Fic: A New Divide. Thor/Steve, Bruce/Tony
Title: A New Divide (4/?)
Author: winteraconite
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: From Anon @ avengerkink: Injured!Steve, Thor/Steve, Tony+Steve With everyone showing concern in their own way because who DOESN'T love, Steve? I say Tony+Steve because Tony obviously likes Steve, but its Thor who ultimately wins.
Summary: Steve is shot in battle, and the injury is far worse than any of them imagined.
Pairings: Thor/Steve, Slight Bruce/Tony, and blink-and-you'll-miss-it Clint/Natasha
A/N: Movie-verse. Takes place after they capture Loki in Stark Towers. Haven't written in ages (like...2 years?) and this is my first time writing in the Marvel Universe so bear with me.
Disclaimer: I do not own Marvel or the Avengers or any of its sexy characters. I just borrow them and make them do my nasty bidding. They like it. A lot. >:)
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
For Thor it was a long and tense walk to the detention section, half-expecting to be apprehended for his earlier actions at every turn and not at all looking forward to what lay in store. If word had gone out that he had tried to break Steve out of the Helicarrier then SHIELD had decided not to act on it, for which he was thankful. To fight his way through every soldier they had would delay him and he was pressed for time.
They kept Loki in a different cell from before; the last one was beyond recovery. This one wouldn’t fall thirty thousand feet to the ground at the touch of a button, but it served its purpose.
At its center stood the defeated Jotun, standing calmly as if he didn’t have the wrath of three different worlds upon him. Loki stared at Thor through the thick glass and metal of his cell doors impassively. There was none of the condescending antagonism he usually displayed and, oddly, Thor wished there was if only so he could recognize his brother behind the cold emotionless face of the figure before him.
“We must talk,” Thor said at last.
Loki raised his chin in defiance. “About what?”
About so many things, Thor thought sadly. No matter how Thor looked at it Loki was still his brother; they had shared too much for him to think of him any differently. That was why it hurt when Loki denounced their kinship. Even though Thor had been told of Loki’s true lineage-that he wasn’t from Asgard, but from Jotunheim-he could never do the same.
Thor sighed heavily. “I have but one question and I will leave all other matters for when we return to Asgard.”
Loki stayed silent, but he nodded to show he was listening.
“What do you know of the weapons of the Chitauri?” Thor asked. Loki’s reaction was subtle, but the blond knew him well enough to know that his question came as a surprise to the trickster.
“And why do you want to know?” Loki asked, raising a brow. “You’ve never done so much as look at a weapon that wasn’t that confounded hammer.”
“Brother-”
“Don’t call me that,” Loki hissed, and if this sent a pang of pain right through Thor’s heart the true Asgardian didn’t let on. The Jotun started to pace in his cell, glaring angrily at Thor.
“You need only answer my question and I will leave you be.”
“Ah, but why should I make this any easier for you?” Loki sneered. His green eyes darkened and he smiled cruelly at Thor before his face hardened into a cold glare. “Tell me why you want to know and I will consider it.”
Thor glared back at his brother and thought about walking away. Loki was beyond reason; to tell him why he wanted to know would be futile. The Jotun had attacked and tried to enslave a whole planet. It was well within his capacity to be cruel enough to refuse to help Thor and let Steve die. For the Asgardian to see and hear that for himself would crush him because that meant his brother was truly lost.
But then he thought of Steve sleeping in his bed and already resigned to his fate. Loki just might be cruel enough to let Steve die, but for Thor to walk away now would be to do the same himself. If they couldn’t save him then so be it, but damn if Thor wasn’t going to do everything in his power to try.
And if there was a chance the brother he’d grown up with and loved was still somewhere inside the wretched Jotun before him, then he’d go out on a limb for both Steve and Loki’s sake.
“The Captain was wounded by their weapons. They tell me he is dying.”
“The Captain?” Loki repeated and the gleam in his eyes made Thor sick to his stomach. “Captain America?” Loki grinned and laughed and Thor clenched his hands into fists at his side.
“Oh, but this is good news to me,” Loki said menacingly. “Your leader, the one man who brought your pitiful little band of misfits together at the last minute, fading away and there is naught you can do.”
“Loki, listen to yourself,” Thor spat in disgust. “Are you mad?!”
“I won’t even grace that question with an answer,” Loki said, looking away and smirking before looking the Aesir in the eye. “But I will answer your first one. The weapons of the Chitauri are far more powerful and advanced than the likes these pathetic humans have ever seen. Consider yourselves lucky your beloved leader is still with you, and treasure what little time you have left for it is little indeed!” He said with a cruel smile. He was clearly enjoying himself. “There is no saving him, Thor. Not here in Midgard where their healers would make Eir weep for their incompetence. Your Captain is going to die, and I hope it is a slow and most painful death.”
Thor stiffened at his harsh words and Loki laughed. The Jotun smirked at Thor and expected the blond to fly into a rage as he was wont to do, but the Asgardian only looked at him sadly. “You are consumed by rage and envy. This is not the Loki I know.”
“Then you do not know me at all.” Loki hissed and Thor bowed his head and for some reason the gesture made Loki’s blood boil. “Leave me,” Loki said harshly as if he could no longer stand the sight of the Asgardian. “I have answered your question, now be gone!”
Thor sighed resignedly, and turned to take his leave, but before he was out of earshot Thor called out softly and spoke in their native tongue. “I will be sure to tell her you said ‘hello’”.
“Tell whom?” Loki frowned and Thor smiled a small, sad smile that made the Jotun’s jaw drop and work to find the words to say as soon as the implication set in.
Thor nodded once to his brother before walking away and leaving the normally eloquent Jotun sputtering Asgardian oaths behind him.
*
Natasha stood quietly beside Steve’s bed, looking down on his face. They were back in Steve’s room, and she was monitoring his vital signs and making sure he was stable after Thor had unhooked him from his IV lines.
The Captain was starting to look gray. His eyes were sunken and his cheeks hollow. His pulse was fluttering and weak under her fingers when she felt for it and she sighed.
We’re losing him, she thought and she tried to look at the situation with a purely clinical eye, but she still felt a twinge of grief in her gut. She had seen men die before-she had killed a lot of them herself-and she lost comrades to gunfire and torture on a daily basis. She was no stranger to death.
But this was different. This wasn’t sudden. This wasn’t happening in the blink of an eye. This was slow and excruciating, and she couldn’t stand it. It was exactly the kind of death that terrified her; the kind of death Loki had threatened her with.
In front of her Steve groaned and fidgeted in his sleep, and she knew it was from the pain. The man was in so much pain and there was nothing they could do about it. Sweat wouldn’t stop forming on his brow and she reached out and dabbed at it with a towel. He seemed to settle down at her touch, but the crease between his brows was still there.
“You’re an idiot, you know that?” Clint suddenly said from where he was leaning against the wall.
Natasha was hard-pressed not to roll her eyes at the archer as she continued to wipe the sweat from Steve’s forehead. “I made the right call. Cap would’ve been killed the minute they hit the bridge. You know that.”
Clint shook his head and pushed away from the wall, striding over to adjust Steve’s IV drip. Natasha didn’t look at him. “What I know is that Thor was on the edge back there,” he countered her earlier statement. “The guy was pissed. He could have easily hurt you.”
“But he didn’t.”
“Nat,” Clint said sternly and this time she looked at him. Her green eyes blazed with tenacity, but she didn’t say a word and Clint sighed. “You’ve stuck your neck out enough times for one day.”
Natasha arched a brow. “We all have; it’s our job.” Then she turned back to Steve and wiped away the beads of sweat that wouldn’t stop forming on his skin. “Cap would’ve done the same for me. He would’ve done the same for everybody.”
“I don’t doubt that, but-” Clint cut himself off and stepped closer to her, not touching her but allowing his proximity to give her the comfort he knew it would. He felt her lean toward him, but she didn’t allow herself to touch him either.
In front of them, the ECG machine beeped in time to Steve’s slow but steady heartbeat and, for a few minutes, it was the only sound in the room.
Clint looked down at Steve, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest. Out of all the Avengers, he was the one who knew any of them the least. Aside from Natasha, he hadn’t met any of them until the redhead knocked him out of Loki’s spell. But he heard the stories and he knew a good man when he saw one. And Steve was one of the best; the Avengers owed him one. Hell, the world did. He understood why anyone of them would want to save him. Clint didn’t feel like putting the man to sleep in a frozen prison himself.
But the image of Natasha challenging Thor who was so much bigger and stronger than her, and pointing a loaded gun at Steve’s head just to prove a point burned in the back of his mind.
“What are you gonna do when they put him in the cryochamber?” he asked quietly.
Natasha didn’t miss the fact that he said “when” and not “if”. She didn’t feel the need to point it out, but she did move away from him just a little bit. “SHIELD needs him,” she said flatly. “I’ll do what they tell me to.”
Clint didn’t believe her for a second, but he nodded anyway. “I’m going to check on Bruce and Tony,” he told her and turned toward the door. At the threshold he turned and called out to her.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” he all but pleaded before he let the door slide shut behind him without waiting for her response.
She didn’t turn to watch him leave. Instead she focused on her task of making Steve as comfortable as a man could get when your own body was giving out on you.
“Hang in there, Cap,” she whispered when Steve groaned in pain. She really hoped Tony and Bruce had something figured out by now.
*
“I’m sorry.”
Tony uttered out the words as if he couldn’t stop himself from saying them, like he’d been holding them in all this time. They’d been in the laboratory for hours, working silently and keeping their distance from each other. Things had been tense since they’d met with Fury and the other Avengers earlier. Bruce hadn’t looked at Tony once the whole time and the other man had uncharacteristically kept to himself and stayed quiet.
But now Tony was standing in front of the physicist, and the holoscreen offered very little in terms of a barrier. Bruce glanced up at him through the flickering letters and numbers on the screen for a split second before looking away again.
“It’s fine,” he said curtly, turning to another screen that didn’t have the other man on the other side. Undaunted, Tony moved to stand in front of him again.
“No,” he said insistently. “It’s not fine.” He clenched his jaw and Bruce recognized that look of stubbornness that Tony put on his face too many times to count.
Bruce sighed and swept the holoscreen aside so that nothing stood between him and Tony. He supposed he could spare a few minutes just to get this out of the way. It might even help their cause because then they’d be able to work together instead of sulking in their respective corners pretending to ignore the other. So Bruce took off his glasses and stared at Tony pointedly to show him that he had the doctor’s undivided attention.
However, this didn’t seem to be what Tony was looking for because he balked under Bruce’s gaze. He broke eye contact and looked away. “I got a little carried away back there,” he said quickly and Bruce raised a brow.
“A little?” he said archly, crossing his arms over his chest.
“I didn’t mean what I said,” Tony murmured. “I know you’re giving this all you’ve got.”
Bruce nodded and kept his peace, knowing it was as close to an apology as anybody was ever going to get from Tony Stark. He stood and put a hand on Tony’s shoulder. “We both are,” Bruce said, giving the other man’s shoulder a light squeeze. Tony looked at Bruce’s hand like a foreign object, but he didn’t shrug it off.
“I know it’s a lot to take in and that it’s hard to accept,” Bruce said carefully, daring to touch the matter Tony was trying to pretend was impossible. “But Steve is strong. He isn’t gone yet. If anyone can get back up from something like this, it’s him.”
“And if anyone can help him do it, it’s you,” Tony said, his blue eyes intense as he finally looked Bruce in the eye.
Bruce smiled and gave Tony’s shoulder one last squeeze before returning to his console and bringing the holoscreens back to life. “I think it’s time to get back to work,” he said, smiling at the man through a holoscreen.
Tony stared at him blankly before he gave a lopsided grin and shook his head. “Aye, aye, Cap.” He said without thinking, and his face fell at the moniker.
“Tony, we still have time,” Bruce said softly, noticing the sudden change in the man’s disposition. “Don’t write Steve off just yet.”
That seemed to snap Tony out of it. “I’m not writing Cap off anything,” he said fervently.
Just then the door opened, and Thor walked in. He saw the two men and stopped in his tracks, and the look on his face immediately got Tony’s attention.
“Jarvis, disable the lab’s surveillance system,” he said out loud to the A.I. and Bruce blinked. He didn’t know Jarvis had been wired to the Helicarrier’s system this whole time.
“Yes, sir,” the A.I. responded perfunctorily.
“We have five minutes before they get back online or beat down the door,” Tony said, walking around his console and approaching Thor. Bruce did the same and now all three of them were standing at the center of the laboratory. Bruce took a good look at the Asgardian and could immediately tell Thor was on edge. They could feel the tension rolling off his massive form in waves. He and Tony shared a quick glance, but they didn’t say a word as they waited for Thor to speak.
Thor’s eyes looked from one man to the other for a few moments before he spoke in a low, steady voice. “I need the Tesseract,” he said.
Bruce frowned. “What for?”
For Cap, Tony knew instantly, but he shook his head. “Bad call,” he said and Bruce nodded.
“The energy from the Tesseract is the closest thing to the radiation from the alien weapon, but it’s far from the same thing,” Bruce explained. “It isn’t like the vita-rays and under the circumstances we don’t know if Steve’s cells are stable enough to handle it. It could kill him the way it killed Schmidt.”
“Yeah, and if you haven’t noticed all that thing is good for is death and destruction-you know, weapons of mass destruction. That kind of thing.” Tony said. “Oh, and for opening portals into different parts of the Universe,” he added belatedly, shrugging as if it was an inconsequential piece of information when in reality that very fact could have ended their world mere hours ago. He looked to Bruce to back him up, but the man was staring at Thor as if the Asgardian had grown a second head. And then it hit him.
“You can’t be serious,” he said quickly.
“Thor, you’re not thinking of taking Steve to Asgard, are you?” Bruce asked slowly, the idea so preposterous to him that he had to make sure he understood what the Asgardian was implying.
Thor glowered and started to pace the floor, and Bruce realized that that was exactly what Thor was thinking. He and Tony shared a quick look before Tony put his hands on his hips and said: “Well, this ought to be good.”
Thor glared at the two men before he turned away to stare out the broken glass windows of the laboratory. “You did not see what I saw,” he said gravely. “We do not have the luxury of time,” he said more softly then before turning back to the two men. “Your Commander gave you 24 hours, but I am telling you the Captain does not have that long. We must act now.”
Thor looked hard into Tony’s eyes, but the man only looked back at him with an unreadable expression on his face. Bruce looked from one man to the other before clearing his throat.
“If you don’t mind my asking, what would taking Steve to Asgard accomplish exactly?” he asked.
“There is a healer. Her name is Eir. Loki said-”
“Hold it,” Tony stopped him right there. “Did you say Loki?”
“He came up with this idea?” Bruce asked incredulously.
Thor opened his mouth to speak, but Tony cut him off. “Let me get this straight,” he said. “Your brother says that taking the man who led the team that thwarted his attempt to enslave the human race to Asgard is a good idea.” He paused to let the words sink in before adding: “And we’re supposed to believe him?”
“You are supposed to believe me,” Thor grit out, slamming a fist on the table. “The lady Eir has more skill than the best healers Midgard has to offer. She may well save the Captain’s life, but we must take him to her and we are wasting time!”
Tony gaped at Bruce, looking for back-up, but the man was staring at Thor with a contemplative look on his face. “Say we go with this idea,” Bruce said slowly, warning Tony to stay silent with his eyes. “Would Steve survive the journey? He isn’t like you, Thor. He’s human.”
“How do you think your myths and legends came to be? Mortals have crossed over to Asgard before through the Bifrost and through the invocation of dark energy,” Thor explained. “The Bifrost is lost to us, but with the Tesseract I should be able to take him safely to Asgard. I will let no harm come to him.”
Bruce nodded quietly and Tony’s hands flew to his own temples and started to massage the building migraine away.
“I can’t believe you’re even considering this,” he told Bruce. “You do realize that this means sending the guy who is literally our national hero to an alien planet, right?”
“Yes. Yes, I do realize that,” Bruce said, taking his glasses off so he could scrub a hand over his face. “You’re sure this isn’t one of Loki’s tricks?” He asked Thor.
“Loki only reminded me of Eir,” Thor said. “I assure you the idea is mine.”
Bruce sighed and looked to Tony. “It could work,” he told the other man, but Tony only shook his head and scoffed.
“‘Could’? We need to do a little better than ‘could’.”
“‘Could’ is all we have at the moment,” Bruce countered, running a hand through his hair in frustration now. “We’re no closer to helping Steve than we were when we started.” He looked hard into the man’s eyes. “We’re at a dead end. We’ve been stuck for hours. Don’t try to deny it.”
Tony seemed to stiffen at that. “Well, how do we know this Eir woman can do it? How do we know this will work?”
“We don’t,” Bruce said and Tony crossed his arms over his chest and looked away.
Then Thor slowly stepped up to the two of them and met Tony’s gaze. “I will do this with or without your help, Man of Iron,” he said grimly. “But without it would take considerably longer.”
“Tony, Steve’s not gonna last another day,” Bruce said softly. “If this doesn’t work, then nothing will and Steve’s gone. But what if Thor’s right?”
Tony glared at Thor before he looked past the Asgardian to glare at Bruce. “You’re both nuts, you know that? This is crazy,” he said, turning away from the other two and clasping his hands together behind his back and pacing the floor. “So crazy, it might actually work. Huh.” Tony raised his hands up in the air and grinned. “I’m a genius.”
Thor frowned and looked to Bruce who smiled and rolled his eyes.
Just then the door opened and Clint came running in at full speed. Bruce was up in a heartbeat, his posture tense, his eyes on the archer. And that’s when Tony heard it. From behind the door came the sound of raised voices and people running. And gunfire. Lots of gunfire.
Tony looked at Clint, whose eyes were wide and fierce, and barely had time to react before the door burst open and a hail of bullets rained in. The breath left Tony’s lungs as Bruce lunged and knocked him to the ground. Slipping and rolling across the floor, they scrambled for cover as glass shattered around them. Bruce had the good sense to kick the tables over to face the door so it could shield them while Thor leapt over it and jumped right into the fray.
“What the hell is going on?!” Tony yelled. He struggled to get up, but Bruce pinned him down with a strong hand between his shoulder blades.
From somewhere in the laboratory Clint yelled right back, but they couldn’t make out his words over the chaos. They could hear the distinct hissing sound of his bow and arrows as he opened fire on whoever was shooting at them, and Tony’s brain worked furiously to make sense of the situation and figure out how to get them all out of here.
But before Tony could think of anything, there was a split second of ceasefire that was more ominous than anything else. “Stay down!” He heard Thor bellow and the sound of a small metal object bouncing on the floor and into the laboratory made Tony’s blood run cold.
“Bruce!” He twisted under Bruce’s hold to look at the man and his breath was caught in his throat when he saw Bruce’s eyes. They were green.
“Bruce, don’t-” He reached out for the other man, but Bruce snarled and threw himself away from the protection of the overturned tables. The gunfire started all over again and the deafening roar that followed was angry and barely human. Tony scrambled to go after him, but before his head could clear the table the grenade went off and all hell broke loose.
The explosion sent him and the table back into the wall so hard he wasn’t sure he could get back up. He groaned and rolled to one side, trying to get up.
Somewhere behind him he heard the Hulk roar again and Tony slid into the first hiding place he could find, knowing that that wasn’t Bruce anymore and that the Hulk could crush the life out of him without a second thought.
The floor shook under the green giant’s feet, which were apparently moving away from him and toward the men firing at him from the other side of the door. Within moments the sound of men screaming rose above the sound of gunfire.
With a grunt, Thor swung himself over the smouldering ruins of what were once Bruce and Tony’s consoles before sliding across the floor next to Tony.
“The Hulk does not see me as an ally!” Thor bellowed. The Asgardian turned and spat blood on the floor and he was clutching his side in pain. No bullet or grenade could have done that and Tony shook his head.
“Nope, definitely not!”
“Stark!” A hand clamped down hard on Tony’s shoulder and he turned to find Clint hunkering down next to him. “I was on my way here when they opened fire on me. Looks like they’ve given the order to put Cap into Cryosleep. No more waiting for a miracle cure,” he said calmly as if there weren’t a dozen men shooting at them or an indestructible giant tearing the place apart.
“Where is the Captain?” Thor asked urgently.
Clint shook his head. “Nat’s not responding. Her communicator’s offline. She was with him.”
Another explosion shook the room, but Thor protected the two humans by countering the shockwave with a pulse of energy from Mjolnir. Then he moved to get up, but Tony grabbed his breastplate and pulled him back down.
“Get the Tesseract!” Tony instructed.
“I must find the Captain!” Thor roared and his eyes blazed, but Tony shook his head firmly.
“You’re the one can get to the Tesseract the fastest! Clint and I will look for Cap and Agent Romanoff!” Thor started to protest, but Tony wouldn’t have it. “I will find him!” Then he pulled Thor closer and said: “Look for us when you have it. Now, go!”
The Asgardian looked torn, but Tony pushed away from him and trusted Thor do as he was told. “Hawkeye, with me,” he said, grabbing Clint’s shoulder to pull himself up before quickly making his way to one of the shattered windows.
Clint leapt through first and Tony scrambled to follow him. Thor was nowhere in sight.
“I’ll cover you,” Clint said as soon as Tony landed. He had an arrow already notched into his bow. “We’ve gotta get you into your suit.”
Tony nodded and brushed debris off his shirt. “I couldn’t agree more.”
They both quickly made their way down the corridor to where Tony kept his suit.
“Things just keep getting better and better, huh?” He told Clint who was not amused.
“Keep walking, Stark,” was all the archer said before he spoke into his communicator again to try and reach Natasha. There was no response.
In the laboratory above them, men still screamed and explosions shook the walls of the ship. The Hulk let out a devastating roar and Tony swallowed hard, but he didn’t look back.
TBC.
A/N: Sorry this chapter took me so long to cough up. Med school is a b*tch. If anyone is still reading this, I made this chapter a little longer than the previous ones and packed a lot more action into it. I hope you enjoyed yourselves. :)
Author: winteraconite
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: From Anon @ avengerkink: Injured!Steve, Thor/Steve, Tony+Steve With everyone showing concern in their own way because who DOESN'T love, Steve? I say Tony+Steve because Tony obviously likes Steve, but its Thor who ultimately wins.
Summary: Steve is shot in battle, and the injury is far worse than any of them imagined.
Pairings: Thor/Steve, Slight Bruce/Tony, and blink-and-you'll-miss-it Clint/Natasha
A/N: Movie-verse. Takes place after they capture Loki in Stark Towers. Haven't written in ages (like...2 years?) and this is my first time writing in the Marvel Universe so bear with me.
Disclaimer: I do not own Marvel or the Avengers or any of its sexy characters. I just borrow them and make them do my nasty bidding. They like it. A lot. >:)
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
For Thor it was a long and tense walk to the detention section, half-expecting to be apprehended for his earlier actions at every turn and not at all looking forward to what lay in store. If word had gone out that he had tried to break Steve out of the Helicarrier then SHIELD had decided not to act on it, for which he was thankful. To fight his way through every soldier they had would delay him and he was pressed for time.
They kept Loki in a different cell from before; the last one was beyond recovery. This one wouldn’t fall thirty thousand feet to the ground at the touch of a button, but it served its purpose.
At its center stood the defeated Jotun, standing calmly as if he didn’t have the wrath of three different worlds upon him. Loki stared at Thor through the thick glass and metal of his cell doors impassively. There was none of the condescending antagonism he usually displayed and, oddly, Thor wished there was if only so he could recognize his brother behind the cold emotionless face of the figure before him.
“We must talk,” Thor said at last.
Loki raised his chin in defiance. “About what?”
About so many things, Thor thought sadly. No matter how Thor looked at it Loki was still his brother; they had shared too much for him to think of him any differently. That was why it hurt when Loki denounced their kinship. Even though Thor had been told of Loki’s true lineage-that he wasn’t from Asgard, but from Jotunheim-he could never do the same.
Thor sighed heavily. “I have but one question and I will leave all other matters for when we return to Asgard.”
Loki stayed silent, but he nodded to show he was listening.
“What do you know of the weapons of the Chitauri?” Thor asked. Loki’s reaction was subtle, but the blond knew him well enough to know that his question came as a surprise to the trickster.
“And why do you want to know?” Loki asked, raising a brow. “You’ve never done so much as look at a weapon that wasn’t that confounded hammer.”
“Brother-”
“Don’t call me that,” Loki hissed, and if this sent a pang of pain right through Thor’s heart the true Asgardian didn’t let on. The Jotun started to pace in his cell, glaring angrily at Thor.
“You need only answer my question and I will leave you be.”
“Ah, but why should I make this any easier for you?” Loki sneered. His green eyes darkened and he smiled cruelly at Thor before his face hardened into a cold glare. “Tell me why you want to know and I will consider it.”
Thor glared back at his brother and thought about walking away. Loki was beyond reason; to tell him why he wanted to know would be futile. The Jotun had attacked and tried to enslave a whole planet. It was well within his capacity to be cruel enough to refuse to help Thor and let Steve die. For the Asgardian to see and hear that for himself would crush him because that meant his brother was truly lost.
But then he thought of Steve sleeping in his bed and already resigned to his fate. Loki just might be cruel enough to let Steve die, but for Thor to walk away now would be to do the same himself. If they couldn’t save him then so be it, but damn if Thor wasn’t going to do everything in his power to try.
And if there was a chance the brother he’d grown up with and loved was still somewhere inside the wretched Jotun before him, then he’d go out on a limb for both Steve and Loki’s sake.
“The Captain was wounded by their weapons. They tell me he is dying.”
“The Captain?” Loki repeated and the gleam in his eyes made Thor sick to his stomach. “Captain America?” Loki grinned and laughed and Thor clenched his hands into fists at his side.
“Oh, but this is good news to me,” Loki said menacingly. “Your leader, the one man who brought your pitiful little band of misfits together at the last minute, fading away and there is naught you can do.”
“Loki, listen to yourself,” Thor spat in disgust. “Are you mad?!”
“I won’t even grace that question with an answer,” Loki said, looking away and smirking before looking the Aesir in the eye. “But I will answer your first one. The weapons of the Chitauri are far more powerful and advanced than the likes these pathetic humans have ever seen. Consider yourselves lucky your beloved leader is still with you, and treasure what little time you have left for it is little indeed!” He said with a cruel smile. He was clearly enjoying himself. “There is no saving him, Thor. Not here in Midgard where their healers would make Eir weep for their incompetence. Your Captain is going to die, and I hope it is a slow and most painful death.”
Thor stiffened at his harsh words and Loki laughed. The Jotun smirked at Thor and expected the blond to fly into a rage as he was wont to do, but the Asgardian only looked at him sadly. “You are consumed by rage and envy. This is not the Loki I know.”
“Then you do not know me at all.” Loki hissed and Thor bowed his head and for some reason the gesture made Loki’s blood boil. “Leave me,” Loki said harshly as if he could no longer stand the sight of the Asgardian. “I have answered your question, now be gone!”
Thor sighed resignedly, and turned to take his leave, but before he was out of earshot Thor called out softly and spoke in their native tongue. “I will be sure to tell her you said ‘hello’”.
“Tell whom?” Loki frowned and Thor smiled a small, sad smile that made the Jotun’s jaw drop and work to find the words to say as soon as the implication set in.
Thor nodded once to his brother before walking away and leaving the normally eloquent Jotun sputtering Asgardian oaths behind him.
*
Natasha stood quietly beside Steve’s bed, looking down on his face. They were back in Steve’s room, and she was monitoring his vital signs and making sure he was stable after Thor had unhooked him from his IV lines.
The Captain was starting to look gray. His eyes were sunken and his cheeks hollow. His pulse was fluttering and weak under her fingers when she felt for it and she sighed.
We’re losing him, she thought and she tried to look at the situation with a purely clinical eye, but she still felt a twinge of grief in her gut. She had seen men die before-she had killed a lot of them herself-and she lost comrades to gunfire and torture on a daily basis. She was no stranger to death.
But this was different. This wasn’t sudden. This wasn’t happening in the blink of an eye. This was slow and excruciating, and she couldn’t stand it. It was exactly the kind of death that terrified her; the kind of death Loki had threatened her with.
In front of her Steve groaned and fidgeted in his sleep, and she knew it was from the pain. The man was in so much pain and there was nothing they could do about it. Sweat wouldn’t stop forming on his brow and she reached out and dabbed at it with a towel. He seemed to settle down at her touch, but the crease between his brows was still there.
“You’re an idiot, you know that?” Clint suddenly said from where he was leaning against the wall.
Natasha was hard-pressed not to roll her eyes at the archer as she continued to wipe the sweat from Steve’s forehead. “I made the right call. Cap would’ve been killed the minute they hit the bridge. You know that.”
Clint shook his head and pushed away from the wall, striding over to adjust Steve’s IV drip. Natasha didn’t look at him. “What I know is that Thor was on the edge back there,” he countered her earlier statement. “The guy was pissed. He could have easily hurt you.”
“But he didn’t.”
“Nat,” Clint said sternly and this time she looked at him. Her green eyes blazed with tenacity, but she didn’t say a word and Clint sighed. “You’ve stuck your neck out enough times for one day.”
Natasha arched a brow. “We all have; it’s our job.” Then she turned back to Steve and wiped away the beads of sweat that wouldn’t stop forming on his skin. “Cap would’ve done the same for me. He would’ve done the same for everybody.”
“I don’t doubt that, but-” Clint cut himself off and stepped closer to her, not touching her but allowing his proximity to give her the comfort he knew it would. He felt her lean toward him, but she didn’t allow herself to touch him either.
In front of them, the ECG machine beeped in time to Steve’s slow but steady heartbeat and, for a few minutes, it was the only sound in the room.
Clint looked down at Steve, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest. Out of all the Avengers, he was the one who knew any of them the least. Aside from Natasha, he hadn’t met any of them until the redhead knocked him out of Loki’s spell. But he heard the stories and he knew a good man when he saw one. And Steve was one of the best; the Avengers owed him one. Hell, the world did. He understood why anyone of them would want to save him. Clint didn’t feel like putting the man to sleep in a frozen prison himself.
But the image of Natasha challenging Thor who was so much bigger and stronger than her, and pointing a loaded gun at Steve’s head just to prove a point burned in the back of his mind.
“What are you gonna do when they put him in the cryochamber?” he asked quietly.
Natasha didn’t miss the fact that he said “when” and not “if”. She didn’t feel the need to point it out, but she did move away from him just a little bit. “SHIELD needs him,” she said flatly. “I’ll do what they tell me to.”
Clint didn’t believe her for a second, but he nodded anyway. “I’m going to check on Bruce and Tony,” he told her and turned toward the door. At the threshold he turned and called out to her.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” he all but pleaded before he let the door slide shut behind him without waiting for her response.
She didn’t turn to watch him leave. Instead she focused on her task of making Steve as comfortable as a man could get when your own body was giving out on you.
“Hang in there, Cap,” she whispered when Steve groaned in pain. She really hoped Tony and Bruce had something figured out by now.
*
“I’m sorry.”
Tony uttered out the words as if he couldn’t stop himself from saying them, like he’d been holding them in all this time. They’d been in the laboratory for hours, working silently and keeping their distance from each other. Things had been tense since they’d met with Fury and the other Avengers earlier. Bruce hadn’t looked at Tony once the whole time and the other man had uncharacteristically kept to himself and stayed quiet.
But now Tony was standing in front of the physicist, and the holoscreen offered very little in terms of a barrier. Bruce glanced up at him through the flickering letters and numbers on the screen for a split second before looking away again.
“It’s fine,” he said curtly, turning to another screen that didn’t have the other man on the other side. Undaunted, Tony moved to stand in front of him again.
“No,” he said insistently. “It’s not fine.” He clenched his jaw and Bruce recognized that look of stubbornness that Tony put on his face too many times to count.
Bruce sighed and swept the holoscreen aside so that nothing stood between him and Tony. He supposed he could spare a few minutes just to get this out of the way. It might even help their cause because then they’d be able to work together instead of sulking in their respective corners pretending to ignore the other. So Bruce took off his glasses and stared at Tony pointedly to show him that he had the doctor’s undivided attention.
However, this didn’t seem to be what Tony was looking for because he balked under Bruce’s gaze. He broke eye contact and looked away. “I got a little carried away back there,” he said quickly and Bruce raised a brow.
“A little?” he said archly, crossing his arms over his chest.
“I didn’t mean what I said,” Tony murmured. “I know you’re giving this all you’ve got.”
Bruce nodded and kept his peace, knowing it was as close to an apology as anybody was ever going to get from Tony Stark. He stood and put a hand on Tony’s shoulder. “We both are,” Bruce said, giving the other man’s shoulder a light squeeze. Tony looked at Bruce’s hand like a foreign object, but he didn’t shrug it off.
“I know it’s a lot to take in and that it’s hard to accept,” Bruce said carefully, daring to touch the matter Tony was trying to pretend was impossible. “But Steve is strong. He isn’t gone yet. If anyone can get back up from something like this, it’s him.”
“And if anyone can help him do it, it’s you,” Tony said, his blue eyes intense as he finally looked Bruce in the eye.
Bruce smiled and gave Tony’s shoulder one last squeeze before returning to his console and bringing the holoscreens back to life. “I think it’s time to get back to work,” he said, smiling at the man through a holoscreen.
Tony stared at him blankly before he gave a lopsided grin and shook his head. “Aye, aye, Cap.” He said without thinking, and his face fell at the moniker.
“Tony, we still have time,” Bruce said softly, noticing the sudden change in the man’s disposition. “Don’t write Steve off just yet.”
That seemed to snap Tony out of it. “I’m not writing Cap off anything,” he said fervently.
Just then the door opened, and Thor walked in. He saw the two men and stopped in his tracks, and the look on his face immediately got Tony’s attention.
“Jarvis, disable the lab’s surveillance system,” he said out loud to the A.I. and Bruce blinked. He didn’t know Jarvis had been wired to the Helicarrier’s system this whole time.
“Yes, sir,” the A.I. responded perfunctorily.
“We have five minutes before they get back online or beat down the door,” Tony said, walking around his console and approaching Thor. Bruce did the same and now all three of them were standing at the center of the laboratory. Bruce took a good look at the Asgardian and could immediately tell Thor was on edge. They could feel the tension rolling off his massive form in waves. He and Tony shared a quick glance, but they didn’t say a word as they waited for Thor to speak.
Thor’s eyes looked from one man to the other for a few moments before he spoke in a low, steady voice. “I need the Tesseract,” he said.
Bruce frowned. “What for?”
For Cap, Tony knew instantly, but he shook his head. “Bad call,” he said and Bruce nodded.
“The energy from the Tesseract is the closest thing to the radiation from the alien weapon, but it’s far from the same thing,” Bruce explained. “It isn’t like the vita-rays and under the circumstances we don’t know if Steve’s cells are stable enough to handle it. It could kill him the way it killed Schmidt.”
“Yeah, and if you haven’t noticed all that thing is good for is death and destruction-you know, weapons of mass destruction. That kind of thing.” Tony said. “Oh, and for opening portals into different parts of the Universe,” he added belatedly, shrugging as if it was an inconsequential piece of information when in reality that very fact could have ended their world mere hours ago. He looked to Bruce to back him up, but the man was staring at Thor as if the Asgardian had grown a second head. And then it hit him.
“You can’t be serious,” he said quickly.
“Thor, you’re not thinking of taking Steve to Asgard, are you?” Bruce asked slowly, the idea so preposterous to him that he had to make sure he understood what the Asgardian was implying.
Thor glowered and started to pace the floor, and Bruce realized that that was exactly what Thor was thinking. He and Tony shared a quick look before Tony put his hands on his hips and said: “Well, this ought to be good.”
Thor glared at the two men before he turned away to stare out the broken glass windows of the laboratory. “You did not see what I saw,” he said gravely. “We do not have the luxury of time,” he said more softly then before turning back to the two men. “Your Commander gave you 24 hours, but I am telling you the Captain does not have that long. We must act now.”
Thor looked hard into Tony’s eyes, but the man only looked back at him with an unreadable expression on his face. Bruce looked from one man to the other before clearing his throat.
“If you don’t mind my asking, what would taking Steve to Asgard accomplish exactly?” he asked.
“There is a healer. Her name is Eir. Loki said-”
“Hold it,” Tony stopped him right there. “Did you say Loki?”
“He came up with this idea?” Bruce asked incredulously.
Thor opened his mouth to speak, but Tony cut him off. “Let me get this straight,” he said. “Your brother says that taking the man who led the team that thwarted his attempt to enslave the human race to Asgard is a good idea.” He paused to let the words sink in before adding: “And we’re supposed to believe him?”
“You are supposed to believe me,” Thor grit out, slamming a fist on the table. “The lady Eir has more skill than the best healers Midgard has to offer. She may well save the Captain’s life, but we must take him to her and we are wasting time!”
Tony gaped at Bruce, looking for back-up, but the man was staring at Thor with a contemplative look on his face. “Say we go with this idea,” Bruce said slowly, warning Tony to stay silent with his eyes. “Would Steve survive the journey? He isn’t like you, Thor. He’s human.”
“How do you think your myths and legends came to be? Mortals have crossed over to Asgard before through the Bifrost and through the invocation of dark energy,” Thor explained. “The Bifrost is lost to us, but with the Tesseract I should be able to take him safely to Asgard. I will let no harm come to him.”
Bruce nodded quietly and Tony’s hands flew to his own temples and started to massage the building migraine away.
“I can’t believe you’re even considering this,” he told Bruce. “You do realize that this means sending the guy who is literally our national hero to an alien planet, right?”
“Yes. Yes, I do realize that,” Bruce said, taking his glasses off so he could scrub a hand over his face. “You’re sure this isn’t one of Loki’s tricks?” He asked Thor.
“Loki only reminded me of Eir,” Thor said. “I assure you the idea is mine.”
Bruce sighed and looked to Tony. “It could work,” he told the other man, but Tony only shook his head and scoffed.
“‘Could’? We need to do a little better than ‘could’.”
“‘Could’ is all we have at the moment,” Bruce countered, running a hand through his hair in frustration now. “We’re no closer to helping Steve than we were when we started.” He looked hard into the man’s eyes. “We’re at a dead end. We’ve been stuck for hours. Don’t try to deny it.”
Tony seemed to stiffen at that. “Well, how do we know this Eir woman can do it? How do we know this will work?”
“We don’t,” Bruce said and Tony crossed his arms over his chest and looked away.
Then Thor slowly stepped up to the two of them and met Tony’s gaze. “I will do this with or without your help, Man of Iron,” he said grimly. “But without it would take considerably longer.”
“Tony, Steve’s not gonna last another day,” Bruce said softly. “If this doesn’t work, then nothing will and Steve’s gone. But what if Thor’s right?”
Tony glared at Thor before he looked past the Asgardian to glare at Bruce. “You’re both nuts, you know that? This is crazy,” he said, turning away from the other two and clasping his hands together behind his back and pacing the floor. “So crazy, it might actually work. Huh.” Tony raised his hands up in the air and grinned. “I’m a genius.”
Thor frowned and looked to Bruce who smiled and rolled his eyes.
Just then the door opened and Clint came running in at full speed. Bruce was up in a heartbeat, his posture tense, his eyes on the archer. And that’s when Tony heard it. From behind the door came the sound of raised voices and people running. And gunfire. Lots of gunfire.
Tony looked at Clint, whose eyes were wide and fierce, and barely had time to react before the door burst open and a hail of bullets rained in. The breath left Tony’s lungs as Bruce lunged and knocked him to the ground. Slipping and rolling across the floor, they scrambled for cover as glass shattered around them. Bruce had the good sense to kick the tables over to face the door so it could shield them while Thor leapt over it and jumped right into the fray.
“What the hell is going on?!” Tony yelled. He struggled to get up, but Bruce pinned him down with a strong hand between his shoulder blades.
From somewhere in the laboratory Clint yelled right back, but they couldn’t make out his words over the chaos. They could hear the distinct hissing sound of his bow and arrows as he opened fire on whoever was shooting at them, and Tony’s brain worked furiously to make sense of the situation and figure out how to get them all out of here.
But before Tony could think of anything, there was a split second of ceasefire that was more ominous than anything else. “Stay down!” He heard Thor bellow and the sound of a small metal object bouncing on the floor and into the laboratory made Tony’s blood run cold.
“Bruce!” He twisted under Bruce’s hold to look at the man and his breath was caught in his throat when he saw Bruce’s eyes. They were green.
“Bruce, don’t-” He reached out for the other man, but Bruce snarled and threw himself away from the protection of the overturned tables. The gunfire started all over again and the deafening roar that followed was angry and barely human. Tony scrambled to go after him, but before his head could clear the table the grenade went off and all hell broke loose.
The explosion sent him and the table back into the wall so hard he wasn’t sure he could get back up. He groaned and rolled to one side, trying to get up.
Somewhere behind him he heard the Hulk roar again and Tony slid into the first hiding place he could find, knowing that that wasn’t Bruce anymore and that the Hulk could crush the life out of him without a second thought.
The floor shook under the green giant’s feet, which were apparently moving away from him and toward the men firing at him from the other side of the door. Within moments the sound of men screaming rose above the sound of gunfire.
With a grunt, Thor swung himself over the smouldering ruins of what were once Bruce and Tony’s consoles before sliding across the floor next to Tony.
“The Hulk does not see me as an ally!” Thor bellowed. The Asgardian turned and spat blood on the floor and he was clutching his side in pain. No bullet or grenade could have done that and Tony shook his head.
“Nope, definitely not!”
“Stark!” A hand clamped down hard on Tony’s shoulder and he turned to find Clint hunkering down next to him. “I was on my way here when they opened fire on me. Looks like they’ve given the order to put Cap into Cryosleep. No more waiting for a miracle cure,” he said calmly as if there weren’t a dozen men shooting at them or an indestructible giant tearing the place apart.
“Where is the Captain?” Thor asked urgently.
Clint shook his head. “Nat’s not responding. Her communicator’s offline. She was with him.”
Another explosion shook the room, but Thor protected the two humans by countering the shockwave with a pulse of energy from Mjolnir. Then he moved to get up, but Tony grabbed his breastplate and pulled him back down.
“Get the Tesseract!” Tony instructed.
“I must find the Captain!” Thor roared and his eyes blazed, but Tony shook his head firmly.
“You’re the one can get to the Tesseract the fastest! Clint and I will look for Cap and Agent Romanoff!” Thor started to protest, but Tony wouldn’t have it. “I will find him!” Then he pulled Thor closer and said: “Look for us when you have it. Now, go!”
The Asgardian looked torn, but Tony pushed away from him and trusted Thor do as he was told. “Hawkeye, with me,” he said, grabbing Clint’s shoulder to pull himself up before quickly making his way to one of the shattered windows.
Clint leapt through first and Tony scrambled to follow him. Thor was nowhere in sight.
“I’ll cover you,” Clint said as soon as Tony landed. He had an arrow already notched into his bow. “We’ve gotta get you into your suit.”
Tony nodded and brushed debris off his shirt. “I couldn’t agree more.”
They both quickly made their way down the corridor to where Tony kept his suit.
“Things just keep getting better and better, huh?” He told Clint who was not amused.
“Keep walking, Stark,” was all the archer said before he spoke into his communicator again to try and reach Natasha. There was no response.
In the laboratory above them, men still screamed and explosions shook the walls of the ship. The Hulk let out a devastating roar and Tony swallowed hard, but he didn’t look back.
TBC.
A/N: Sorry this chapter took me so long to cough up. Med school is a b*tch. If anyone is still reading this, I made this chapter a little longer than the previous ones and packed a lot more action into it. I hope you enjoyed yourselves. :)