(Marvel) Dying for a Drink 1/2

[tsukinofaerii]

Dying for a Drink
By tsukinofaerii
Betas: jazzypom & dieewigenacht
Rating: SNAP/MATURE.
Standard Warnings: Male/Male, Female/Female, Suggested Male/Female, Violence, Profanity, Sexual content, potentially disturbing (see spoilers)
Extra Warnings: Death, vampirism, explicit torture, implied rape, threats to children, cancer.
Spoilers: Ultimates 1 & 2; breaks off before 3
Series: Marvel 1610
Pairings: Steve/Tony, OFC/OFC, past Steve/Jan

Summary: Tony takes up an offer that has tragic effects, and Steve is forced to handle the outcome. But Tony's business isn't done yet, and so Steve finds himself struggling with vampire politics and his own sexuality. (Complete novella — 60k words)

This story is a work of transformative fiction, such being defined as a work which incorporates characters and situations which have been created by other authors/artists. No infringement of copyright is intended and no profit is being made from the creation or dissemination of this work. Marvel and all its characters are owned by God Knows Who. They are used with respect and admiration for the work.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: This was plotted for Halloween (the alternative plot) and written for NaNoWriMo. It's been heavily edited since that original draft. It deals with sensitive, potentially triggering topics. Please feel free to contact me with any specific concerns that may not have been covered in the warnings.

I love jazzypom. You may thank her copiously for about 10k of this in numbers, and much of it in value. That is all.

Points of Interest (SPOILERS): 1) A wiki entry of note and a poem in use.

***
November 03, 1943
Outside Leningrad
The room was dim. Not dark; nurses needed to be able to move from bed to bed with ease. A field hospital never saw anything darker than a sort of twilight glow. Every now and then someone would groan, but other than that, silence prevailed. Steve's fingers ran over the curved edge of his shield as he leaned back against a wall, keeping watch for any sort of disturbance.

Keeping watch for Her.

Everyone knew about her, the Lady that came at night. They spoke about her in whispers, when they did at all, grown men embarrassed to be talking about boogymen. From the lowest private to the top brass, they all knew her, though no one would admit it. Even when Captain America had been briefed, it was in hushed tones, the Major's eyes daring Steve to call him insane while he explained. Seventeen patients who should have lived, dead overnight. Two gone missing altogether. Many, many more men who might have made it, also gone. The numbers were staggering, far off from what they should have been. And the only link between the deaths was sightings of a woman, dressed all in white. Bullets didn't touch her, and the only man who had been able to lay a hand on her had been found the next night in the roof rafters with his head half removed.

It wasn't the sort of assignment Steve was used to being called in for. Leningrad was still under siege only miles away, and there was plenty of work for him on the front, even though they'd gotten supplies through. Three nights of bare-bones guard duty had him itching for real work. He was starting to think that whatever was going on was something in the water. He could have been put to better use closer to the action, even if he was just waiting for the next set of orders. But things had gotten bad enough that they needed to be stopped, before a spook turned into a bigger problem. The winter was deadly enough without men shooting at shadows.

None of the nurses looked up, not even when the winter wind blew cold air directly over their desks. She glided; sending her hips rolling in ways that Steve wasn't completely comfortable with. Every step sent her dress fluttering behind her, like something from a dime store romance. She wasn't really dressed in white, but the blue was so pale that it could have been, next to her golden skin and dark hair. The dress wasn't made for the harsh winter, being too thin and short-sleeved. The woman should have been frozen blue with cold, but she moved as if she were on a California beach in June.

She turned her head and met his eyes through the shadows. Her eyes were light brown, almost amber, and as completely emotionless as a doll's. He couldn't move. Even breathing took thought. It was like being a mouse caught in a snake's gaze. If he tried to escape, she'd strike.

"Good evening, Captain." Low, warm tones rolled over his skin in silky smooth French. "They told me you would be here. Stay there, will you? I'll be only a moment, and then you may raise the alarm and collect the leftovers."

Steve forced himself to step forward, though every instinct in him said run. It was like wading through a fast-flowing river, every footstep slow as unacknowledged fear tried to drag him off balance. He gripped his shield so tight that the leather straps were cutting off the feeling in his fingers. "No one's dying tonight."

She smiled, sweet and innocent, reminding him of Gail for a fleeting moment before he saw the sharp teeth that glittered against her painted lips. Her eyeteeth weren't much longer than normal, not long enough to look unnatural, but they had the same evil glitter as the edge of a knife. "I am Death, Captain. I will take whomever I wish this night. You cannot stop me."

"Bet your life?"

Her smile turned to a snarl, a hiss like steam escaping her. He didn't get another warning before she launched herself over the sickbeds. Steve crouched down, lifting his shield overhead and bracing for the impact. She came down onto its face with enough force that his shoulders almost gave way and trapped him under her. He gathered his knees under him and heaved, tossing her into the wall with a sickening crunch of broken bones as she dropped to the floor.

By now, nurses and patients were waking up from their stupor, screaming in terror, shouts of gospodi pomilui ringing in the rafters. The ones who could move were scrambling out of their beds, while the ones who were trapped did their best to take cover, or to help those who needed it. Nurses were flashes of movement in his peripheral vision as they scuttled around, some of them bodily lifting patients from their beds. Other than taking note of them as obstacles to avoid, Steve ignored them.

The woman pulled herself to her feet, limping on broken legs. Steve kept his eyes firmly on her as he stepped forward, shield raised. Blood matted her hair to her forehead and ran into her eyes. Her fingers left gouges in the wall where she clung. "That almost hurt." Confusion lifted her voice, making the phrase nearly a question. "How did you do that? What are you?"

Steve hadn't intended to answer, but he didn't need to. A nurse stepped up from behind her desk, clutching a tiny gold cross that dangled around her neck. "E— in nomine patris..." Her voice shook so much that the familiar chant was almost impossible to follow.

"Ma'am, get back," Steve ordered in a tone he usually reserved for stubborn privates.

She shook her head, loose curls from her bun falling down around her face. Tears left tracks through her makeup and smeared her mascara, but she kept moving forward, edging between the woman and the patients. "In nomine patris— et fil— et filis, et spiritus sa— sancti—"

Beds slid aside, scraping the concrete floor as they were shoved out of the way. The woman moved so quickly that Steve only saw a blur and the blood spurt as the nurse's throat was ripped open. Red spray arced upward, splattering over the beds and floor as she collapsed. She didn't even have time to scream.

Wet, dead meat thumped to the ground as the monster dropped the nurse's body, crisp white uniform splattered with gore. Her spine gleamed through the hole that had been torn in her throat, a single spot of white among so much blood. The vampire lifted her head, blood running down her chin, staining her teeth bright red. As he watched, the cut over her forehead sealed and vanished. Bones cracked and popped as her legs healed. When she straightened, there was no sign that she'd ever been injured at all.

"Amen."

That seemed to be the sign the rest of the room had been waiting for. Everyone who could rushed to the doors, only a few brave souls staying behind to try and collect their bedbound charges. Neither Steve nor the vampire moved, though Steve stayed at the ready in case she tried to stop them, but she didn't even look at the escapees. The room emptied rapidly, leaving it dead and hollow. The door swung open and shut in the winter wind, its clattering the only sound left.

When the last person had gone, the vampire tilted her head curiously. The blood from her meal had had time to congeal. It left sticky red lines where it brushed her skin, like a macabre brush painting. "You do not fear me."

"I've seen worse than you, lady." He hefted his shield, eyes marking out its trajectory. As long as he could keep her distracted with banter... "You're not getting out of here alive."

Her laugh rolled over his skin like a living thing; soft and warm, leaving prickles of horror in its wake. "Don't you know? I'm already dead."

She moved just as he threw his shield, ducking under it and surging forward. Steve leapt, but she was too fast, even for him. Her hands caught his calves, nails shredding through the leather of his uniform like it was paper. Momentum kept him going, tearing him out of her grasp. Steve managed to keep rolling, landing on his feet, even though blood was trickling down his legs.

The shield bounced off a bed, curved to hit the solid metal door, then arched through the air straight at the vampire's back. With just a tilt of her body, she leaned out of the way, making it miss by inches on the rebound.

Steve caught it by the straps and whirled, braced for another attack.

"Not fast enough." Dark blue fabric dangled from her fingers—pieces of his uniform. Metal glinted under her fingernails as she dropped the scraps. "You'll have to do better than that, Captain."

Documents rustled under his boots as Steve circled. She turned with him, lips curled into a tiny smile behind her mask of gore. This wasn't a Nazi, wasn't some foreign invader from another planet. It was just a homegrown monster, and he wasn't going to let her go. Too many men had lost their lives already.

Something soft squished under his boot. In spite of himself, Steve glanced down at the wide-open eyes of the dead nurse who'd tried to face the monster. He'd stepped on her esophagus. Cold horror made him pause, meeting the nurse's eyes.

It was enough. The vampire launched herself across the distance. Steve brought up his shield, expecting to repeat what had happened before. It didn't work. This time she clung to it, planting her feet in his chest and ripping it from his hands, tossing it aside. They grappled, her nails slicing into the back of his hands like knives. Thin muscles bulged in her forearms as she forced his hands back, almost to the breaking point. He panted and shoved back with everything he had, fighting his own disbelief. How could the monster be so strong?

"Silly, silly little Captain." She grunted with effort as she forced him to his knees. They were so close, he could smell the rotting blood on her breath, see the flesh caught between her teeth. "You can't fight death. I'm going to drain you down to a husk." Her hands flexed, cracking his thumb out of its socket. "Or maybe I'll make you one of us. Would you like that, little human?"

Steve centered himself and rolled backwards. His left wrist gave way with a pop as he kept rolling, tucking under and shoving until she was pinned to the cement under him. Pain burned all the way up to his shoulder, making him curse. It didn't stop him from using his other fist to break her jaw. The second blow caved it in, and the third knocked it clean from her façade of a human face.

She clawed at him, shredding his uniform in desperation. Nails dug into his sides, tearing gashes over his ribs. Warm lines of blood trickled down his skin. Steve ignored it, let the horror and fear turn into anger, and then revenge. Revenge for the dead nurse, for the private she'd mutilated, for every body gone missing from the hospital. He aimed his next blows at her shoulders, and then moved farther down to break her hips and thigh bones. It was too late to help any of them, but he could give them this much.

Blood bubbled from her mouth as she hissed and wheezed, probably cursing him. Without a jaw, it was impossible to tell. For good measure, he brought his heels down on her elbows, one after the other. From the way she'd healed before, it wouldn't keep her long, but he just needed to slow her down.

His shield had landed near a wall, half-hidden under one of the cots that had been rearranged in the charge for the exit. He grabbed for it as quickly as he could, blood-slick gloves sliding over its polished surface before they caught around the straps. Pain sliced through his thumb as it popped back into place with a wet-sounding snap. Behind him, cloth and flesh scraped against the floor as the vampire pulled herself to her feet. Whirling, Steve brought up his shield. There was no time to aim.

He threw.

The vampire head didn't come off entirely The shield sliced through her throat, leaving her head to sag to the side with a damp, sickly noise. Blood splattered from the missing jaw when it landed, leaving a fine spray on the beds around it. Slowly, the body collapsed in a heap of loose limbs. His shield rebounded off a filing cabinet and back to him. Steve leaned on it, let the familiar shape act as a crutch as he got his feet back under him.

Panting, Steve stumbled over to the body. Adrenalin kept him going, but his hand had already began to throb, and the wounds in his legs were deep. Blood had started pooling in his boots—not enough to put him out, but he'd need to be stitched up. It clung to his socks and slid between his toes. In the fresh silence a faint squish marked every step he took.

Not even the damned Chitauri had been that hard to fight.

Nothing moved in the vampire's dress, not even an attempt to breathe. White bones stuck out where they'd broken through the skin. She was so soaked in blood that only the back of her dress was unstained, pristine blue. Even as he watched, the body convulsed and curled in on itself, then went still.

Steve managed to stumble two steps away before falling to his knees and violently losing his dinner into a bedpan. Bile stung his throat, but still it kept coming. He waited until there was nothing more to come up, and then longer until the dry heaves had stopped, before stumbling over to the nurse's body.

There was no peace or even horror on her face; just the blankness of death. Her eyes had started to film over already. It looked like a normal body. He didn't see many people who'd been ripped apart as she had been, but it couldn't be that different from seeing someone taken out by a bullet. Something was missing though. Steve leaned on his shield and tried to figure it out. It took a long minute before he finally realized what it was.

Her cross. Lines had been scored around what remained of her throat where the chain had cut into her skin, but there was no sign of the necklace itself. His eyes skimmed the floor around her for it, so busy looking that he almost missed the glint of gold lodged between her fingers. She'd gripped it so tightly that it had bitten into her palm, leaving an inch-long wound in the center. Cold had already started to stiffen her flesh, beating even rigor mortis. Sill, Steve was careful as he pried her hand open and extracted the little necklace and its broken chain.

Then he brought the edge of his shield down on what was left of her neck.

Her spine snapped with a sad little crunch, leaving her head to settle off to the side. There was no telling how the vampire worked, and he wasn't taking chances. The necklace and its chain dangled between his fingers, clicking against the face of his shield.

After the war, he'd find her family and deliver it personally. They deserved to know that she'd been a hero.

Wood slammed against wood loudly behind him. Steve pulled up his shield and turned, eyes darting around the room. The door swung freely in the wind, opening and closing with a screech of frozen hinges. He was alone—no enemies loomed to take him out while he was injured. The room looked exactly as it should, with one small difference.

The vampire's body had vanished.
***
Just prior to Ultimates 1
"Thank you for meeting with me, Mr. Stark."

Tony turned around, not spilling a drop of the whiskey he was pouring. He hadn't heard her come in, but that wasn't an unfamiliar feeling. Jarvis had mastered the unobtrusive entrance and exit, even if he rarely used the skill. "I wasn't aware that I had much choice, Miss Bathory. Your appointment was terribly hard to cancel." Erzabet Bathory—which must have been a false name—stood demurely in the middle of the den, hands clasped before her. She was no one he'd ever seen before; Tony might have gone through a lot of partners, but he took care to remember faces, in case it was useful later. He would have remembered someone with her striking coloring. With tanning beds tremendously popular, seeing someone as pale as her was noticeable. "It refused to be erased from the book, you see, and none of my secretaries would admit to having placed it there."

White-blond curls fell forward as she bowed her head. "I apologize for the inconvenience I have caused. The matter is... most urgent, or I would not have taken such drastic methods. The timing was most crucial. I could not risk having it altered." Her voice was light, but measured, every word clipped with an accent Tony couldn't quite place.

"Nights aren't always a free part of my schedule, true, but far be it for me to ever deny a lady. My reputation would never recover." Tony set the decanter back on its board and gestured her to one of the armchairs. "Please, have a seat."

Erzabet smiled prettily and settled into the chair he'd indicated. She moved like a dancer—or an assassin. Up close, she was even more striking. Lovely, of course, but in a sharp-edged way, more like an ice sculpture than a person. From her perfect blonde curls to the ice blue of her eyes, it was as if he were talking to a porcelain doll.

Casually, Tony swiped a set of car keys from a sideboard and pocketed them before taking a place across from her. He wasn't planning on driving anywhere, but all of his keys had panic buttons, and the situation seemed to call for more caution than usual. He wasn't the kind of man who was enough of an idiot to assume pretty meant the same as harmless. Whiskey burned the back of his throat as he sipped. He hadn't had a drink in long enough that he'd almost sobered up. Bad form, that. "So, my dear, tell me why you're here?

Silence stretched as she looked at him through long, dark lashes. Mascara or false, Tony couldn't decide, but with hair that color there was no way they were completely real. Unless the hair was dyed, of course. If it had been, the job was recent—her roots matched. When she spoke, it was only slowly, as if she were trying to drive each word home. "What would you say, Mr. Stark, if I told you I could solve your... little problem?"

Tony raised his eyebrows and leaned back in his chair. "I would have to ask what problem you're referring to. I've more than one, as most people do."

"Your tumor." Platinum curls tumbled over Erzabet's shoulders as she leaned forward. Her dress—as pale as the rest of her—blended seamlessly with the white leather of the armchair. It hung down to her ankles in a froth of lace and linen, just antique enough to pass for fashionable without actually being so. "Oh, do not look so surprised. I can smell it on you. You have—what, five years, at the most? And then... Poof." She snapped her fingers. "Such a short time for so much genius."

Amber liquid swirled in Tony's glass as he turned her words over in his mind. Though it was late for regrets, he wished he'd tried harder to have the meeting elsewhere. It was always so much easier to toss the crazies out of a place of business without causing a stir. "If you know anything about my condition—which is highly confidential, I might note—you know that it's inoperable. What you're offering is impossible."

"I did not say an operation would be involved." She smiled, her lips only faintly pinker than the rest of her skin. Even her teeth looked sharp. It sent shivers down his spine, the kind he hadn't felt since Jaime and her riding crop exited his bed for the last time. "In perfect truth, this has nothing to do with human medicine."

A crackpot, clearly. But Tony had humored less lovely women, and her particular type of insanity seemed appealing. As long as she didn't cross any lines, it was worth wasting a few moments. "I don't believe in miracles."

"You should, Mr. Stark." Another smile that gave him chills. Or maybe that was the medication. It had to be. He'd dealt with paid killers before, and none of them had ever given him such a sense of foreboding. "Please tell me. How old do you think I am?"

That, at least, Tony could answer readily. He took a swig of his drink first, though, for fortification. "I know better than to answer that question from a lady."

"I must insist."

"If you must know..." Tony's eyes skimmed down her, marking the lack of lines in her face and the slender silhouette. "Eighteen, perhaps twenty at the most. No younger, or you'd never have gotten a private appointment, no matter what tricks you used."

Chin up, shoulders back—she reminded him of paintings he'd bought from museums, some sort of medieval queen making a proclamation. "I am more than five hundred years old, Mr. Stark."

The fun had definitely dropped out of the meeting. "And delusional, Miss Bathory."

"No, far from that. So very far." Erzabet shifted forward, legs demurely pressed together at the knees, hands clasped as if in supplication. "I can offer you a cure, of a sort. You will die, in the course of things, as all men do. Likely from your tumor, but I understand you pilot the Iron Man suit, yes? So perhaps from that. But death need only be temporary. Please do not reach for the alarm in your pocket. It would be distressing for all involved."

Tony froze, eyes narrowing. He hadn't done more than consider reaching for his personal panic button, which meant he was dealing with a telepath. He hated psychics of any sort; give him an honest charlatan over the real thing. A man always knew where he stood with a fraud. "And what price would you ask? Life doesn't come cheap. I can't imagine immortality is any different."

"No price, Mr. Stark. It is a gift."

In spite of his better judgment, Tony considered her seriously. "Why would you 'gift' me with something like that? I'm hardly a saint. The exact opposite, if you follow the tabloids."

For the first time, Erzabet actively frowned. It made her pretty face seem more mature, though not older. "But you are a genius. A man of the future, trapped in an ever stagnant present. Me— my kind—" She gestured around, encompassing all those not present. "We only accept the best into our ranks. A sort of club, you could say. Mozart, Einstein, Newton. All were made the same offer as I make you now."

"Did they take it?" He knew the answer. All of their deaths were, if not perfectly documented, at least historical fact.

"Alas, no." Her voice throbbed with hurt. If he'd been a little more gullible, he might even have believed it. "Their faith had them call us demons, and drive us from their homes. But you are different. You are desperate, and you place no trust in gods. Only in results."

Tony drained his glass, and felt the pain of an on-coming headache recede. Whiskey was wonderful stuff. "Results matter in more than faith. You seem to know me, so you must know that I'm going to require proof before letting you give me anything."

Her laughter tinkled, like she belonged in a bad romance novel. "Oh, Mr. Stark." Her teeth flashed in a brilliant smile. "That is something I believe that can be arranged."
***
Dark, polished wood and glass gleamed in the dim light of the oil lamps that lined the walls of the massive board room. Plush, but plain, beige carpeting swallowed the sounds of restlessness as the occupants waited to be acknowledged. No windows or paintings broke the monotony of the white walls, leaving the only furniture to draw the eye. The table was long and delicately carved, with frosted glass insets plaed before each chair like a place marker. The spacing between the chairs was inviolate, each seat exactly far enough away that not even outstretched fingertips could brush. Territories were clearly delineated, not even the edge of a folder allowed to pass beyond the invisible lines that separated them from one another.

At the head of the table, a single slim figure twirled a pen through his fingers, making it dance. Other than his fingers, he held himself absolutely still, and radiated the type of control that spoke of a lifetime spent perfecting it. The soft, white wool of his suit reflected the dim light, blending with the marble whiteness of his skin and making him glow like an angel. Pale green eyes stayed focused on the middle distance, not focusing on any of the other nine chairs until they rested on the empty one. "Bathory is late."

A tall, dark-haired woman dressed in a dove grey tailored pantsuit slid a folder to him. "She is in New York. The Stark business."

Dark murmuring rose from the younger residents of the table. Not everyone approved of the plan to make Stark theirs, but no one was brave enough to say so singularly. The muffled disproval silenced quickly when Caine glanced around.

"No, she is not." The pen twirled, paused and reversed. "Stark has accepted our generous offer. She is hiding from us."

More than one of the people at the table made noises of discontent at that. "She can't be," a high-pitched, querulous voice said, rising above the others easily. Dark hair, pale at the roots, fell over a high forehead. "Bathory has no reason to hide."

"We all have reasons to hide, Parchet." The physically oldest one, a tiny woman whose face was so crinkled and brown with age that she resembled nothing more than a dried apple, tapped her fingers on the glass pane. Her voice tripped over the syllables of English, as if she weren't accustomed to it, though her grammar was perfect. A sewing needle flashed silver in her fingers, moving so quickly that it blurred in the dim lighting. Her dress was only a few tones darker then the leader's suit, so close to white that a casual glance could make the mistake easily. "Bathory is not any different. Only young. It is a temporary condition."

Parchet sneered. "She's old enough to know better than to miss meetings, Ambroise. Not when we're so close."

"We don't know if we are close," the old one, Ambroise, replied gently, as though admonishing a young grandchild. "Perhaps Stark will be the one. Perhaps not. We have waited this long. There is no need to rush."

Wood and glass rattled as Parchet brought the flat of his hand down sharply. "There is every need to rush—"

"Hush."

The quiet words from the head of the table brought instant silence, though Parchet's lips still tried to form words for a moment before he realized what had happened. He sank back into his chair, cowed. All eyes turned back to their leader. The pen still danced between his fingers, but it had picked up speed, now moving so quickly that even their eyes couldn't follow.

"Stark is the one." Only a fool would have spoken to contradict him. "We have not seen such potential since the Chitauri."

"And see how that came out? Stark was one of the people who took them down!" Directly across from the leader, a tall, wide man settled back in his chair. He was built like a wall, with shoulders that belonged to a linebacker. The shirt he wore, a thin t-shirt that only just missed being black by a shade, only emphasized the power of his figure. "We're playing with fire on this one; you've all seen the newspapers. He's too erratic to risk."

"What do you think we should do, then, Davids?" The leader's eyes fixed on him. "Should we take him, and risk being caught out? He surrounds himself with those who have surpassed humanity. He is friends with a god! It would not be difficult for them to eradicate us, and then our cause would be worthless."

Davids wasn't cowed. "So we'll wait for him to figure us out?"

"Bathory knows what she's doing. This is not a new game."

"But Stark is a new player, and not like any we have had before." Ambroise paused in her sewing, looking up at the group. "And dear Bathory is... not yet reliable. Perhaps Davids has a point. We should watch him, and arrange things if he shows signs of escaping us."

The woman in the suit snorted. "How can he escape? He's taken the bait."

"But the trap has not yet closed." Ambroise resumed her sewing, pieces of fabric merging together under her fingers like magic. "We should not act rashly, but Stark lives a dangerous life. It would not be difficult to... encourage the process. An accident is easily arranged. It does need not even appear accidental."

"He has enemies we can use."

"We'll watch." The leader, who had been quiet while the others debated, finally stood. "No one is to do anything unexpected until we have time to see how Stark responds. It's possible his habits will do our work for us. If not, the tumor will. And then we shall have him."

A hum of obedient agreement went up from around the table. Davids averted his eyes, but even he nodded.

"For now, I call this meeting closed. We all know what must be done to prepare for the great work ahead. Do it."

"What about Bathory?" Parchet demanded.

A slow smile crept over the leader's bloodless lips, showing a flash of his teeth. "I will speak with her about her truancy."
***
Six Months Ago
A hard, wonderful expanse of muscle spread out under Tony's hands as he curled in closer to his bed partner. It wasn't often Steve stayed overnight. Usually, his sense of decorum sent him back to his own room or apartment, which fooled absolutely no one who really knew them, but made Steve feel discreet.

Tony stretched out on the fine cotton sheets, reveling in the soft place between sleep and waking. Consciousness had not yet made itself known enough for the morning nausea to strike, and the warm body next to him made it terribly easy to fend wakefulness off for a while longer. Even the pleasant aches of a night well spent were distant things. No doubt as soon as he attempted to sit up, he would have to make the usual run to visit the porcelain god, and there he would stay until his medication took effect, but the moments before that were well worth savoring.

He could easily become accustomed to such mornings, nausea and all.

Steve's breathing hitched as Tony's fingers slid over his ribs—the tight sound of a ticklish place found, rather than the lower noise that indicated a new spot to nibble. Reluctantly, Tony left off his groping. Morning had found him, sending its rays to burn through his eyelids, so he may as well acknowledge it. He may as well also acknowledge the collarbone he was currently at eye-level with.

"Good morning, Soldier Boy." He nipped at Steve's collarbone, just barely scraping his teeth over Steve's skin. Steve's skin really was amazing, stretched silky and tight under his lips like a fresh sunburn before it had time to hurt. "Have I been a good boy this year, or is there a less exciting reason you're still here?"

"Stop it, Tony." Steve slid away, taking about half of the sheets with him. "I didn't mean to stay."

Translation from Rogers-ese: he had dozed off in the post-coital glow and only just awoke to realize his error. That was fine. More than fine, really, since Steve's nocturnal relocation always left Tony staring at the ceiling for an hour or more.

The autumn-colored quilt had pooled around their knees in the night, so the loss of the sheets left Tony bare to the chill morning air. With a groan that was more due to impending nausea than he liked to admit, Tony scooted over and reclaimed his share, tugging and curling it under him until Steve gave it up.

Steve watched him suspiciously, but Tony didn't make a move to nibble again. Regaining the covers had taken too much effort already. "You know," he began, then rolled his eyes when Steve tensed. Of course the lug would expect him to make an attempt at seducing him. Granted, Tony had been all for that a moment ago, but that was hardly the point. "You don't need to rush back to your own bed every night. No one is going to be irreparably traumatized if you stay through breakfast." Except for perhaps Pepper, but she'd walked in on worse than Steve's morning tousle.

This time, Steve didn't take the covers with him when he moved. He pillowed his face on his forearms. California sunshine poured in through the curtains, pooling golden on the curves and dips of his back. It stretched over his skin in a way that made Tony's mouth go dry. "Yes I do. I don't want..."

"This to be serious." The same argument, turned over again, scratched and repeated until it was poisonous. With anyone else, Tony might have let it go, but they'd found something comfortable—at least, Tony had—and he was loathe to give it up to Steve's insecurities. "What does it cost you to settle? It's not like I'm asking for a ring."

"That's not what I mean." He sat up, back against the headboard and fists clenched in the sheets. Tony hadn't thought it was possible for Steve to be more uncomfortable, but he seemed to manage. "I'm not—we didn't start this thing to be serious."

"And I didn't start this thing expecting to have this conversation, but it's amazing how we surprise ourselves." A moment of internal debate and a check-in with his stomach informed Tony that, yes, he could manage a small elevation without losing what remained of his dignity. He propped his head on his hand and angled himself to have a decent view of Steve. There were quite a few options on that last one. It could be said that there was no perspective to be found that was less than breath-taking, but Tony had made it the work of more than a year to try and find one, to no avail. "Tell me, do you see a lost world in there, Narnia maybe, or just old coats and shoes?"

"What are you talking about?" Steve stared down at him. The sunlight hit his stubble, and for a moment all Tony really wanted to do was feel it scratch at his skin. As soon as the thought occurred, it was promptly vetoed by everything above the pubic and below the hips. This was going to be one of those mornings. Hanky-panky was not in the schedule.

He really would need to throw up soon.

"I'm talking about your denial, mon Capitan." Delicate noises sounded out in the hall. It was the shuffle and clatter of the maid who was no doubt waiting discreetly outside the door. The staff in L.A. weren't used to having a full house. Having the Ultimates descend on the mansion for a month had rattled them. This one was likely old-hat enough that she wouldn't barge in, but too new to knock. A week or so could cure that. "What's your preference, Steve?"

"Preference?"

"Leaning? Proclivities? Romantic orientation?" Tony knew very well that Steve was familiar with the terms, which meant that the dull glaze of incomprehension in his blue eyes had to be all fraud. "Men or women?"

"Women." The word popped out so quickly that Tony winced, even though this part of the discussion was all repetition as well. It was an automatic reflex that Steve, fortunately, failed to notice. It was amazing what Steve failed to notice, sometimes. "You know I like dames. Hell, you like 'em too."

"And yet here I am." Tony ran a hand over his face, trying to hold his skull together against the headache that gathered like a storm behind his eyes. The chill hadn't gone away with the return of sheets and Steve's admittedly fabulous body-heat. He had a ten o'clock appointment, and from the feel of things it would take at least that long to make himself look more like something human than not, and the illusion was unlikely to go more than skin-deep.

To use the quaint parlance of the internet, he didn't have the spoons for this.

A warm hand settled over his. Steve's thumb rubbed gently at his temple, and stars, it actually worked a little. "Are you okay?"

He'd risk calling it a miracle, but experience had taught that angels stayed far away from the Stark name. "Fine. Just... You know."

"Yeah, I do."

And that was what made it impossible not to want Steven Rogers as a permanent resident of his bed. That casual way he had of tossing empathy out there without doing anything so unmanly as sympathizing. If Tony hadn't been desperately leaning into his touch, he might have felt a bit disgusted with how gooey it made him feel. Even Natasha hadn't been like this. Of course, she'd missed the point where mornings had turned into small slices of Hell. "I don't think I can do this, this morning."

Steve's thumb paused, then stretched back to reach the hollow just behind the temple. It was better than a shot of Liquid Ice. "I don't know what you're talking about. There's nothing to do."

"Don't— Just. Don't." It wouldn't solve anything to start it then, other than to wreck the rest of his day. A day that started off with Steve in his bed was already too good to risk. "Fine. We won't talk about what there isn't to talk about later, if that's okay with you. Step around the elephant and all that."

The bed was too expensive to transfer the motion as Steve moved. It didn't stop Tony from feeling it in the change of the angle and the long press of legs against his. Sour morning breath huffed over Tony's forehead, but as long as Steve kept rubbing, he could breathe germs on him all he liked. "I don’t get you."

"You're hardly the first to say so." The hand vanished, and Tony found himself forced to open his eyes. Steve was close enough to kiss, that implacable jaw set with worry. The pillow had left a crease on his cheek. It was touching, really. Pain no longer loomed on the immediate horizon, though how Steve managed that Tony had to assume was some sort of top government secret. It couldn't possibly be natural. "I'm serious about talking about this later. Don't think you can save the world once or twice and put me off. I'm not that easy."

"Nothing about you has ever been easy, Tony." Steve kissed his forehead, stubble, dry lips and all. The last lingering threat of a headache vanished. Psychosomatic, Tony knew, but he welcomed the effect with open arms. It was a shame Steve couldn't do anything for his stomach. "I should get going."

"The maid's outside the door," Tony offered. He tried not to feel disappointed when panic flashed over Steve's face. Nothing new, nothing changed. It was amazing how Steve managed to stagnate so easily. "Just get yourself dressed. I'll distract her, and you can make a break for it."

"Are you sure?"

No, as a matter of fact, he wasn't, but asking Steve if he wanted to hang around to hold Tony's head out of the toilet was not high enough on the list of Things To Do Before He Died to handle right then. It did have its place, though. "I'm sure. Get going, Cap, before people think you were in here being debauched."

That got the expected eye-roll. Tony let himself watch as Steve collected his discarded uniform and shrugged it on. Never miss a free show, that was certainly a life rule to remember. But Steve was in a rush, and it didn't take him long at all to hide all the glorious muscles under leather and mail. Tony waved him behind the door, where he would be out of the maid's direct line of sight.

With Steve safely tucked out of sight, Tony braced himself on his elbows and tried to keep his head from swimming too much. "You can come in, Petunia."

The maid opened the door with the care she no doubt used while dusting antiques, glancing around warily. She was an older woman, not yet old, not by any means, but it would take a very young lady to wear a mob cap and look anything but middle-aged. "I thought I heard voices, sir, and didn't want to disturb you and your... guest."

"No guests here," Tony lied through his teeth as she wheeled in his usual breakfast. Which is to say, enough liquor to drop a platoon and a pretense at toast. Steve watched him from behind the door with an impatient expression, no doubt waiting for Tony to get on with it so he could escape.

The temptation to drag the moment out was nearly overwhelming.

Shame that plan would only cause more problems. Tony waved the maid in. "Come in, come in. I'm not toxic yet, I promise."

She crossed the wide expanse of the floor—what had he been thinking when he'd chosen such a large bedroom?—pushing her cart in front of her. The wheels squeaked on the thick rugs, but they were well cared for and didn't make more than a token protest. Tony waited until she was safely at the half-way point before sitting up. The sheets fell down to pool in his lap, but his stomach fell with them, so at least there was a sort of symmetry in it.

It would have been nice to say that the world swam, but that was too gentle a phrase. The world roiled, taking first the bile of his stomach and then his head with it. Pillows were wonderfully soft things to collapse back against. Sudden verticality had done its damage, though. As Petunia hurried over, Tony threw himself over the edge of the bed and made a dash for the en suite bathroom. He didn't pause to see if she covered her eyes against his nudity, but he did see Steve slip out the door. Then there was cool marble under his knees and the daily revisiting of his dinner began.

Tony really hated mornings.
***
Drilling off the coast of California was routine. Less routine was dealing with some two-bit schmuck who'd gotten his hands on a few explosives. It was good publicity. The team needed that these days. Steve couldn't shake the feeling that it was wasted effort though. The police could handle every-day criminals. The Ultimates should have had better things to do.

Tony had insisted though. Publicity had been the whole reason they were in California at all, and whatever small-time villain they handled while there was gravy. Appearances, signings, photo ops... It was all hogswash, as far as Steve was concerned. The Ultimates didn't need to be liked. They just needed to do their job. Next was some place in Wisconsin. Steve hadn't even realized that Wisconsin had terrorists.

The drill was sturdy under his feet as he finished the last check up. There hadn't been any gifts left behind to explode later. This time, the would-be terrorists hadn't had a chance to plant them. Overhead the sky was clear as a bell, the sort of blue that New York had lost to pollution and sky scrapers. Everyone told Steve that California could have some wicked weather in the summer, but he didn't see a sign of it. The only cloud in the sky was so far off, it was more of a pale smudge than anything else.

Pretty as it was, he wanted to go home, back to his own apartment with the crowds and smog and even, God help him, the muggers. Tony's mansion was nice, but sharing a place left everything too open to debate. Avoiding anyone for longer than a few hours was impossible without hiding out in his room, and that just made him a sitting target. He didn't want to fight, but it seemed like every time they had a couple of minutes of privacy, Tony would bring it up.

It wasn't right, two men having a relationship. Sex was just sex, but Steve wasn't one of those kinds. Guys had done it back in the war, just taken care of each other and then gone back to their girl when they could. It didn't mean anything. Tony didn't seem to get that, and Steve couldn't explain it without feeling like he was missing something important.

They just needed to get back to routine. Then Tony would forget about the relationship business and things would be normal again.

Jan buzzed up to him, hovering in front of Steve's nose, perfect in that way that she only had when she was tiny. She'd changed the design on her costume, this time to something solid black and tight, but practical. He held up a palm for her to land on, bringing it up to eye level. "Tony says that the Feds have it covered. We're ready to leave whenever you're sure it's clear."

"These guys couldn't plant a daisy." Steve thought she smiled, but at less than an inch it was hard to be sure. "Why didn't Tony tell me himself? He's got a communicator."

She shrugged. "There's something wrong with his radio. He didn't want you to get half the message and come charging in." Her little body was a bright spot of warmth through his gloves—she was always warmer when she was small. Tony had tried to explain it once, when the team was new, but he'd given up when Hank and Bruce had been the only ones able to follow it. "Something about the salt. It's probably just mild corrosion."

Steve frowned. Corrosion didn't mean anything good, but it was just the communications. Tony could probably fix it with some baling wire and bubble gum when they got back to base. "I'm coming. Tell Tony they can get the chopper ready."

Jan blew him a kiss and lifted off. "I'm on it."

At least Jan wasn't awkward with him. It had taken months after their break-up, but they were friends again. For a while, he thought he'd lost that. They were both adult enough that could have managed as just colleagues, but that wasn't enough. Jan had been one of the first people he'd met after the ice. Her friendship was important.

On the way back to the landing pad, Steve took his time, ducking into unlikely places to spot-check his work. There wasn't any reason for it—he'd already triple-checked it. But he didn't want to get to the 'chopper and have to wait for them to finish collecting everyone. Tony wouldn't start anything in front of the rest of the team, but after their almost-talk that morning, Steve just didn't want to deal with uncomfortable silences, or the issues between them.

Tony would make him eventually, but if he could put some distance between them, he might be able to get through it without ruining everything.

By the time Steve was back in sight of their transportation, Iron Man was hovering overhead, his thrusters bright pricks of white against the sky. The Stark International logo stood out in glaring white against the flat black paint of the machine. It was probably supposed to be menacing, but it always reminded Steve of the crest on a knight's shield, like Tony was advertising himself as one of the good guys. Maybe that was the point. Clint waved him in from under the slowly rotating blades. Steve ducked, even though the blades were easily over his head, and dashed for it. Jan, back at full size, tossed him a helmet. Immediately, the whoomph of the rotors warming up vanished.

A quick head count made Steve frown. Jan, Clint, himself... "Where's Thor?"

"Goldilocks had some family business." Jan's voice came clear through the headsets, even though he couldn't hear her strapping in. "He said he'll meet us for dinner tonight."

"crrrzzzzt—oiding the—scrrrrrrreeeeerrt—ngs."

Steve winced and turned down the volume. His ears were still ringing from the squeals. The vibration from the chopper picked up as the pilot finished his checks. "Was that Tony?" It had sounded like the television white noise in the middle of a storm.

Clint rubbed the place on his helmet where his ear would be. "See why he didn't call you home himself?"

"I didn't realize it was that bad." Steve twisted in his hard metal set, angling his head so he could see Tony hovering outside. "Maybe he shouldn't fly."

"Man, you know how heavy that suit is? It'd need a reinforced 'copter just to keep it from going through the floor." Clint's hand landed on Steve's shoulder, pulling him upright just as the helicopter started to lift off. "He's better off on his own. Anyone knows the limits of that thing, it's him."

Steve hated to admit that Clint had a point, but he nodded and sat back in his seat anyway. Tony knew what he was doing. Worrying was just going to draw attention to them, and that was the last thing Steve wanted.

He'd corner Tony later and make sure the corrosion issues were taken care of before their next mission.

The helicopter wasn't all that different from the transports he used to get carted around in back in the war. Hard seats, minimal straps to hold a butt in, and enough of a rattle to shake a man's teeth out of his skull. If Steve closed his eyes, he could almost see Bucky, leaning up against a wall with one of those damn cigarettes in his hand and his camera around his neck.

But Bucky had been gone for two years. Gail for a year. Steve had known she wouldn't live long after Bucky, but he hadn't expected her to go so fast. Even the doctors had been surprised. Her kids hadn't been. Maybe they'd known something Steve hadn't.

There was nothing left of his old life but a helmet and two gravestones, side by side. It was strange, but Steve didn't feel as alone as he'd thought he would. The year had been hard. More than once, he'd gone to call up Gail and Bucky and ended up talking to their son, pretending he'd called to check on the grandkids.

Tony had helped with that. He always had something going, usually two or three things. When Tony was around, the day flew by. Sometimes a whole week would, if nothing happened that needed Captain America. It wasn't always parties, either. Tony mixed work and play so easily that half of the time, Steve didn't even know which it was. At first it had been annoying, not knowing where he stood, but now Steve didn't know what he'd do with his spare time if it weren't for Tony.

Steve was jolted out of his thoughts by a cough from the pilot. "Um, excuse me Captain, but is something wrong with Iron Man?"

"What?" Steve unsnapped his safety belts and twisted to look behind the copter. The Iron Man suit was visibly having problems, moving slowly and unsteadily through the air as the helicopter got farther and farther ahead. It was barely a speck of red against the blue of the sky. "Turn around, he looks like he needs help! Tony, report! What's going on?"

"It loo—zzzrt—rusters have some —crrck—rosion. Down to—screeeet—cent power."

"Turn around!" Steve shouted at the pilot, grabbing onto one of the handles as the helicopter started to list sideways. It was too slow, much too slow. Tony was creeping closer, but it wouldn't be close enough until he was safe.

"Doing my best, sir, there's a tricky wind—"

"I don't want excuses!" Steve's chest was so tight, he thought he'd fall out of the copter and they'd have two rescues. It wasn't the sort of rush that came from a fight. That cold he could deal with—he'd been trained to handle that. No one could be trained to stand around and be helpless. "Just get it done, Mister!"

Jan appeared next to his side, so close to his face that he could see her eyelashes. "Don't yell, he's doing the best he can."

"It's not damn good enough. Tony!"

"crnk—isten to the—gers, or she'll—crzzzzt—ottom."

The chopper had finally turned around, closing the distance more rapidly. Iron Man was more easily visible, close enough to pick it out as a man-shape, almost close enough to imagine the helmet had a face. It dipped and twisted alarmingly, losing altitude only to regain it seconds later. Tony was doing his best with the stabilizers built into the hips, but even Steve could see that they were screwing up too. The thrusters were sputtering, flashing too bright and too dim at random. Even the lights in the helmet's "eyes" were dim.

"The thr— power levels falling—czzrt—eve!"

Too far, too high, too fast. Metal dented under Steve's fingers as he gripped the bar. He leaned out the chopper door, wind blurring his vision and tugging at him. The Iron Man armor glinted in the sunlight, a piece of genius and art wrapped into one, red and gold against the bright blue of the Pacific Ocean. "Fifty yards! Come on, come on, you're almost there!"

"Not—crzzt—ake it—"

Clint took the spot at Steve's other shoulder. He didn't lean out, but even behind his goggles, Steve could see the fear in his eyes. "Come on, Tony, you can do it!"

"Thirty yards!"

"—oo far—sssrrct— eve—"

The thrusters failed.

***

"Adieu, farewell, earth's bliss, this world uncertain is..."

The church was surprisingly empty. Lovely, as Tony would have wanted, because he'd loved beautiful things, but empty.

Over half of the funeral funds had been set aside specifically to make sure that the event wasn't disturbed. Neither reporters nor uninvited guests could get through to the service. That hadn't stopped them before but still, somehow for all of Tony's reputation, only a double handful of people came. It was enough to fill the first few rows, but not nearly as many as there should have been. What was left of his family hadn't bothered to RSVP. No hangers-on or press had been invited to crowd under the stained glass windows. The hand carved pews were mostly vacant.

It seemed like a sin to Pepper, that the funeral would be in such a gorgeous place and almost no one would be there to witness it. But that had been the way it had been laid out, and no one was going to refuse Tony his last request. A few people had tried, but she'd shouted them down, and when they'd been too high ranked for that, Captain America had done it for her.

"...The plague full swift goes by. I am sick, I must die..."

No one had asked Rogers to speak. No one had been brave enough, not even Pepper. Somehow, it had happened regardless, when the schedule had been made and names had been written down. There was no one else more appropriate. Everyone knew that he and Tony had been closer than most. Only a few suspected how close, but that hadn't been the point. Having Rogers speak at Ultimates' funerals was nearly tradition.

They all pretended that they couldn't hear the strain in his voice, or the cracks when the podium gave under his grip.

"...Brightness falls from the air. Queens have died young and fair..."

The Living Will had specified the poem to be read, and emphasized no personal eulogies. Tony hadn't wanted long, tearful goodbyes, or a pointed lack of them, and he'd made it clear. He hadn't made his fortune by making people love him, though he'd accomplished it in spite of that. Sometimes they'd only loved him for one night, but they'd loved him.

That had been Tony's final joke on the world: leaving it.

Pepper curled in on herself next to Happy, dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief and thanking God for waterproof mascara. They had rated seats in the family section with the Ultimates. That had been in the Will too. She wasn't sure what it said, that his teammates and two employees were all Tony had left behind. It should have been sad, but Tony had never seemed to find them wanting. She'd always thought that he hadn't known how to be lonely.

The rest of the Ultimates, current and former, were seated close together on the long stretch of pew, dry-eyed to the last. Losing Tony hadn't come as a surprise. The method had, but not the loss. They'd all known that any day could have been the one he didn't wake up.

"...Swords may not fight with fate. Earth still holds open her gate..."

The casket was empty, of course. He'd fallen into the Pacific from more than a mile up. SHIELD was still combing the bottom, looking for the Iron Man suit. As dangerous as the armor was, there was no chance the government was going to let it into the wrong hands. Just in case SHIELD turned out to be the wrong hands, Stark International had a search going too.

It was cruel to hope that the fall had killed him, but Pepper found herself wanting to be cruel. With as many fail-safes against sudden acceleration and G-forces as the suit had contained, it was all too possible that Tony had survived long enough to run out of air. They wouldn't know until the body was found.

Janet had mentioned it to Rogers just before the service. Maybe she'd been trying to be kind, but it had been the wrong thing to say. Pepper would have to make sure the church was compensated for the hole he'd put through the wall.

"... Wit with his wantonness, tasteth death's bitterness..."

Something buzzed in Pepper's clutch, a tiny black thing that, appropriately, Tony had given her. She frowned, glaring down at it. The buzz came again, gentle and non-demanding, just loud enough to get her attention. She knew for a fact that she'd turned off her Blackberry. Of course she had—it was a business line, and until the lawyers figured out what Tony had been doing with his holdings and all the strange instructions he'd left, she was out of business.

People glared at her from across the aisle: business associates, mostly, the ones rich enough that they couldn't risk not being seen here, in case whoever inherited the company would take it as a snub. She winced and fumbled in her purse, casting apologetic grimaces around at whoever looked her way. By sheer luck, her thumb caught the mute button as she pulled it out.

"...Mount we unto the sky. I am sick, I must die..."

YOU HAVE RECEIVED A TEXT MESSAGE

Pepper's nose wrinkled. What ass would be rude enough to text her in the middle of a funeral? She debated answering, but she'd already committed the faux pas of looking at it during the memorial service. She might as well make sure it wasn't an emergency. Her thumb pounded the view button a little too hard, making her nail scrape over the screen.

Have Hap bring car. Dock 6. Hurry. Secret. T.S.

"Lord, have mercy on us!"
***
"You've lost him!"

Ezrabet knelt on the stone floor and kept her head low, using her hair as a shield to guard her expression. Experience had taught her that even the slightest hint of insubordination would be punished, and she had come too far to be downed by a doddering fool in a temper.

He'd chosen her home, her tower prison as the place for this meeting. The only reason for it was to rattle her, a transparency that amused her, even though her heart ached from it. Csejte Castle itself was crumbling, barely safe for their human followers to travail. Breezes whistled through the cracks in the stone, smelling of her mountains and land. Her land, her home, where she had lived and died. Had Caine known his choice of locale had the precise opposite reaction as what he intended, he might have tossed her out the remains of her window.

Being home again gave her strength to swallow her pride. Ezrabet bowed herself low, until her forelock touched her knees. "I apologize, Lord Caine." She rolled her tongue around the ugly, clipped words of English. "I have failed you."

Caine snarled. "Not only failed, but failed again!" He paced, long legs swinging. Today's suit was spun silk, so freshly made that the reek of the loom and dye still clung to it. Not holding Council, he affected to wear steely blue, rather than his accustomed white. Ezrabet raged inwardly, that he forced her to wear a child's somber black, even though the occasion was not formal and she long since should have been given a council member's gray. It was another slight, one in long centuries of them.

She dared to peek up, then ducked her head again. His temper was such that his heart had started once more, flushing his sickly skin with blood. The dull, uneven thump sounded loud in the empty chamber, echoing off stone walls. The human girls who hugged the walls outside heard none of it, but to her it was perilously close to a death knell. One of them would die later, to assuage his wrath.

"What do you have to say for yourself, Bathory?"

"I shall set it aright, my Lord." Her tone stayed meek, shoulders rounded submissively. She clenched her hands in her skirt, until her nails bit deep into the palms. Pain helped ground her, kept her thoughts clear. Knowledge of that was a gift from her late, unlamented husband. "There is still yet an eternity, and he cannot run for all of it."

"What will you do, if you fail?" Polished loafers paused in front of her, gleaming in the dim candlelight. He nudged her chin up with a toe, meeting her eyes. "You've failed many times before, and this is vital. Without Stark, the humans will never be properly subdued. What will make this time different?"

"My lord?" Ezrabet stayed still, though her thoughts raced. "If I fail, I shall die. Is that not—"

"No!" Quick as lightning, Caine's foot struck the center of her chest. Bone cracked and pain, brilliant flowers of it, consumed her. Ezrabet stayed down, back pressed to cool rock, and let the sharp blades of broken ribs ease. His red hair gleamed like fresh blood as Caine knelt over her, running dispassionate fingers over her broken bones. "You don't fear death. It's not enough to motivate you. I think you need to give me more."

Breathing to speak sent another jab through Ezrabet's chest, sweet as the honey tarts from her childhood. "What more can I give my lord, if my life is not sufficient?"

"Your pet."

"Why—" A blow to the stomach robbed Ezrabet of air to speak. Her body, the weak, terrible thing, seized, curling in upon itself.

"You think I haven't noticed how you favor her?" Caine's voice lowered so that the humans could only strain hopelessly to hear. "Like this tower, like your diaries, she's a part of you. Did you think you could keep her safe, the way you did when you were human?"

Breath still refused to come, so Ezrabet only shook her head. She had to close her eyes, or risk allowing him to witness the hatred there.

"If you fail, you will give me your pet, your Celicia. Not her head, but living. I wish to enjoy her company as you do, as I did with your Anna." Caine's voice caressed her ears, making plain the acts which he did not name. Goose pimples of revulsion crawled over her flesh. "It will remind her of her time before you, won't it? And then, maybe, you'll learn not to disappoint me again."

He struck her again, across the cheek. Her head cracked to the side, spine snapping from the force of the blow. The fire of her broken ribs, the delicate throb of her stomach vanished, leaving no sensation at all behind. Panicked, Ezrabet tried to lift herself up, but her body failed to answer. Not so much as a finger twitched at her call.

In the edge of her vision, Caine stood, his milky pale eyes staring down at her. "You should be healed enough to move before the sunrise comes through the window. If not... I suppose I'll have to assign your replacement to the Stark case." He stepped on her wrist as he passed her, on his way to the door. Ezrabet heard rather than felt the bones grind together. "Fare well, Bathory."

Footsteps and the whispers of human life sounded as Caine rounded up his followers. Then even those sounds vanished into the night, leaving her with the breeze and the calls of animals as they prowled her castle. Ghosts, victims and lovers both, rose up from the shadows, watching to see if she would join them.

Anna laughs, her voice throaty with promise as she stretches over Ezrabet's bed. Ruffles and lace surround her in a swirl of decadence, ruby red velvet and gold broadcloth fit for a queen. Ezrabet had bought her the gown, had it brought all the way from Italy to please her. Painted red lips smiled, throwing her fangs into brilliant contrast that made Ezrabet's so-human heart tighten. "Can't you leave your toys for even a moment, my dear? They'll still bleed tomorrow."

A squirrel chattered at her in the rotting rafters. Its nest poked out of a hole left by crumbled masonry. She snarled and it skittered away like a frightened maid.

"Look, my Lady! The guard's returned!" The maid clutched her breast and leaned out the window into the bright noonday sun, the Magyar brown of her skin flushed with happiness. She was young, and pretty enough for a peasant, so new that she hadn't learned to fear coming to her lady's chambers. Ezrabet found her enthusiasm charming, enough that she would let her see the end of her contract. "May I go to see them? May I?"

Rock fell somewhere, a tiny cascade of pebbles as yet another piece of mortar collapsed. The castle rotted, like a loved one ready to be placed in the ground. She ached for it, feeling its death in her soul, more than even her own.

Dark heads bowed, armor gleaming with fresh polish, the collection of soldiers didn't meet her eyes as they delivered their news. Ezrabet could only stare at the young captain who led them, wondering why she felt so little sorrow. Her husband since she was twelve, the father of her sons, was gone, and she could only think that this would give her the freedom she longed for. Her mother-in-law could be removed, her Anna brought to stay—so much freedom, she felt giddy with it. Surely this pleasure would need repentance, but she cared not.

She was free.

Ezrabet closed her eyes and sank into her dreams as the sun crawled closer. Cool stone cradled her cheek, comforting her with its memories as her body knit. She would be free again. She swore it.
***
Now
"Fifty yards! Come on, come on, you're almost there!"

"Not—crzzt—ake it—"

Tony's eyes glinted through the eyeholes of the Iron Man helmet, barely visible behind the Plexiglas. If Steve reached a little farther, tried a little harder, he could catch him, pull him in to safety. He was so close that Steve could smell the sharp cut of hot metal on the ocean air, see the shaking in the thrusters as they tried to compensate. There was no one and nothing else, just Steve, Tony and the ocean. Nothing to save them if it all went to Hell. No last trick to pull.

Almost, almost...

"hsssrt—goodbye—crnkt—teve—"

When the thrusters failed, it was silent. Steve's throat locked around his voice as he shouted, catching the words and making him choke. There should have been explosions, or screams. Some sign that the world had just lost something it couldn't replace. But instead it was just a long fall and a ripple as the armor cracked like an egg. A heartbeat, and there was no sign that Tony Stark had ever existed at all.

The ocean swallowed him.

Steve sat up in bed, strangling on shouts of denial. Sweat poured down his skin as if it weren't snowing outside. Only a faint glow from the streetlights filtered through a crack in the curtains, spreading a line of grimy light over the dresser, pinging off a picture frame and climbing the wall. There was no ocean, no helicopter. Even his apartment was empty. He leaned forward and rested his head in his hands, forcing his breathing to slow.

Six months and the dreams hadn't stopped.

Maybe if there had been more of an explanation, Steve could have handled it. If it had been anything other than bad timing and a mechanical malfunction, he could have accepted that Tony was gone and moved on with his life. Instead, it had been a waste. There hadn't been any reason for it; they hadn't even really had a decent excuse for the mission they'd been on.

The death of someone like Tony Stark should have been worth more than a headline and an empty casket.

He pushed his hair out of his eyes and slapped the light on his bedside clock. 0357. There was no chance that he'd be able to get back to sleep before the alarm went off in an hour, and it wasn't worth trying. Steve pushed back the quilt, a comfortable faded thing made out of scraps that he'd bought from a neighbor, and tried to lose the shakiness before actually trying to stand. The adrenalin would leave soon enough, but the rush from the nightmare was enough to make him try his knees before trusting them.

Waking up after the ice had been just like it.

Dressing only took a couple of minutes. Steve didn't even bother to turn on the light. The clothes he'd worn the day before would be good enough for a jog, and those were still folded on top of the hamper. Then he'd find Nick and see if SHIELD had any updates on the Iron Man armor. It still hadn't been found, even though a concentration of metals like that should have shown up like a flare on the scans. Knowing Tony, he'd probably included something to cloak it and forgotten a fail-safe.

If SHIELD didn't pan out, there were always places that could use volunteers. He could lend a shoulder to some housing projects, and maybe some good press. The newspapers like to see Captain America pitching in for the common good. Tony would have loved it.

Maybe if he worked hard enough, Steve could stop thinking about Tony would like. The dead shouldn't get to have opinions. Of course Tony would break that rule too.

His warm-ups were quick, some stretches and jogging in place, a few kicks and punches to get his blood flowing from something other than terror. The serum made sure that he was the least likely person in the world to pull a muscle, but Steve knew better than to risk it. Besides, it would start up a bad habit, and he never knew when he might need to reinforce good ones for someone.

Snow crunched under Steve's sneakers as he stepped out into the street. It was too new to have developed the grey tint that any time at all in New York would give it. The air smelled fresh, with only the barest hint of pollution. In a few hours that would be gone, lost in the car exhaust and trash, but Steve would enjoy it while it lasted. A drunk across the street watched him from under a make-shift shelter of cardboard and trash cans, his bottle hidden in its little brown paper bag. Between the snow and the pre-dawn dark, it was hard for even his eyes to spot the wear and graffiti. Brownstone and concrete had been washed clean, if only for a little while.

Cold air burned the back of his throat and nose as he jogged. It stung like icicles digging into his lungs, but Steve kept breathing steadily. It wouldn't get better if he slowed down. He kept his pace to long, steady strides, not pushing his limits by any means, but not creeping along either. The slide of icy cement under his sneakers was dangerous enough without risking a faster pace. He focused on the pump of his muscles and breathing.

As long as he didn't think about anything, it was okay.

Time passed without Steve's notice. Traffic picked up. People started appearing, headed off to work and school, bundled against the cold. This part of New York wouldn't have Christmas shoppers wandering the streets, but that suited him. Pedestrians gave him something to watch out for. Shoppers were just nuisances. The sky turned from dark to grey, and then the sun had come up behind the snow clouds and day had arrived.

His watch read 0712, so Steve turned for home. Somehow, he'd circled around and was already nearly back to his apartment. It didn't take long to find his own street and follow it back, even when he slowed his steps in order to cool down. Moving slower, people weren't as quick to get out of his way, but his size and reputation made sure that no one really bothered him. It had taken a few years, but the street toughs knew better than to try and rob him. News like Steve got around.

Steve slowed even more when his door came into sight. A sleek, powder blue car was parked at the curb outside, with the motor still running and someone that looked suspiciously professional behind the wheel. The chances of it being a SHIELD car were nil. There was no SHIELD logo or any of the small signals the unmarked cars sometimes carried to identify them to other agents.

Not to mention that Fury would swallow a grenade before authorizing the purchase of a hybrid.

He pulled his cap tighter around his ears and stooped down, making himself as small as he could. Nothing about him was anything out of the ordinary for the area except his size, and there wasn't much he could do about that. Still, it worked. The driver didn't even glance in Steve's direction as he jogged through the snow and into the building. As soon as he was out of sight, Steve softened his steps, easing his way up the stairwell and dodging all the known creaks.

At the top of the stairs, a short woman in high heels was using his door as a writing surface. Her pen scratches sounded loud in the otherwise silent hallway. She was still dressed in a thick, lime green winter coat, but there was no way he could mistake that bright red twist of hair. He hadn't seen her since Tony's funeral, but redheads weren't so thick on the ground that he'd forget one easily.

"Miss Potts?"

Tony's former assistant spun around with a grace Steve had to admire. Her heels didn't catch the rough floors at all, and even he sometimes had trouble with that. She flushed, cheeks bright red against her pale skin, and stepped aside. The paper she'd been writing on crinkled in her hand. "Good morning. I thought you were gone for the day."

"Just jogging." Steve tried to smile reassuringly, but it didn't seem to sink in. He stepped past her and unlocked the door, gesturing for her to go in first. "Have a seat and I'll make some coffee. I wasn't expecting to see you here." Pepper Potts was a busy woman, one he'd honestly never expected to see show up at his door.

Potts ducked her head as she stepped through the door. Her whole body seemed hunched in on itself, and she kept glancing over her shoulder nervously. She was out of place in his apartment, bright colors and sharp lines against warm browns. It was like a fashion model had stepped out of the page and into his living room. "I'm fine, thank you. This will only take a minute." She didn't move very far into the apartment, as if she might need to make a run for it. "To tell the truth, I wasn't expecting you to be here. Our man said you'd gone out early. I thought I'd slip in, leave a note and..." She shrugged.

"You've been watching me?" Warm air wrapped around Steve as he stepped in behind her, reminding him that he was still sticky with sweat and needed a shower badly. It would have to wait. Even if it wouldn't have been rude to leave her standing there, he needed to know the rest of the story.

"Only today." This time she didn't blush. As soon as the door closed, Potts straightened her back and lifted her chin to meet his eyes, visibly more at ease. "I wasn't sure how you'd take it, and we didn't want to risk anything. I thought we'd set up an appointment to talk."

If she wasn't going to settle, Steve wasn't going to. He took off his hat and coat, but didn't relax more than that. "You're here now. There's no reason we can't take care of it. What's this about? What does Stark International have to do with me?"

She licked her lips and a little of the defiance melted out of the set of her shoulders. "You heard about that? It wasn't in the papers."

"The company's funding us, Miss. I notice when it has a new CEO."

"Interim CEO," she corrected quickly. "I'm just holding it until the terms of the Will can be satisfied. But this doesn't have anything to do with the company, or the team."

He nodded. He had actually been avoiding looking up anything about Tony's estate, other than what affected the team. He didn't want to know about any dames Tony had left things to, or about donations he'd made to charities. "So why are you here?"

Potts reached into her coat and pulled out a long business envelope. "I was asked to give you this."

Steve accepted it, running his thumb under the unglued flap. Something stiff was inside, keeping it from flexing easily, but it wasn't thick at all. The same curiosity that had made him poke around abandoned houses as a kid itched to open it, but Steve just kept it clenched in his hand. "The new CEO of Stark International has time to play delivery girl? Must be an important letter."

"Very important. Maybe the most important thing I've done in six months, I don't know." Her fists clenched in front of her, holding the handle of her purse like she had a vendetta. "Just do what the note says. I swear it's not a trick."

A car horn honked out front and some kids yelled insults at the driver. Steve stared at her, then slowly flipped open the envelope. There were plane tickets inside, and a single folded sheet of paper. "What's this about?"

The deep breath she took was audible. "It's about Tony." When he started to interrupt, she lifted a hand. "No, listen to me. He was involved in something when he died. Something big. I'm just doing what he asked and giving this to you. He wouldn't trust anyone else to do it."

Steve looked down at the envelope again. The note was written on a plain sheet of computer paper and sealed with a happy face sticker. "I don't know what he'd want me to do. I was just—"

"Don't give me that." His eyes jumped back up to Potts at the snap in her voice. It was the first time she'd raised it since walking through the door. "I know what you were. I was Tony's personal assistant. It was part of my job to know everyone he slept with and make sure there were no complications. Do you think I missed that he was dating Captain America?"

"We weren't dating."

The look Potts gave him would have made the Nazis run for their bunkers. "Of course not. Just sleeping together, exclusively, for more than a year. That's all." She glared up at him, every inch a general in her high heels.

"Exclusively?" That couldn't be right. Tony always had dames around him. Just sitting down to dinner in a restaurant would cause three or four to circle. He'd called it the Stark Mystique. Towards the end, not many of them had been taken back to the mansion that Steve noticed, but Steve had put that down to Tony's embarrassment over his health. And Steve... Well, Steve hadn't exactly been in a relationship since Jan, but that was different. He didn't need a dame outside the Ultimates. He had too much going to worry about protecting anyone. Clint had taught him that lesson. "What do you mean, exclusively?"

Green eyes narrowed like he'd spilled juice on white cashmere. Her jaw tightened dangerously. "You've got to be kidding me."

Silently, Steve shook his head, watching in something close to awe as Potts threw her hands in the air and muttered something in German that Steve was certain ladies weren't supposed to say. He hadn't heard anyone curse like that since the last time he'd worked with the marines. Nick Fury would have shed a proud tear.

When she turned back, she was composed again, but some of her hair had fallen loose from her bun from the violence of her reaction. "Alright. I have a company to run, which means I don't have time to work through your not-really-a-relationship squabbles. For whatever reason, Tony trusted you, and he wanted you to have this. That's all I have. Take it or leave it."

It was a shame, Steve reflected, that dames hadn't been allowed to fight back in the war. They could have won in half the time. The plane tickets were smooth against his fingertips as he rubbed them idly. Why had Tony left this for him? Had he known he was going to die?

No. The morning of the accident, Tony hadn't acted any different than usual. He couldn't have known, which meant this was a contingency plan. "Thanks you, Ms Potts. I appreciate it."

She stared at him for a long minute, then nodded and stepped past him to the door. Her back was stiff under her plush lime coat. "Let me know if you need anything. I've kept Tony's direct office line. Use it."

"I will." The door clicked closed behind her, just as the heater kicked on. Its rattle filled the silence as he stared down at the envelope, wondering what it contained.

There was only one way to find out.

There were only two tickets in the envelope, one for Phoenix Arizona out of La Guardia the next morning, and a return ticket out of New Sky Harbor a month later. No receipts or purchasing information had been included, but his given name was on the tickets. That meant that he wasn't going undercover.

The note was much simpler. It was hand-written in pencil, in a familiar cursive hand that he could almost place, but the moment he started to consciously recognize the angle and curve, something jarred him out of it.

Hie thee to the land of the legendary Phoenix. Seems apropos, all things considered. You'll find out more when you get there.

It was unsigned, as expected, though some smartass had put a heart sticker at the bottom, one of the glittery ones that little girls played with. Steve shook his head and double-checked the envelope for any other clues, but it was clean. There wasn't even a hair, and since the envelope hadn't been sealed there was no chance of DNA there. Someone had tried hard to keep from leaving any sign that he or she had touched it.

For a minute, he thought about chasing Potts, but he had a feeling she wasn't going to give him anything. That was a dame with a grudge.

Steve weighed the tickets, like they might tell him something just from holding them in his hand. He'd done his best to stop thinking about Tony, but it seemed like every time he turned around, something would push Stark back into his life. They'd even put in a bar across from his gym. Now it was some conspiracy.

Tony Stark wasn't a man to let go of easily. And the only place to find out what he'd been doing would be in Phoenix.
***
Steve was in his bedroom, packing and trying to make some sort of sense out of the airline regulations—he'd be charged seventy bucks for his duffle, but an extra suitcase was only fifty, that didn't make any sense at all—when someone knocked on his door. He ignored it, then ignored it some more when it came again a few minutes later. It was probably just someone selling something door to door. Lately there'd been a craze for handmade knickknacks and jewelry, some sort of high fashion movement, and all the people with too much time on their hands had been churning the things out for the Christmas. Personally, Steve thought it all looked like rubbish, but he'd never much understood modern styles anyway.

When the door creaked open, he froze, ducking down out of sight of the open doorway. Sharp footsteps like a woman in heels clicked across the threshold. They became muffled when she stepped onto the carpet. It couldn't be Potts. She wasn't the type to barge into a man's home. She might order him around like a drill sergeant, but she'd give him his space.

The door closed with a loud thud that trembled along the walls.

"Steve?" Jan's voice was unmistakable. It also explained everything. "Come on, I know you're in here. The door was unlocked. You might as well come out and talk to me."

For a minute, Steve thought about making her go to him, but he was in the bedroom. That was a charged enough place for them without the argument that was on its way. And he knew damn well that there would be an argument. Jan had never taken being left out of the loop well.

Besides, she was a friend. More than that, someone besides Potts should know where he was going, in case he needed back-up. There were some instincts left from the war that Steve wasn't in any hurry to shed. He made sure that his pile of shirts wasn't going to fall off the bed and stepped out into the living room.

Jan had made herself comfortable on the couch, arms and legs crossed, fur-lined high-heeled boots on the floor. She was still wearing the matching jacket, but she'd unzipped it to show off her light blue blouse and dark blue jeans. The white fur around the collar brought out the gold in her skin and the shadows of her low-cut top. It was a subtle reminder that they weren't together anymore. Even though they were friends, Jan liked little her digs. "Steve."

He felt his shoulders draw back in response to her tone, instinctively preparing for a fight. But there was no reason to expect trouble before it showed up. Still, instead of settling into the armchair, he leaned against the bar, keeping the majority of the room between them. "Hey, Jan—"

"Don't 'hey Jan' me." For being more than a foot shorter than he was, and sitting to boot, she managed to loom. Her dark eyes were narrowed. "What's this you told Clint about taking a month off? You're Captain America. That's not exactly a day job, you know."

"Something came up." Immediately, he knew that had been the wrong thing to say.

Bright white teeth showed behind Jan's dark lipstick as she ground them together. She looked like she wanted to throw something but the only thing handy were her no-doubt expensive shoes. "Something came up? That's a pretty piss-poor excuse for a guy who's always chewing the rest of us a new one about duty. What the hell could have come up, huh?"

"This." He grabbed the envelope and its tickets off the counter, letting them fly with a quick twist of his wrist. She caught it even before it could land on her lap, where he'd been aiming and quickly opened it up.

The tension dropped out of the room immediately, as if just being in on things was enough. He'd never understand dames, and times like this he wasn't sure that was a good thing. "Pepper Potts delivered that this morning. She said it's something Tony left for me."

A dark frown twisted Jan's mouth down as she looked at the tickets. "Phoenix? What's going on?"

"I don't know," Steve admitted with a shrug. "Potts said that Tony was hip-deep in something. There's nothing going on big enough to justify ignoring it."

"What if it's a trap?" Jan turned the tickets around in her hands, inspecting them like they might explode. "I don't trust her. Just because she worked for Tony..."

"I do." When Jan looked up with a scornful look, Steve frowned defensively. "Tony trusted her, and he had a good feel for people. He wouldn't have put her in charge of his company if he thought she would do anything wrong with it."

"People change, and Tony's not around to make character judgments on his employees anymore." Steve winced and looked away, but she didn't notice. Paper slid against paper as she fanned the tickets out. "This is exactly the sort of thing a lot of people would like. Get Captain America alone in an unfamiliar city and take him out. The Ultimates won't be able to help you out of a jam on the other side of the country."

"I know what I'm doing."

"Really? Because it looks like you're running away from your responsibilities and into a trap to me!"

Steve made himself take a deep breath and let it out before replying. She couldn't know how New York was feeling a lot more like a graveyard than Arlington. It had been six months. He was supposed to have moved on. They hadn't even really been together.

It didn't help when he repeated that in his head. "What responsibilities? Waving from a float in the Macy's Day Parade? Maybe explaining to Fury how we're not going back to SHIELD? Again? There hasn't been anything major in two months. The heavy hitters are laying low. If I put it off, I might not get another chance, and it could be important."

Jan finally seemed to realize that she'd hit a nerve. Her voice softened. "Steve— Honey. I know the past few months have been tough. We all miss Tony. He was a founding member—but this isn't the way to handle things."

That was a lie. Steve knew that she'd already been trying to get War Machine on the team to replace Iron Man. But sitting there on his sofa, leaning towards him with her eyes dark and soft, Steve could almost believe Jan did miss Tony. Maybe just a little. "I need to do this, and I don't need anyone's permission. I'm a grown man."

The soft look didn't last long after she realized that it wasn't working. "Who's going to take your place if something does come up? The team's already down to four members. There's no way we can manage without you."

"Get Rhodes if you're desperate. Or borrow someone from SHIELD." Then Steve did something he'd never done before. He marched over to the door and pointedly held it open. "I've made up my mind."

Jan's face colored red, either with anger or embarrassment; it was hard to tell with Jan sometimes. She shoved on her shoes and stood up, not even bothering to zip up her jacket as she stalked past him into the hall.

The ugly, light-tan of the hallway silhouetted her figure when she turned around. "Fine. If that's how you want it. But you just remember—you're part of a team here. You call if you need us, you got that? Before you get into that jam."

"I'll remember that." Steve let the door swing shut.
***
Sky Harbor Airport had been one of the first things the Chitauri ships had demolished when they'd attacked. They'd taken a small chunk of the city and a large one of the I-10 freeway with it, but luckily the area didn't have very many homes, so the body count was lower than it might have been. For some cities, it might have been a decade before another airport took its place, but Phoenix was one of the fastest growing metropolises in America, and every resource was thrown at the project. New Sky Harbor had only taken nine months to build, and the whole nation had watched as the first airplane—Air Force One—took off from the brand new runway.

Because it was as much a tourist attraction as an airport, New Sky Harbor had a design that could only be called "Southwest". Everything was done in white stucco, daubed to look like adobe, and random cattle skulls dotted the displays. Shadows of tired cowboys and dispirited horses lined murals done all in blinding shades of red and purple around the baggage claim. There was even a cactus garden in the smoking area, complete with Christmas lights.

It was probably the least tasteful thing Steve had ever seen, and that included modern horror movies. Going by the way some of his fellow traveler's eyes rolled when they passed the display of Authentically Reproduced Navajo Pottery, he wasn't the only one who thought so. What the Chituari had done deserved a better memorial. He'd heard that there was a plaque and a statue somewhere downtown, but he wasn't sure where. It hadn't gotten enough attention for word to get around.

The first thing Steve noticed when he stepped out the door was the temperature. He'd come prepared for warmer weather, and the people wearing sandals in the airport had given him a clue, but he hadn't expected to step out into a balmy afternoon. It was the start of December and snow was already on the ground in New York, but he had to shrug off his coat while he waited for the city bus. The temperature had to be at least seventy degrees, and the sky was so clear that he could see some of the mountains that ringed the valley, behind the brown layer of pollution. Steve had second thoughts about the mural. The sunset really did turn the sky red.

"Rogers? Hey, you Rogers?" A driver leaned out of a cab window a little way ahead of him. He wasn't a small man, even sitting in a car seat he looked like he might top even Steve in height, if not in width. His skin was the color of old walnuts, which managed to match his shirt so well that Steve needed a second look to make sure he was even wearing one. "Come on, man, speak up! I don't have all day!"

Jan's warnings about a trap seemed a lot more serious all of a sudden. "How do you know my name?"

"A guy gives you a cool two hundred to pick up his buddy, you'd remember names too." He waved Steve over to the cab. "Come on, I'm blocking traffic, and it's a bitch on a good day. No one knows how to drive in this town."

Steve eyed the cab for a minute before dragging his duffle bag over. The driver looked big, but there was no way he'd be able to match the effects of the super soldier serum. More importantly, whoever had paid him had known Steve was coming, and that had to be either Potts or someone Tony had been dealing with. It was another step closer to finding out what was going on.

He slid his bag across the back seat, then followed it and strapped in. "Did this guy tell you where you're taking me?"

"The Hilton on Thomas, my man, and then a little place I know on Van Buren." Dark eyes met Steve's in the rearview, just before they pulled out into traffic so quickly that Steve grabbed for the door. It wasn't any worse than the cabbies in New York, but he didn't like their driving either. "Someone really likes you. That place books months in advance in December. They've even got a massage parlor over there."

There were small, finger-shaped dents in the plastic door handle where he'd gripped it and a small spider web of cracks. Steve hoped no one would notice the damage. "You sound like you've been there before."

"I might have saved up, taken the missus there for our tenth." The cab swerved around a heavy-duty van so quickly that Steve's head almost smacked into the window. "Real nice place."

Steve fidgeted with the strap on his duffle bag and tried not to cling to it too tightly. His shield was in it, buried beneath a layer of clothes packed so close that the duffle didn't even bend without the shield. He had no doubt that it had been found by airport security, but as long as he'd gotten it back, they could play with it all they liked. "Who sent you to pick me up?"

"Your buddy." The look the cab-driver shot him in the rearview said everything about stupidity and nothing useful at all. "I already told you that."

"Only a couple of people knew I was coming, and I don't have any friends in this city." The driver slammed on the brakes to avoid a small sedan that couldn't decide which lane to drive in. They hadn't even reached the freeway yet. "I need a name."

"Sorry, man, I don't ask about names."

Cacti and painted gravel in odd geometric shapes passed by as they turned onto the freeway. The whole layout followed the same style that the airport had been done in. Phoenix was a city that really enjoyed its theme. Steve had a feeling that he was going to be sick of western everything by the time he headed back to New York. "A face then. Anything."

"You really don't know who sent me?"

"Really."

The driver hummed, his fingers tapping on the steering wheel. "Man, that's messed up shit. Is this some sort of secret camera, thing? I'm not going to find myself splashed across YouTube or nothing, am I?"

It took a lot of effort not to yell at the man. "You won't."

Even after that, the man still hesitated before he shrugged. "Okay, I'll shoot. It was a dark bar, so I ain't really sure about details, but he was a tall guy. Dark hair, tan skin, beard—spoke Spanish, so maybe, but he didn't look like one of us, you know? That's all I've got."

That helped, but just from what Steve had seen at the airport, it still covered about half of the city. Maybe more. "How tall? As tall as me? Taller?"

The question seemed to spark something in the driver's memory. Another sharp turn and they were off the freeway, pulling into heavy traffic. It wasn't bumper-to-bumper, but it was thick. Friday at rush hour. "Naw, but close. Real tall, like six, six-two. Black cowboy hat and boots. He seemed like a real smooth player. Young guy, too."

Buildings around them became progressively fancier, and more and more western. The whole city seemed obsessed with white adobe and red tile roofs. It looked like someone had planned out the perfect tourist trap for would-be cowboys. He had a feeling Clint would have loved it. "Nothing else you can give me?"

"You got all I know." The car pulled to a sharp stop at a red light, and the driver twisted in his seat to offer Steve his hand. "Name's Carl Montega."

It was rarely a bad idea to get on to good terms with friendly locals, whether it was in Germany-occupied France or on solid American soil. Steve grabbed the offered hand and was pleased when Carl didn't try to squeeze too tightly. Some guys tried to pull the tough act when faced with someone his size. Carl obviously knew better than to try. "Steve Rogers."

Red flashed to green, and somehow Carl must have seen it, because he was back in his seat and hitting the gas almost as soon as the car in front of them moved. "Hey, man, I knew that. You're Captain America—I had your poster on my wall when I was a kid. You're gonna love Phoenix."
***
Ezrabet bit her thumbnail as she looked down from her well-padded throne. It was a terribly unladylike habit that her mother had once railed at her about. She could still hear her sometimes, shrill and demanding. "You'll look as though you've been working. Is that what you want your hands to look like, those of some ignoble laborer?" That voice pierced her ears, even though it carried from centuries past. The elegant peacock blue gown she wore helped push the voice away, but she knew it would not stay there. "You are certain it was him?"

"Yes, Madame." The human kept his eyes lowered, but didn't kneel. She detested such servitude, no matter how lowly the one who gave it. It built resentment among the little ones, and resentment was much more deadly than terror. "The plane ticket was purchased under his given name."

Of course it would be an honest name. Since the tragedies at the beginning millennium, not even Captain America could travel under a pseudonym through the air. "The name is immaterial. Both are common. Tell me of the man. Did you see him?"

"Yes, Madame."

Celicia stepped forward to Ezrabet's side, shrouded in her cloak as always. She never believed Ezrabet when she exclaimed over Celicia's concealed beauty. Some scars were simply too deep. "Describe him!" she demanded, voice low and intent. "Tell me of the man you saw!"

He hesitated, glancing at Ezrabet. Poor human that he was, he had no idea of the death he spoke to. Ezrabet took sympathy and nodded, allowing him to continue. "Well, he was tall, more than six feet at least. Blond and light eyes, maybe blue. Built like a wrestler, lots of muscle."

It was Rogers, or a twin, and how many men of that name and description would be leaving New York for Phoenix at this point in history? "Excellent work. Leave us."

"But—" the human looked around the empty hall, peering into dark corners as if they hid jewels. The reek of his sweat seemed to fill the room, and his heartbeat was so fast it might have been a rabbit's. He was prey, and had not the seemliness to pretend otherwise. "I was promised— for my services—"

"Yes, you were," she cut him off with a sharp twist of her hand. "And I will summon you for your reward. For now, go."

Self-preservation finally seemed to find its place in his mind. He went, scurrying backwards like the basest of commoners. A sneer curled her lip as he went. Modern people had no dignity, and tasted like sludge. On some days, she'd rather eat cabbage. The door closed behind him with barely a sound.

"This changes things," Celicia sighed in their native Hungarian, the syllables sounding of home on her tongue. She took a seat at Ezrabet's feet, long legs stretched out before them. Under the folds of the cloak, a sensible brown dress peeked out, blending well with the rough fabric that concealed her. "Rogers is not an easy man to deal with. You could fail." Nothing in her voice revealed the sword that loomed over her head.

Pride at her companion's fearlessness made Ezrabet's heart stir. She rested her hand on Celicia's shoulder. "He is a man, and men can be dealt with. Have I not protected you for this long?"

Celicia's cloaked head turned to rest against her arm, revealing the curve of her cheek. "You have, but Rogers is different. You know this. I will accept my fate, so long as you don't meet yours."

"Death comes unto us all, when and how he will." She bent to kiss the top of Celicia's head. "For you, I shall take care. But I require a forfeit."

"Name it."

"If you insist on hiding your loveliness away, I must be allowed to provide you with a better means." She tweaked the hood forward playfully, rubbing the heavy, course cloth between her fingers. Had she calluses, it would have snagged. "It is unseemly."

Shadows moved, hinting at a smile in their depths. "God did not grant me noble birth—"

"But I have granted you a noble rebirth, and you are my dearest friend and companion." Ezrabet rubbed the fabric again. She wanted to rip it back and force her friend to show her beauty to the world, but the doors were unlocked. Celicia would never forgive her if her scarring were revealed without necessity. "Allow me this, and I swear I shall run, rather than risk my own demise at the hands of this man."

"My lady—"

"I shall even—" Ezrabet touched the chin hidden under the hood and forced her head back, until she could see the gleam of Celicia's eyes. "I shall even make a gift of him to you. Would you like that, my darling?"

Celicia's weight against her shuddered. "Would you?" she breathed. "Your other quest will be hazardous enough. Do not divide your attention for my sake."

"Once I have my homeland returned to me, my place in America shall be yours, and all those in it, including Steve Rogers," Ezrabet promised, brushing a kiss over her friend's forehead. "If I do not have him in hand when this is over, I shall hunt him down for you, and deliver him in chains. But only if you allow me to outfit you."

A giggle broke the silence between them as Celicia leaned up to meet her lips. "Thank you, my lady. You barter with such grace for my sake."

"So you agree?"

"How could I refuse?" Another kiss and Celicia dropped her cheek to rest against Ezrabet's knee. "I am hungry."

"Then let us have our dear spy brought in, hm? He is due his reward, after all." Ezrabet patted her friend's cheek as best as she could. The scars were a roughness under her palm that she did her best to ignore, for Celicia's sake. "Lord Caine shall arrive soon, and that shall surely set me off my meals. If you do not mind sharing?"

The rough cloth of Celicia's cloak scratched against Ezrabet's skirts as she nodded. "With you? Never."
***
The Hilton had welcomed Steve with open arms, especially when they found out that "Roger, Stevens" was paid in advance for a week, and would probably stay for the rest of the month. Whatever credit card his room had been purchased under, it had been a big enough deal that the hotel manager had shown him up to his suite personally, and then had to be forced to leave.

He'd dropped off enough clothes to make it look occupied, then had Carl take him to a Garden Inn just down the street, to Carl's complete disbelief. He'd booked a single room under a different name and left everything but his shield. That was in a cloth case beside him on the bench seat in the cab. Even behind a layer of canvas, it was suspiciously round and large, but there was no way he was going anywhere unarmed.

Even if this wasn't a trap, Steve wasn't going to take chances.

Van Buren Street was not what Steve expected it to be. It was downtown, right behind the shining glass sky scrapers that collected in the center of the city, but it was as run down as any place he'd seen in New York back in the thirties. Streetlights flickered, just bright enough to show the trash on the sidewalks, and graffiti was everywhere there was a wall to paint. Girls walked the streets in shorts that were probably underwear and tops that were a step above being illegal. The temperature had dropped enough that he could see his breath. Even though he only needed a long-sleeved shirt to be comfortable, several of the street walkers were huddled together out of the wind, shivering. Only streets way from wealth, and the whole place was a disaster. He wasn't sure what to think about that, other than that someone needed to straighten out their priorities.

Carl cleared his throat. "You just ignore the girls. They're always hanging around here. Police try, but..."

Steve frowned as they passed, but looked away. He couldn't do anything to help them. "Where's this place you're taking me to?"

"Just 'round the corner." As if to demonstrate, he turned left down a surprisingly well-lit side-street. It was in the half-way zone between the luxury and the slums, tidy enough that people who got lost wouldn't be shocked, but still not what it could have been. A single sign was lit over the bar door, showing a woman's silhouette and a martini glass. It said "Danny's Screwdriver". If Steve hadn't been told, he never would have known the place was even there. "It's not as bad as some places around here, but it sure ain't the Hilton. The beer's cold and the chicks are hot, that's what counts."

"Your wife know you go looking for women, son?"

Carl laughed and parked by the curb, cutting the engine. "Hell, she don't mind. I know what I got to go home to, and it's sweeter than anything I'd find around here. Girls these days don't have any meat on their bones."

Cars honked as Steve slid out, seemingly offended that he dared to get out on the street side instead of sliding across to the sidewalk. He grabbed his shield and slung it over his shoulder by the canvas strap. He'd take it out, but the buckles were quick and dirty enough that it would only take a second to have it if he needed it, and it wasn't worth the recognition. "Thanks for the lift. Do you have a number?"

"You've still got a hundred and fifty on your tab, amigo, and I've been promised more if I take good care of you." Carl pushed back the seat and stretched out his legs under the dash. "I'll wait right here. You go in and do whatever you gotta do."

That seemed to be that. Steve nodded at him and turned to push his way through the swinging door.

A bar was a bar, it seemed, even here. The lights were dim and the air was thick with smoke. The wall bore a neat little plaque that said it was a smoking establishment—as if that weren't obvious. Two pool tables were surrounded by people in everything from blue jeans to cheap suits, and some sort of country song crackled out of a neon-lit jukebox. The only nod to the city's roots was that the bartender was wearing short sleeves in December.

He propped his shield by the bar and took a stool, looking around. About half of the men in the room fit the description Carl had given him, so that wasn't going to be any good. Steve didn't even know if he was supposed to meet someone here at all. No one was looking his way.

The bartender slid over from where he'd been flirting with a girl on the other end. Tattoos wrapped around his wrists and up his arms, flowing between some sort of tribal snake pattern and a Japanese swordsman. He had three eyebrow rings and a stud in his lip. The piercings brought a frown to Steve's face more than the tattoos did. Men had tattoos even back in his day—hell, he'd nearly been dragged to get one by Bucky one time when they'd had a few days leave. Only women wore earrings though, and only punks wore them anywhere but their ears.

"Name's Ian. What'll ya have?"

"Just a coke." He still hadn't caught any extra attention, so Steve leaned forward across the polished wood of the bar, sliding some bills across it. A large mirror across the back of the room showed the start of another tattoo at the base of the bartender's neck."I was told to come here tonight by a friend. You know why he might have said that?"

"Nothing happens around here." Inked shoulders lifted in a shrug as Ian poured Steve's drink from the tap. A faint splatter of freckles across his cheeks hinted at northern heritage, only visible against his pale skin. Steve felt a brief moment of kinship; he turned red instead of tan, and had since he'd been a kid. "We do karaoke on Thursdays, and Saturday's always a full house. But Fridays? You're lucky to pick up a chick. Sure you don't want anything harder?"

"This is fine." Steve swiveled on his stool, looking out over the crowd. The music rolled over into something almost as old as Steve. Other than that, nothing. Maybe it was a false lead. Tony couldn't have known that he'd take the tickets. Sure, it had been a pretty good bet that he would, but he couldn't have known. It could have been a trap, or even just a reason to get him out of New York.

The pool game was being dominated by a tall man with a black cowboy hat tipped low over his eyes and a white dress shirt that he hadn't bothered to button the collar on. He just kept taking shot after shot while the other players stood around in awe. He glanced up, tipped his hat at one of the girls, then sank the last ball with a flourish.

"Pay the piper, Gentlemen."

A good-natured grumble went up from his opponents as they slapped their money down on the table. Apparently this was a game they'd played before, and none of them minded losing enough to stop playing. The pile of cash looked pathetically small, though, so maybe they'd learned their lesson about betting against him.

"One of these days, you're gonna have to tell us how the hell you pull those shots," an older man griped, but he was grinning through his nicotine-stained beard. "It just ain't natural, boy."

The winner was polite enough that he didn't count the money at the table. He just folded it up and shoved it into his back pocket. "It's all geometry. No one makes you bet, Jake." He flicked his hat up out of his eyes, and Steve froze with his coke lifted to his lips.

It couldn't be. It was impossible.

"Worth the money to see you in action." Jake slapped the winner on the shoulder on his way to the bar. "Reminds me of when I was your age."

Blue eyes looked over the old guy's back straight at Steve, then back at the other men. "That's it for me tonight, boys. I have a date with a pretty blond." Shouts and friendly curses followed him out a side door. Steve waited a few minutes, then finished the last of his coke, grabbed his shield and followed.

The alley was small, almost too narrow for a man with Steve's shoulders. Good for defense, but it would be hard getting out of it if things came to that. Trash and broken bottles gathered in the corners, crunching under his boots. It reeked of piss, vomit and stale beer. The streetlights didn't reach this far, leaving the whole alley in shadow. Headlights dragged over the walls, illuminating everything for just a moment before they vanished again and the dark returned.

So it was excusable that Steve reached for his shield when he heard the crunch of footsteps behind him. He twisted around, keeping his back to the wall, but the figure stopped ten feet away. A car drove by, its headlights giving the alley a flash of daylight. "Steve."

Steve took a full breath, so deep that his lungs ached. He let it out slowly and straightened from his defensive crouch. "You're supposed to be dead."

It was too dark to be sure, but Steve thought he saw a grin, white teeth flashing in the dark. "You don't have a copyright on coming back from the dead, old boy," Tony said. "I know. I had Pepper check."
***
"You're supposed to be dead."

To Tony's eyes, Steve looked good. Better than good—he was as gorgeous as ever, tall and proud, filled with that same righteous fervor that most politicians only dreamed of. Backlit by the streetlights, he almost had a halo. Even in the alley, which was admittedly less than a pleasant area for a reunion, Steve stood out as something more than the average bruiser. That was a bit of a disappointment, really. He could have at least looked a little bit like a wreck, like he'd missed Tony.

Of course he'd never be that lucky. Steve had made it perfectly clear that Tony had just been a way to pass the time. Friends of an odd sort, but not lovers. He'd probably already fallen back into bed, maybe with some pretty blonde bit, or Jan again. Steve would never do the secrecy act with a girl that he'd done with Tony, but maybe he'd learned a lesson or two about being a celebrity.

Jealousy wasn't something Tony was intimately familiar with, but he had a feeling that he was about to be.

"You don't have a copyright on coming back from the dead, old boy." Tony smiled and shoved his hands into his jean pockets, grabbing desperately for a piece of normalcy. As if anything would ever be normal again. Really, it never had been, but now he couldn't even pretend. "I know. I had Pepper check."

Bludgeoned senseless was a good look for Captain America, but it didn't take him long to bring up his shield again. "You're not Tony. He's dead. We buried him."

"Not even a kiss for a guy who's back from the dead? You buried an empty coffin, and you know it." Tony stayed carefully back and made no move too quickly. He didn't want to find out if he could take Captain America in close quarters. The answer was likely to be an emphatic no, and he'd just gotten used to living again. "Good job carrying out my final wishes, by the way. I was very moved when Pepper showed me the recording. You have a voice for poetry."

"Who are you?" Steve wasn't convinced.

Tony sighed and tipped his head back. The sky over Phoenix was filled with stars, and over half of them were invisible to the human eye. City lights drowned them out, killing the little glimmers in a night sky that was grey with ocular pollution. He could see all of them now, even the faint dusting that was the Milky Way. The little things like that clenched his certainty that he'd made the right choice. A few times in his life, he had wanted to die, but this time, he would have been dead. It put a new perspective on things.

But Steve was still waiting, and only getting more trigger-happy with every second of delay. "The first time I kissed you, it was right here in Phoenix—well, Gilbert, but in the metropolis area after the fight with the Chitauri. You socked me in the jaw, and I had to tell the reporters that the aliens had done it. Sound familiar?" And then Steve had gone and hopped in a bed with Janet, in a move that an observant man might have mistaken for capital-D-denial. "No one but you and I know that. Convinced that I'm me?"

Steve relaxed only a little, but he did relax. Tony picked out the subtle shifting of his muscles under his skin, and was hit by an incredible urge to shove Steve back against the grimy brick and run his lips over those muscles. Some things hadn't changed in six months, at least. "Let's say I believe you. Why the hell have you let us think you're dead?"

Unspoken was the rant about duty to the American people, and Tony was grateful for that. He didn't need to hear Mr. Self Righteous tell him that he'd let his country down. "Do you think I'm hanging out in this little hellhole playing good ol' boy for a lark, Rogers? I'm hurt. See my pain?"

"I can't see a thing in this alley." Finally the last bit of excess tension left Steve, though it wasn't all of it. The only time Steve really relaxed was... Tony ended that line of thought. He'd probably lost right to that by dying, and he'd never been much of one for teasing himself with what he couldn't have. "What's going on? Potts said you were up to something."

"More like something's up to me." A miraculously whole bottle rolled away when Tony risked stepping closer, though still not close enough to be caught if Steve decided to take him out. He hadn't survived six months dead by taking chances. "I need help. Pepper and Happy are tied down in New York holding Stark International together."

"So you lured me here?" The moon was finally starting to get enough height to shine down between the buildings. It was a fading crescent, not really bright enough to compete with the city itself, but it was enough to change the shadows. "I'm not your damned errand boy."

"You've never been my anything; you made that clear enough." Oh, there'd been some bitterness in that. Tony winced at his tone. He hadn't meant to let that out, but he'd had too long to brood on it, and Steve had a way of bringing out all sorts of things in him. "Never mind. Are you going to help me, or do I need to do this on my own? Pick fast, Rogers, I don't have time to play games."

Moonlight picked out the blue in Steve's eyes while the city played with his hair, and that was just unfair. Even nature hated him. "Why aren't you dead? We all saw you fall and hit. You couldn't have survived that."

"That's a bit of a personal question. Do you happen to have terrier in your background, or is it an Army boy thing?" Steve glared, and that made things easier. It was always easier to keep from ravishing Steve when it would start a fight. Not easy, because Steve really had been built for the bedroom, but easier. "Answer my question and I'll answer yours. Unrepentant bastard's honor."

Slowly, Steve shook his head. "I'm not agreeing to anything until I know the whole story."

Tony closed his eyes. He hadn't expected that to hurt. Had some part of him actually thought Steve would agree, though? He must have, he reasoned. After all, he'd tried, when he should have known better. "Then I guess I've inconvenienced you for nothing. I'll let Pepper know that you need tickets back to New York."

"So that's it? You dragged me three thousand miles and now you're just going to send me back?" Steve's voice picked up in volume, unreasonably indignant, as if he were the one being refused. "What game are you playing at? What's going on?"

"God, you think this is some sort of game? Because I enjoy this?" Anger rose in Tony's throat, thick and palpable in a way it had never been before. He could smell Steve's irritation, just on the edge of rage. It made his teeth ache. "Maybe I just want your word that you won't take my head off before I tell you anything."

In retrospect, that had been the wrong thing to say. Canvas ripped in the night as Steve took the shield out of its bag. It gleamed, even with so few light sources. Tony knew it wasn't sharpened, but there was a lot of damage it could do with enough force. "Tell me why I would want to take your head off, if you're really Tony Stark."

It was much less romantic than, say, bodices ripping, but Tony was already in enough trouble to worry about non-existent bodices. "You're a little quick to violence, Cap. I'm just covering my bases. Resurrection's only a one-time deal, I'm sure you know."

"I don't know! You've got thirty seconds to explain."

A footstep crunched overhead. Tony froze. Steve didn't seem to hear it, and wasn't that strange, having sharper senses than Captain America. It didn't matter. "No I don't. We're out of time."

"What—"

"Shut up." The footstep didn't sound again, but if Tony could hear them, they could hear him, especially with Steve being so loud. They'd have been watching the Ultimates, waiting for Tony to contact them.

For the first time in his life, Tony felt unintelligent. He'd played right into their hands. They wouldn't be stupid enough to attack Steve, but they'd sure as hell use him against Tony. There were worse things they could do than kill him. Tony couldn't risk it.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. "I'll find you again if you stay in town." Too fast for Steve's eyes to follow, he turned and sped off down the alley. Overhead, footsteps paced him, not bothering to keep quiet. They knew that he knew they were there—there was no point in sneaking. Steve shouted after him, loud enough that people the next street over were probably already calling the police.

Tony hit a wall, rough-hewn and old enough to provide finger-holds, and scaled it, the soles of his boots scraping against the brick. If he could move fast enough, his fingers didn't have time to lose their grip. His hat dropped back into the alley—it had held on through his run, but climbing was too much for it. There was a moment of silence and then a thud as his stalker leaped the alley just as Tony reached the flat top of the building.

She crouched low, dark clothes blending into the shadows, but not enough to hide her. It would take more than that now, and they both knew it. "Tony, Tony, Tony. You're still running? I would have thought you'd have wised up by now." The moonlight was brighter up here, catching the red highlights in her short brown curls. Normally, Tony would have loved a chance to wrestle with an athletic woman, but he could smell worse than blood on her and it turned his stomach. "Smartest man in the world and you just don't know when to quit."

"I'd say that I know when the stakes are too high to fold."

"You're a little slow tonight, baby." Sharp white teeth filled her mouth as she grinned, stepping to the side like a predator about to pounce. "Not eaten yet? Blood a little cold?"

"I'd say that's my business, isn't it?" He turned to keep her in sight as she circled, moving away from the edge of the building with every step.

Even so, he wasn't ready when she surged forward, fist swinging. He dodged out under her arm, but she came so close to landing a blow that his cheek stung. Buttons popped and scattered as he ripped open his shirt, pulling out a thumbnail-sized flash bomb from the slim pouch strapped around his waist. He had just enough time to cover his eyes before the roof lit up like photographer's studio for a sustained ten seconds, three times brighter than noon light. Heat seared his photo-sensitive skin, but it was only one of the low-UV bombs, enough to sting but not enough to make him blister.

His attacker wasn't so lucky.

She screamed, hunching over and scrabbling at her face as the light seared her eyes. Red welled up behind her fingers where the delicate veins were shattered trying to compensate for the burst. Tony fought the urge to do rub his own eyes—even with them covered, it had been bright enough to give him a monumental headache.

The girl hit her knees, her wails fading into sobs as her body started to heal the damage. He didn't have long. The rooftop offered precious few options, and he'd lost his hat, but improvisation had always been his forté. Metal groaned and then snapped as he pulled one of the blades off the air intake fan.

Two chops were all it took, the muffled thunk of meat and bone almost easy to miss under the sound of cars in the distance. Dull metal couldn't cut through a neck easily, but enough force could make anything into a guillotine. Her head rolled off to the side, eyes still open, but shriveling fast. Decay set in almost immediately, days of deterioration drying skin and turning eyeballs into raisins. The faint, unmistakable crackle of flesh withering sounded impossibly loud, even with the noise of the city as a background static.

Another set of footsteps scuffled the rooftop. Tony turned to see Steve silhouetted by the glow of the city. It must have taken him time to find a way up. Probably by climbing; his shield was slung over his back. Tony straightened, resolutely pulling his eyes from the corpse.

Steve's hand rested on the straps of his shield, one bad joke away from doing something regrettably permanent. "What did you just do?"

Tony groaned and finally gave in to the urge to rub his eyes. This was going to be a long night, and he still had to eat. "I suppose you won't accept, 'kill a villainous vampire thug' as an acceptable answer, will you?" At his feet, the body wrinkled and shrunk as advanced decomposition took effect. By morning, it would be only a skeleton, centuries old by carbon dating and miraculously well-preserved.

"No."

"I'll try to think of a convincing lie, then."
***
Steve's room at the Garden Inn was tidy, but it didn't have anything close to the luxury of the Hilton. Tony crossed his arms as he looked around. The furniture was upholstered in classic eau de hotel floral patterns that only achieved acceptability by being done in muted greens, rather than the significantly less popular yet more prevalent glaring oranges. The bedspread matched, as did the cheap print on the wall. It was as if the decorator had hired an artist specifically to match the sofa. "Pepper reserved a perfectly good hotel room for you. This is a Best Western, for God's sake."

"Potts reserved a room under the name Roger Stevens. Do you really think that would fool anyone?" Steve rested his shield beside the bed, sentimental old thing that he was, and shrugged off his light jacket. Back and shoulder muscles slid smoothly under taut flesh, impossible to hide under anything so simple as a long-sleeved t-shirt. "It made sense to have something less obvious. I didn't know how dangerous this mission would be."

"The answer is 'not very'. For you, at least." Tony stayed close to the door and tried to keep his ogling subtle. Life wasn't fair, but Steve's jean-clad backside evened the score wonderfully. It was not the time for that, or so he tried to tell himself. His libido begged to disagree, but for once it wasn't allowed a majority vote. "It would take people significantly more insane than this to attack Captain America with anything less than an army or two. You're safe."

"And you have to take girls' heads off." Steve didn't sit. He just leaned back against the wall that separated the vanity mirror from what was nominally a bedroom. Tony chalked it up to a primal dominance thing. "With a fan blade."

He missed letting Steve be primal and dominant—it was something Steve did very well. "The razor wire was in my hat band." He tipped the hat in question. The western look had never been one Tony aspired to, but when in Rome...

"You said vampires." They'd managed to avoid talking exactly about this thing on the cab ride back. Carl had been confused, but happy enough to have the hundred dollar bill that Tony slipped him that he hadn't asked about the stains on Tony's shirt. "Tell me why I shouldn't slap cuffs on you for murder."

"Why, Steve, I didn't know you were into that." Humor did not add levity to the situation. Tony remembered to breathe and leaned back against the wall, mirroring Steve's cross-armed stance. It was all about appearances. "What do you know about them?"

"They worked with the Nazis, back in the war. Liked to attack the wounded, but they'd eat anyone that they could take down." Steve's hand rose, toying with a thin chain of gold around his neck. The cross the dangled from it was tiny, almost miss-able, and usually hidden away. Tony had always thought it a surprisingly feminine piece for Captain America. "Decapitation kills them. So does fire, but they burn just like most humans, and they can do a lot of damage before they're down."

Tony hadn't known about fire, but it made sense. Fire killed just about anything when it burned hot enough. Theoretically, even Johnny Storm could be taken out with a hot enough flame. "You have the general idea. What you don't know is that they're organized. The leaders are called The Council, probably for some pithy reason that makes historians slap their legs and pass on the joke. It's a group of ten. Most of them saw Rome in its heyday. The oldest probably used to eat mammoth meat for dinner. They've been around for about three millennia, long before monotheism caught on." Steve just watched while Tony spoke, expression neutral. It made Tony feel oddly like he was making a pitch to a new investor. CEOs wore that same expression when they were calculating risks. "As far as I've been able to tell, they've had a thumb in every Figgie Pudding since, digging out the plums. And now they're getting tired of hiding."

"So what does that have to do with what happened in L.A.?" It looked like that was a bone Steve wasn't going to let go of. "If they're out to finish what Hitler started, why didn't you tell us?"

"Because they're not after any of you. They're after me." Tony took off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. It was longer now—he'd let it grow since he died, to better hide in areas where expensive haircuts weren't the norm. And he could let it grow. There was no chemotherapy to take it out, patch by patch. "I'm too high-profile. If I went back to New York, or let the Ultimates in on what's happening, it would be all over the news in time for the six o'clock. I couldn't risk being exposed like that."

"How did you survive?" There was definitely terrier of some sort in the Rogers family tree, Tony noted in disgust. "Even if the fall didn't kill you, you sure as hell didn't fly out. Search and rescue had that place covered. Someone would have seen you."

"I walked," Tony tried, meeting Steve's eyes boldly. "The Iron Man suit is capable of holding up under water. It wasn't hard."

"You only had an hour of air. We were ten miles out, and your suit was damaged." Realization wiped the dogged expression off Steve's face. He positively went pale with shock. White stucco scraped against his shirt as he sagged backward. "You didn't survive, did you? You're one of them." He said the word them as if it needed to be spat.

"Bravo, sir. You've figured it out." Tony smiled broadly, but without humor, letting his brand-new fangs show for the first time. They weren't too noticeably larger than the rest of his teeth, but they didn't need to be in order to draw blood. Being razor-sharp was enough for that. "Yes, I'm one of them, as you so aptly phrased it. As an alternative to being a pancake at the bottom of the Pacific, I find it a wonderful thing. Possibly the best life-style choice I've made yet."

Steve's fingers twitched as if he wanted to reach for his shield. "Tell me why I shouldn't take you down right now?"

A small piece of Tony went cold inside. Of course, he'd been braced for this, or thought he had. One did not become walking undead without people looking at you differently, and Steve was always slow to adapt in small yet significant ways. That didn't stop it from hurting a surprising amount when Steve's weight shifted into a slightly more threatening stance. "I'm not a danger to anyone, Steve. I've gone all night without ripping out a single throat. Doesn't that tell you something?"

"Yeah. It tells me that maybe you know how to play it up. You always were good at playing with people." Muscles rippled under Steve's plain red shirt, making Tony's libido sit up and take interest. Its timing was abominable. When it came to Steve, it usually was. "How many people do you kill every night, Tony? Do you go after street people, or do you just pick up a girl from a bar?"

"Dear God, did you even listen to a word I said?" Tony didn't grind his teeth, knowing that it would be taken as more of a threat than it actually was. At least Steve was predictable that way. "I don't kill people. I'm a vampire, not a monster."

"You have to eat." There were few things quite as annoying at Captain America at his stubborn best. He took a step forward, chest out, but—thank God—didn't reach for a weapon. He hadn't placed Tony firmly in the Threat category, then. "And you eat human blood, don't even pretend you don't hurt anyone."

"Yes, I eat human blood, and I find that my stomach is surprisingly not large enough to hold nine pints at a go. Not even enough to bleed a human out." Tony took his own step forward, careful to be human-slow, not willing to be cowed. Since the change he was probably strong enough to take Steve in a wrestling match, but in a fight to the finish he wouldn't stand a chance. Tony didn't want it to come down to that, but letting Steve bully him was out of the question. "Maybe one, on a bad day, and that's just about what a blood bank will take."

Steve didn't look convinced, but of course he didn't. It would be a cold day in Hell before Steve believed something that he was dead set against. In a year of trying, Tony hadn't even been able to make him admit that maybe he was more than heterosexual. Tony really didn't want to think about that one. The chance that Steve was heterosexual, and Tony had just been a pretty way to pass the time after Jan, wasn't a pleasant one. He'd been used for sex before and quite enjoyed it, but coming from Steve, it would hurt.

That was what he got for getting attached. Clearly, Natasha had taught him nothing.

Three steps at lightning speed put Tony in Steve's personal space, close enough to feel the warmth radiating off of him. His stomach cramped, reminding him sharply that his last meal had been small and more than twenty four hours past. To his credit, Steve didn't move, either to escape or to grab a weapon when he found Tony nose to nose with him.

"What do you want from me?" Tony demanded. Warm breath washed over his skin as Steve breathed, a steady human intake and exhale that sounded oddly loud in close quarters. Even Steve's heartbeat was too loud, as if making up for strength now when it had been lacking before the Super Soldier treatments. They hadn't been this close in six months, and somehow he'd forgotten how tempting Steve could be. He had the sort of body that the men on the covers of romance novels only aspired to. "Do you want a signed fucking confession? Maybe for me to starve myself crazy to suit your damned priggish morality? Or should I have turned them down and just let myself die?"

"You couldn't have known you'd fall!" Good, solid military boots bumped the toes of Tony's affected cowboy boots, bringing them close enough that Steve's chest brushed his. Maybe this hadn't been such a brilliant move, after all. "Or was that faked too? Corrosion in the wiring, or just Tony Stark picking his moment?"

"No, you know, I couldn't have known I'd take a dive into the Pacific." He kept his eyes on Steve's—it was either that or look down, and Steve would take that as a sign of dishonesty. He was the kind of man who made judgments based on a firm handshake, and Tony had learned to fake a firm handshake by age ten. It also kept him from thinking too much about the blood running under Steve's skin—what it would taste like, how it would feel to have Steve's body pressed against his as he drank him down... "But I did know about the damned tumor. It was just a happy accident that I died before that finished running its course. It would be a lot harder to come back after a big public hospitalization."

"You didn't want to die."

"For once, no." He needed Steve to believe him, if only because they'd been friends, once. Perhaps it was selfish, but Tony wanted that back, even if it came without the benefits he'd grown accustomed to.

Steve stared at him measuringly, and then dropped his eyes. "Stop it. It's not— you can't seduce me into believing you. Back off."

Tony blinked and straightened from where he'd been nearly pinning Steve to the wall. About ninety percent of him objected. Steve was warm, and he smelled delicious, and had even before Tony had died. "Pardon me?"

"You don't need to—" Steve swallowed. His heart rate picked up, beating just a split-second faster, enough to ping the edge of Tony's senses. Dark pupils expanded, eating away at the ring of his irises. "I believe you. I think. Now move."

That was either an opportunity or a challenge, and Tony hadn't gotten where he had by ignoring either. "Why, Steve," Tony smiled and closed the distance between them again. Warm, hard muscle pressed against him as Tony all but shoved Steve back against the wall. He settled between Steve's thighs, pressed close from hip to chest. Steve was hard, the thick length of him an obvious bulge through his jeans. "You used to like me like this. Or did you pick up a girlfriend to play with, since I wasn't around to warm your bed?"

There went the jaw, stubborn and stiff, a signal flag for Steve's moods. "That's none of your business."

That hurt. "No, I guess it’s not. It never was, was it?" From so close, he could smell thick musk of Steve's arousal, and under it the copper temptation of his blood. Tony made himself move away while he still could. "I should go. As you so cleverly pointed out, I need to eat, and you don't seem very eager to oblige."

He waited, half-hoping and half-dreading that Steve would offer, but he wouldn't even meet Tony's eyes again. "Fine. Go eat, and then let me know what you want from me."

Tony knew exactly what he wanted from Steve. Funny, even after six months apart, he hadn't gotten used to not being able to have it. He drank in the sight of Steve one more time, then turned and walked out the door without bothering with a goodbye.
***
Hot, coppery blood rolled over Tony's tongue, one sip at a time. The poor night watchman who was providing Tony's repast groaned, but the knot on his head was enough to keep him unconscious. Tony lifted his head from the man's elbow and licked his lips clean as he finished. It was times like this that he wished vampirism were a little more magically inclined, as in fiction, at least enough to erase the evidence from his meal's skin, but the best he could do was numb the bite.

It was possibly the least satisfying meal he'd ever had. He could still feel a ghost of Steve against his skin. What was it about the man that even when he was an absolute ass, he had a way of being unforgettable? He wasn't decent enough to make a clean break of it, and he was too decent to do something horrific enough to allow Tony to move on.

Tony wrapped the guard's jacket around his elbow and applied pressure, waiting for the anticoagulant to give way to nature. It didn't take long for the bleeding to stop—he'd been careful not to bite too deeply, or to nick a major vein. When he was sure that his donor would be none the worse for wear, he tucked the body under one of the collections of low-lying scrub that masqueraded as topiary decoration. He'd been guarding a corporate building, which meant he'd be noticed as missing soon enough, and on his way either home or to a hospital in under an hour.

This part of the city was hardly asleep at any given time, even going on three in the morning. It wasn't quite downtown, but it definitely wasn't as shady as the area he'd led Steve to. Cars passed by at a regular pace, and Tony was hardly the only person on the sidewalk. It wasn't New York, Las Vegas or any one of the other metropolitan areas that ran on a famed twenty four hour schedule, but it was still a busy place. It was the easiest thing in the world to duck out from behind the bank and saunter off, brazen and unnoticed.

What he wanted, more than anything, even more than Steve, was a drink. The world snapped into focus when viewed from the bottom of the bottle, and still stayed at a distance enough that it could be handled safely. Nothing hurt quite so much when he had alcohol buzzing through his system, lifting him up for the next round of the endless bout between himself and Life.

There had to be at least two or three bars still open, and even more all-night liquor stores. It wouldn't be high quality alcohol, but it would get a body drunk. Or, rather, it would get any body but his drunk. The one time he'd tried, the pain had been brutal, and he'd been incapacitated for almost three whole nights from just a single swallow. No doubt it there some sort of irony in that—it took dying to sober Tony Stark up. The tabloids would love it.

Not being able to imbibe didn't stop the craving, though. The need went deeper than the new one for blood. It was an addiction that he'd had years to hard-wire into his body. A few months and a new thirst weren't enough to wipe it away completely. That would take years, if he was lucky. Unlucky, he might never be rid of it, an anchor around his neck that pulled him down to the bottom of the nearest glass, even though it hurt.

He should head back to Steve's quaint little hotel room, with its dollar-store prints and chintzy luxury, to try and find a way to put his life back in order. Instead he wandered onward along sand-crusted sidewalks, taking turns at random and keeping away from the brighter lights of true downtown. Normally, there'd be a bar, or a dance club, with some sweet thing who had no idea what sort of creature she was dancing with. Tonight, though, he wanted solitude, to absorb Steve's rejection.

When he'd accepted the offer from Ezrabet, he'd known that there was more to it. No matter how idealistic, secret organizations didn't simply offer people immortality just because they'd had a couple of ideas and made a few trillion dollars. But he'd been coming off the news from the doctor and had been desperate not to die. It had been worth the risk. One thing that Tony never shook, even when he was at his lowest, was the conviction that he could take whatever was thrown at him, and defeat it head-on.

He hadn't accounted for the attacks that would come from behind. It was a hard night when Tony Stark found himself brokenhearted.

It had been a ridiculous idea, to stay faithful when Steve thought he was dead. A pretty dream, when Steve had been clear that they weren't involved in anything so tasteful as a relationship. Clearly Steve hadn't changed his mind just because Tony had died. He'd practically admitted that he'd moved on, re-rooted himself in the good old heterosexual tradition of men and women, and forgotten that one Tony Stark had ever had a place in his bed. Tony wasn't used to having the tables turned on him—wasn't used to being the one to long, rather than being the object of it. He rather hoped he hadn't left any of his own bedmates feeling this way. If he had, he owed them an endless cascade of apologies.

What he really needed was a new flame. Maybe a curvy little brunette to wash the taste of Steve from his mouth. Someone who wouldn't take staying through the night as a mistake, rather than the splendid opportunity it was.

He was so wrapped in his thoughts that this time he missed the shadow that paced him above, and the sound of the cars next to his ear drowned out any tell-tale scuff that might have given it away. Gravel crunched under his boot as he crossed through a back alley, dodging around the behemoth dumpsters that littered the lane like monuments to the public utility system.

A giggle was the only warning he got.

Tony dived for the cover of a dumpster, but not fast enough. Something caught him in the temple, cracking loud enough that his ears rang with it. Pain skinned through his palms as he hit his knees, gravel slicing his hands open. The walls were high and solid brick—no one would notice a fight back here soon enough to call the police, and any human that got in the way was as good as dead.

Three of them ringed him, two men and a woman. They were learning. "Hello, little Tony. Daddy sends his regards." A boot connected to his jaw, sending him sprawling backwards in the dirt. He stayed where he'd fallen, staring up at the star-studded sky. It was impossible to tell which one was speaking—one of the men, but his head was still swimming too much to pinpoint which. The healing factor hadn't kicked in yet, and it wouldn't be nearly quick enough if they did him heavy damage. That had been an unpleasant discovery of less than a month ago.

"It can't have been that easy," the woman said. Her long, ruler-straight blonde hair fell over her shoulders as she peered down at him. "He took out Jessica. And Tobias."

"Luck." The toe of a boot slammed into his ribs, hard enough to leave no doubt that they were broken. Tony jerked with the blow and curled around his stomach, cheek scraping itself raw on the rocks. "He's not even six months old. They got cocky."

His jaw popped as the healing started, finally. "Hate— hate to disappoint you, sweetheart." Tony palmed one of his miniaturized flash bombs. Blessed little things had saved his non-life enough times that he was considering giving them pet names. He flung it into the air. "Think fast!"

The bullet-sized grenade rose overhead in a graceful arc. Like the snakes they were, the vampires' heads snapped around to follow it. Tony realized his mistake just as the bomb hit the top of its arc. He scrambled for the leeward side of the closest dumpster, slamming his forearm over his eyes. The grenade exploded, just as effectively as its brother had earlier that night. Screams rose from his attackers as the UV-saturated light seared them. Tony hunched over in the shadow of the dumpster, back against the metal and face pressed into his knees. The skin on the nape of his neck tightened and blistered as the light reached it. He covered it, but that only left his hands exposed. The rest of him was covered enough to be safe for a short burst, and the flare wasn't sustained enough to kill him, but it burned.

The second the flare dimmed, he uncurled from his hidey hole and sprinted down the alley as fast as his snapped ribs would allow. Porch lights were flickering to life on either side, neighbors woken by the screams and the lights. If his attackers had any brains at all, they'd run off to lick their wounds somewhere private, far away from anywhere the police might look.

Safety. He needed safety. Any place to hide. The predator in him knew too well that a wounded hunter was just another type of prey. As he crept off into the desert night, it all coalesced into one driving thought.

Steve.
***
The door slammed closed, so loudly that the walls shook and people in the rooms on either side complained through the walls. Steve pushed up on his elbows and flipped the switch on the bedside lamp. At first, he didn't see anything. Then he sat up farther and saw the top of a dark head, curled up against the door. "Tony?"

"Hurts." Tony looked up from his crouch. The entire left side of his face was mottled black and blue, stretching from his neck up to his hairline. One eye was swelling, though not enough to be shut, and blood dribbled from a nostril. "Sorry. Didn't mean to wake you. Needed..."

His eyes weren't focusing, Steve realized as he scrambled from bed. Could vampires get concussions? Apparently so, he decided, judging by the way Tony seemed to be staring three inches to the left of him. When the clock had rolled over to three, he'd assumed Tony wasn't coming back. He should have known that something had gone wrong. "Don't move. I'll get some cloths."

"No!" Fresh blood trickled out of Tony's nose, catching in his goatee. "Healing factor. Comes with the territory. I'll be fine. Morning. Maybe Monday."

He looked ready to fall over, and there was no missing the way he held his ribs. Steve ignored his protests and got wash cloths from the rack in the bathroom, along with the traveling first aide kit he kept in his duffle. "I'm taking a look at you. So shut up or leave, if you can."

Tony glared out of his good eye, but didn't even try to prove himself capable of standing, much less leaving. That alone told Steve how bad it was. Usually Tony's ego was enough to have him try, even if he gave up. This time there wasn't even a smartass remark. He knelt over Tony's knees, keeping him pinned in place, and lifted his jaw to inspect the damage to his face. The bruising was deep red-purple, the kind that went down to the bone, and spread back into his hair over a good portion of his skull. Red, dirt-crusted scrapes were hidden by the swelling. He swabbed at them with a cold washcloth as best he could, holding Tony's face still when he hissed and jerked away. "You're lucky this jaw isn't broken."

"Was." Tony closed his eyes and let Steve manhandle him. "Healed on the way here. Mostly. Don't worry, I wouldn't deprive you of the dulcet tones of my voice. Punctured lung, too. Ribs still hurt."

There had to be enough dirt in his wounds for another desert. Steve did his best, first with the cloth, then with an antiseptic wipe when the crusted grime was gone. "Cracked ribs, concussion, punctured lung, lacerations—what else, Tony?"

Tony's eyes stayed closed as he sagged forward. He wasn't even breathing. A second of panic hit Steve before he remembered that Tony wouldn't breathe anymore, except when he wanted to. Then he finally took a pained breath. "UV damage to my hands and the back of my neck—only second degree. More lacerations on my back, but I think those are healing. And I do believe that I'm choking on my piece of humble pie."

Steve finished as best he could with Tony's face and sat back to look at his hands. "God!"

"Yeah, not so pretty, is it?" Tony wriggled his fingers against Steve's palms. The skin on the back of his hands was bright red and already peeling back like the skin of a boiled tomato. Parts of the skin of his knuckles were split open down to the bone, the edges of the burns faintly stiff with char. Even as he watched, the edges sealed together, like a time-sped video. When he blinked, it was a little less gruesome. "Grabbed the wrong flash. Didn't have time to take cover before it went off."

"What the hell happened to you?" The scissors were at the bottom of the kit. Only patience kept Steve from dumping it outright to get at them. Tony didn't even flinch when he started taking off the dead skin. "I thought you went out to eat."

"I did. Got jumped." Tony's weight shifted progressively more forward, until his uninjured cheek was resting against Steve's head. "Three of 'em. Didn't think they'd send another so quick."

"The Council?" The dead skin went inside a ziplock—it wasn't a biohazard bag, but it would have to do. Tony did hiss when he started cleaning the burn with antiseptic, but he only tried to pull away once. "You haven't told me everything. Why are they after you?"

"Dunno. Just are." Tony's breathing faded again, but Steve could feel him flinching every time he made a swipe over the burn. He did the best he could, but he wasn't a nurse, and there was no such thing as a manual of field dressings for vampires. His experience had always been in causing the injury. Normally, he'd be worried about shock, but as far as he knew, blood pressure didn't mean anything to a person without a steady heartbeat.

When Tony's hands were clean and bandaged, Steve tried to shift away, only to find that Tony shifted with him. "Tony, let me up, I need to look at your back."

"No."

"Tony..." Steve pushed him back upright, ignoring Tony's groan of complaint as he stripped off the shredded remnants of his dress shirt. There was nothing left of the back of it but scraps, and not even enough of those to make a dishrag. "Can you stand up? How are your ribs?"

"My ribs are fine, for now." Tony pushed off of Steve's shoulders with his bandaged hands, then dropped immediately back to the floor. His boot heels scraped over the carpet as they slid back down between Steve's thighs. "But I'm afraid I can't stand."

Steve sat back on his heels and gave Tony a once-over. If anything, he looked worse than when he'd arrived. The scrapes had crusted over with scabs, and the bruising had taken on the mottled green of healing wounds. But his eyes still didn't focus when he opened them, and he was opening them a lot less. "Okay. Hold on."

It took some careful maneuvering, but he managed to get Tony stretched out face down on the floor. As soon as Steve saw the mess of his back, he winced. The back of Tony's neck was bright red, thankfully not as badly burned as his hands, but enough that the skin was already bubbling like a bad sunburn. Under that, his shoulders looked like ground hamburger, the smooth gold stretch of his skin broken by large swathes of dirt-crusted meat. The shoulder blades were the worst. They'd been scraped down to muscle, and tiny bits of gravel were half-healed inside the wounds. Setting his jaw, Steve grabbed another washcloth and got to work.

He needed the better part of two hours to get Tony's back taken care of. He tried to pull the debris out as quickly as he could, but enough of it had healed under the skin that Steve had to use a penknife to slice some places back open. Sometime during it, Tony passed out, or at least stopped whimpering. He couldn't wrap his ribs without Tony's help, but he wasn't sure his ribs would need wrapping by the time Tony was awake enough to sit up. When sunlight started to creep through the window, he carried Tony over to the closet, which had a solid sliding door. It would keep him safe enough.

After that, all that was left was to wait, and maybe find out for himself what Tony wasn't telling him. He made sure Tony was safe from the sun, then reached for the phone.

Carl had all four windows rolled down when he pulled into the parking lot outside the hotel. Somewhere he'd acquired a Yankees ball cap, and it looked like he'd driven through a carwash. The desert had already started to dust the white and yellow sides of his cab though, dulling the shiny new wax job. "Hey, where's your friend?" he yelled, leaning out the window. "You two are paying my rent!"

Steve slid into the cab, his shield securely tucked beside him. For being only just past 0800, it was already ridiculously bright outside. The sun had achieved a white-hot glare that he hadn't seen since the last disastrous time the Ultimates had visited the Middle East.

Remembering Carl's driving, Steve buckled in. "He's sleeping it off. I need you to take me to the nearest library."

"Well, you've got two options there, brother." Carl turned around in his seat, elbow resting on the headrest. "The closest library's a rinky-dink thing. But for five miles more, I can get you to the big one. Anything you need by way of books, you'll find there."

"And an internet connection?"

"Whole floor that's nothing but computers."

Vinyl seats creaked as Steve sat back. "That one, then." Tony would be fine, and he needed to find out what was going on before he decided what to do about anything.
***
Tony smelled Steve before he opened the door. The sun was still up—drifting towards the western horizon, but not yet hidden by the mountains. It would be an hour at least before he could risk going outside. If he closed his eyes, he could feel it hanging overhead, a sword of Damocles waiting for him to risk it. His back still stung, but with the dull urgency of the almost-healed, rather than the crippling.

UV burns were the worst. The skin had healed, but it was tender and dry, and likely to stay that way. When his rib had punctured his lung, he'd lost his entire dinner and then some extra hacking the blood from it. Until he replaced that, he'd be in no condition to take on anything, much less an evil corporation of vampires bent on no doubt nefarious plots.

The door clicked shut with all the grace of a rampaging rhinoceros, but at least Steve was making an effort to avoid annoying the neighbors. They'd had enough trouble the night before, with the banging and Tony managing to cough up a copious amount of blood on their welcome mat. Steve's scent filled the room, the warm tang of leather and the oil he used to keep his shield clean, sweat, skin, and under it all the hot copper of his blood. Tony whimpered and hid his face in his knees.

Steve was not food. He would never be food, and Tony was an idiot to ever think of sinking a single tooth into him. No doubt, the moment he tried, Steve would throw him through one of the incredibly thin walls, and then he'd find himself explaining to the newspapers what he was doing holed up in a cozy little hotel room with one Steve Rogers, far away from his supposed eternal resting place. It would make for wonderful print, but Tony didn't fancy trying to regain Steve's regard afterwards.

If Steve even had any regard for him left. No, Tony would likely find himself having to regain Steve's friendship by going through whatever girlfriend he'd caged for himself. He wondered who Steve had found. Maybe that Sharon girl, or one of the lovely operatives that worked for SHIELD. He might even have hooked up with Janet again, though if that had happened, Tony would have to call in someone's grandmother to have a stern talk to the entire team.

He tried to stop thinking about such depressing matters, but they flashed through his head anyway, Steve with the spunky little number who worked as Fury's receptionist, when he felt like having a receptionist. Or maybe another blonde, to try and match Steve—in bed, at least, and Tony would cheerfully sign an affidavit testifying to Steve's superiority there. Odes could be written to his flexibility, and he was the only man Tony had ever met who was strong enough to pin him against a wall.

Vodka. He needed vodka. Or at least some cheap whiskey. Even if it did feel like it was eating his intestines from the inside, at least it would be something to focus on other than Steve's probable sexcapades.

"Tony." Something heavy smacked against the carpet, then shuffled. "Tony, are you awake?" The closet door creaked open. Steve had acquired a smear of dust along his forehead, and he looked like he hadn't slept yet. But that wasn't what held Tony's attention. Instead of the faint, burning light of day, the hotel room was completely dark. Not even a sliver of sunlight touched his skin.

"I'm awake— what did you do, turn off the sun?" He eased out of his corner, wincing when his back protested the movement. "I'm really very flattered, but I think the citizens of Phoenix might object. They're rather fond of their daylight for some reason."

"Blackout curtains and duct tape." Steve grabbed Tony's wrist and lifted him up off the floor with as much ease as a normal man might lift a stuffed animal. "I didn't want to take any chances, and we need to talk."

Tony slumped against the wall and stared at him, then shook his head in disgust. "That statement never bodes well." His stomach fair roiled with hunger, telling him that there was an absolutely wonderful source of food right there and all he needed to do was pin him down and take it. But no—Steve wouldn't stay pinned for long, and no matter how tasty he might be, it wasn't worth Tony's unlife. He'd gone through too much trouble preserving it to risk for a quick snack. "What is it we need to talk about? I thought we'd covered everything. Evil vampires likely bent on some sort of world domination, only mostly dead, et cetera ad nauseum." Tony risked easing out into the main room. When horrible agony failed to strike him down, he let himself collapse across the king sized bed. "We'll just finish up this business and get back to our lives. You and your new lady-love will be very happy, I'm sure."

"What are you talking about?" Steve turned on a lamp and sat on the foot of the bed, making Tony's legs dip towards him. If they'd been at the Hilton, that wouldn't have been a problem. As it was, he made the best of a terribly cheap situation and propped his feet on Steve's thigh. "That doesn't have anything to do with this."

"Your new amour certainly doesn't have anything to do with anything, and yet I find myself dwelling. I hope you at least waited for my corpse to grow cold." Alright, perhaps Tony was a tad bitter. He wasn't in a hurry to castigate himself for it. He was trapped in a cheap hotel room with a man who was the pinnacle of perfection, and he wouldn't even have the opportunity to rumple the tasteless yet colorful sheets a bit. That was truly a crime of some sort. Gross negligence, maybe. "Who is she? I'm sure you'd only settle for the best."

He could taste Steve's frustration on the back of his tongue, and that certainly was new. "You're being ridiculous. Not that it's your business, but I don't have any new girlfriend. I've been busy."

Tony rolled over, eying Steve. The man could convince ducks to fly north for winter, but he was much too honorable to lie about something like a relationship. Except for a relationship with a male, but no doubt that fell under some archaic double-standard that Tony wasn't familiar with. He certainly looked like he was being serious. "You're not."

"Not even a date."

In the blink of an eye, Tony found his spirits lifting tremendously. So he still had an uphill climb back into Steve's affections, but at least there was an open spot for him. He hated to be the catty ex-girlfriend who couldn't let go of a good thing. He slid down the bed, letting his knees hook loosely around Steve's waist. "If not your romantic inclinations, then, what is it of which we need to speak?"

Steve crossed his arms, the sheaf of papers under his elbow crinkling as they were bent. That was a worse sign than even the phrase 'we need to talk'. It meant that he'd discovered something that disagreed with him, and it wasn't likely to be the abysmal state of the restaurants hereabouts. "How long have you been in town?"

"Pardon?" Sitting up stretched his back terribly, but it was better by far than letting Steve tower over him. Never give the man an advantage. "Three weeks, give or take a few days."

"Then what's this about?" The papers dropped down into Tony's lap. They were crisp, white copies of newspaper articles printed offline, fresh enough from the printer that they hadn't yet acquired the soft look of paper that had been handled. Tony flipped through them. Mysterious death, corpse found drained of blood, perfectly preserved one hundred year-old skeleton found in the desert... The articles dated back six months.

"It looks perfectly normal to me." He could feel Steve's glare on the back of his scalded neck, but didn't bother to look up. Steve had managed to print off part of a crossword that he hadn't seen before. Eleven letters, something that is done repeatedly over time... "Why do you think I'm in this city? It's their head of operations on the west coast, and has been since the eighteen hundreds. Of course there's been strange happenings. Did you bother to look any farther back? Say, a year? A decade?"

Silence told him everything he needed to know.

"Thank you for your trust. I'm touched." In disgust, Tony swung his legs off of Steve's lap and sat up. The stomach cramps were becoming constant as the scent of Steve's blood tickled his senses. He needed to put some space between them, before he did something that he would likely not have time to regret. "Did you do anything else of interest today? Perhaps stock up on sharpened stakes and holy water? That last isn't effective, but I can only assume that a piece of wood through the heart will be efficacious for most beings, undead and living alike."

"It wasn't like that—"

"Then what was it like, Steve? Speak up, I'm sure your explanation will be riveting."

Steve's eyes stayed fixed on the bedspread, as if the vaguely nauseating floral pattern were a thing with hypnotic powers. "I'm sorry."

Tony's eyebrows lifted. "Surely my ears deceive me? Is the great and mighty Captain America apologizing?"

"Don't be like that." Ah, that was the Steven Rogers he knew. Nice as it was, the meekness couldn't have lasted. "I should have trusted you, and I didn't. I'm sorry. Let it go, okay?"

It could have been dragged out. Tony could have taken that one little phrase and milked it for a month or more. But he was tired, hurt and hungry. Annoying Steve wouldn't bring enough joy to waste the spoons on. "Accepted."

"What?" This time, it was Steve's turn to be surprised. "Just like that?"

"Perhaps dying matured me." Tony held Steve's gaze, then gave up and laughed. "No, of course it didn't. I'm feeling magnanimous. Don't grow too attached to it."

For maybe the first time since meeting up in that wretched little alley, Steve smiled. It was grudging, but a real, honest smile that lit up his entire face. For the space of an entire breath, Tony saw the shadow of the idealistic kid who had signed away life and body to his country. Had he been breathing, he would have stopped.

He hungered.

That precious little quirk of the lip faded as Steve noticed his fixation. "What?"

Tony faced his dilemma. He could give in and deal with the consequences, both in terms of Steve's no doubt vivid revulsion and likely violence. Or he could be the responsible, grown adult he was supposed to be and restrain himself for a few more hours, leaving both his tentative connection with Steve and his neck intact. It would only be the right thing—the mature thing to do.

Who was he kidding?

Steve didn't even have time to protest before Tony had tossed him down onto the bed and straddled his hips. He rested one hand to either side of Steve's shoulders and grinned down. "I do believe I like being on equal terms here. It makes me wonder what else might have reached parity."

Blood pumped gently under Steve's skin, a pulse just at the edge of Tony's hearing. His heart rate picked up speed as color flushed up around his cheeks, and Tony swore he would never tire of seeing the American Super Soldier blush like a schoolboy. "Tony— this isn't the time..."

"Speaking for myself, I can't think of a better one." Aroused heat was already rising off of Steve's body. Tony took a moment to appreciate the differences between then and now. As a human, he'd never been quite so aware of anyone's responses before—he could taste Steve on the air, with a nose so sensitive that it was nearly a second set of eyes. If he were blindfolded and across the room, he'd be able to know exactly how much Steve wanted him. It was a bit gratifying to know that he could cage a reaction just by sitting on Steve and being himself.

His lips ran over Steve's jaw, scraping a day worth of stubble. The blood just under the skin pulsed invitingly, begging to be sampled. "As long as that sun's over yonder hill, I'm a little trapped, and we can't set about anything until it's down. We may as well catch up, don’t you think?"

"We could plan..." Breath hissed out between Steve's teeth, but his neck arched invitingly. Tony obliged by scraping his dull front teeth over the skin, suckling just hard enough to pull the blood to the surface. His stomach cramped again at the taste of it so close. "Or share intelligence... "

More stubble under Tony's lips, then a taste of coolness as his tongue snaked over Steve's lips—he must have had a mint earlier. "You talk too much." Their mouths pressed together, slow and gentle, like almost nothing else was between them. Mindful of his teeth, Tony was the first to part his lips, tongue snaking out to brush the tip of Steve's.

He'd missed it—the easy flow of it, the clink of Steve's belt buckle under his hands, the little trail of golden hair leading down his lower stomach like an arrow pointing to the Promised Land. His hand curled around Steve's cock, stroking it, exploring, letting his fingertips relearn the feel of him. It wasn't just sex—though the sex was very good—it was Steve. The curve of his back was stolen from the statue of some sort of Greek god, and the way his pupils blew wide with arousal was enough to make a lesser man weep for the beauty of him.

Now Tony was even more aware of every shuddered breath and choked-off moan. The hunger flared and faded away, driven under by more immediate needs. He slid his fingers under Steve's shirt, finding the chiseled grooves of his muscles and playing along them until he'd worked Steve's shirt high enough to bother taking it off.

Somehow in the process, they tumbled over. Pain radiated from his back, touching nerve endings Tony had never much thought about and setting them alight. He groaned, arching, torn between the ache between his shoulders and Steve's hands at his hips. Steve lifted up on his knees, leaving Tony free to squirm while Steve put his hands to good use stripping the battered remnants of Tony's jeans and boxers off his hips and down to his knees.

As soon as Tony kicked his legs free, he lifted them to hook around Steve's hips, using pure undead muscle strength to yank him down. Their hips rocked together, too dry and too hard, but not bad enough to make either of them stop. Someone groaned into the kiss, and Tony honestly couldn't say which one of them it was. It vibrated the air between them, tickled the back of Tony's throat with the taste of peppermint.

"There's no lube." Blunt nails dragged over Tony's chest and stomach. Each little scrape connected straight to his groin like four small lightning bolts. They never managed to break the kiss entirely, only slowing down enough for Steve to take a breath. Crisp linen rustled under them, bunching and twisting with every shift of their bodies together.

"And here I thought making do with limited resources was one of those things they teach in Captain America school." Tony's thighs flexed, forcing Steve back down against him. "Improvise, Soldier Boy."

In response, a large, warm hand wrapped around them, and the last of Tony's seldom-vaunted self control vanished. His arms snapped around Steve's shoulders, tugging him down. Barely a blink of time passed and Tony's teeth sunk into the meat of Steve's shoulder, slicing through flesh as clean as a knife. Hot blood flooded over Tony's tongue and down his throat a mouthful at a time. It was sweet, sweeter than blood had any right to be, and sharp like the after-taste of a good martini, tainted with the Super Soldier Serum.

Steve moaned, the sound high-pitched and surprised. He tried to jerk away, but Tony had locked his elbows and teeth in a death grip. Their hips rolled together, Steve's hand growing fumble-fingered as he pumped them together. Skin slid against skin, catching, precome not enough to slick the way completely.

Tony lost it first, falling back from Steve's shoulder with a choked groan as he came. Steve's hand sped up. He followed just a minute behind, forehead falling against Tony's chest as he shuddered.

Breathing wasn't necessary, but it felt good to have his lungs fill and empty. Already, Tony could feel Steve's blood going to work, tingling across his ribs and shoulders. He leaned up and licked a line over the red trail still seeping from Steve's shoulder. "Good improv. Nine point five out of ten. Next time, have lube."

Laughter brushed over his skin, little jerks of breath that felt absolutely wonderful in the aftermath. "You bit me," Steve accused, but somehow the edge of condemnation simply wasn't present in his voice. Tony thought he felt another smile against his collarbone. "In the shoulder. You didn't even bother trying to reach my neck."

"Of course I didn't." Long, smooth lines of back muscle arched under Tony's fingertips. He played along the line of Steve's spine, searching for the little knobs that were so prominent on his own back. On Steve, they were buried under a layer of muscle and almost impossible to feel, but sometimes it wasn't the discovery that counted. "The neck has the jugular vein. It would be too easy to sever, and I'm not some pop culture stereotype that leaves two pinpricks and a hickey. You'll have to heal the old-fashioned way."

Curses of disappointment caught on Tony's lips as Steve pulled away, letting cold air wash over the mess smeared on their stomachs. His fingers probed at the cut on his shoulder. It was a clean slice, but far from neat: two oddly-shaped punctures the width of his finger, surrounded by already dark bruising where Tony's sucking had pulled the blood to it. "It's numb." He sounded surprised.

"Chemicals in my saliva—there's a mild anticoagulant too." Tony pressed his fingers around Steve's judging the depth of the damage. It wasn't very bad, not nearly as bad as he might have done. When the anesthetic wore off, it would sting, but it wasn't anything that would seriously impair someone like Steve. The man had fought through entire battalions of heavily-armed robots with a broken collarbone and enough contusions for a hospital ward, and had still won the day. "I keep thinking that I need to have Pepper send in a sample for testing, but God knows what they'd find. Better to wait until I have my own labs back."

"And how are we going to do that?" The last of Steve's warmth vanished as he pulled back. It was a signal that their moment was done, and there would be no more unmanly cuddling or anything of the sort. "You still haven't told me what these bozos want with you. Or why you did this."

Tony groaned and made himself sit up, pleased when the only effect was the snap of a rib finally finished settling into place. "You know me—opportunities are made to be grasped, and I'm very... very eager to do so." Feeling the need to provide an example, he reached out and cupped Steve's cock in his palm. Unsurprisingly, Steve pulled away with a roll of his eyes. "Fine, fine. All I know is that they want to get their hands on me, and I doubt it's for my mother's wonderful cookie recipe."

"You didn't catch any to question?"

"Why, no, Steve, I've been a little busy trying to avoid capture." The headboard was cool against Tony's back. Even as he settled against it, the last of the pain vanished. Super Soldier blood, it seemed, was good for more than wasting tax payer money. "If you have any ideas, I'd love to hear them."

Blue eyes were intent as Steve leaned forward, muscles glinting with a faint sheen of sweat, the picture of post-coital perfection. "As a matter of fact, I do."

PART TWO