King of Infinite Space, part II

[elspethdixon]

Title: King of Infinite Space 2/7
Authors: seanchai and elspethdixon
Rated: PG-13
Pairings: Steve/Tony.
Warnings: Nothing. Yet.
Disclaimer: The characters and situations depicted herein belong to Stan Lee and Marvel comics. No profit is being made off of this derivative work. We're paid in love, people.
Summary: A villain from Tony's past comes back to cause trouble for the Avengers. Maybe it wouldn't have been so easy, if thing weren't already so awkward over the events of Execute Program.

X-posted to marvel_slash.

And of course, thanks to tavella for the great beta job.


King of Infinite Space

Chapter Two



Over the past few years, Steve had gotten used to media barrages. This time, at least, there were no reporters and protestors camping out on the Avengers' lawn. Of course, if Stark Tower had had a lawn, he was sure they would have been there.

The past two weeks, since the fight with the Wrecking Crew, had seen the news media turn on superheroes like sharks the had caught the scent of blood. Some so-called priest named Arnold Hathart had been all over every talk radio station and t.v. talk show, preaching that superpowers were "not part of God's natural plan," and that they were a destructive influence on the youth of the nation. A number of conservative religious leaders had jumped in to support him, several of the more fanatical ones doing him one better by proclaiming that superpowers were manifestations of Satan, and that close study of the Book of Revelations revealed that the antichrist would be a mutant.

Inexplicably, people were actually listening to him. And those that weren't were listening to Tiberius Stone's claims that superhuman fights hurt innocent bystanders. Thanks to the fact that Stone owned half the news outlets in the state, the natural rebuttal -- that letting supervillains run around unopposed hurt a lot more people -- was going unheard.

Last night, Reverend Hathart had appeared on 60 Minutes, telling the interviewing team that, thanks to "these misguided people," criminals and "so-called heroes" alike, "decent, normal people" were "afraid to walk the streets of New York City." Even more amazing than his ability to say this with a straight face was the fact the men and women interviewing him had been taking his claims completely seriously.

Then, even more unbelievably, Mac Gargan, better known to the public and New York State parole boards as "The Scorpion," had been interviewed. He'd claimed that he was reformed now (on this, his fifth prison sentence) and that it was "the madness brought on by his powers" that had caused him to turn to a life of crime, by alienating him from society. He'd gone on to say that he wished he'd never acquired them, that he was normal, or that he'd at least had "some kind of guidance or control available" when he'd received them.

Peter had been so livid that he'd had to leave the room, snarling as he went that supervillains always got better press than he did ("How can anybody buy this crap? That's a blatant lie! The only thing he regrets is that now he's ugly!").

Not a single one of 60 Minutes' numerous interview subjects had expressed a dissenting opinion. The entire thing felt fishy to Steve; what were the chances that this many people suddenly felt this threatened by superpowers, all at once, in the relative absence of any kind of superhuman-related disaster? The misuse of superpowers was a valid concern, as was the potential for superheroes to turn to vigilante violence, as witnessed by the mere existence of the Punisher. The fact that all of these concerned citizens had chosen to air their criticism en mass, via television stations and magazines owned by Tiberius Stone struck Steve as more than a little suspicious, given Stone's past history with using the media to carry out personal vendettas.

However, on the off chance that this anti-superhero crusade Stone was sponsoring represented real worry on his part over the dangers posed by out-of-control superhumans, Steve had decided that they needed to speak with him. After all, it could turn out that he had some legitimate reason behind his concerns, something that honestly needed to be dealt with, but had gotten lost amidst all the media's habit of going straight for the most sensational part of a story and ignoring the more important but less interesting parts. Or, if as Steve strongly suspected, Stone was actually using the media to manipulate the public for some more nefarious purpose, confronting him directly couldn't hurt.

Steve, Tony, and Luke had been waiting in the sitting room outside Stone's office for -- Steve checked his watch -- fifteen minutes now, despite the fact that they'd made an appointment. It was just the three of them; Jessica Drew had flatly refused to have anything to do with Stone, Logan was not the sort of person one brought to what was intended to be a polite meeting, and, given Peter's current state of irritation, Steve had thought it best not to bring him along.

Stone's secretary, a tall, curvaceous blonde with a conservative suit but extremely high heels, finally emerged from his office, shutting the door behind her. "Mr. Stone will see you now," she said, unsmiling. "I hope you haven't been waiting long."

"We had an appointment for eleven," Luke said. "He knows exactly how long we've been waiting."

"Mr. Stone is a very busy man," the secretary told him, resuming her seat behind the reception desk and turning her attention to her computer, clearly finished with them.

"She's playing solitaire," Tony breathed in Steve's ear, as they stood up.

"Don't do that," Steve whispered back. Tony's breath on his ear and the side of his neck was very distracting, and he didn't need to be distracted right now, or reminded that Tony could talk to computers in his head.

Stone's office was a large, open room with floor to ceiling windows similar to the ones in the business sections of Stark Tower. The carpet was deep red, the pile so soft and thick that it felt as if it were trying to swallow Steve's shoes. There were two matching paintings on the walls, both of them modernist abstracts of surpassing ugliness. The severe lines of the paintings were echoed in the furniture, except for Stone's desk, which was a massive Victorian thing made out of some dark wood.

"Tony," Stone said, as they entered the room, "Mr. Rogers. Mr. Cage. Forgive me for not standing. To what do I owe this visit?"

"You know perfectly well to what," Luke said. "You gonna stop spreading this anti-superhero hate stuff, or are we going to have to do something about it?"

"Luke," Steve said.

"Expressing concern over the damage caused by superhuman activities is hardly hate speech," Stone said. He rested his hands in front of him on the desk blotter, fingers steepled.

"How about sponsoring people who say mutants are the Antichrist?" Luke asked, raising his eyebrows.

"I'm sure Reverend Hathart has said nothing so offensive, and if anyone else has chosen to echo his sentiments in a more extreme manner, well, I certainly can't be held accountable, and neither can he."

"Of course you can't," Tony said. "You're not that sloppy. Why are you doing this, Tiberius?"

Everything Luke and Tony had just said or implied was true, but they had come here to attempt some sort of negotiation. "If you honestly have concerns about public safety, Mr. Stone," Steve said, "we'd be happy to discuss them with you. We would have been happy to discuss them on Dateline and 60 Minutes, too, if anyone had approached us."

"There's nothing to discuss, gentlemen," Stone said calmly, rolling his wheelchair out from behind the desk. He was smilingly slightly, lips curved faintly above the dark gold goatee. "My concerns are already being more than adequately addressed."

"I'd like to think that these concerns aren't based on your past history with me," Tony said, looking Stone straight in the eye.

Stone arched his eyebrows. "Now, why would our history together have any affect on my course of action? Not everything is about you, Tony. The collateral damage caused by your friends' fights is more than enough to merit any responsible citizen's concern."

"The fallout from this campaign of yours is going to affect thousands of people, most of whom have done nothing to deserve public censure." Tony's voice was even, reasonable, the voice he used when he was talking to business partners or the press.

"That would be deeply regrettable, but the safety of the general public ought to be the city's first concern." Stone gave them a small smile that would have been charming if Steve didn't know that at one point he'd tried to use his video games as a form of mind control.

"Ty, please," Tony said, taking a half-step forwards and lowering his voice slightly. He didn't sound business-like anymore; he sounded like someone pleading with an old and dear friend. "I'm asking you as a friend. You know this isn't fair."

The change in Stone was immediate, as if someone had flipped a switch. His slight smile widened to a broad grin, and he let out a short burst of laugher. "That's my naïve little Marc Antony, always trying to get people to play fair. Grow up, Tony. Life's not fair. Is it fair that you stuck me in this thing?" He waved a hand at his wheelchair, the grin vanishing as suddenly as it had appeared. "You took my legs away from me, and I'm going to take your precious superhero game away from you, Iron Man."

Of course Stone knew that Tony was Iron Man, and of course Tony hadn't thought to mention this. However, now that Stone himself had abandoned any pretence at diplomacy, Steve could speak plainly, and give free reign to his opinions.

Tony spoke first. "This is between me and you, Ty," he said, staring at Stone with a strange intensity, "you know where I am and how to get to me; you don't need to drag other people into it."

Stone laughed again. The sound was starting to grate on Steve's nerves.

"But it's so easy. People are sheep, Tony." Stone was talking directly and solely to Tony now, as if he'd forgotten that Steve and Luke were in the room. "They believe anything the television and the newspapers tell them, and right now, they're being told that superhumans are dangerous." He smirked, stressing the word. "That superhumans are unnatural. That people like you and your friends are a threat to their boring little middle-class lives. But go ahead. Speak out." Stone sneered at Steve, apparently remembering his presence again. "Stand up for yourselves." He turned to Luke, sneer deepening. "Represent."

Stone returned his attention to Tony. "Maybe if you play your cards right with enough reporters and talk show hosts, you can even get one or two of them on your side. You could try taking Pat Zircher out for drinks," he added, naming channel two's smooth-voiced male anchorman. "You always did negotiate best on your back."

His tone was casual, almost dismissive, so that it took a moment for Steve to realize exactly what Stone had just insinuated.

Luke raised an eyebrow. "Are you implying what I think you're implying? Cause if so, you've got even less class than I thought."

"Oh, I'm not implying anything," Stone assured him, a little smile playing over his lips. "I'm merely pointing out that Tony can be quite persuasive when he's on his knees." The expression he directed at Tony this time left no room for doubt about his meaning.

Steve's vision went white around the edges; how dare Stone talk about Tony as if he were some sort of cheap whore who manipulated people with sex? Steve closed his eyes, clenching his jaw, but forcing his fists to uncurl. No matter how much he wanted to smash Stone's face in, to put the other man on the floor, preferably in a bleeding heap, decking him now wouldn't help anything. After a moment, Steve opened his eyes again, distantly both startled by the force of the emotion and appalled at himself.

Stone couldn't possibly have slept with Tony. He didn't know what he was talking about. He was just attempting to use Tony's reputation as a womanizer against him.

Still, the thought of Stone touching Tony like that -- touching Tony at all -- filled Steve with an entirely irrational rage.

Steve kept himself still and silent by force of will, not trusting himself to speak. He wasn't sure what would have come out of his mouth.

Luke stared at Stone for a second before turning to Tony. "Do you want me to hit him for you?"

Tony ignored Luke. "I can see that there's nothing further for us to talk about," he said to Stone, voice even and face expressionless. "We'll see ourselves out." He was upset, Steve could tell, but hiding it well.

The three of them left the office, not waiting for the secretary to see them out. Everyone was grimly silent as they rode the elevator down and left the building, to wait on the sidewalk outside for Happy Hogan to show up with Tony's car.

"I'm sorry about this," Tony said, staring fixedly at the oncoming traffic. "I'm sorry my personal problems are spilling over onto everyone else. Tiberius-"

Steve didn't want to hear about Tiberius. "I'll see you at the Tower," he said, then turned on his heel and started off down the street, heading for the nearest subway station.



***



Tony lay in bed, staring fixedly at the ceiling, waiting for his heartbeat to slow down. This was the sixth time in as many nights that he had woken from unsettling dreams. No, unsettling was putting it too mildly. They were dreams that made him wake up wanting a drink.

This time, it had been the Air France flight exploding. He had no memory of the plane, only of watching those two men hit the ground afterwards, but in the dream, he had been able to see everything. The right wing shearing off, the cabin depressurizing, all of the passengers screaming, and then the entire plane going up in a massive ball of fire when his repulsor beams hit the fuel tanks.

Last night, it had been Rumiko dying in his arms, and the night before that it had been Erwin Morley, crushed under fallen rubble when Obediah Stane had blown up their building in Silicon Valley. He was starting to sense a theme here. All of those deaths had been his fault.

If his subconscious was trying to tell him that his friends were at risk due to Tiberius's vendetta against him, he already knew that, thanks.

Tony propped himself up on one elbow to check the clock on his bedside table -- he could have checked the time through the Extremis, but right now, he didn't feel like accessing it. Three a.m. In three hours, he was going to have to get up, because if he wasn't in at Stark Enterprises by seven, something would inevitably go wrong.

At this point, he knew, there was no way he would be able to get back to sleep.

There had been over two hundred people on that airline flight. For all that Ty was clearly unbalanced, he had something of a point about the danger inherent in superheroes. Not necessarily about most other superheroes, but at least about him.

With the armor, he was a living weapon, and he had been used as such more than once. Maybe Ty was right. Maybe he did need to be controlled.

Or maybe the stress was just getting to him; it had happened before.

He needed to talk to someone, get this sorted out in his head. Under normal circumstances, he would have gone to Steve, but he couldn't now. Not with this. Not after what had happened.

What could you say to someone you'd almost killed? If the solution to stopping the hacker's access to the armor had occurred to him even moments later, Steve would have been just as dead as Rumiko.

Tony had been accused of self-centeredness on more than one occasion, but he wasn't selfish enough to ask Steve for comfort over this. The guilt over what he and the armor had done under the hackers control was entirely his, and was nothing he hadn't earned.

He was causing Steve -- and everyone else -- enough trouble as it was. Ty had stepped up the tenor and pace of his media attacks after their visit with him. Tony should have known better than to provoke him; Ty had as much as admitted that he'd only begun his anti-superhuman campaign in the first place in order to revenge himself on Tony.

Ty was lashing out at him out of anger and fear, needed someone to blame for the damage to his nervous system that had left him crippled. Tony knew exactly how off balance being in a wheelchair, being helpless, left you.

It didn't help that Ty hadn't been very stable to begin with. Whether he'd actually killed his parents or just convinced himself that he had, somewhere along the way, the kid Tony had gone to school with, the first person he'd ever kissed, had been replaced by someone who'd been warped by envy and bitterness.

Ty hadn't been this... twisted, then. He'd been fifteen, two years older than Tony, and had been showing him what to do with girls; it had been innocent and probably sickeningly cute. Tony had done his best not to let what their friendship had turned into taint that memory.

Steve wouldn't want to hear about that, either. He was angry enough about the situation with Tiberius as it as.

It shouldn't have mattered so much when Ty had thrown their past relationship back in his face. It wouldn't have, at this point -- he'd had enough time to reconcile himself to Ty's betrayal -- save for the obvious disgust on Steve's face when Ty had brought it up.

Steve had clearly taken Ty's reference to blow jobs as nothing more than a cheap insult; Tony didn't want to imagine his reaction if he knew that it were true, but he could, all too easily.

For years, he'd entertained a secret fantasy that someday he'd finally work up the nerve to tell Steve how he really felt about him. And that Steve, against all odds, would not be upset or disturbed, but would instead admit that he felt the same way. Probably while blushing and staring at the floor. Steve was awful at those kinds of conversations.

Of course, Steve had never given any indication that he was anything other than straight, and now it was obvious that he was appalled by the very idea that Tony might not be. He'd actually been offended on Tony's half at the mere suggestion.

Even had Steve felt otherwise, he deserved much better than Tony. Better than someone with blood on his hands, someone who was damaged goods, someone whose first instinct any time something bad happened was to go crawl into a bottle. He was lucky that Steve was even still willing to be his friend, after all the times he'd proven himself spectacularly unworthy of that friendship over the years.

He didn't need dreams of his past failures to remind him of that.



***



"So, how are you guys weathering all of the new media attention?" Jan asked, taking a sip of her coffee. "Personally, I'm glad Hank and I already decided to take a break from the superhero business for a couple of months."

Steve shrugged. "It's nothing most of us haven't dealt with before. I think it's starting to get to Spiderman, though."

Jan raised her eyebrows. "Really, Spiderman? I'd think he'd be used to that sort of thing by now."

"This time is different," Steve said. He took a bite of his apple torte. The best part about Café Sabarsky was the deserts. The fact that it was inside the German and Austrian art museum was just an added perk.

He and Jan were having an early lunch there, ostensibly so Jan could hear all about the New Avengers and Steve could hear all about England, but really because Steve needed someone to talk to about the situation with Tiberius Stone. Someone who wasn't Tony, who was already convinced that the whole thing was his fault, and didn't need to hear Steve whining about it. He'd extended the invitation to Hank, as well, but something had come up at the lab. Either way, it was nice to see Jan again.

Café Sabarsky was only a few blocks away from where the Avengers Mansion had stood, and had been a regular haunt for many of the team members before the Mansion had been destroyed. Steve had been there enough times in costume that none of the staff looked at him twice anymore; today, though, he and Jan were both in street clothes. Right now wasn't a good time for superheroes to call attention to themselves.

"Different from the time there were all the pickets outside the Mansion's gates with the ‘mutie go home' signs?"

"There's no picketing yet," Steve admitted. "I'd just hoped that people were finally moving beyond that. I didn't realize how much resentment there still was out there for Stone to tap into."

"People never quite manage to move beyond fearing what's different," Jan said. She stirred more milk into her coffee, which was already so diluted that it was a sort of khaki color. She never put sugar in it, though. She was the opposite of Bucky that way; he'd always drunk coffee black, but with enough sugar to make your teeth hurt. "I never expected that reverend guy to build up such a following in New York City, though, not this quickly. You'd think he'd be focused on the Bible Belt."

"I'm sure he would be, left to his own devices, but Tiberius Stone is paying him off somehow." There wasn't any definitive evidence of that, at least, none that Tony had been able to locate while checking up on Hathart with the Extremis. Nonetheless, Steve would bet any amount of money you cared to name that it was true. Stone had had implied as much, in between announcing that he was going to drive superheroes out of business and bragging that he'd slept with Tony.

"I really hate that man," Steve admitted. "You should have heard the things he said about Tony, when we tried to call him on what he's doing."

"I can imagine," she said, picking up her coffee cup and cradling it in both hands. "Let me guess; he said that Tony's useless, pathetic, and just generally not as all-around brilliant as he is, and that he was no good in bed. Which is a lie, by the way. I can tell you from experience. And he probably threw in something slighting about the drinking, just for fun. Everyone does that."

Steve choked on a bite of apple torte. "What?"

"Don't tell me you haven't noticed it?" Jan sniffed cynically. "Every article about Tony written in the past six years has brought up the drinking."

"No, no," Steve managed, still coughing, "the part about him and Stone. I thought that was just Stone being a jerk."

Jan frowned. "Well, I don't know for sure." She took another sip of her coffee, then put the cup down, back on the silver tray it had come on. "But given Tony's thing for people who are bad for him, not to mention his thing for tall, blond men, I'm betting they used to be an item."

Steve stared at her. He should probably contribute something to the conversation now, but he honestly couldn't think of anything to say. Tony... had slept with men. Apparently, with multiple men. Including Stone. At that thought, all of his desire to pound Stone into a bloody pulp returned. The fact that he and Tony had been lovers made the way that he had treated Tony throughout all of this -- throughout the entire time that Steve had known him -- that much worse.

"Wait," Jan said, expression suddenly chagrined. "You did know that Tony's bisexual... right?"

Steve shook his head silently.

"Oh God," Jan groaned. "I really didn't want to be that person, the one that outs people." She lifted her gaze from her coffee cup to look Steve directly in the eye. "You don't have a problem with that, do you?"

The brief burst of laughter that escaped him was probably slightly hysterical. "No. Trust me. I'm the last person who'd have a problem with that."

"Good," Jan said, smiling slightly, "because I think it would just about kill Tony if you did." Her voice was light, but the stare she was leveling at him was serious.

"I don't think my opinion is quite that important to Tony." Steve did his best to keep his tone as light as Jan's, hoping that none of the sudden bitterness he felt leaked through. Why had Tony never told him any of this? He was supposed to be one of Steve's closest friends, and yet he'd apparently had all kinds of relationships that he'd talked about with other people, but kept hidden from Steve.

And, yes, it was probably hypocritical to be hurt, given that he'd never told anyone in this time that he was attracted to men, but he'd also never done anything about it, which made it different. He'd never found someone, and once he was Captain America, and busy defending the world from Hitler's plans for a Thousand Year Reiche, there had been far more important things to worry about. Steve hadn't told anyone because there was nothing to tell, since it was only a matter of his personal feelings, and therefore didn't affect anyone else.

Of course, the fact that he'd assumed up until two minutes ago that Tony was straight had also had something to do with it. He'd been admiring Tony silently for years, and all this time Tony had been... probably completely uninterested in him, Steve realized, with an emotion he couldn't quite identify. Otherwise, he would have said something. It wasn't as if Tony was shy.

Jan shrugged. "Maybe not, but your opinion's more important to him than anyone else's, and he's probably under enough stress right now as it is, so don't you dare say anything to make it worse."

"I'd never do that!" Steve protested.

Jan raised her eyebrows. "I'm sure you wouldn't mean to," she said. She took another sip of coffee. "I suppose we'll just have to wait for this to blow over, the way it always does. It can't happen soon enough for me. The showing for my Fall line was last week, and one of the models quit at the last minute because she disapproved of vigilante violence, and couldn't wear a dress made by a superhero."

"I'm sorry." The New Avengers had set this whole thing in motion by giving Stone and Hathart, and a dozen other people, the fodder they needed. If they'd taken down the Wrecking Crew more quickly, there would have been less collateral damage, and that much less for Stone to exploit. It was particularly unfair that the fall out was spilling over onto Jan, and therefore probably Hank and other former Avengers as well, simply because they'd been his and Tony's teammates.

Jan sniffed. "She was a bleached blonde bimbo with more plastic in her than Emma Frost. Anyway, her hips were too bony for the dress to drape properly. The show was better off without her."

After that, the topic turned to Jan's new clothing designs, and what colors and fabrics she was using, and how Hank was faring at ESU. Steve listened, nodded in all the right places, and eventually found himself telling her all about finding out that Bucky wasn't actually dead.

"But that's wonderful!" Jan said. "I know he was the closest thing you had to a little brother." There was a moment of silence while both of them stared at the table, neither mentioning Clint.

"Yeah," Steve said. "It's wonderful." He left out the Russian assassin part. It was wonderful, and he didn't care what Bucky had been forced to do after the Soviets had found him. He was still Bucky. "How are things with you and Hank?"

Jan smiled faintly. "Getting better. England was good, until the fire ant incident. I think having some time off has been good for him."

"That's good," Steve said. He would be marking the days until it was the right time to ask them to rejoin the team. He'd heard this before, in almost exactly the same words, and both of them always got bored eventually. The Avengers wasn't the same without its core members, and while Thor, Clint, Wanda, and Pietro were gone, Jan and Hank were still there.

By the time Steve paid the check and they both set out for home, it was early afternoon, and shadows were already starting to stretch across the street. He hadn't finished his apple torte; it just hadn't tasted as good anymore after Jan's revelation about Tony.

Turning left out of Sabarsky's instead of right, to head for the subway, rather than the Mansion, still felt strange. The Avengers Mansion was always going to be home for Steve, regardless of where he actually lived.

Stark Tower might be Tony's home now, but it wasn't the same.

Tony. Had slept with Tiberius Stone.

Tiberius Stone had had his smarmy, sociopathic paws all over Tony. He'd done things with Tony, to Tony, that Steve had wanted to do for years. Somehow, this seemed monstrously unfair; Stone didn't care about Tony, had never cared about Tony, and yet he was the one Tony had wanted, not Steve.

He'd been angry at the thought initially -- Tiberius Stone didn't deserve Tony -- but now that he'd had time to adjust to the idea, he was mostly just tired. Tired, and almost empty, as if the anger and jealousy had left hollow places when they had drained away.

Steve stuffed his hands in his pockets, glaring at the cracks in the pavement. It was silly to feel this hurt. Lots of attractive people weren't interested in him, and he'd never felt hurt by that before. After all, Sam was one of his best friends, too, and every bit as attractive as Tony, and if Steve were to discover tomorrow that Sam liked men, but not Steve specifically, he wouldn't want to crawl into a hole and hide, or possibly punch things.

For all the years he had known Tony, Steve had never had never let himself seriously consider the possibility of anything between them because he'd always assumed that Tony was straight. Somehow, knowing that there could have been something between them after all made Steve that much more aware of what he was missing.

This was idiotic, Steve decided. Why did he have to love Tony when it had just become painfully obvious that Tony had no interest in him as anything other than a friend?

Love Tony... He was in love with his best friend, who wasn't in love with him. Perfect.

Steve kicked viciously at a stray piece of paper as he entered the subway station. The paper flipped over, revealing an advertisement for a religious revival led by Reverend Hathart, to be held in Madison Square Gardens next week.

There were moments when Steve almost wished that they had left him in the ice.



***


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{Chapter One} {Chapter Two} {Chapter Three} {Chapter Four} {Chapter Five} {Chapter Six} {Chapter Seven}

Comments

King of...2

[hohaiyee.livejournal.com]

I suppose an inspirational speech about how he should be focusing his energy and resources on fixing his nerves and being a HERO to other people with the same problem, would, not, work, on, Tiberius, Stone.

Awww Steve, obvious the fact that Stone has Tony simply means that Steve must sleep with Tony NOW, to overwrite pale traces of Stone from Tony's memory.