidentally lean into the body in front of him. He didn’t want to unintentionally instigate physical contact.
The Commander made a dismissive sound, his chin leaning itself on Tony’s head. The arm around him wasn’t unyielding like a prison, but more like an embrace.
Tony jerked back, almost breaking free until the arm stiffened and shifted, a hand clamping around his wrist to keep him from putting more distance between them. His wrists still ached from being bound before, making him hiss.
“I’m sorry,” the Commander murmured. “If you wouldn’t fight me…”
“You’re not sorry,” Tony snapped. “If you actually gave a shit about how I feel, you would have let me go days ago.”
The blue eyes flashed, searching his gaze. “It might take time, but you’ll get used to the idea.”
“You don’t know that!” Tony’s voice echoed in the tunnel long after he was done shouting out the words.
The fingers tightened around his wrist in warning. “We had something special. I want that back,” the Commander ground out. “My intention is not to hurt you.”
“My asshole disagrees,” Tony spat back.
The Commander dared to chuckle at the crude words, his hold on his wrist easing just so that his thumb could draw circles on Tony’s skin. “You’ll learn to enjoy it.”
“Maybe he did, but I think I’m the best person to decide what I do and do not enjoy. I have preferences, and the thing we did earlier doesn’t even remotely fall within my comfort zone. Either you get that through your thick skull of you’ll find me stabbing you in the back -”
A tiny bang echoed up the tunnel they had been walking in for the last few hours, the sound cutting Tony off. The Commander’s thumb stopped caressing his skin, for which he was glad, and they both listened for another sound. Tony tried to make a quick calculation of odds between the hope of a rescue and fearing another innocent person stumbling across their path, but he wasn’t fast enough to decide which was more likely before the Commander yanked him back against his chest, a firm hand clamping over his jaw and mouth, muffling a startled yelp.
There were a few other sounds in the next minute or so, too far apart to immediately assume they might have originated from the same source. It may have just been old pipes groaning, or a train passing by somewhere.
At least, that was what Tony thought, but with the Commander’s hand blocking his airway, he was getting slightly too preoccupied to listen as he struggled to draw in air past the fingers blocking his nostrils. Tony tried to hint at his impending suffocation with a growl, but that was completely ignored. Next, he tried to stomp down on the Commander’s foot, already feeling the tension growing in his chest as he wasn’t capable of drawing enough air into his lungs, and that got him a low growl of annoyance and an even firmer grip around the lower half of his face.
Growing desperate and still remembering the nauseating feeling of falling unconscious from lack of air, Tony clawed at the arm holding him captive, not caring whether someone was coming towards them or not; the need to survive overrode all other thoughts. Unable to dislodge the arm and growing weaker as he grew more frantic, Tony knew he was facing grim odds all over again. His mind screamed at his body to do something about it.
He felt hot, all of a sudden, with dread and animal fear, the urge to fight an extension of the need to survive. Breathing was a natural state, and being denied the ability to do so sent his body into overdrive. This had happened before, not too long ago, and that knowledge fed the fearful anxiety that demanded that he prevent it from repeating itself, somehow.
“Fuck!” the Commander hissed, suddenly letting go and shoving him to the side so hard Tony had no chance of finding his footing. He crashed down to the tunnel floor, forearm colliding painfully with the tracks, but he was able to breathe again and that meant more to him than a belated radiation of pain along his limb.
Something swooshed over his head, and the tunnel exploded with light. It was blinding, but Tony’s entire body was already burning up so his brain simply registered it at a sluggish pace. An instant later his eyes took in a flash of metal - just before the Commander swung out with his arm, smacking aside the flying object. It rebounded off the floor and then skidded down, sparks flying as it slid along the tracks before coming to a halt under a dark blue boot.
The Commander growled, and from the corner of his eye Tony saw him flexing the arm he had used to defend himself from the projectile.
“End of the line, pal,” Steve Rogers’ voice called out.
Tony turned his face towards him, watching him pick up the shield. Behind him, Clint Barton had his bow cocked while Natasha Romanoff and Thor were spreading out, effectively blocking the way they had come.
“Stark, you okay?” Clint called out.
Tony made a sound that may have been meant as a ‘yeah’, but he was still sucking in precious air, head feeling hot as it spun a little.
“He doesn’t look well,” Thor murmured, voice carrying in the tunnel. Something was still casting light around them - a special arrow-fitted flare, Tony’s brain supplied.
“I’m fine,” Tony murmured, voice barely there. He felt funny, all tingly, and when he looked down at his arm that was still aching, he saw his skin was faintly radiating with red.
Well, that explained Thor’s statement.
“You shouldn’t have come after us,” the Commander said, taking a step towards Tony.
Clint shifted his bow, Thor raised his hammer-arm, and Steve adjusted his hold on his shield. Natasha didn’t bother with a weapon just yet, but she was cautiously watching the scene unfold.
“Get Tony,” Steve ordered. “I’ll take care of him.”
“Didn’t end so well for you last time,” the Commander sneered, removing his shield from his back.
“This is going to be different,” Steve promised. He didn’t sound like Captain America, exactly. There was too much anger in his voice, plus the hint that he was going to enjoy what happened next.
“I say we play this safe,” Clint offered. “Sit Mjolnir on his chest and see how tough he is, flailing around like a tortoise.”
“No,” Steve refused.
“We can’t afford to let him slip away again,” Natasha reminded him.
“He’s not going anywhere,” Steve snapped. “Not without his prize.”
“Then we better secure the prize before he makes away with it,” Thor decided and began to stride forward.
“You are treating this whole episode like a nuisance,” the Commander stated, taking another step forward.
“Don’t move!” Steve barked.
Tony could hear a smile in the villain’s voice when he replied: “You couldn’t stop me from taking him before. This isn’t going to be any different.”
One moment it was a Mexican standoff of two sides - but no less filled with tension - and then something snapped: Steve attacked, two vibranium shields clashing together and threatening to break Tony’s left eardrum, and all he could do was roll to the side to avoid being stepped on as the supersoldiers clashed.
Thor was there a moment later, crouching over him and pulling Tony to his feet with too much force to be comfortable. He followed, though, trusting that he was relatively safe from abduction as long as he stayed near the Asgardian, and followed his lead back to Clint and Natasha.
“Should we do something?” Clint asked, and Tony turned around to find the Commander and Steve engaged in a fight that lacked any of the grace he was used to seeing in Cap’s fighting style. The beating they were giving each other was brutal and mean, the tunnel almost trembling whenever one threw the other against the wall and tried to move in for an incapacitating attack. Every blow that landed made Tony grimace and jump, but the two seemed immune to the strength of it in the frenzy of their battle.
“Maybe we should just let it play out,” Natasha suggested, even though she didn’t sound like she considered it a good idea. “Cap’s been itching for a re-match.”
A matter of pride or principle, Tony couldn’t help but be a little concerned their man was going to lose: Steve took a few hard hits in the head, then a knee in the gut, and almost crashed into the tunnel floor.
“Thor, be a good boy and wrap this up,” Tony begged, just wanting this nightmare to come to an end, and the Asgardian nodded and transferred the job of supporting Tony to Natasha before striding forward, hammer sparking in anticipation.
The Commander looked up at him, shifted his stance, and told Thor to bring it.
Too late Tony realized just how bad an idea this had been.
“Thor, no!” he and Clint yelled at the same time as the magical hammer and the unbreakable shield met.
Once upon a time, the impact had leveled a surrounding forest. This time the space was limited, the pressure wave slamming Tony and his companions off their feet, landing them down hard a few second later. The air was rumbling and dust coated everything, falling off the ceiling.
“We need to get out, now,” Natasha urged them then coughed.
“Cap, Thor!” Clint called out.
“Dammit,” Steve hissed - or possibly it was the Commander, Tony couldn’t quite tell.
Thor stumbled towards them, dragging Steve along with him. “The villain has escaped,” he reported.
Tony was mildly surprised, but he supposed the Commander had known he couldn’t take the entire team on his own.
“We had better move or we’ll be gone as well,” Clint stated grimly and pulled another arrow from his quiver. Instead of firing it, he thumbed off the tip of it and dragged it against a nearby wall, triggering the flare and filling their surroundings with an almost blinding amount of light. In the dense cloud of dust, however, it soon dimmed to a bearable level.
“Let’s go,” Natasha ordered and followed Clint’s lead, pulling Tony along, half-supporting him as they walked. There were no protests from Thor or Steve, and Tony wondered whether both of them were thinking this could have gone better.
It certainly could have, but Tony was going to count his freedom as a win - if he didn’t get buried alive in the next few minutes.
to be continued…
Story info
Author: Del Rion (delrion.mail (at) gmail.com)
Fandom: The Avengers & Captain America (MCU)
Timeline: post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Genre: Drama, action, hurt/comfort
Rating: MA / FRAO
Characters: Steve Rogers (Captain America), Tony Stark (Iron Man). Also: Bruce Banner (Hulk), James “Bucky” Barnes (Winter Soldier), Clint Barton (Hawkeye), J.A.R.V.I.S., James “Rhodey” Rhodes (War Machine), Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow), Thor, Sam Wilson (Falcon)
Pairing: Steve/Tony
Summary: When the Steve Rogers from an alternate universe appears in the middle of the Avengers Tower, two worlds are about to collide: one where Captain America became the tool of HYDRA and fell into a relationship with the hero Iron Man - and one where Tony and Steve are tentatively getting along. The latter are forced to reconsider their relationship when the Commander kidnaps Tony to replace his dead lover.
Complete.
Written for: A story commissioned by Susanne (ChickenHax @ AO3 / starkred @ Tumblr).
Warnings: Rape/non-con, major character death (alternate universe), graphic canonical violence, M/M sexual content, language.
~ ~ ~
Chapter 22: The Clash
Tony stopped mid-step and stomped his foot down, hard gravel shifting beneath his shoe. “I’m tired of walking,” he declared.
The darkness moved as the Commander turned, their single light source weakening by the hour. Tony expected to be backhanded or scolded, but the super-soldier simply took a step towards him, his eyes moving over his body.
Tony stood his ground. For the time being, he was completely unrestrained, but he had no illusions that running away or trying to find a weapon lying around would get him anywhere. He had enjoyed the limited freedom of walking on his own, but he was reaching his limit. “What’s the plan?” he asked the Commander bitingly. “Are you going to punch me out and carry me, caveman-style, or maybe threaten to drag me by my hair?”
“That would hurt you unnecessarily,” the Commander replied. “I don’t want that. I can see that your feet are weary and your body aching; there’s no reason to apologize for that.”
Tony felt the heat of shame on his face for being found out. He didn’t think the other could see it in the dark, but there was something the Commander had to be seeing, the way he was looking at him. “Then I suppose we’ll take a break,” Tony ventured to say.
“Perhaps,” the Commander mused, taking another step towards him. The way the light was pointed, it left half his face in shadow, and Tony could see the parts that were identical to the Steve Rogers he knew. He looked perhaps a second too long because a smile teased the stern lips. “What do you see, when you look at me?”
“A whole lot of ugly,” Tony replied, with as much spite as he could.
He got a chuckle in return. “Yes, that is what people see. Not very stealthy, and it certainly has made my life more difficult. It’s a good thing I’m adaptable.”
“Clearly not enough because you keep going after the same thing,” Tony muttered.
“You’re more human than he ever was,” the Commander stated, taking the last step that brought them chest to chest. Tony tried backing away and felt an arm wrap around his waist, keeping him right there. “I forget, sometimes.”
“Well, I’ll be happy to remind you. Also, should you decide I’m just an inferior version of him, feel free to just leave me right here and keep on walking; I’ll find my way out,” Tony said.
Another chuckle, and then the Commander leaned forward and laid a tender kiss on Tony’s forehead. There was no other way to describe it, and Tony wanted to shudder at the sensation, but his body was too worn out to execute the command. Or, his body just didn’t think it necessary, even though it really should have, all things considered.
“I don’t have anything else,” the Commander murmured, breaths ghosting against Tony’s hairline. He was so close Tony could smell him, and if he had ever been close enough to Steve to smell him, he could have compared whether the two were the same. It certainly wasn’t the scent of apple pies that filled his nostrils, but it wasn’t pure evil oozing out of his pores, either.
There were times Tony had a hard time telling himself to hate this man; to blindly ignore the fact that he was a human being who had gone through something terrible and couldn’t really be blamed for any of it. No more than Steve was blaming his old pal Bucky who was now the Winder Soldier.
“I’m sure you could find other things if you tried hard enough,” Tony mused, forcing his body to stay tense and not accidentally lean into the body in front of him. He didn’t want to unintentionally instigate physical contact.
The Commander made a dismissive sound, his chin leaning itself on Tony’s head. The arm around him wasn’t unyielding like a prison, but more like an embrace.
Tony jerked back, almost breaking free until the arm stiffened and shifted, a hand clamping around his wrist to keep him from putting more distance between them. His wrists still ached from being bound before, making him hiss.
“I’m sorry,” the Commander murmured. “If you wouldn’t fight me…”
“You’re not sorry,” Tony snapped. “If you actually gave a shit about how I feel, you would have let me go days ago.”
The blue eyes flashed, searching his gaze. “It might take time, but you’ll get used to the idea.”
“You don’t know that!” Tony’s voice echoed in the tunnel long after he was done shouting out the words.
The fingers tightened around his wrist in warning. “We had something special. I want that back,” the Commander ground out. “My intention is not to hurt you.”
“My asshole disagrees,” Tony spat back.
The Commander dared to chuckle at the crude words, his hold on his wrist easing just so that his thumb could draw circles on Tony’s skin. “You’ll learn to enjoy it.”
“Maybe he did, but I think I’m the best person to decide what I do and do not enjoy. I have preferences, and the thing we did earlier doesn’t even remotely fall within my comfort zone. Either you get that through your thick skull of you’ll find me stabbing you in the back -”
A tiny bang echoed up the tunnel they had been walking in for the last few hours, the sound cutting Tony off. The Commander’s thumb stopped caressing his skin, for which he was glad, and they both listened for another sound. Tony tried to make a quick calculation of odds between the hope of a rescue and fearing another innocent person stumbling across their path, but he wasn’t fast enough to decide which was more likely before the Commander yanked him back against his chest, a firm hand clamping over his jaw and mouth, muffling a startled yelp.
There were a few other sounds in the next minute or so, too far apart to immediately assume they might have originated from the same source. It may have just been old pipes groaning, or a train passing by somewhere.
At least, that was what Tony thought, but with the Commander’s hand blocking his airway, he was getting slightly too preoccupied to listen as he struggled to draw in air past the fingers blocking his nostrils. Tony tried to hint at his impending suffocation with a growl, but that was completely ignored. Next, he tried to stomp down on the Commander’s foot, already feeling the tension growing in his chest as he wasn’t capable of drawing enough air into his lungs, and that got him a low growl of annoyance and an even firmer grip around the lower half of his face.
Growing desperate and still remembering the nauseating feeling of falling unconscious from lack of air, Tony clawed at the arm holding him captive, not caring whether someone was coming towards them or not; the need to survive overrode all other thoughts. Unable to dislodge the arm and growing weaker as he grew more frantic, Tony knew he was facing grim odds all over again. His mind screamed at his body to do something about it.
He felt hot, all of a sudden, with dread and animal fear, the urge to fight an extension of the need to survive. Breathing was a natural state, and being denied the ability to do so sent his body into overdrive. This had happened before, not too long ago, and that knowledge fed the fearful anxiety that demanded that he prevent it from repeating itself, somehow.
“Fuck!” the Commander hissed, suddenly letting go and shoving him to the side so hard Tony had no chance of finding his footing. He crashed down to the tunnel floor, forearm colliding painfully with the tracks, but he was able to breathe again and that meant more to him than a belated radiation of pain along his limb.
Something swooshed over his head, and the tunnel exploded with light. It was blinding, but Tony’s entire body was already burning up so his brain simply registered it at a sluggish pace. An instant later his eyes took in a flash of metal - just before the Commander swung out with his arm, smacking aside the flying object. It rebounded off the floor and then skidded down, sparks flying as it slid along the tracks before coming to a halt under a dark blue boot.
The Commander growled, and from the corner of his eye Tony saw him flexing the arm he had used to defend himself from the projectile.
“End of the line, pal,” Steve Rogers’ voice called out.
Tony turned his face towards him, watching him pick up the shield. Behind him, Clint Barton had his bow cocked while Natasha Romanoff and Thor were spreading out, effectively blocking the way they had come.
“Stark, you okay?” Clint called out.
Tony made a sound that may have been meant as a ‘yeah’, but he was still sucking in precious air, head feeling hot as it spun a little.
“He doesn’t look well,” Thor murmured, voice carrying in the tunnel. Something was still casting light around them - a special arrow-fitted flare, Tony’s brain supplied.
“I’m fine,” Tony murmured, voice barely there. He felt funny, all tingly, and when he looked down at his arm that was still aching, he saw his skin was faintly radiating with red.
Well, that explained Thor’s statement.
“You shouldn’t have come after us,” the Commander said, taking a step towards Tony.
Clint shifted his bow, Thor raised his hammer-arm, and Steve adjusted his hold on his shield. Natasha didn’t bother with a weapon just yet, but she was cautiously watching the scene unfold.
“Get Tony,” Steve ordered. “I’ll take care of him.”
“Didn’t end so well for you last time,” the Commander sneered, removing his shield from his back.
“This is going to be different,” Steve promised. He didn’t sound like Captain America, exactly. There was too much anger in his voice, plus the hint that he was going to enjoy what happened next.
“I say we play this safe,” Clint offered. “Sit Mjolnir on his chest and see how tough he is, flailing around like a tortoise.”
“No,” Steve refused.
“We can’t afford to let him slip away again,” Natasha reminded him.
“He’s not going anywhere,” Steve snapped. “Not without his prize.”
“Then we better secure the prize before he makes away with it,” Thor decided and began to stride forward.
“You are treating this whole episode like a nuisance,” the Commander stated, taking another step forward.
“Don’t move!” Steve barked.
Tony could hear a smile in the villain’s voice when he replied: “You couldn’t stop me from taking him before. This isn’t going to be any different.”
One moment it was a Mexican standoff of two sides - but no less filled with tension - and then something snapped: Steve attacked, two vibranium shields clashing together and threatening to break Tony’s left eardrum, and all he could do was roll to the side to avoid being stepped on as the supersoldiers clashed.
Thor was there a moment later, crouching over him and pulling Tony to his feet with too much force to be comfortable. He followed, though, trusting that he was relatively safe from abduction as long as he stayed near the Asgardian, and followed his lead back to Clint and Natasha.
“Should we do something?” Clint asked, and Tony turned around to find the Commander and Steve engaged in a fight that lacked any of the grace he was used to seeing in Cap’s fighting style. The beating they were giving each other was brutal and mean, the tunnel almost trembling whenever one threw the other against the wall and tried to move in for an incapacitating attack. Every blow that landed made Tony grimace and jump, but the two seemed immune to the strength of it in the frenzy of their battle.
“Maybe we should just let it play out,” Natasha suggested, even though she didn’t sound like she considered it a good idea. “Cap’s been itching for a re-match.”
A matter of pride or principle, Tony couldn’t help but be a little concerned their man was going to lose: Steve took a few hard hits in the head, then a knee in the gut, and almost crashed into the tunnel floor.
“Thor, be a good boy and wrap this up,” Tony begged, just wanting this nightmare to come to an end, and the Asgardian nodded and transferred the job of supporting Tony to Natasha before striding forward, hammer sparking in anticipation.
The Commander looked up at him, shifted his stance, and told Thor to bring it.
Too late Tony realized just how bad an idea this had been.
“Thor, no!” he and Clint yelled at the same time as the magical hammer and the unbreakable shield met.
Once upon a time, the impact had leveled a surrounding forest. This time the space was limited, the pressure wave slamming Tony and his companions off their feet, landing them down hard a few second later. The air was rumbling and dust coated everything, falling off the ceiling.
“We need to get out, now,” Natasha urged them then coughed.
“Cap, Thor!” Clint called out.
“Dammit,” Steve hissed - or possibly it was the Commander, Tony couldn’t quite tell.
Thor stumbled towards them, dragging Steve along with him. “The villain has escaped,” he reported.
Tony was mildly surprised, but he supposed the Commander had known he couldn’t take the entire team on his own.
“We had better move or we’ll be gone as well,” Clint stated grimly and pulled another arrow from his quiver. Instead of firing it, he thumbed off the tip of it and dragged it against a nearby wall, triggering the flare and filling their surroundings with an almost blinding amount of light. In the dense cloud of dust, however, it soon dimmed to a bearable level.
“Let’s go,” Natasha ordered and followed Clint’s lead, pulling Tony along, half-supporting him as they walked. There were no protests from Thor or Steve, and Tony wondered whether both of them were thinking this could have gone better.
It certainly could have, but Tony was going to count his freedom as a win - if he didn’t get buried alive in the next few minutes.
to be continued…
Story info