fossilised | It's AU time

It's AU time

Building 64 down in the East end of Brooklyn was not a fashionable place to live. The apartments were small, barely more than studio size, and the rent was pretty cheap. Not many people lived there permanently, most people only came and stayed a year or two to get enough money together to move onto somewhere better. But there were two residents who had been there a while.

Steven Grant Rogers, early twenties, who earned his rent doing tattoo designs part time to fund his college course, and occasionally dipped his toe into online art commissions. He'd moved in there when his mother had died four years previously, leaving him enough money to get by, but not enough that he could stop working. And right across the hall was Natalia Romanova, an aspiring ballerina from Russia. She was tough as hell, she had worked herself right through high school, paid her own way to America when she didn't even speak the language, and kept going through tenacity alone.

Somehow a friendship had struck up between them when Steve had been the first person not to look at her like she was an idiot or disgusting for not speaking the language. He'd helped her learn, and they'd been firm friends for the last three years. Everyone else was transient, coming and going, not really making an impact. Natalia had friends and a boyfriend outside of the apartment, but she sometimes worried that Steve never seemed to do anything but work and study.

Which was probably why he would be in his apartment when a loud crash sounded on the stairs outside. Said crash had come from a box of (now very broken) plates and bowls being dropped by the man just moving in to the apartment directly above Steve's, judging by the amount of cardboard boxes that were littering the hallway. He was tall, muscled, dressed in faded jeans and a hoodie with long slightly scruffy hair, leather gloves, and deep blue eyes.

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At Loren's side the moment he could move again, Tony put one hand on his fiance's shoulder and pulled the phone from his pocket with the other. He had Bruce on speed dial for a reason. That reason was usually for himself, however. Bruce would hear the phone ringing just a moment after the more massive version of Loren's brother complete with the little wolf pup that had kept him company one night earlier in the week arrived at his door and requested entrance.

"Banner, I need you to reattach a tongue. Come quickly to my place. All of the doors will be open. What do I... Do I put it in ice? In milk?!"

Tony sounded panicked but didn't give Bruce a whole lot of explanation. It was just another crazy thing to happen, like that isolated hail and electrical storm and people from other realities hanging out at his house for a few days.

Bruce was no longer surprised by his life now. Aliens from other worlds, and now a severed tongue, he was amazed that he had kept it together for as long as he had. He could thank his impressive self control, having learned all these techniques to keep his temper in check and now found them useful for other reasons.

"Don't put it on ice, that'll damage it. Put it in a ziplock back and then in a bowl of cool water, and call 911. Not me. Hospital now, a surgeon is needed within half an hour of the tongue being severed."

He didn't bother with much more than that, just hanging up to make Tony clear the line and do as he was told, right as Thor and Fenrir appeared.

"...a little busy right now, I'm sorry, I think I'm going to have to go to Tony's."

"No, Banner, you're closer than the hospital is!" Bruce could probably hear Tony cursing clear across the borough with the way he sounded as Bruce hung up on him.

Thor was more mellow now, his anger having ceased with the doling out of punishment. It was a good outlet for him and as King, it was a way to satisfy him without having to drum up a war to feel vindication. His child had his honour restored. That was all that mattered.

"I need only deliver a message. You are to arrive at the agreed upon location within the next four hours. We are ready to proceed with mending your Realm. Do not be late." Thor swung Mjolnir as he stood in Bruce's stoop and away he and Fenrir went towards where Steve had just finished talking to Natalia and the Thor that belonged upon this Realm. They had just seen Steve out and were standing there as Thir came crashing down into the alley.

It would take more than four hours to do an emergency surgery to reattach a tongue so that Loren had any chance of it attaching properly and healing up so that he could speak again. And, unfortunately for Thor's orders, as a surgeon that was Bruce's priority. He didn't go to Tony's apartment, he took a cab right to the hospital and darted into the emergency OR to assist.

Three hours and forty five minutes later, and Tony would get a text message from Clint Barton, one of the people that he had contacted and got to come out to the city to help out with this.

Fifteen mins to go. Where r u, man? U said this was important.

There was no way that Tony was going to answer. He had his phone switched off. If the world went to hell in a hand basket, so be it. Tony was well versed in how this would all play out this time around. His soul ached but he was a selfish man.

Luckily, with Bruce in assistance, that more than four hours of surgical time was going to be reduced to just under four hours. A good thing, since Thor had given up any of Steve's hope of getting out of this realm without being noticed. Since Thor was certain that they would be able to turn the time back on this world, he no longer bothered with being subtle.

The impossibly massive man strode to where their three missing counterparts were, eyes dark and full of thunder ten minutes until what Clint Barton had called Go Time.

He would carry them all. Even a recovering Loren. Again, his threat for dead or alive was left up for grabs. Tony and Bruce, and even Loren, could refuse if they wished, but they were all going over his shoulder one by one.

Loren had no way of refusing. He was drugged to the high heavens on morphine and anaesthesia, his tongue having just been reattached, mouth packed with gauze to keep him from ripping his own stitches out with his teeth. So Thor would be able to manhandle an unconscious Loren fairly easily.

Which might mean that Tony complied just to be near to his fiance.

Bruce was a little more reticent. He had handled everything that had happened so far by pushing it down beneath the surface, but he couldn't last forever without cracking and being carried through the air on the shoulder of a God was a bit too much for even him. He still didn't even really know what a normal doctor had to do with superheroes in this other world.

"I'm not good with heights, maybe I can make it there on foot?"

Not that he could. So eventually he would acquiesce to going over Thor's shoulder to get them all there.

A journey of half an hour took three minutes by air. Thor carried them all as if it wasn't anything and indeed, for him, it certainly was not. He was less careful with Loren than the rest, lending Stark to mouth off at him. Not that Thor cared much. And Rogers, both of them, could glare all that they wanted. A prince of the Nine Realms was not to be called an abomination. Not by one that looked like his mother. Fenrir would be traumatized. He was too young to fight his own battles. Thor hoped this would not have a lasting mark on his youngest. Fenrir was precious. And destined for great things. Terrible things, if the legends were true, but great things just the same.

The others gathered here were in loose groups and organized themselves haphazardly. No one really spoke except for Clint, who was about ready to burst.

"Did you see that?! He flew. The dude flew! Come on Nat. I'm not the only one here who thinks that's amazing, am I? Holy shit! Buddy can you fly too?"

The human Thor was dizzyingly overwhelmed. He was named for a god. He did not expect to be one in another life.

Bucky stayed on the fringes of the group with Steve, holding his hand tightly half to give and half to take comfort. He watched them all, strangers and acquaintances alike, and tried to imagine how they knew each other. Sadly, it wasn't hard now that he knew they all had movie counterparts... that meant that Edwin was actually an AI, or maybe Vision by now, and Wanda was the Scarlet Witch, and... Jesus, it was a lot to process.

"Clint," Natasha said, voice softly fond. "Be quiet before I punch you very hard."

Clint just laughed and threw an arm around her shoulders, far too excited to be threatened by one of his best friends. At least they were all finally gathered, though none of them really knew what needed to be done. Then all of a sudden a half rip opened, not enough to fully disgorge unwelcome visitors to their world, but enough to show Loki in full battle armour. He should not get involved while carrying, but one of his children was there and that meant he would be involved either way.

"Gather close and touch the skin of the one closest to you, the last in line must touch my brother. He is the only one strong enough to withstand what must be done."

The Tesseract appeared in his hands.

"Thor, you must focus their energies into the Tesseract and bind our realms closed, I have gathered dark matter to facilitate the return of you, our son, and Captain Rogers when this is done."

"There is one thing more." Thor felt nothing for this world of idiocy but he had promised Steve Rogers to look into it and so he would. A warrior did not lie to his fellows. It would lead to distrust and distrust was a terrible thing to carry into battle. "We would like to return this backwards version of Midgard to its state prior to the rip," he intoned with a hope that Rogers would at least stop looking so cross.

Beside Loki, a man in red and gold metal armor appeared, pressing buttons (or something) on one gauntlet. The Iron Man armor had evolved over the long years he had been alive and journeying across a galaxy rife with new experiences. The armor was literally part of him now, to be called up when needed. He had transformed the top layer of his skin to protection. Banner hadn't been too pleased about it but sometimes Tony's crazy just had to be unleashed.

For anyone familiar with the Marvel films, however, this was obviously Steel Man, Salvatore Bleak, a billionaire genius. The armor dissolved from his face, however, to reveal an older Tony Stark instead. "I'm sorry, what now? Time reversal? And you're letting us know literally at the last minute-- of course you are. Doesn't matter how many times things can be cut and dry, you guys just have to sprinkle your Asgard dust in everything and complicate it. Yeah. Whatever. Fine. When I'm not home for dinner tonight and I get the freeze out, you explain to my family why, got it?" Nevermind that Banner was in the same room as he was. Thor couldn't see that. "Oh Jesus Christ, you guys need to be touching like ten seconds ago! We don't need an orgy. Kumbaya would do just fine."

Linking hands for strangers on a street corner was not the weirdest thing that had ever happened in New York and the bemused and half afraid Tony gently took Loki's hand and reached up for Bruce's. The circle formed slowly but it did form.

In the world above them, Tony and Bruce were also holding hands as they furiously worked on the calculations to sent the earth back a full month to Christmas Eve. None of the conduits would be able to forget everything that had happened, but they would be made whole along with the world they lived in.

Some of the people joined hands faster than others. Clint was so eager that he nearly punched Natasha in the face with how fast he flung his arm out, and Wanda was always keen to hold Edwin's hand. But some were more reluctant, and a bit of shuffling had to take place to put Bucky on the end of the line since he only had the one hand with which to hold someone else.

The last person to take someone's hand was the Steve that belonged in Tony's world, frowning up at the portal version of his friend seriously.

"Tony, everything needs to be back as it was. You can do that, right? Buildings, lives, memories, it needs to be like we were never here."

Yes, he wanted to bring people back to life, but so much damage had been done to those in the conduit that it wasn't fair. Deaths caused, revelations about their other selves, it was enough to damage them all for life and Steve wasn't okay with that. But they had Vision, who had the Mind Stone, and Wanda who could manipulate reality, surely they could turn everything back.

"I mean it, Tony, everything. I don't care if Bruce kicks you out for a month, I'll explain to him that it's worth it."

From out of sight, the older Stark groaned. “Will you tell him to stop shouting because I can hear him?” he asked Loki, who ignored the request as Thor and he were already trying to fix the world. “I’m doing what I can. Better we scar a few people for life than have an entire world destroyed, right? Have I told you lately that you’re a sanctimonious—“

“I will make sure it is healed, Steve,” Wanda called, moving into the space Tony left beside Loki. Her fingers moved and danced, red energy pulling between them like candy floss and spiderwebs. Someone behind her, a child from the sounds of it, said something about whatever Wanda was doing being ‘seriously the coolest thing ever.’

Tony admonished him with a scoffing: “I swear to you, Peter, I will cut you off.”

“You need me to babysit!”

“I can make a babysitter!”

“Can we please focus,” both Steves below shouted and that was enough to let them finish linking hands. The world beneath their feet shook and seemed to melt as Thor took the brunt of the force laid upon them, bellowing a growl in all of his glorious fury. The sky turned purple as Wanda’s force joined with the blue light of the tesseract.

And then it was over. All those gathered would wake up as if from a momentary sleep the afternoon of Christmas Eve. And back where Wanda and Loki rested, families were being reunited. Thor scooped up his consort and Fenrir and Steve strode across the room to be sure Bucky was all right too. Standing with his husband, hands in the pocket of an expensive suit now that the armor had retreated, Tony grinned. “What was your favorite part? I liked the whole tongue thing.”

A part of Steve would always want to look down on this world and see how it could have been if Bucky hadn't become so broken, but that was unfair to the man that he had beside him now. It would play into all of his fears that he wasn't enough for Steve, or wasn't the man he really wanted to be with, and that wasn't true at all. It was just-- nice to see where it could be easier.

Bruce wrinkled his nose and shook his head, reaching down to cover Ola's ears from the conversation even though she rolled her eyes at his concern.

"No, that was not fun, and you are disturbing. Seriously gross. I hope you know that."

Bickering, but loving bickering, that could go on for years if they were left to their own devices. And down for Christmas Eve, Steve must think that he had got home from the tattoo parlour with no issue. No train breaking down, no horrible evening where he had to face what PTSD could do to a person... but no appointments at the VA either, no service animal, no admittance of a problem.

At least he would be woken up by a knock at his door, considering it was still just his apartment and not their apartment. Hell, they hadn't even had sex yet.

Just his apartment. Bucky didn’t know it was Christmas Eve. They hadn’t discussed what they were doing for Christmas. The alien invasion that would leave him shot would never happen the day after Christmas. It was just normal, a sort of flirting with Bucky since they’d barely made their feelings known. The fact that his other self insisted on putting everything back together again might have actually caused the most detriment to the man he wanted to help more than anything. He had no reason now to even look for a light at the end of his long and dark tunnel.

So Steve pulled himself off of the sofa and checked the time on his phone, rubbing sleep away from his eyes. He needed to talk to Natalia about the following day and he needed to see what Bucky was up to.

A thousand fuzzy thoughts swam around his head as he unlocked the various chains and bolts from the door without looking through the peephole. He felt like getting coffee, that was his only thought as he tugged the door open.

Bucky really liked Steve. Sure, they had just started dating, just kissed one another not that long back, but he had spent nearly two weeks on Steve's sofa helping him get over pneumonia and so it felt like maybe it was off to a good start. It had been weird to go back up to his own place, but obviously he knew he had only been down there to help out, nothing else.

He was leaning against the side of the doorway, prosthetic bearing the brunt of his weight, a cocky smile on his lips and his actual hand balancing a tray that held waffles, syrup, bacon, eggs, and a glass of fresh orange juice. He wished that he could say that he made it himself, but he didn't, he called down to a deli around the corner that delivered it to him.

But he put the tray together?

"Hey, good morning, thought you might want a sexy guy at your door making sure you hadn't had some kind of relapse in the night or something."

He'd just felt like he wanted to do something, his dreams had been weird and fuzzy and full of aliens and things, so it was good to do something nice and solid.

Bucky Barnes always made him smile, and twisted his gut around in the best ways. He’d never felt like this before, and yet it was as if he had always felt this way. Weird dreams aside, Steve wasn’t about to let need for coffee and grogginess ruin his afternoon. He looked at the spread, once more glanced at his watch since he was having trouble remembering what happened to him before these last few moments (just sleep-mind, his brain told him), and then looked over Bucky’s right side dramatically.

“Well yeah, sure. But where is he? Or was this a hypothetical?” he teased, crossing his arms over his chest as if he had no intention of inviting Bucky inside.

He’d gotten used to the man sleeping there. Natalia would strangle him to know that he was also helping out with the rent upstairs, but those were not conversations for best friends….and people that wanted to remain unstrangled.

Even Bucky might strangle Steve if he knew that his new-- could he call him a boyfriend yet?-- his new friend with kissing benefits was helping with his rent. He just had a call from his landlady to say that she had made a mistake in the initial contract, and his rent was less than expected. He had no idea that Steve, who knew her from the length of time he had been living there, had called and explained the situation and was helping out.

He huffed, mock hurt written all over his face.

"Wow. Wow, that's harsh and cruel, don't you know that one of my neighbours said I could be an actor? Maybe I'll go take him this breakfast instead, I bet he wouldn't mock me while the eggs went cold."

“Oh-- Oh. You meant you.” Steve mocked shock before he grinned and stepped aside. “Yeah okay. Come on in. I just want to reserve the right to trade up if anyone else hotter happens to come along.” Steve was constantly struck by how easy it was to get along with Bucky. They might have only shared a kiss, which had been as awkward as it was wonderful, and Bucky was more or less apartment bound at all times, but he didn’t care. Steve himself was more of a stay in guy during the winter too. Going to see the tree or ice skating at Rockefeller Center was for the tourists…not guys that got sick a little too easily.

He set up the table in the kitchen for two as Bucky dropped the tray in the center and then went back to the door to shut and lock it because you couldn’t be too careful.

They were just sitting down to sharing the food that Bucky brought him when Steve glanced over at his…friend.

“This is going to sound odd, but… Is it just me or does it feel weird? Not because you brought me breakfast closer to dinner…I love that! But I just woke up too. So breakfast works… But how did you know? I feel like I should be at work… It’s the busiest night of the year almost.”

"It's dinner time?"

Bucky looked pretty surprised. Usually he didn't sleep at all, and when he did then his internal body clock tended to wake him up around six in the morning, standard military time that had just never disappeared. But he didn't really own a watch and he hadn't looked at the beat up clock on the wall before getting breakfast ready, so he hadn't realised how late it was.

"Wow, I just woke up too, so I guess I thought it was morning. I don't really sleep through the day, it never occurred to me that I might've."

That was weird.

"So you missed work? Did your boss call you? Or do you need to get going?"

“I…should probably check my phone,” Steve said, yawning again before he headed back to his bedroom. There were no messages at all, likely because Mickey herself was just waking up and trying to decide why she was at her own apartment and not at the shop. Steve shrugged and plunked right back down next to Bucky and grinned. “Guess I’m free for today.”

It was actually a wonder that anyone was in the deli when Bucky went over and a good thing that the owner was just upstairs when he woke up and rushed down to open the shop and yell at his employees for not showing up all day. There was a lot of strangeness going on in the city today, but the human mind tended to just ignore the strange and set things into the right order for their minds to understand.

The feelings would pass. Likely. In time.

“So how do you want to spend Christmas Eve? I have to run out and get Nat something. She’s impossible to buy for and I always let it go to the last minute. She told me last year that while,” and he tried to mimic her accent here, “art is wonderful for mothers and girlfriends, I am neither and you will find me something appropriate, Steven.”

It was so strange. It would even appear on the news channels that night, that people in all areas of New York seemed to suffer from increased sleepiness during that day. It was attributed to a possible gas escape from one of the main pipelines which would be looked at after Christmas. This did, unfortunately, mean that some people got hysterically and swamped the ERs convinced they had gas poisoning, but nobody did.

Bucky hummed thoughtfully and wound his arm easily around Steve's shoulder while the smaller man ate his breakfast. It was nice, good. Being with Steve made him confident that he could push this stupid stuff from the army down and carry on with a normal life.

"Man, gifts, I don't have any gifts."

Not that he would. The phone call with his mother and the visit of his sister had been a bit overwhelming, but he hadn't graduated to sending gifts yet. Maybe he should get something for Steve? A sweater maybe, with a dumb bald eagle on it, if he could find some.

"Sure, I could go for gift shopping, that sounds good."

It definitely wouldn't go wrong, diving into the bustle of last minute gift shopping when everyone else was out trying to do the same. "And hey, maybe I'll spot some 'help wanted' notices out at the mall or something?"

Tony had had the ring in his pocket since before his accident. He’d been carrying it around since Thanksgiving actually, when he was sure that Loren would be inviting him over to meet the family. He would have proposed that night, but as always, Loren was silent about his family and his friends. They’d been dating for almost two years at this point and if Tony didn’t know better, he’d say that he was Loren’s bit on the side with how in the dark he was.

Loren had been the one to find him caught under that car lift a few weeks back, he’d waited with him until the ambulance came, and then he stopped answering his calls for the last two weeks. In an arm sling and with two black eyes, Tony took himself from the Uber to the small café and bookshop his boyfriend owned. There were two people there having scones and coffee, but Tony didn’t pay a lick of attention to them.

He thumbed the ring box in his pocket with his uninjured hand and strode right up to the counter before he paused. This felt familiar. This felt like he’d done it before. Maybe he’d been obsessing a little about it….?

“You haven’t answered the phone so I had to call a car to come and get me.”

Loki had spent much of the time since he had woken up talking to himself. It wasn't something he did often, but he couldn't stop speaking in both Norwegian and English as if to reassure himself that his tongue was still there and functioning. Foolish, for of course it was. But he also found himself doing more exercise than he needed to, and he had shunned his usual chair behind the counter to stand, again as if he were proving that his legs worked.

It was almost a relief when he got his first and only two customers, one he recognised and one he did not. He was even quite chatty with Steven for once, asking him about his studies and his work, when usually he just served up the coffee. He glanced around when Anthony arrived and found that the anger he had been harbouring for the past two weeks had gone, almost as if they had gone through something worse and Anthony had proven his love by sticking by him.

So he simply surged into Anthony's arms and kissed him fiercely, before drawing back to slap him across the face for his anger was never wholly gone.

"Do not do that again. You are mine, and I do not permit things that belong to me to become damaged. Do you hear me, Anthony? I love you, you cannot leave me for something as foolish as a winch failing."

Though he’d been expecting more cold shoulder and neither show of emotion, he readily accepted both. Each hurt him physically (his arm was mostly healed but he wasn’t good as new) and his brain probably didn’t need to sustain any more injury. But that was all right. He could take the smack and the possessiveness in stride, his unbound arm immediately around Loren even as he winced and tasted blood.

“I got it, I got it,” he promised, jaw out of whack. “No more use of equipment while I’m alone.” And wow. Had Loren just....? "I love you too, baby. Always have, I'm pretty sure."

Steve couldn’t help but stare at this little exchange. Eyes wide, he paused with the scone halfway to his mouth. He had no idea that Thor’s brother was even seeing anyone. Thor was very boisterous about talking about his brother and he’d been with Loki at the last holiday but wow. An older man in his life? That was sort of brilliant. They played off of each other perfectly. He finally broke out of his romantic little spell and glanced over at Buck, resuming his nibbling. This was a good way to start off Christmas Eve.

This didn't mean that Loren had magically forgiven Anthony completely, or that he would become the doting boyfriend that he probably deserved. He was too selfish, too absorbed with his own issues, but he did love his older man. Had done for many months now, since their passionate string of one-night stands had become something more meaningful for them both.

Bucky smiled over at Steve, voice low so as not to disturb the seemingly cute couple. There was nothing to laugh at this time, so the tides of history were already changing to become something else.

"Wow, you never told me that your coffee shop was the premier gay spot in town. Did you bring all your other men here too?"

Loren glanced over at his two customers, one hand still on Anthony's hip possessively.

"I am sorry, but you will have to leave, I can transfer your coffee to take-out containers, but the shop is closing immediately."

He felt the need to get Anthony's clothes off and prove to himself in new and interesting ways that his tongue still worked.

To go cups gotten and a little extra bag of scones thrown in shoved under Steve’s arm, the moment he and Bucky made it outside, the door shut behind them and the lights went out. There was a little crash from inside and Steve’s cheeks turned pink. Not just from the cold. “Well, we should probably get to shopping,” he said, clearing his throat.

Most of New York City also had the same idea. It was just starting to flurry but the forecast didn’t mention any accumulation and so everyone was out doing some last minute shopping, even if most of the stores seemed to be barely functioning or open. The Mall, however, was doing just fine with older teens and twenty somethings forced in to cover shifts that they had forgotten that they had.

Workers not at their jobs were jamming the streets, so the through ways for pedestrians were quite…difficult…to maneuver. Steve was doing his best to clear the way, but he was a shrimp, he was tiny, and was getting elbowed as much as he was elbowing back. Maybe this wasn’t the best place to take a Vet suffering from PTSD. Steve just didn’t know when to be protective and when it was starting to become insulting.

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I just had to google if a severed tongue could be reattached

I did the same before I had Thor pull it out!

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