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The robotic “knight” charged, two-handed sword drawn. Tony blasted him with a blast from his repulsers and smirked at the way his attacker flew backwards, shiny armor scorched. It began to pick itself back up again, stiffly, but another blast sent him back down for the count.
“Um—lame.”
“I gotta agree with you on this one.” Back-to-back with Tony, Clint fired off a rapid succession of arrows that slid neatly between chinks in neck armor. “I mean, swords? Really?”
“Says the guy with the bow and arrows,” Tony retorted, swatting aside the olive branch of Clint’s agreement with the professional ease of the chronically belligerent.
“Dangerous ground, Stark. Tread carefully.” Over the comm, Natasha sounded distinctly amused, like she really hoped Tony wouldn’t take her advice.
“Yeah, yeah. Don’t dis the Hawk’s baby. I got it.” Tony grinned. “She have a name, Clint?”
Helpful guy that he was, Clint gave him travel advice to someplace warm. Or maybe that was her actual name. Apt, actually, considering where she’d sent her share of enemies. Tony decided he approved.
There were dozens of the knight-like drones crowding the city street. They were mute, determined canon fodder, Tony would give them that. But in the end they were like so many bowling pins to Thor and the Hulk, who were having a roaring good time a few yards away. With all the smashing to be had and shared, they’d probably come out of this bonded on a deeper level.
Natasha was just enjoying herself, taking them out with neatly orchestrated grabs and twirls that, aesthetically speaking, could’ve been dance moves: like a tango where one partner definitely led strongly, and the other wound up a twitching heap on the dance floor.
“Don’t get cocky, Stark. Wait for it,” the one-eyed killjoy himself was on the comm. “There’s more.”
“Oh goody. It’s just like Christmas. Or an infomercial,” Tony quipped.
“What are we looking for?” the red-white-and-blue killjoy himself responded with all due steely reserve. Which, frankly, sounded exhausting. Tony didn’t know how Steve kept it up.
“A dragon, Captain Rogers. A metal dragon.”
And there she roared: coming around a corner several blocks off, quaking the ground with each massive step. Its tree-trunk feet treated cars like pop cans, pulverizing an SUV, then a minivan, without pause.
Metal wings mantled, throwing half the street instantly into shade. Row upon row of flexible armor plating shifted with each move of its massive neck—glinting sunlight with each roll of the muscles its hind- or forequarters.
Now that was something to come to work for.
They all gaped, going through the motions of fending of their nearest attackers even while all eyes were mesmerized by the giant, shining beast, with a head the size of a bus.
It came to an ominous halt, staring at them with blue, pupil-less eyes, and a mottled orange pattern glowed firebrand orange along the flat plane of its nose.
Steve was the closest, and the first to react. He took a step forward, shield raised.
The dragon threw back its head and roared a rending, metallic sound that sent up flairs of sparking blue and orange towards the sky. The “knights” responded instantly by retreating to her protection, gathering behind her like frightened chicks flocking to a mother hen.
Then, with a dexterity that seemed far too fluid to be in any way mechanized, it brought its tail sweeping out like scythe. Steve was forced to engage in a high-stakes game of jump rope to avoid being bashed in the head, then instantly was forced to duck and roll to evade a second sweep. He landed lightly, surefooted enough to put an acrobat to shame. However, before even super soldier reflexes could recover, the tail came back a third time with a whipcord snap, flinging Steve into the side of an apartment building. He didn’t rise.
Thor was the first to bellow his outrage—Hulk joining in on the chorus—but none of them were slow to join the all-out charge.
Not even Clint’s arrow made it in time. The dragon roared again, only this time directly at them, head lowered, jaws wide. The effect wasn’t seen, it was felt.
For Tony, the instant paralysis came with memories he would’ve erased altogether if he could have. Memories of Obadiah, and his betrayal, and the device he’d used to turn Tony into a captive audience for his taunting.
The suit powered down instantly, like the figurative plug had been pulled, and there was a ringing in his ears as he fell to his knees—and watched, much to his horror, as his fellow Avengers also fell to their knees. Even Thor. Even the Hulk—who, from the way he was writhing and…morphing didn’t look like he’d remain the Other Guy for long.
Tony couldn’t speak, could hardly work a groan out through a tight throat as muscles locked up in one bowstring-taut spasm.
He could see Thor struggling against the paralyzing effect in vain, face twisted in pain, a trickle of blood coming from his nose.
There were less glorious ways the Avengers could’ve died than by metal dragon. Mostly, though, Tony hadn’t really stopped to envision an end, glorious or otherwise. The sudden prospect felt more disappointing then terrifying. A let-down. A real bummer. Fury was going to be very put out. He’d sulk at their group funeral.
Undoubtedly, the terror would come when his brains started leaking out his ears.
Then his peripheral vision caught movement. Red, white, and blue movement, to be precise. He watched Steve rise from where he’d been flung out of the way. His cowl was gone, and a gash to the temple bled sluggishly down the side of his face as he took in the situation with a tactician’s critical assessment. Tony watched through eyes that watered and blurred with pain as usually placid blue eyes filled with savage anger.
Steve began to walk towards the dragon, gripping the leather straps of his shield tighter, and almost casually reaching down to snatch up one of the drones’ abandoned swords. He managed it one-handed with ease, only testing its weight experimentally for a brief second.
After that, he began to run: head down, shield tucked, sword out. He looked for all the world like some bizarre cross between an Olympian runner and a star-spangled knight-errant.
Go Cap. Tony would’ve cheered aloud unrepentantly if he’d been able to. Because even he could admit there was something majestic about the sight of one guy taking on an honest-to-God dragon. Single-handedly. With a sword and shield. It didn’t get much more David-and-Goliath than that.
Only David was definitely no stranger to war, and had already fought other Goliaths and won.
Maybe Tony should’ve been more worried than he was about watching a teammate take on those odds alone. But he could be pragmatic. A, he didn’t exactly have a choice. B, Cap could do this. Tony might not normally be one for unshakable faith, or gut feelings, but there was an unmistakable thrill of anticipation in his mind. Because that dragon was dead. He’d seen it written and decreed on Steve’s face.
Steve gained momentum, going over instead of around the debris in the street—chunks of loose masonry, and mangled cars, and fallen drones—and still the dragon was too focused on its prey to notice him. The actual blast from the creature’s mouth might be dwindling (though it was hard to determine, considering it’d been a freakin’, magical, freakin’ invisible blast), but its effects appeared to be long-lasting.
Steve leapt, sword raised, angled down. It stabbed the dragon between two of the large plates of armor covering its right shoulder. The creature roared and twisted, in surprise. But Steve was just looking for a handhold, and now that the sword had helped him gain one he reached higher with his shield, jamming it in between another chink before wrenching the blade free again. Alternating in the same manner, he kept climbing. He was headed for the dragon’s neck.
Tony willed him to hold on, wincing, and wincing again as he was sure each time the dragon bucked that Steve was about to be flung off.
But Steve held on. By the time he reached the top—clinging and ducked low between the creature’s shoulder blades—the dragon was batting its wings, and turning its head, trying to bite at him. It was only a matter of time before it took to the skies and tried shaking him off, and Steve knew it. But Tony could see his dilemma: it was all he could do to hold on, never mind have the space and stillness to aim and drive home the killing blow.
“You have failed already, Beast! Taste defeat at the hands of our captain!”
Thor’s taunting was hoarse, strained, and definitely not his loudest, but it more than caught Tony off-guard. And it did the same to the dragon. Its head whipped around to stare at Thor, like a dog might stare at yapping terrier. Thor was still frozen in place despite his regained ability to speak, and no doubt the dragon would have returned its attention to Steve in due course.
Steve didn’t let the fleeting opportunity slip through his fingers. Abandoning his shield where it was still hooked on one of the huge scales, he took the sword in both hands, raised it, and buried it to the hilt. There was a spurt of black-red blood, or oil, or something, and a ground-rattling roar, and the dragon writhed, finally dislodging its passenger.
For a second time, Steve was thrown. Tony’s throat constricted in panic as the dragon rounded on the captain. It lowered its head, blue eyes narrowed on Steve, and Tony cast his eyes about for any sign of control returning to his teammates. Bruce lay on the ground, fully de-Hulked, his limbs twitching a little as if he were struggling to come around from unconsciousness.
Natasha and Clint were also slumped to their knees, and looked to be about as effected as Tony—i.e. still completely immobile.
Thor was fighting it, clearly beginning to feel his strength coming back, but not yet. Not fast enough.
Steve had fallen close to Thor, close to where Mjolnir had slipped from Thor’s fingers to lay in the dust.
The dragon was making grunting, panting noises, clearly in pain. But it wasn’t dead yet, and whether it was sentient or not, it seemed to understand a basic need for revenge.
The blast it leveled on Steve clearly cost it dearly, as it was accompanied by a roar that sounded more wounded than fierce, and the blast itself was much abbreviated.
Steve still crumpled to the ground, doubled over. He didn’t appear to be paralyzed, but he did change. Much like Bruce had a moment ago, he began to morph—only instead of from Hulk to Bruce, it was from Steve to…smaller Steve. Muscle and sheer build began to dwindle before his eyes. It was horrifying to watch, and for a moment Tony thought the dragon had cast some spell on Steve to waste him away until nothing but bone remained. It looked like accelerated starvation.
Then, with an Oh, dear God moment of epiphany, he realized that Steve was being stripped of the serum’s benefits just as Bruce had been.
The dragon waited, huffing painful breaths—so close they ruffled Steve’s hair—watching almost curiously as its enemy’s strength was literally taken from him. Tony could see the “knights” observing from behind the dragon, like oddly uniform spectators at a gladiatorial death match. Like they were there to witness the end of the Avengers.
As the dragon opened its jaws yet again, the terror Tony hadn’t felt over the prospect of his own death begin to pulse through him then, hot and bile-inducing, because he was about to stand by helplessly and watch a dragon eat Captain America.
Steve—shrunken, scrawny, tiny Steve, now drowning in a much-too-baggy uniform—raised his head and began to stand. Or at least to try to stand. It was a admirable impulse, but ultimately a forlorn, token protest. It was the real David-and-Goliath moment, and it made a lot of things click. Because this sickly, ninety-pound walking toothpick was the real Steve Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle. Tony looked at Captain America—everything “super” about the soldier taken away—and realized had been absolutely right, and absolutely wrong, at the same time. The serum had just given Steve Rogers the ability to act on every fighting instinct striving for release from a asthmatic’s body, so easily beaten down. The serum was as much a tool in Steve’s hands as the shield was. The serum didn’t make him.
It was a really fantastic moment to choose for a revelation. Tony had worked up to being able to clench his fist, now—or at least curl his fingers in a approximation of fist-clenching—but the rest of him was still a leaden weight, and there was no flicker of life from the suit no matter how many times Tony hissed at JARVIS to answer.
The dragon wasn’t done playing with its food yet. As Steve picked himself back up, it retaliated. It’s breath was like a shove: a concussive spurt of wind that sent Steve stumbling backwards, almost slamming into Thor. He went sprawling on his back, blinking up at the demigod.
Afterward, Tony would recognize the exchange that happened next. The long, shared look of understanding that happened wasn’t unusual between Steve and Thor. From day one, the two of them had fallen in together like they’d always known the other was out there somewhere, waiting to be their “shield brother.” Clint sniggered (behind their backs) that it was adorable: they made a real-live “Buddy-Buddy Soldier Show” between their shared love of massive quantities of food, and their easy back-slapping manner of communication on the field and off. They could’ve operated on the same brainwave. They even looked like blood brothers, especially in those rare moments where Steve laughed along with Thor—the two of them like two overgrown, tow-headed boys.
Maybe Steve helped to fill a void for Thor where a brother had once been. Maybe Thor helped to fill a void for Steve where another “buddy” had stood and fought.
Whatever the case, Tony wasn’t tuned in to their telepathic comm system. He didn’t hear the game plan.
As the dragon’s massive head closed in on him, Steve grabbed Mjolnir with both hands, and pulled—and, with seemingly little effort, lifted it.
The full magnitude and meaning of the action didn’t sink in at first. Even if Mjolnir hadn’t been the magical Norse equivalent of Excalibur, the sight of small-scale Steve grabbing up a stone weapon the size of his head was plenty to gape at. It was clearly heavy for him—he was working to raise it, expression intensely focused—but it wasn’t insurmountably so. He wasn’t straining with all his might.
Steve held it aloft for a moment, and there was rumble from the skies. The rumble grew deeper, the clouds a little darker, and a few drops of rain spattered dusty, rubble-strewn asphalt.
The dragon and Steve stared each other in the eyes. Neither were at their fighting best, but each clearly had the other’s demise in mind.
“You will never harm my team again, monster,” Steve stated coldly. “You’ll never have the chance.”
Tony could’ve sworn, if anything, his voice sounded deeper than usual—like it echoed, or carried, some of the storm warming in its timbre. Which was just uncanny coming from such a runt, and also just another sign of how fundamentally Captain America was rooted in who Steve had been all along. In who Steve would never stop being.
Tony could see the dragon tensing itself to spring, muscles coiling in a ripple of shining armor.
Steve threw the hammer with a yell—and for a moment it looked like he was the one being struck by lighting—but it traveled up his arm in a streak of white-blue, following the line of Mjolnir’s handle just at the moment of release. The hammer struck the dragon in the jaw with a graphic noise of crunching metal, like breaking bones, along with the dying roar of the beast itself, and the sizzle of static electricity.
The dragon fell just feet from Steve, like a dying tribute to his victory, its head a smoking ruin with a crater-like hole where Mjolnir had torn through straight to its brain. Or circuit system. Whatever.
Behind it, the army of drones lay crumpled, a ludicrous sight, as if they’d fallen in a collective faint of dismay.
Steve stood with his hand still outstretched. Mjolnir came flying back to him—and perhaps the most impressive thing, in a long line of impressive things, was the way it seemed to stop so smoothly against his palm, not jarring his stance an inch.
A tingling began at the base of Tony’s neck, traveling down his spine and towards his extremities. It was like the pins-and-needles sensation of blood rushing back into numb limbs. The suit lit up, and JARVIS’ voice deluged him in a sit-rep. Apparently dead dragon equaled the end of whatever it was that had so effectively taken them all out of commission.
By the time Tony was grounded enough to find his feet, the rest of the team was also picking themselves up, stretching with groans and winces. Bruce, particularly pale, appeared to be having the worst of it, an arm wrapped across Natasha’s shoulders for support as he limped forward. The transformation was usually taxing enough, and Tony could only presume that a “magically” forced transformation was particularly draining.
But all of them were watching Steve as he turned to Thor, Mjolnir held out across both palms like a sword being ceremonially presented.
Thor did not grab it up immediately. His eyes rested fondly upon it for a moment, but then he looked at Steve with the same warmth, and when he reached out it was to rest a hand upon Steve’s shoulder. He radiated pride as he exclaimed, “You are worthy indeed, my brother. She does not lie—and she chooses well.”
Steve’s responding smile was positively shy. Which, considering the feat he’d just accomplished, made Tony want to chuckle, if only to release the tension of being jerked back and forth from Certain Death, to Happily Ever After.
Then with a grunt of pain, Steve staggered, and would’ve fallen. Thor caught him, deftly setting Mjolnir to the side. Thor held him with an expression on his face very much like the one Steve had worn before he’d gone and kicked dragon butt: fierce, protective, and ready to defend, even if the only option left him was to let Steve bury his face against his chest as he began to make soft, muffled noises of distress.
The serum’s effectiveness was coming back, and unlike with Bruce, the result was a personal slice of hell.
Not that it was any wonder. It looked painful, like a scaled-down Hulk-out. With less green and rage, and more stifled whimpers that made your heart skip beats and your throat close up. Helplessness appeared to be the order of the day.
They all ignored Fury, demanding answers over the comm. They ignored the shrill sound of sirens. They gathered around Steve and Thor in a loose circle, waiting, blocking it all out. There was an interim where the pain seemed to ebb, where Steve was left in limbo, neither half-starved looking, nor fully restored. He lay there panting and shivering—leanly muscled, and taller, but still not the Steve they knew.
Another stretch of pain lasted an eternity of minutes, and Tony wondered if this was how the transformation had felt the first time Steve had been given the serum. God, he hoped not. But probably. He’d never considered how excruciating it must’ve been, or realized just how drastic the physical alteration was. That kind of change didn’t come easily, with a wave of wand, and an abracadabra. Steve’s very bone structure had been made-over. Was being made-over again.
Then finally—finally—Steve’s transformation back to super soldier was complete. None of them held it against him if his breathing sounded a little like sobbing.
When he finally pulled away from Thor, Tony stepped in to offer him a hand up. He clapped Steve on the shoulder, because hugs weren’t his style.
The fact that Steve had just picked up Mjolnir and used it to summon lightening was something that would take time for all of them to digest. Ironically, Thor and Steve himself appeared to be the least astonished by it all.
“Are you okay?” Natasha asked softly.
Steve nodded, breathing heavily, regaining his composure. “I will be.”
Tony knew his cue. Breaking moments of tension was like a hobby of his. “Way to steal the limelight, Cap. You were really basking in it, there with your dramatic charge, Don Quixote.”
Natasha rolled her eyes. “You really need to brush up on your classic literature, Stark.”
“St. George, then,” Tony amended.
Clint, as usual, had to put in his two cents. “Making all of us, what? Princesses? I’m all out of garters, sorry. Way to analogy.”
“Way to verb a noun, genious,” Tony scoffed back.
“For being such a technological prodigy, you don’t hang out on the interwebs much, do you?”
“Interwebs? Seriously?” Tony raised a suspicious eyebrow. “Wait. You’re not one of those people who thinks texting in 1337-speak makes them really cool, are you?”
“Takes one to know one.”
“Stop it! Enough already!” That certainly got them all to turn their attention back to Steve. He looked simultaneously exhausted and stern as he added, “Can you two just…decompress in your spare time?”
Clint grinned. He’d retrieved the shield, and held it up now to offer it back to Steve. “Sure thing, Cap.”
Tony offered the kind of sloppy salute that never failed to make Rhodey roll his eyes. “The Hero of the Hour’s orders are heard and obeyed.”
Steve gave him a weary look, like he was ready to weather more mockery, and Tony realized that sometimes his perpetual sarcasm had a way of eclipsing sentiments he actually meant. He wasn’t multilingual. He didn’t speak heart-to-heart.
“I missed some of that while I was out, Captain, but what I saw was plenty impressive. Thanks for pulling our butts out of the fire.” Trust Bruce to soberly state what they were all thinking, but were too stubborn—maybe too proud, Tony would admit—to say bluntly.
Natasha, the soul of making brevity count, added, “I owe you one, Cap.”
“That was awesome,” Clint chimed in. “Wish we had it on video.”
Thor, of course, had already had his say. Which left Tony figuratively rubbing the back of his neck, feeling awkward, because “thank you”s weren’t extravagant gestures of gratitude, and thus they totally weren’t him. He mumbled peevishly, “You guys hog all the best lines.”
“Pizza would be nice.”
Tony looked up, observed Steve as he ran a hand across the top rim of his shield, eyeing it with the attention of a mother checking her child for injury. The pizza request was clearly absent-minded, but Tony seized upon it, because apparently his official capacity on the team (in addition to humdrum things like wrangling nuclear bombs) was the supplier of post-mission sustenance.
“How about steak?” he countered, because…extravagant.
“Pizza sounds better,” Steve countered back.
“You’re kind of missing the point of haggling, but…fine. Fine. Pizza for all. Captain’s orders.” Tony gestured grandiosely for Steve to lead the way. Steve raised an eyebrow, ready for a quip, and Tony smiled broadly. “Considering we’d follow you through hell, Cap, I think it’s safe to say we’ll follow you to the local pizzeria without too much grumbling.”
Steve looked at him curiously for a long moment. And then he led.