Classic-verse 1.1 part 1
Title: Classic-verse 1.1
Authors: seanchai and elspethdixon
Rated: PG-13
Pairings: Hank/Jan. Eventually Steve/Tony.
Warnings: ... Fluff? No slash yet.
Disclaimer: The characters and situations depicted herein belong to Stan Lee and Marvel comics. No profit is being made off of this derivative work. We're paid in love, people.
Author's Note: AU concieved as a modern retelling of early Avengers. Of course, there are about six seasons planned, so it won't end up mirroring canon completely.
Summary: The Avengers find something interesting in the Arctic, which goes much better than bad science-fiction would lead you to expect.
And again, our thanks to harmonyangel and tavella for the great beta job.
The Stark Enterprises deep-sea exploration prototype A (Arctic model), was only fifty feet long, a sixth of the size of an old, World War II diesel submarine. It was still easily three times the size of the average deep sea exploration sub; the ice-breaker mounted on the bow added extra length, just as the three-layered hull added extra width, and the inside had enough room for an entire scientific research expedition, provided that they didn't mind sleeping in very small bunks.
This mission, however, wouldn't last long enough for anyone to have to sleep onboard, and the "crew" consisted of only four people. And while Thor might be tall enough that he had to duck his head to keep from knocking it on the ceiling, Hank Pym and Jan Van Dyne could both shrink down small enough to ride around on ants -- which Tony had always suspected was the real reason behind the invention of Pym particles. Hank had always had an inexplicable fascination with insects. Hence, developing a biochemical formula that would let him shrink down small enough to interact with bugs.
Still, space was tight enough that Tony was glad for his newly developed, more compact armor. The original, golden suit had been bulky enough that Iron Man would have had trouble fitting through the narrow interior hatches. The updated red and gold suit, made of flexible metal that had involved four separate Stark Enterprises patents, fit like sophisticated body armor and was far more maneuverable, as well as lighter, something that was turning out to have benefits beyond the fact that wearing it was easier on his damaged heart.
"Is it much farther until we reach our destination?" Thor's deep, rumbling bass echoed off the sub's metal bulkheads. "I grow weary of not being able to stand upright."
"This was your idea, Goldilocks," Hank pointed out. He was bending over the sonar screen, keeping a close eye on the waters ahead.
"That's what you get for being tall, big guy." Hank's girlfriend, Jan, was perched on a corner of the screen, in her tiny, winged "Wasp" form. She gave Thor a little wave. "I fit just fine pretty much anywhere."
"The heat from the volcanic vent has caused the ice flow in this area to break up into smaller icebergs," Tony said. "We have to travel more slowly to avoid hitting any of them. Sorry; even a reinforced, ice-breaker hull wouldn't stand up to the kind of impact that took out the Titanic." He pulled the water-temperature sensor data up on his helmet's internal read-outs, and watched the lines of information scroll across the corner of his vision. "The water temperature's rising, though, so we're getting close."
"I mislike this." Thor frowned at the array of glowing screens. "This stretch of ocean lies near the entrance to the underground cavern where my father hath imprisoned that treacherous creature, Loki. I fear that yon dormant volcano's return to life may be a sign that his bonds have weakened."
"We know," Jan said. "You've told us twice."
Tony thought she might be teasing, but he wasn't sure. He'd known Jan Van Dyne casually for most of his life; as the daughter of Vernon Van Dyne, she'd grown up in the center of New York society, heiress to the sort of old money that considered the Starks to be jumped-up war-profiteers. It was only over the past couple of weeks that he had spent any time around her outside of a cocktail party or a charity dinner, though, and she had no idea that "Iron Man" was actually Tony Stark.
"There's another mass of ice a few hundred yards in front of us," Hank said. "You're going to have to bear to starboard." He frowned, and tapped the screen with one finger. "That's funny. The instruments are picking up metal ahead of us."
Tony check the readings himself. "They are," he confirmed. "A small amount of it inside the ice." What the hell... "That's not all. The sensors are picking up lifesigns." For all that Thor had insisted that this part of the North Atlantic was where Loki had been entombed, Tony hadn't really expected to find anything except some mid-sized volcanic activity.
He'd heard about the superpowered man calling himself the "Son of Odin" on and off for the last few years, but he'd never really believed that "the Mighty Thor" was anything more than an exceptionally powerful mutant who'd come up a clever way to get good publicity, or possibly another deluded (if harmless) man who'd found some powerful alien hammer, a Nordic version of the Mandarin. Then he'd seen Thor go up against the Hulk, had watched him actually call down lightning and thunder, and now all bets were off. Maybe Thor really was a god. Maybe Loki really was here, and maybe the low-ebb biorhythms coming from something buried within the ice were him.
Or maybe they were a sea-monster or something else that wouldn't appreciate being disturbed. This sort of thing never turned out well in science fiction movies.
"Well, of course there are lifesigns," Jan said. "There are fish, and possibly whales, too. The heated water might be drawing all sorts of sea life."
Tony frowned, then remembered that nobody could see his facial expressions as long as he was wearing the helmet, and shook his head. "Whatever this is, it's warm-blooded, and definitely not a fish. From the temperature levels, I think it's hibernating."
Hank stared at him, expression blank. "Nothing aquatic hibernates." And Hank would know that better than Tony; he was a biochemist, not an engineer, and had much more experience with the side of biological science. Not the kind of person you would expect to find playing superhero. But then, Tony wasn't the superhero type, either, and look where he was now.
"Mayhap it is my kinsman." Thor folded his massive arms across his chest, fingers brushing the hilt of his giant hammer. It was made of some kind of hard, silvery metal that Tony had never encountered before. He desperately wanted to examine it, but you couldn't exactly ask the god of thunder to let you play with his weapons.
"Mayhap," Tony agreed. He turned to the helm, shifting the engine to "full stop" and adjusting the stern planes to take them three points to starboard. The armor enhanced his strength, making pulling the large, metal wheel around an easy task. "I'm bringing us to a stop. My employer would want us to investigate this." It was the literal truth; Tony did want to investigate.
Jan launched herself off the sonar screen and grew to full size, feet hitting the metal decking with a soft click. Every time Tony had seen her, she had been in a new and different costume. This one featured knee-high boots with two-inch heels and elbow-length gloves. "Confess, Iron Man. I don't think you're actually checking things with Tony Stark at all." She grinned impishly up at Tony. "I think you just want to poke at this yourself."
"I have Mr. Stark's full confidence," Tony said. "He trusts me to make decisions in the field, and anyway, I know he'd be interested in this." Which, again, was true. Technically.
"I'm sure he would be," Jan said, smile turning sharp. The media dismissed her as a shallow, flighty trust fund bimbo, but Tony remembered watching her "accidentally" spill red punch all over Sebastian Shaw's white linen suit and then excuse herself with the kind of flustered innocence that only the most manipulative of eight year old girls could pull off. Jan Van Dyne was anything but a bimbo, and Tony suspected that if she didn't actually know that Tony Stark, head of Stark Enterprises, and Iron Man, his armored bodyguard, were actually the same person, she at least had a pretty good idea.
At the same party where Jan had thrown her punch on Sebastian Shaw, Tony had been dragged home in disgrace for rewiring the host's security system so that it went off every time a new guest arrived. He suspected that Norman Osborn still hadn't forgiven him for the embarrassment he'd suffered when the police had arrived in the middle of his New Year's gala, and Tony had never been able to convince his parents that he honestly hadn't been acting with malicious intent. He'd just been eight years old and very, very bored.
Jan had winked at him as his father had hauled him out to the car.
Tony activated the controls for the external cameras, flipping on the underwater floodlights mounted on the front of the hull. Then he stared at the image that popped up on the viewscreen in shock. It was definitely not Loki.
Jan peered over Tony's armored elbow at the screen. "It that what I think it is?"
""If that's what I think you think it is..." Tony let his voice trail off, staring at the video feed of what was very clearly a man buried in the transparent block of ice. The ice distorted Tony's view of him enough that he couldn't make out details, but the floodlights were reflected back by a large disc of something metallic, and something about the man's outline was familiar.
"Is it my kinsman?" Thor asked.
"No, wait," Hank said. "Don't tell me; it's a seal."
Thor frowned, blond eyebrows drawing together ominously. "Friend Ant-Man, do not take the threat that Loki represents too lightly. His strength exceeds that of even the Hulk, and he is more clever by far."
And if even Thor, who could honestly match the Hulk for strength, could say that, Tony reflected, then it made Loki a serious threat indeed. But what they were dealing with now, if Tony was correct, was anything but a threat.
"I don't take him lightly," Hank protested. "I just don't think this is him."
"It's not," Tony said. "Come and take a look at this."
"It is a dead man," Thor said, as he bent over Tony's shoulder to look. "Frozen in the ice."
"No," Hank said slowly. "According to the readings, he's alive. How the hell is he alive?"
"Because he's Captain America," Jan said firmly.
"Wait, what? He's who?" Hank's eyebrows raised, and he leaned forward to take a closer look at the monitor. "How do you know who he is?"
"There was a poster of him on the wall of my seventh-grade history classroom." Jan stabbed a finger at the screen. "That's Captain America's shield, so that has to be Captain America."
Hank and Thor still looked skeptical.
"It was one of kind," Tony explained, "Made of an alloy of Wakandan vibranium and steel." No wonder it had only appeared to be trace amounts of metal on the sonar array. Wakandan vibranium absorbed vibrations, including sound waves. "Steve Rogers was the only man who ever carried it, and he was supposed to have been lost in action over the North Atlantic in 1945. That was sixty years ago; I can't believe he's still alive." If you could call being in suspended animation in the middle of a block of ice 'alive.'
"I did a research project on the supersoldier serum in college," Hank said. "There was some indication from the original 1941 tests that it might have created what modern scientists would have termed a 'healing factor.' At least, I thought there was. My professor said I was theorizing with insufficient data and gave me a C."
"How did you get any data?" Tony asked. "The entire weapon X project is classified. I checked."
"The family of one of the early test subjects used the Freedom of Information Act to access some information about it during the early nineties. It's in the National Archives now, the Bradley papers. You need permission from the family to look at them, because it's all medical records."
"That would explain it. I was always more interested in Steve Rogers himself than in the serum. Well, and the shield. Stark Enterprise's work with adamantium was really an attempt to duplicate the alloy, but all we got out of it was liquid steel and the flexible metal alloy my armor is made from, which both have processing methods similar to the ones used to create adamantium."
Hank and Jan were both staring at him. "Well, that's what Mr. Stark told me when I asked him," Tony added.
"From what I have heard," Thor's voice echoed from behind Tony, "this man was a great hero and a noble warrior. We must aid him. Investigating Loki's prison can wait."
Using the sub's laser cutting tool to remove the portion of the ice encasing Captain America from the rest of the iceberg was a simple process, but it took nearly a quarter of an hour -- Tony didn't want to accidentally cut him. After that, opening the underwater hatch and pulling the block of ice inside with the robot arms originally designed to collect rock samples was the work of moments.
Once the water had finished draining from the airlock, and Thor had carried the block of ice into the laboratory, even Hank had to admit that it was clearly Captain America. He was wearing the shredded remains of his red, white, and blue uniform, right down to the little, white wings on his cowl.
Still, there was no harm in being cautious. Tony set the sub down on the ocean floor, where it could remain stationary, and cut the engine. He used the sub's satellite uplink, which he'd initially planned to use to stream geological data on the volcano back to Stark Enterprises, to send a priority message to SHIELD, including digital footage of the ice-block.
Colonel Nicholas Fury, SHIELD's commander, had served with Captain America during World War II, back when Fury had been an ordinary special ops soldier rather than the head of an international anti-terrorism organization. If there was anybody alive today who would recognize Steve Rogers, it would be Fury.
As far as Tony was concerned, though, calling Fury was just a formality. There was no doubt in his mind that this was exactly who it looked like.
"Iron Man!" Fury's voice barked loudly. The connection didn't have video, but Tony could picture Fury glaring and gesticulating with his cigar just fine without it. "What the hell is this? Is this some kind of joke?"
"I assure you, Colonel," Thor said, his deep voice grave. "This is no joke."
"And your science doohickeys say he's alive?" There was a moment of silence after Hank's affirmative response, and then, "I order you to bring that block of ice into SHIELD headquarters the moment you get back to New York, Iron Man, or your boss can cancel all of his new contracts with SHIELD."
"Yes sir," Tony said. “It will be a while yet, though. We’ve got to finish investigating this volcano.” Fury cut the connection, and Tony turned to Hank. "Get ready to start a controlled thaw. We don't want to hurt him when we get him out of this ice."
Thor raised one eyebrow. "Are you sure we should risk the wrath of the loud, angry man? I would not wish to get you into trouble with your liege-lord."
Thor knew perfectly well who Nick Fury was, and it was obvious that for all he was pretending concern for Iron Man potential disgrace, he clearly also wanted to thaw Steve Rogers out as soon as possible.
"Stark won't mind," Tony assured him anyway. "He's been fascinated by Steve Rogers since he was a kid."
The process of thawing took hours, raising the temperature only a few degrees at a time. Nevertheless, the four of them remained clustered in the tiny lab, watching as the ice melted and puddles of water formed on the floor under the lab table.
Rogers was much bigger than Tony had expected, easily over six feet with the broad-shouldered, muscular build of a football linebacker; he must have been huge by the standards of the nineteen-forties. He was every bit as square-jawed and classically handsome as those old posters had depicted him, and even wet, his hair was as strikingly blond as Thor's.
He honestly was a propaganda poster come to life.
"He's much younger than I thought," Jan observed. She glanced at Hank out of the corner of her eye and added, "Much handsomer, too."
"Well, he's still too old for you," Hank said.
Jan was right; he didn't look much older than Tony, maybe twenty-five at the outside. Whatever disaster had landed him in the middle of an iceberg hadn't left any marks on him beyond the damaged clothing. He looked like he could wake up at any moment.
"This may not be Loki," Tony said to Thor, ignoring Hank and Jan's flirting -- at least, he thought it was flirting, "but I hopefully even for the God of Thunder, this is a successful polar expedition."
Thor laughed, a loud rumbling sound that echoed off the bulkheads. "We can examine Loki's prison after he has awakened."
Hank had hooked the heart monitor from the sub's medical equipment up to Rogers as soon as the ice had melted sufficiently to allow it. The slow, steady beeps that had been playing in the background for the past two hours suddenly spiked to a crescendo of frantic sound.
Tony jumped, casting an involuntary glance at the heart monitor.
On the table, Steve Rogers sat up, eyes wide. "Bucky!" he shouted, "Look out!" He flung himself off the table, shield clutched in one hand, then wobbled as his legs refused to support his weight.
Thor took a long step towards Rogers, and grabbed him gently by the elbow, taking most of his weight. "Calm yourself. You are amongst friends."
Rogers blinked at him, looking dazed and very young. "Who are you?"
Tony laid one gauntleted hand on his shoulder. "We were studying volcanic activity in this area. We found you in the water." Explaining who the Avengers were would take much longer, and could wait.
"Did you find anyone else?" Rogers asked, sounding not quite desperate. "There was someone else with me."
"Just you," Hank said, shaking his head and looking away.
"You have to look." Rogers jerked himself away from Thor and Tony and took a step towards Hank, then swayed and grabbed onto the edge of the table. "He's smaller than me. He'll go hypothermic faster. He could already be-"
Jan stepped forward and put a hand on his arm, stopping him. "When we found you, you were frozen in the ice," she said gently. "I'm sorry. It's been almost sixty years since the war ended."
Rogers stared at her, jaw set. He blinked hard, then said, "I saw the plane blow up, but I thought, maybe... Sixty years?"
"You and James Barnes have been listed as killed in action for over half a century," Tony told him. There had been a ninteen-year-old private named James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes along with Rogers on his final mission; Barnes' precise role in the mission had never been specified. "He was awarded the medal of honor for destroying that plane. You were, too."
"It can't have been sixty years." Rogers pulled off one of his red leather gloves and stared down at his obviously youthful hand. "I'm not any older."
"The ice must have put you into a state of suspended animation," Hank said. "It would have slowed all of your metabolic functions." He paused, studying Rogers' expression, than added, "Um, we won. If that helps."
Thor shouldered the rest of them aside and slung an arm around Rogers' shoulders. "You have been frozen for a very long time, my friend. You must be in need of a meal. And perhaps having eaten, you shall feel sturdier."
"Food would be good," he said slowly. The he turned to Tony, frowning. He had extremely blue eyes. "Is that diving gear?' he asked, waving a hand at Tony's head-to-toe red and gold armor. "Were you the one who pulled me out of the water?"
"It was a team effort," Tony said hastily. "And this is high-tech combat armor."
Rogers nodded, and scrubbed a hand over his face, then looked up, blinking at all of them. He looked steadier on his feet than he had a few moments ago, his grip on the table abandoned. "So, who are you people?"
* * *
"Wait, let me get this straight. He was caught in an explosion, but instead of dying, he turned into a giant green monster who tried to destroy the city."
The red and gold helmet nodded. It was a disconcertingly human gesture coming from what looked to all intents and purposes like a robot. Jim Hammond, the human torch, had appeared far more, well, human, but Steve was pretty sure that, underneath all of that hardware, there was an actual human being.
"That sounds like King Kong," he said bluntly. Nothing anyone had said to him over the past half-hour had made any sense at all, except for Thor's suggestion that he eat. He hadn't thought that he was hungry, but then they had set a plate of sandwiches in front of him, and he'd realized that he was starving.
Thor and Iron Man had taken him to the sub’s tiny galley, while Dr. Pym and the Wasp had gone to re-engage the engine and man the submarine’s controls, taking them back to New York.
He wondered what New York was like now.
The past few days, prior to the airplane's explosion, were something of a blur, but Steve was pretty sure that he and Bucky hadn't gotten breakfast before jumping aboard that German plane. And apparently, he'd then spent sixty years on ice.
They had received word that a German SS officer named Heinrich von Zemo planned to send a drone plane packed with explosive into Allied territory. He and Bucky had been ordered to destroy it, the kind of thing they'd done dozens of times before. It was supposed to be easy, routine, not... But the plane had already been taking off, and Steve had decided to jump aboard at the last minute. And then Bucky had gotten caught on the plane's wing, and Steve had fallen into the water, and the plane had exploded. He should have called off the mission, shouldn't have let himself and Bucky go in unprepared. They hadn't even had parachutes.
He should have broken ribs when he hit the water, should have burns from being caught in the explosion's blast-radius. They must have healed while he was frozen; he'd gotten off much more lightly than he deserved.
"Trust me," Iron Man said, "it was much uglier than King Kong."
"Verily, he was a mighty foe. But our combined strength o'erwhelmed him, and we prevailed." Thor made a sweeping gesture with one massive hand, encompassing himself, Iron Man, and presumably the other two 'Avengers' as well, the woman who could shrink down very small and the other man, Hank Pym, whose power Steve still didn't know. "And thenceforth decided to band together whenever the need arose."
"A little bit like the Invaders," Iron Man put in.
The Invaders... It felt like only a few hours since that plane had exploded, since he'd seen Bucky -- But apparently, he'd missed more than half a century. "So it's really the twenty-first century?" Steve shook his head, staring down at his hands. The red leather of his gloves looked just as bright as it had when he'd put them on this morning. They didn't look sixty years old.
"I'm sorry." There was a hollow echo to Iron Man's voice, but beneath that, he sounded sincere. "I know this must be hard."
Sitting around and feeling sorry for himself wasn't going to do anyone any good. "The man in the red costume, Pym, said we won the war. How long did that take?"
"Germany surrendered in early May of 1945, and Japan surrendered on August fifteenth, just a few months later."
It had been April when Steve had gone out on that last mission. He'd missed the end of the war by only a few weeks. He and Bucky had planned out everything that they were going to do when Hitler surrendered and they finally got back to New York, right down to eating dinner at the Rainbow Room, because they'd both been sure that they'd have enough unspent backpay by that point to afford it. "Have we gone to the moon yet?" he asked. "Or Mars?"
"Yes," Thor said. "Men have been to the moon several times."
"We're working on Mars," Iron Man added.
"Really?" He hadn't actually been serious; people had honestly been to the moon? How much else had changed that he hadn't expected?
"Yeah. They shot them out of a giant gun." Iron Man waved metal-encased hands, miming firing a weapon.
"And when they got to the moon," Steve said, very seriously, "were the Ziegfeld Follies girls there?"
Thor looked at him blankly. "There are no people on the moon. The moon is barren and airless."
Steve blinked at him, feeling faintly embarrassed now. Maybe Iron Man had been serious. "It was an old movie," he said. "I was joking."
"So was I," Iron Man said. "But I was actually talking about the Jules Verne story."
Steve could feel himself grinning; even if the other man hadn't been talking about the old French film, he'd still been referencing something Steve knew. "I liked Around the World in 80 Days better, anyway."
Iron Man nodded. "That one's good, but I always liked 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Do you know that the principles the Nautilus is based on actually work? You actually can get electricity from sea water."
Thor stared at his companion with a slightly bemused expression. "Verily," he said.
It was becoming increasingly obvious that Iron Man had built that tin suit himself, though Steve couldn't imagine where he'd gotten the money for it. The man was an engineer if Steve had ever met one.
He dropped his gaze back to his hands. These people were friendly, but the entire situation didn't feel right. He ought to be reporting in to someone, being debriefed. But the mission he'd been on was decades out of date; the war was over, and everybody he'd known in the army was probably dead, his superiors included.
He hadn't had any family even before the war; it was one of the reasons they'd chosen him for the supersoldier project. He hadn't had anyone except Bucky, and now...
He didn't even have a house anymore, and if he was legally dead, he wouldn't even be able to check into a hotel. You couldn't access your bank accounts if you were dead.
"So," Steve said, trying to look cheerful, "are the Dodgers still at Ebbets Field?"
Thor frowned. "The what?"
Iron Man looked away for a second, then back to Steve. His metal faceplate was expressionless, but Steve still got an impression of regret. "About that... I just want to make it clear that I think they're all scum."
* * *
"My men in SHIELD are reliable, Mr. President. I pay them very well in order to ensure that. If they say that this is him, I can assure you that it is him. That, or Stark's lackey is lying, and even Stark wouldn't have the arrogance to make that kind of claim without the evidence to back it up."
There was a long silence, broken only by the crackle of static that was the inevitable consequence of placing a cell phone call to Vespugia. Vespugia might be relatively technologically developed, but it was still a tiny nation in the midst of the South American rainforest, and satellite reception was not one of its government's main priorities.
"I want that block of ice, Hammer, before they have a chance to, shall we say, defrost him." Even over the phone, El Presidente's hoarse, whispery voice made Justin Hammer's skin creep. The man was older than sin, and he radiated malignancy. On the other hand, his men paid very well for firearms and munitions, and Vespugia was one of Hammer Industry's largest sources of raw materials, which made the revulsion that Hammer felt every time he spoke to the man more than worth it.
"That's not going to be easy. Stark's paid superhero team have taken it back to their so-called 'Avengers Mansion,' and while their security is less formidable than SHIELD's, I don't have any people in place there." Not for want of trying, either. Anthony Stark seemed to inspire an inexplicable loyalty in his employees, doubtless due to his extravagant payscales.
Howard Stark had been far easier to deal with, but then, he'd been an experienced businessman, someone who understood how the world worked, and was willing to compromise when needed. His spoilt upstart of a son was far more troublesome, a shallow, self-absorbed brat who completely ignored the variety of unspoken agreements Howard Stark had had with any number of his fellow CEOs about operating in one another's territories.
Hammer Industries had been SHIELD's primary weapons supplier since the organization's inception, as well as the vendor for their security systems.
"Don't hand me excuses, Justin," El Presidente wheezed. His slight German accent gave the words a harsh tone. "We have an agreement. Trust me, if this is really Rogers, it would be in your best interest as well to make certain that he remains on ice. My people are the ones who will be taking all of the risks. Your job is merely to provide them with information. Surely this is not too difficult a task..." he let the statement trail off, implying that, in his estimation, Hammer was just barely qualified for it.
Hammer took a deep breath, thinking firmly of plutonium and uranium deposits and South American oil wells and lead mines. "They have to bring him in to SHIELD eventually. The Director's ordered them to." Even Anthony Stark, naïve and short-sighted as he was, wasn't going to defy a direct order from Colonel Fury so soon after acquiring all of those SHIELD contract bids.
"That would be very useful," El Presidente sneered, "were it not for the fact that no one knows where Fury's headquarters is located, let alone how to get in."
"My company designed and installed their security systems," Hammer said silkily. He'd been saving that piece of information as a final bargaining chip, if it ever became necessary to renegotiate their arrangement, but with Stark Enterprises in the process of upgrading SHIELD's security, the information was fast approaching the end of its usefulness. "I think I might be able to locate the information you need. However, there is the minor matter of import taxes on my products..." He let the sentence trail off, much as El Presidente had done earlier.
"I believe that something can be arranged."
* * *
Go to part two
Like always, it's helpful to know what fic people would like to see next. So, the poll; Poll
A/N: Also, Seanchai will totally write a drabble for anyone who can identify where Vespugia comes from.
Authors: seanchai and elspethdixon
Rated: PG-13
Pairings: Hank/Jan. Eventually Steve/Tony.
Warnings: ... Fluff? No slash yet.
Disclaimer: The characters and situations depicted herein belong to Stan Lee and Marvel comics. No profit is being made off of this derivative work. We're paid in love, people.
Author's Note: AU concieved as a modern retelling of early Avengers. Of course, there are about six seasons planned, so it won't end up mirroring canon completely.
Summary: The Avengers find something interesting in the Arctic, which goes much better than bad science-fiction would lead you to expect.
And again, our thanks to harmonyangel and tavella for the great beta job.
The Stark Enterprises deep-sea exploration prototype A (Arctic model), was only fifty feet long, a sixth of the size of an old, World War II diesel submarine. It was still easily three times the size of the average deep sea exploration sub; the ice-breaker mounted on the bow added extra length, just as the three-layered hull added extra width, and the inside had enough room for an entire scientific research expedition, provided that they didn't mind sleeping in very small bunks.
This mission, however, wouldn't last long enough for anyone to have to sleep onboard, and the "crew" consisted of only four people. And while Thor might be tall enough that he had to duck his head to keep from knocking it on the ceiling, Hank Pym and Jan Van Dyne could both shrink down small enough to ride around on ants -- which Tony had always suspected was the real reason behind the invention of Pym particles. Hank had always had an inexplicable fascination with insects. Hence, developing a biochemical formula that would let him shrink down small enough to interact with bugs.
Still, space was tight enough that Tony was glad for his newly developed, more compact armor. The original, golden suit had been bulky enough that Iron Man would have had trouble fitting through the narrow interior hatches. The updated red and gold suit, made of flexible metal that had involved four separate Stark Enterprises patents, fit like sophisticated body armor and was far more maneuverable, as well as lighter, something that was turning out to have benefits beyond the fact that wearing it was easier on his damaged heart.
"Is it much farther until we reach our destination?" Thor's deep, rumbling bass echoed off the sub's metal bulkheads. "I grow weary of not being able to stand upright."
"This was your idea, Goldilocks," Hank pointed out. He was bending over the sonar screen, keeping a close eye on the waters ahead.
"That's what you get for being tall, big guy." Hank's girlfriend, Jan, was perched on a corner of the screen, in her tiny, winged "Wasp" form. She gave Thor a little wave. "I fit just fine pretty much anywhere."
"The heat from the volcanic vent has caused the ice flow in this area to break up into smaller icebergs," Tony said. "We have to travel more slowly to avoid hitting any of them. Sorry; even a reinforced, ice-breaker hull wouldn't stand up to the kind of impact that took out the Titanic." He pulled the water-temperature sensor data up on his helmet's internal read-outs, and watched the lines of information scroll across the corner of his vision. "The water temperature's rising, though, so we're getting close."
"I mislike this." Thor frowned at the array of glowing screens. "This stretch of ocean lies near the entrance to the underground cavern where my father hath imprisoned that treacherous creature, Loki. I fear that yon dormant volcano's return to life may be a sign that his bonds have weakened."
"We know," Jan said. "You've told us twice."
Tony thought she might be teasing, but he wasn't sure. He'd known Jan Van Dyne casually for most of his life; as the daughter of Vernon Van Dyne, she'd grown up in the center of New York society, heiress to the sort of old money that considered the Starks to be jumped-up war-profiteers. It was only over the past couple of weeks that he had spent any time around her outside of a cocktail party or a charity dinner, though, and she had no idea that "Iron Man" was actually Tony Stark.
"There's another mass of ice a few hundred yards in front of us," Hank said. "You're going to have to bear to starboard." He frowned, and tapped the screen with one finger. "That's funny. The instruments are picking up metal ahead of us."
Tony check the readings himself. "They are," he confirmed. "A small amount of it inside the ice." What the hell... "That's not all. The sensors are picking up lifesigns." For all that Thor had insisted that this part of the North Atlantic was where Loki had been entombed, Tony hadn't really expected to find anything except some mid-sized volcanic activity.
He'd heard about the superpowered man calling himself the "Son of Odin" on and off for the last few years, but he'd never really believed that "the Mighty Thor" was anything more than an exceptionally powerful mutant who'd come up a clever way to get good publicity, or possibly another deluded (if harmless) man who'd found some powerful alien hammer, a Nordic version of the Mandarin. Then he'd seen Thor go up against the Hulk, had watched him actually call down lightning and thunder, and now all bets were off. Maybe Thor really was a god. Maybe Loki really was here, and maybe the low-ebb biorhythms coming from something buried within the ice were him.
Or maybe they were a sea-monster or something else that wouldn't appreciate being disturbed. This sort of thing never turned out well in science fiction movies.
"Well, of course there are lifesigns," Jan said. "There are fish, and possibly whales, too. The heated water might be drawing all sorts of sea life."
Tony frowned, then remembered that nobody could see his facial expressions as long as he was wearing the helmet, and shook his head. "Whatever this is, it's warm-blooded, and definitely not a fish. From the temperature levels, I think it's hibernating."
Hank stared at him, expression blank. "Nothing aquatic hibernates." And Hank would know that better than Tony; he was a biochemist, not an engineer, and had much more experience with the side of biological science. Not the kind of person you would expect to find playing superhero. But then, Tony wasn't the superhero type, either, and look where he was now.
"Mayhap it is my kinsman." Thor folded his massive arms across his chest, fingers brushing the hilt of his giant hammer. It was made of some kind of hard, silvery metal that Tony had never encountered before. He desperately wanted to examine it, but you couldn't exactly ask the god of thunder to let you play with his weapons.
"Mayhap," Tony agreed. He turned to the helm, shifting the engine to "full stop" and adjusting the stern planes to take them three points to starboard. The armor enhanced his strength, making pulling the large, metal wheel around an easy task. "I'm bringing us to a stop. My employer would want us to investigate this." It was the literal truth; Tony did want to investigate.
Jan launched herself off the sonar screen and grew to full size, feet hitting the metal decking with a soft click. Every time Tony had seen her, she had been in a new and different costume. This one featured knee-high boots with two-inch heels and elbow-length gloves. "Confess, Iron Man. I don't think you're actually checking things with Tony Stark at all." She grinned impishly up at Tony. "I think you just want to poke at this yourself."
"I have Mr. Stark's full confidence," Tony said. "He trusts me to make decisions in the field, and anyway, I know he'd be interested in this." Which, again, was true. Technically.
"I'm sure he would be," Jan said, smile turning sharp. The media dismissed her as a shallow, flighty trust fund bimbo, but Tony remembered watching her "accidentally" spill red punch all over Sebastian Shaw's white linen suit and then excuse herself with the kind of flustered innocence that only the most manipulative of eight year old girls could pull off. Jan Van Dyne was anything but a bimbo, and Tony suspected that if she didn't actually know that Tony Stark, head of Stark Enterprises, and Iron Man, his armored bodyguard, were actually the same person, she at least had a pretty good idea.
At the same party where Jan had thrown her punch on Sebastian Shaw, Tony had been dragged home in disgrace for rewiring the host's security system so that it went off every time a new guest arrived. He suspected that Norman Osborn still hadn't forgiven him for the embarrassment he'd suffered when the police had arrived in the middle of his New Year's gala, and Tony had never been able to convince his parents that he honestly hadn't been acting with malicious intent. He'd just been eight years old and very, very bored.
Jan had winked at him as his father had hauled him out to the car.
Tony activated the controls for the external cameras, flipping on the underwater floodlights mounted on the front of the hull. Then he stared at the image that popped up on the viewscreen in shock. It was definitely not Loki.
Jan peered over Tony's armored elbow at the screen. "It that what I think it is?"
""If that's what I think you think it is..." Tony let his voice trail off, staring at the video feed of what was very clearly a man buried in the transparent block of ice. The ice distorted Tony's view of him enough that he couldn't make out details, but the floodlights were reflected back by a large disc of something metallic, and something about the man's outline was familiar.
"Is it my kinsman?" Thor asked.
"No, wait," Hank said. "Don't tell me; it's a seal."
Thor frowned, blond eyebrows drawing together ominously. "Friend Ant-Man, do not take the threat that Loki represents too lightly. His strength exceeds that of even the Hulk, and he is more clever by far."
And if even Thor, who could honestly match the Hulk for strength, could say that, Tony reflected, then it made Loki a serious threat indeed. But what they were dealing with now, if Tony was correct, was anything but a threat.
"I don't take him lightly," Hank protested. "I just don't think this is him."
"It's not," Tony said. "Come and take a look at this."
"It is a dead man," Thor said, as he bent over Tony's shoulder to look. "Frozen in the ice."
"No," Hank said slowly. "According to the readings, he's alive. How the hell is he alive?"
"Because he's Captain America," Jan said firmly.
"Wait, what? He's who?" Hank's eyebrows raised, and he leaned forward to take a closer look at the monitor. "How do you know who he is?"
"There was a poster of him on the wall of my seventh-grade history classroom." Jan stabbed a finger at the screen. "That's Captain America's shield, so that has to be Captain America."
Hank and Thor still looked skeptical.
"It was one of kind," Tony explained, "Made of an alloy of Wakandan vibranium and steel." No wonder it had only appeared to be trace amounts of metal on the sonar array. Wakandan vibranium absorbed vibrations, including sound waves. "Steve Rogers was the only man who ever carried it, and he was supposed to have been lost in action over the North Atlantic in 1945. That was sixty years ago; I can't believe he's still alive." If you could call being in suspended animation in the middle of a block of ice 'alive.'
"I did a research project on the supersoldier serum in college," Hank said. "There was some indication from the original 1941 tests that it might have created what modern scientists would have termed a 'healing factor.' At least, I thought there was. My professor said I was theorizing with insufficient data and gave me a C."
"How did you get any data?" Tony asked. "The entire weapon X project is classified. I checked."
"The family of one of the early test subjects used the Freedom of Information Act to access some information about it during the early nineties. It's in the National Archives now, the Bradley papers. You need permission from the family to look at them, because it's all medical records."
"That would explain it. I was always more interested in Steve Rogers himself than in the serum. Well, and the shield. Stark Enterprise's work with adamantium was really an attempt to duplicate the alloy, but all we got out of it was liquid steel and the flexible metal alloy my armor is made from, which both have processing methods similar to the ones used to create adamantium."
Hank and Jan were both staring at him. "Well, that's what Mr. Stark told me when I asked him," Tony added.
"From what I have heard," Thor's voice echoed from behind Tony, "this man was a great hero and a noble warrior. We must aid him. Investigating Loki's prison can wait."
Using the sub's laser cutting tool to remove the portion of the ice encasing Captain America from the rest of the iceberg was a simple process, but it took nearly a quarter of an hour -- Tony didn't want to accidentally cut him. After that, opening the underwater hatch and pulling the block of ice inside with the robot arms originally designed to collect rock samples was the work of moments.
Once the water had finished draining from the airlock, and Thor had carried the block of ice into the laboratory, even Hank had to admit that it was clearly Captain America. He was wearing the shredded remains of his red, white, and blue uniform, right down to the little, white wings on his cowl.
Still, there was no harm in being cautious. Tony set the sub down on the ocean floor, where it could remain stationary, and cut the engine. He used the sub's satellite uplink, which he'd initially planned to use to stream geological data on the volcano back to Stark Enterprises, to send a priority message to SHIELD, including digital footage of the ice-block.
Colonel Nicholas Fury, SHIELD's commander, had served with Captain America during World War II, back when Fury had been an ordinary special ops soldier rather than the head of an international anti-terrorism organization. If there was anybody alive today who would recognize Steve Rogers, it would be Fury.
As far as Tony was concerned, though, calling Fury was just a formality. There was no doubt in his mind that this was exactly who it looked like.
"Iron Man!" Fury's voice barked loudly. The connection didn't have video, but Tony could picture Fury glaring and gesticulating with his cigar just fine without it. "What the hell is this? Is this some kind of joke?"
"I assure you, Colonel," Thor said, his deep voice grave. "This is no joke."
"And your science doohickeys say he's alive?" There was a moment of silence after Hank's affirmative response, and then, "I order you to bring that block of ice into SHIELD headquarters the moment you get back to New York, Iron Man, or your boss can cancel all of his new contracts with SHIELD."
"Yes sir," Tony said. “It will be a while yet, though. We’ve got to finish investigating this volcano.” Fury cut the connection, and Tony turned to Hank. "Get ready to start a controlled thaw. We don't want to hurt him when we get him out of this ice."
Thor raised one eyebrow. "Are you sure we should risk the wrath of the loud, angry man? I would not wish to get you into trouble with your liege-lord."
Thor knew perfectly well who Nick Fury was, and it was obvious that for all he was pretending concern for Iron Man potential disgrace, he clearly also wanted to thaw Steve Rogers out as soon as possible.
"Stark won't mind," Tony assured him anyway. "He's been fascinated by Steve Rogers since he was a kid."
The process of thawing took hours, raising the temperature only a few degrees at a time. Nevertheless, the four of them remained clustered in the tiny lab, watching as the ice melted and puddles of water formed on the floor under the lab table.
Rogers was much bigger than Tony had expected, easily over six feet with the broad-shouldered, muscular build of a football linebacker; he must have been huge by the standards of the nineteen-forties. He was every bit as square-jawed and classically handsome as those old posters had depicted him, and even wet, his hair was as strikingly blond as Thor's.
He honestly was a propaganda poster come to life.
"He's much younger than I thought," Jan observed. She glanced at Hank out of the corner of her eye and added, "Much handsomer, too."
"Well, he's still too old for you," Hank said.
Jan was right; he didn't look much older than Tony, maybe twenty-five at the outside. Whatever disaster had landed him in the middle of an iceberg hadn't left any marks on him beyond the damaged clothing. He looked like he could wake up at any moment.
"This may not be Loki," Tony said to Thor, ignoring Hank and Jan's flirting -- at least, he thought it was flirting, "but I hopefully even for the God of Thunder, this is a successful polar expedition."
Thor laughed, a loud rumbling sound that echoed off the bulkheads. "We can examine Loki's prison after he has awakened."
Hank had hooked the heart monitor from the sub's medical equipment up to Rogers as soon as the ice had melted sufficiently to allow it. The slow, steady beeps that had been playing in the background for the past two hours suddenly spiked to a crescendo of frantic sound.
Tony jumped, casting an involuntary glance at the heart monitor.
On the table, Steve Rogers sat up, eyes wide. "Bucky!" he shouted, "Look out!" He flung himself off the table, shield clutched in one hand, then wobbled as his legs refused to support his weight.
Thor took a long step towards Rogers, and grabbed him gently by the elbow, taking most of his weight. "Calm yourself. You are amongst friends."
Rogers blinked at him, looking dazed and very young. "Who are you?"
Tony laid one gauntleted hand on his shoulder. "We were studying volcanic activity in this area. We found you in the water." Explaining who the Avengers were would take much longer, and could wait.
"Did you find anyone else?" Rogers asked, sounding not quite desperate. "There was someone else with me."
"Just you," Hank said, shaking his head and looking away.
"You have to look." Rogers jerked himself away from Thor and Tony and took a step towards Hank, then swayed and grabbed onto the edge of the table. "He's smaller than me. He'll go hypothermic faster. He could already be-"
Jan stepped forward and put a hand on his arm, stopping him. "When we found you, you were frozen in the ice," she said gently. "I'm sorry. It's been almost sixty years since the war ended."
Rogers stared at her, jaw set. He blinked hard, then said, "I saw the plane blow up, but I thought, maybe... Sixty years?"
"You and James Barnes have been listed as killed in action for over half a century," Tony told him. There had been a ninteen-year-old private named James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes along with Rogers on his final mission; Barnes' precise role in the mission had never been specified. "He was awarded the medal of honor for destroying that plane. You were, too."
"It can't have been sixty years." Rogers pulled off one of his red leather gloves and stared down at his obviously youthful hand. "I'm not any older."
"The ice must have put you into a state of suspended animation," Hank said. "It would have slowed all of your metabolic functions." He paused, studying Rogers' expression, than added, "Um, we won. If that helps."
Thor shouldered the rest of them aside and slung an arm around Rogers' shoulders. "You have been frozen for a very long time, my friend. You must be in need of a meal. And perhaps having eaten, you shall feel sturdier."
"Food would be good," he said slowly. The he turned to Tony, frowning. He had extremely blue eyes. "Is that diving gear?' he asked, waving a hand at Tony's head-to-toe red and gold armor. "Were you the one who pulled me out of the water?"
"It was a team effort," Tony said hastily. "And this is high-tech combat armor."
Rogers nodded, and scrubbed a hand over his face, then looked up, blinking at all of them. He looked steadier on his feet than he had a few moments ago, his grip on the table abandoned. "So, who are you people?"
* * *
"Wait, let me get this straight. He was caught in an explosion, but instead of dying, he turned into a giant green monster who tried to destroy the city."
The red and gold helmet nodded. It was a disconcertingly human gesture coming from what looked to all intents and purposes like a robot. Jim Hammond, the human torch, had appeared far more, well, human, but Steve was pretty sure that, underneath all of that hardware, there was an actual human being.
"That sounds like King Kong," he said bluntly. Nothing anyone had said to him over the past half-hour had made any sense at all, except for Thor's suggestion that he eat. He hadn't thought that he was hungry, but then they had set a plate of sandwiches in front of him, and he'd realized that he was starving.
Thor and Iron Man had taken him to the sub’s tiny galley, while Dr. Pym and the Wasp had gone to re-engage the engine and man the submarine’s controls, taking them back to New York.
He wondered what New York was like now.
The past few days, prior to the airplane's explosion, were something of a blur, but Steve was pretty sure that he and Bucky hadn't gotten breakfast before jumping aboard that German plane. And apparently, he'd then spent sixty years on ice.
They had received word that a German SS officer named Heinrich von Zemo planned to send a drone plane packed with explosive into Allied territory. He and Bucky had been ordered to destroy it, the kind of thing they'd done dozens of times before. It was supposed to be easy, routine, not... But the plane had already been taking off, and Steve had decided to jump aboard at the last minute. And then Bucky had gotten caught on the plane's wing, and Steve had fallen into the water, and the plane had exploded. He should have called off the mission, shouldn't have let himself and Bucky go in unprepared. They hadn't even had parachutes.
He should have broken ribs when he hit the water, should have burns from being caught in the explosion's blast-radius. They must have healed while he was frozen; he'd gotten off much more lightly than he deserved.
"Trust me," Iron Man said, "it was much uglier than King Kong."
"Verily, he was a mighty foe. But our combined strength o'erwhelmed him, and we prevailed." Thor made a sweeping gesture with one massive hand, encompassing himself, Iron Man, and presumably the other two 'Avengers' as well, the woman who could shrink down very small and the other man, Hank Pym, whose power Steve still didn't know. "And thenceforth decided to band together whenever the need arose."
"A little bit like the Invaders," Iron Man put in.
The Invaders... It felt like only a few hours since that plane had exploded, since he'd seen Bucky -- But apparently, he'd missed more than half a century. "So it's really the twenty-first century?" Steve shook his head, staring down at his hands. The red leather of his gloves looked just as bright as it had when he'd put them on this morning. They didn't look sixty years old.
"I'm sorry." There was a hollow echo to Iron Man's voice, but beneath that, he sounded sincere. "I know this must be hard."
Sitting around and feeling sorry for himself wasn't going to do anyone any good. "The man in the red costume, Pym, said we won the war. How long did that take?"
"Germany surrendered in early May of 1945, and Japan surrendered on August fifteenth, just a few months later."
It had been April when Steve had gone out on that last mission. He'd missed the end of the war by only a few weeks. He and Bucky had planned out everything that they were going to do when Hitler surrendered and they finally got back to New York, right down to eating dinner at the Rainbow Room, because they'd both been sure that they'd have enough unspent backpay by that point to afford it. "Have we gone to the moon yet?" he asked. "Or Mars?"
"Yes," Thor said. "Men have been to the moon several times."
"We're working on Mars," Iron Man added.
"Really?" He hadn't actually been serious; people had honestly been to the moon? How much else had changed that he hadn't expected?
"Yeah. They shot them out of a giant gun." Iron Man waved metal-encased hands, miming firing a weapon.
"And when they got to the moon," Steve said, very seriously, "were the Ziegfeld Follies girls there?"
Thor looked at him blankly. "There are no people on the moon. The moon is barren and airless."
Steve blinked at him, feeling faintly embarrassed now. Maybe Iron Man had been serious. "It was an old movie," he said. "I was joking."
"So was I," Iron Man said. "But I was actually talking about the Jules Verne story."
Steve could feel himself grinning; even if the other man hadn't been talking about the old French film, he'd still been referencing something Steve knew. "I liked Around the World in 80 Days better, anyway."
Iron Man nodded. "That one's good, but I always liked 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Do you know that the principles the Nautilus is based on actually work? You actually can get electricity from sea water."
Thor stared at his companion with a slightly bemused expression. "Verily," he said.
It was becoming increasingly obvious that Iron Man had built that tin suit himself, though Steve couldn't imagine where he'd gotten the money for it. The man was an engineer if Steve had ever met one.
He dropped his gaze back to his hands. These people were friendly, but the entire situation didn't feel right. He ought to be reporting in to someone, being debriefed. But the mission he'd been on was decades out of date; the war was over, and everybody he'd known in the army was probably dead, his superiors included.
He hadn't had any family even before the war; it was one of the reasons they'd chosen him for the supersoldier project. He hadn't had anyone except Bucky, and now...
He didn't even have a house anymore, and if he was legally dead, he wouldn't even be able to check into a hotel. You couldn't access your bank accounts if you were dead.
"So," Steve said, trying to look cheerful, "are the Dodgers still at Ebbets Field?"
Thor frowned. "The what?"
Iron Man looked away for a second, then back to Steve. His metal faceplate was expressionless, but Steve still got an impression of regret. "About that... I just want to make it clear that I think they're all scum."
* * *
"My men in SHIELD are reliable, Mr. President. I pay them very well in order to ensure that. If they say that this is him, I can assure you that it is him. That, or Stark's lackey is lying, and even Stark wouldn't have the arrogance to make that kind of claim without the evidence to back it up."
There was a long silence, broken only by the crackle of static that was the inevitable consequence of placing a cell phone call to Vespugia. Vespugia might be relatively technologically developed, but it was still a tiny nation in the midst of the South American rainforest, and satellite reception was not one of its government's main priorities.
"I want that block of ice, Hammer, before they have a chance to, shall we say, defrost him." Even over the phone, El Presidente's hoarse, whispery voice made Justin Hammer's skin creep. The man was older than sin, and he radiated malignancy. On the other hand, his men paid very well for firearms and munitions, and Vespugia was one of Hammer Industry's largest sources of raw materials, which made the revulsion that Hammer felt every time he spoke to the man more than worth it.
"That's not going to be easy. Stark's paid superhero team have taken it back to their so-called 'Avengers Mansion,' and while their security is less formidable than SHIELD's, I don't have any people in place there." Not for want of trying, either. Anthony Stark seemed to inspire an inexplicable loyalty in his employees, doubtless due to his extravagant payscales.
Howard Stark had been far easier to deal with, but then, he'd been an experienced businessman, someone who understood how the world worked, and was willing to compromise when needed. His spoilt upstart of a son was far more troublesome, a shallow, self-absorbed brat who completely ignored the variety of unspoken agreements Howard Stark had had with any number of his fellow CEOs about operating in one another's territories.
Hammer Industries had been SHIELD's primary weapons supplier since the organization's inception, as well as the vendor for their security systems.
"Don't hand me excuses, Justin," El Presidente wheezed. His slight German accent gave the words a harsh tone. "We have an agreement. Trust me, if this is really Rogers, it would be in your best interest as well to make certain that he remains on ice. My people are the ones who will be taking all of the risks. Your job is merely to provide them with information. Surely this is not too difficult a task..." he let the statement trail off, implying that, in his estimation, Hammer was just barely qualified for it.
Hammer took a deep breath, thinking firmly of plutonium and uranium deposits and South American oil wells and lead mines. "They have to bring him in to SHIELD eventually. The Director's ordered them to." Even Anthony Stark, naïve and short-sighted as he was, wasn't going to defy a direct order from Colonel Fury so soon after acquiring all of those SHIELD contract bids.
"That would be very useful," El Presidente sneered, "were it not for the fact that no one knows where Fury's headquarters is located, let alone how to get in."
"My company designed and installed their security systems," Hammer said silkily. He'd been saving that piece of information as a final bargaining chip, if it ever became necessary to renegotiate their arrangement, but with Stark Enterprises in the process of upgrading SHIELD's security, the information was fast approaching the end of its usefulness. "I think I might be able to locate the information you need. However, there is the minor matter of import taxes on my products..." He let the sentence trail off, much as El Presidente had done earlier.
"I believe that something can be arranged."
* * *
Go to part two
Like always, it's helpful to know what fic people would like to see next. So, the poll; Poll
A/N: Also, Seanchai will totally write a drabble for anyone who can identify where Vespugia comes from.