fossilised | I come from a land of ice and snow

I come from a land of ice and snow

Asgard sat atop the branches of Yggdrasil since time began, and little had changed in their society in the years since. Each Asgardian was long-lived into the millennia, their lands were fertile, their people brave and strong. They had their vassals, their allies, and their enemies. Yet even those who opposed them respected the might of the Golden Dias, and the royalty who sat upon it. Currently that was Odin Borson, though he grew weary more easily now and had begun to consider passing the throne to his eldest son.

He had been blessed with many children, but only two that he considered worthy of his lineage and status. His firstborn, Thor, strong and honourable and everything an Asgardian warrior should be. His second son, Loki, was not natural born, though none knew that but his wife. He was different, a creature of magic and mayhem, of sharp intelligence. Both were worthy, but together they would take Asgard to a new prosperity, he was certain of it.

Midgard, where the mortals dwelt, was a land raided every few centuries for stock. It was seen as a breeding ground, much like a corral for cattle. Mortals were lesser, short-lived and weak, they were fit only as slaves. The last raid had taken place when Loki had been but a baby, nearly a thousand years ago, but the mortals that had been taken had been bred and cared for so that a healthy slave population still thrived. Slaves were given a weakened mixture of Idunn's crop with their food, to extend their natural lives to at least a few centuries in order to make them worth the effort to train. They had no rights, but they were taught well that this was their natural position.

All slave children were raised in a central pen and taught the same when small, those that then displayed talent at cooking, riding, hunting, housework, artisan skills, or singing were then measured off to be specially trained for higher masters. Every five years those who could afford to buy a slave, or those of high enough status to simply demand them, came to the corral and chose. Those who were chosen were special, were envied, and those who were not ended up working the fields out in the far reaches of Asgard, the most menial of work.

Anthony and Steven had been friends since they were little and being raised in the large pens together. Both had excelled, Anthony at crafting and Steven at warrior's skills, but neither were chosen when they were five, nor ten, nor even fifteen. Now, at twenty, it was their final chance to be chosen before they would be assigned to one of the meanest farmers beyond the borders of the great capital. Steven woke Anthony as the dawn rose, mingled excitement and nerves on his face.

"Anthony! Wake up, I've got news! I heard the overseer talking to one of the passing guards, and Princes Thor and Loki are coming to the corral today."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Bruce knew that Tony was joking, he had a strangely off-colour sense of humour sometimes, but he also knew that Tony had some severe abandonment issues and was probably jealous of Bruce having any other friends. He didn't want to encourage this type of thinking because it was possessive, destructive, and could lead down an unintentionally abusive path. But at the same time, nor did he want Tony to think that he was about to be stolen away by someone else.

"Oh, good. Then let me disband the triangle idea right away. I have enough friendship to go around, though Dr. Suresh isn't a fan of me, and I don't need to pin my allegiance to just one person."

Hopefully that should do it, though Tony could be odd about this sort of thing. Just look at how he had behaved and still behaved towards Steve.

“No one cares about your loyalties,” Tony huffed, but it was good naturedly. “But if you’re going to dismantle the triangle that means that we’re just left with two sticks holding each other up. I don’t know if I can take that pressure.” And he was curious now to figure out what had made Suresh snappy. He just wasn’t curious enough to ask about it. Just in case. Banner might decide to go and make up with the man and that would just ruin everything.

Feeling good enough to get out of bed, Tony shuffled to the window to watch Captain America leading a group of people to the south. He and Bucky were, as expected, joined at the hip. It was a wonder that either could exist without the other.

“What’s your biggest pre-war regret, Banner?” Yeah, that was a weird about-turn on the conversation. “Not the whole experimenting thing. That one is obvious. Like me staying in the arms business as long as I did.”

That really was a sudden change in conversation and it stumped Bruce into silence for a few moments, mostly because all of his pre-war regrets were deeply personal things that he would rather not get into with anyone. He was an intensely private man, it was just how he protected himself, but somehow he got the feeling that Tony needed him to give an honest answer.

"I tried to kill myself."

That wasn't actually the regret, it was a regret that he hadn't known the Other Guy would be able to survive even a suicide attempt. But Tony didn't need to know that much.

"It was a mistake, something I can look back on now and see as such. Why?"

Aww man. Bruce was heavy. He said some things that just seemed to come out of nowhere and left Tony reeling. He didn’t have a very good answer now. He had a very meh answer that was not even close to near as good. There was a lot of silence that followed before Tony let out a breath all at once and it washed in sound-only into Bruce’s earpiece. “Well I was going to say that I regret not being more generous.” He was a philanthropist but he could have given a lot more money away. What had he needed it for? He could have made everyone’s life a little better if he was less greedy. “I just want to fix that. I feel like all I’ve been doing is being given these other chances lately. Ever since I became Iron Man. And all I’ve done is really half-assed it. Talking to you has made me want to be better. So I’m going to be. And if that’s the result of you getting over the whole potentially immortal thing… Well I’m happy about that.”

Banner had told them all that he’d gotten low and that the Hulk spit out a bullet just before the Hellicarrier went down. Tony hadn’t forgotten exactly but he hadn’t really remembered either.

“And I realize that saying that sort of doesn’t help my whole case.” He rubbed at one of his eyes as the stream of people diminished from under his window. “But thank you. For being here. And alive. And a friend. And stop making me feel sappy and saying these things to you. Can we go back to talking about how mighty my dick is?"

Bruce felt a little awkward himself when Tony came out with all that sappiness. He hadn't often had a lot of people feel that way about him, and he still wasn't sure exactly why Tony wanted him to be a friend when there were so many people to choose from. Not that he begrudged the man his friendship at all.

"I think I'd rather talk about attempted suicide," he joked, voice soft. "It's a much less traumatic subject than your penis."

He was actually proud of Tony for figuring out that he wanted to improve himself, a lot of people never got that far in their self actualisation journey and he would be more than pleased to help him in whatever it takes.

"But as for generosity... I think that if you throw your whole self into creating tech to help people live, and help the environment of our new planet, you'll be remembered for better things than philanthropy."

“Okay, maybe, but that sounds a lot just like philanthropy to me. Goods instead of charitable foundations. Or maybe goods now become the new charitable foundations. I don’t know. Doesn’t matter. I think you’re about good to go with the whole run and bury scenario. The last stragglers just filed passed my window.” Yep, he was up and about and doing just fine now. “Suresh was at the tail end. I think he was looking for you. You really hurt his feelings,” Tony said, back to teasing mode. “Good. It’ll put hair on his chest. A little heartbreak does the body good. Enjoy your trip to the shale flats, Banner. See you when you get back.”

There was a lot to do in preparation for the big rescue. The committee chose the site of their final relocation. Tony repaired the skiff from the damage done by the cut away wall. Steve was elected their leader through proper ballots, though he ran unopposed. And several members of the just north of one thousand surviving humans from Earth took the retrofitted and solidly fueled skiff to where they were going to eventually settle.

The planet was smaller than the Earth but larger than this moon. It, too, had settlements upon it, and in good condition, but not because of abandonment to more fertile areas but because the original people that had lived upon the world had all been wiped out through an Asgardian culling. It made it perfectly ideal, therefore, to settle there, since it was no longer on the Asgardian maps. If no one lived there, there was no reason to visit, rule, kill or enslave.

It would be a week after relocation for Steve to finally sit down with the Avengers in the new town hall, a building with a rotunda that reminded him of the Captol building in Washington DC, though everything inside was silver-leafed. “We don’t have a lot of time left,” the blond said, sitting at the head of the table, not because he wanted to be but because everyone seemed more comfortable with him there. “We need to decide our attack. Tony has been working hard on a way to disrupt their ships but they’re stronger than we are. Getting everyone out safely will be difficult.” To Steve, this felt a lot like the war room in many camps he’d helped command. All that was missing was everyone in uniform browns.

These past few days and weeks had been a paradise to Bucky. He knew that everyone was suffering, but he had been suffering so long and in so much worse ways that this barely registered, because he had Steve. They stole kisses in corridors when nobody was around, held hands quietly under the table at mealtimes, and were always at one another's side. Things hadn't progressed any further yet, though Bucky was determined that it would one day. He wouldn't let HYDRA take this from him.

But he had also been thinking a lot about the trapped slaves back on the training moon, and he hadn't come to conclusions that others would like very much. He didn't think going back for them was a good idea. It would alert the Asgardians that they hadn't perished along with the Earth or been trapped outside the now closed rift, and that might lead them to come looking and discover their new haven. The best thing they could do for survival was to stay far away and not allow the Asgardians to even suspect they existed.

He knew that Steve would never agree to just abandon the several thousand on the training moon, nor would most of the others, and it just wrenched his heart knowing that they might cause their own extinction through this.

"It's suicide," he said, voice quiet but carrying a lot of weight because of how little he usually spoke in these meetings, only offering advice if someone directly asked him and then usually only about weaponry or tactics. "We have to know that going in. We can't get them out, not without alerting the Asgardians to our presence and drawing them down on us. I'll go, I'm not refusing, I'm just saying we need to be aware that it's suicide. It's a token gesture, a show of not abandoning the ones left behind, but it'll end in us all dead. It might even end in the people here dead as well."

There was a quiet that ran throughout the room. Sure. Bucky had been the one to bring it up but it was something that had gone through almost everyone else's mind. This place that they had here was still in the universe of the evil Asgardians. Their own Asgard was trapped behind the void where they could not go back to. They were alone here.

"Do we know what they'll do at the end of their training cycle," Tony asked. "There's no information in the computers but they can't just live there forever. And if they were planning on taking them back to Asgard, they would have already gone." He pointed out. It was a logic question at this point. "Do they leave them or do they kill the ones that don't conform?"

And tony thought he had an answer for that too.

"Anthony and Bruce on that moon said many, many times how much they loved their place in life. They're indoctrinated. Bred and raised. And their whole goal on that moon--"

"Was to produce human children," Steve interrupted. "We aren't leaving them." He stared Tony down across the table.

"No we aren't. We're going back for them after the Asgardians leave. It's the only way." Tony was trying to be gentle here but Cap looked ready to pop.

"You don't have to go, Stark. No one here has to go. But I am. And it would be better if Buck and I go alone. They know we escaped--"

Tony stood up immediately, hands in the table. "They know four of us escaped. And they will come looking."

"Tony is right."

It wasn't often that Bucky publicly disagreed with Steve, especially on matters of leadership, but this was about the possible extinction of their entire race. They couldn't help the children that would be born, they were probably already gone to Asgard, it had been about the nine months required to bear them by now. But they could save the others if they were only smart about it.

"I think he's right, they'll leave and they'll just abandon the humans left behind who aren't any 'use' to them. They'd have long died out by the time they wanted to use the moon again, after all, so killing them would be a waste of energy. It's safer for everyone if we wait."

He knew it felt less heroic, but they'd still save the majority of people who had been taken, and wasn't that enough?

It wasn’t betrayal that Steve looked at Bucky with. It wasn’t even disappointment. He knew very well that what Tony and Bucky were saying made logistical sense, but Steve couldn’t leave it. He was the guy that laid on the wire. He was the guy that ran into certain death. He got people out. He was about to say something more when Tony, still standing, stopped him. “We elected you as our leader and you put an Avengers Council together. Barnes, me, Banner, Barton-- I’m detecting a lot of B names here… Suresh, Nayla, Reagan…” The last three were all scientists, a wise move for Rogers to include them in the council, since they needed a geologist and a behavioralist in addition to the muscle they had now. “Point is, we’re your check and balance. What you say goes only if we have a majority. And if you lose this majority, you’re not allowed to go running off, got it? No stealing the skiff. No destroying our only chance to save everyone.”

Steve pressed his lips together and sat back. Being a leader, he was discovering, was much harder when he didn’t have final say in the matter. But this was a democracy, right? This was a system he believed in.

It was just…painful. “All right.”

Tony sat back down and nodded. “We’ll go in a circle. No need for secret ballots. Barnes already started so I’ll go next. I vote we stay until we know Asgard has left the training moon. Suresh?”

The Indian looked uncomfortable and then slowly nodded. “I…I agree. We can not risk the lives of those who trust us here. We should stay for the time being.”

Bucky hated to put that look on Steve's face, it was just as painful for him as it was for Steve, and it showed in his eyes even if the rest of his expression stayed neutral. He wanted so much to follow Steve's lead, but part of being a good person and a good partner was knowing when to disagree, knowing when to stand up for what you believed in.

That's what he was doing.

He just nodded to show that his vote still stood, and then cast his eyes down to the floor as if ashamed of himself. Part of him was. Part of him saw disobedience against someone with blond hair and blue eyes and thought of a handler, thought he would be punished.

Bruce looked uncomfortable, but he didn't shy away from his own vote.

"The children will have gone by now. The second they were born, they would have been taken to Asgard, we're not losing anyone by waiting. All of the people there now, will be there then."

“Unless they’re killed when they leave,” Rebecca Nayla, the geologist said. She’d been the one arguing with Stark when picking the planet they were on now as a permanent home and she was almost morally opposed to everything the arrogant former playboy stood for. “No. We should go.”

And Tony couldn’t help but bait her. “By we, you mean us. You’d stay here, right?” The woman’s face reddened and though she said she would be better serving their people here, she would go if they needed her. FRIDAY, who had been projecting the tally on the wall (as if they needed it), nonetheless put Nayla’s photo under the Rescue Immediately header opposite Tony, Bucky, Bruce and Mohinder. Technically, they hadn’t needed to even ask since the majority was already for Rescue Postponed, but this was for posterity.

Barton joined Nayla but Julia Reagan voted for the majority.

Steve gazed at the wall, at the tally, and nodded, thanking FRIDAY though she certainly didn’t need it. “All right. We wait.” It was hard. Steve didn’t like doing nothing. “Bucky initially brought us intelligence that the Asgardians spend a year on the moon. We’re into the ten month mark since we were captured. We’ll revisit the topic in two months and mount our rescue shortly after. Any other business?”

Housing and food resources were, as always, part of the agenda and Steve let the others do the discussing with him. He’d be very quiet at dinner later too, lost in thought and feeling guilty that they hadn’t rescued more when they had the chance.

Bucky watched Steve leave after the meeting with that tension to his shoulders that could only mean he was already putting the potential deaths of hundreds there to pile up and potentially crush him. He didn't want that, but he didn't even know if Steve would want to see him now. He might have ruined their engagement, he didn't know, because if he hadn't spoken up then they would probably still be mounting a hopeless rescue.

Instead, he went to Tony.

His friendship with the engineer had progressed little by little, until they relied on each other and were fond of each other. Not in the same way that Bruce and Tony were friends, or Steve and Bucky, but they could sit in one another's company, sometimes in silence for hours as Tony worked, and be comfortable.

"I need your help."

“Okay, Leia, what can I do for you?” Tony asked, flat on his back to finish his upgrades to the refrigeration system. At the moment, all of their rations were being stored here, in the new capital building, with Reagan working with a nutritionist on doling out the goods. They had found that the vast majority of fields outside of the overgrown city limits were filled with edible plants and treenuts and the forests that had wildlife that they could eat as well. Most of the able bodied work force were currently employed as hunter-gatherers and Tony was trying to find a way to preserve whatever they brought in to supplement what they had saved from Earth or brought with them from the skiff in the first place.

Sitting up, Tony pulled his arm out of his gauntlet and looked up at what he assumed was Bucky’s version of a miserable face.

“He’s not mad at you. He’s been mad at me a lot, and I know how that looks,” he said immediately, guessing the reason for this little visit. “But shouldn’t you be talking to him….not me?”

The society was already working well considering how little time they had been here, but it would be in the few years to come that would see whether they managed to continue to work in peace. All it would take was one person not content with their lot and war could start all over again, and with so few in the population, one good battle could all but wipe them out.

Bucky wasn't thinking about that right now, though, nor was he even thinking about Steve being mad at him. He was thinking about something selfish, a gesture that he could give Steve to show him that even when he disagreed, he still wanted to be a partnership.

"I need you to make something for me."

He pulled some very battered dog tags out of his pocket, he had snagged them on the run through the Smithsonian with Steve when they had gone to the irradiated planet. They were his, the only thing recovered from Sergeant Barnes after he fell.

"Can you make me two rings out of these? One to fit my metal finger, one for Steve."

Tony seemed to freeze in place, like a bugging out program. Everything just stilled before his eyes rolled up. “Shouldn’t you propose before you worry about getting rings made-- Oh my god, you idiots are engaged.” Wow. People from the 40s moved fast. Tony held out his hand for the dog tags, glancing over the easily malleable metal. He would have to infuse the rings with a tougher core or they’d just bend and ding out of shape, of course. And he wasn’t a jeweler by any degree but he could make some rings easily.

He didn’t know what he was feeling right now, though. He was happy for Bucky. The guy was young and he’d been through a whole lot. He deserved a little bit of happiness. But Tony just had been so against marriage, that to be involved in this was almost ridiculously similar to poetic justice.

He should have asked Pepper to be his a long time ago…and he had failed. Now he had nothing. Not even the memory of a bond.

“Okay, yeah. Are you making a big deal about this? Or do you just want the rings sooner rather than later?”

Bucky didn't know about Tony's aversion to marriage, but he probably would have asked him anyway had he known. He didn't trust anyone else with this, even if it was a relatively simple task that many people could have done. These dog tags were a symbol of who he used to be, and the bond that he and Steve had shared since the late mid 1920s when they had met, it should be these that made up the rings.

"Soon. How soon can you have them done?"

He shrugged.

"I don't think either one of us are much for ceremony or it being a big deal. We've waited long enough, and there ain't nobody to officiate. We say we're married when we put the rings on, that's enough."

Glancing back at his work, and knowing there was a chance to pause now, Tony pulled himself to his feet and grabbed his toolkit. He handed the dog tags back to Barnes and headed out of the room. “Come with me.” Tony’s workshop was a block away. He had chosen the building because it was barely damaged, had thick concrete walls, and a pretty decent living space above it. He lived in the building alone, as he liked it, and though he might scavenge the other buildings in the future for some better furniture, it suited him just fine. He had something similar to electricity and access to the roof for whenever he had time to get his armor able to fly again. Plus FRIDAY’s servers all fit neatly under the workshop where she’d be safe.

He and Barnes would spend the next two hours working on the rings together, retrofitting one of his tools to make the sizing easier to change before using a pair of titanium rings he already had handy for repair work on the reactor in his armor to act as a base for the dog tag wrap.

“So I never pegged you for a romantic,” Tony said, already padding the form he’d be using for Bucky’s larger ring so that he could make sure the seams disappeared when formed together. He was trying to keep the serial numbers intact here, making it wrap artistically around the band for each. “I could do a better job with better metal but you want this old stuff huh? Do me a favor and figure out where my seam sealant is? Should be-- FRIDAY, spotlight on the cabinet drawer with the sealant?”

Bucky did as he was told to root through the cabinet drawer that FRIDAY helpfully highlighted for him by flickering the lights in that corner of the room because she didn't have complete control over the building as she had at Stark Tower, this place was a lot more primitive.

"It's not romantic, it's selfish."

It was honest to say, and he said it without guile. Tony had done some bad things in his past too, and so he was never coy about his darker parts in this friendship.

"He's mine. He's all I have that's mine, and I'm gonna make sure he stays that way."

“Marriage is less effective than tying him up and keeping him in a basement,” Tony pointed out, mostly to be crude. He could already picture that, the paragon of virtue that was Steve Rogers, would feel the vice grip of the ring and decide to follow the non-binding rules of monogamy that it portended anyway. There was nothing to suggest that he would stray, not with the ring and maybe not even without.

He used his thumb to flick one finished ring at Bucky for him to seal and put into the small glaive he’d built into the wall while he worked on Steve’s ring. And since this was supposed to be selfish, he twisted the metal to make sure that not only was the serial number visible partially around the edge of the design, but so was JAMES B BARNES. There was no better way to be selfish and possessive than to give someone a wedding ring with your name on it to literally claim them.

Given that FRIDAY happened to have Cap’s exact dimensions in her system, thanks to SHIELD, it was easy to size his ring perfectly. Tony took a little longer with this one, and then sealed it himself and stood against the wall waiting for the tempering to finish.

“You need a bachelor’s party.”

It wasn't that Bucky thought that Steve would ever stray, that just wasn't in his nature, it was just that he wanted to know that Steve's heart belonged to him. He had so little that was his, and very few desires in life now, Steve was everything to him. He couldn't find a purpose in protecting like others could, the greater good could go to hell, his purpose was all tied up in one person.

Not the healthiest, but he had been through a lot and it was his only coping mechanism.

"No." It was blunt and immediate. "I'm not gonna have a party, I don't want a big deal, I just want to give Steve the ring and have it done with. So-- if they're done, I'll take them."

A pause, and then: "Thanks."

"You're too serious," Tony called after him, but didn't follow. He should get back to his work but he was going to take a little time to listen to music and clean up. He'd done some fine work today. Both with the rings and with the freezer. There was no rush. Not now that they were going to be sitting on the rescue plans for a little while. He was pleased about that, he really was. Heading to the window, he watched Bucky leave the building and cross the street towards the place that he and Steve lived.

He wished them well. Silently. Very silently.

Steve would at least be home by then, going over figures from this area or that. It was hard to keep up with the blond. He was always active, always trying to make sure he knew exactly what was going on with everyone and every thing.

He looked up and half smiled, half sighed at Bucky. "I thought you might be trying to give me some space. I don't need it, Buck."

Bucky held the two rings in his flesh hand, wanting to solid and cool weight of the metal against his skin. This was when he found out if Steve really was okay with committing to something like this, because this was a real symbol of commitment. Back in their day, marriage really was forever and wearing that ring was a vow, so he knew that if Steve put it on then he'd never take it off.

"I don't like disagreeing with you on things like that, but I have to follow what I think is right."

He wasn't apologising very deliberately, because he wasn't sorry for doing what was right. Just sorry that it had hurt Steve in the process. He held out his hand abruptly and opened it to show the two rings clearly made out of his old dog tags.

"Even when we disagree we're still a unit, right?"

“I value your opinion and your expertise because I know you won’t just be a yes-man,” Steve said immediately, just in case Bucky actually thought that he wanted an apology. Nothing could be further from the truth. “And everyone agreed with you so…It was the right decision. I just—“ He paused, glancing from Bucky down to his hand. He got to his feet quickly because now was not the time to be on the ground when his best friend, his boyfriend, his fiancé, his whatever, happened to be standing there holding rings.

Steve didn’t dare touch them, but he did lean in before blinking back, startled.

“Dog tags-- Oh wow, Buck. These are yours aren’t they? How’d you get them to…” Now was not the time for compliments, Rogers! “I mean uh. Yeah. We’ve always been a unit. I’m with you on this.” And he wanted it badly enough that his knees were shaking. Steve took a step back on one leg and pushed a hand over his mouth, though it couldn’t hide the giddiness in his eyes. “Is this… We’re really going to do this? Finally.”

Bucky kind of regretted that there was no official way to do this, no ceremony that would be able to legally bind them. Steve was the closest thing they had to any authority here, so he would have to just pronounce them both married with the rings. That was what they symbolised anyway, and Bucky knew that he would feel married when he put it on his hand. He'd never take it off again.

"Yeah, Steve. Tony made the rings for me today, I took the tags when we passed through the museum for your suit. I wanted them to mean something, a part of the past neither of us are ever gonna get back to carry with us into our future."

Maybe that was corny, but he said it all so genuinely, before holding out the ring that had been made to Steve's size, with his name and serial number more prominently displayed than the one made for him.

"Put it on and be married already."

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject