heroic_jawline | Above Stark Industries, Thursday afternoon

"...you okay?" Tony asked once he heard the sort of language that should probably have some &$@#% symbols in place of them.

Steve groaned. "You're an idiot. Other you. Sorry."

Okay, Tony could probably argue it, but only out of sheer contrariness.

"Any particular reason for that?" he asked, glancing past him to see if he could figure it out on his own.

"He just threatened a terrorist on live TV and gave his address out," Steve said, hiding his eyes with his hand.

"What."

No, seriously now.

"What?"

"Here," Steve said, handing him his phone.

Tony looked confused and concerned for the first few seconds as he watched the clip. Up until the mention of the Mandarin drained all that away to a chilly calm. "Of course he exists there."

"You know the Mandarin?" Steve replied, looking extremely focused.

"We've met," Tony said, faintly. "I put him in prison."

"In my version, he just blew up the Chinese Theater," Steve said.

"In Los Angeles?" Tony asked, trying to think of what sort of grudge he might have had against it. Other than the usual mayhem and destruction of those he felt needed it.

He sighed and rubbed his forehead.

"How many of the rings does he have?"

"Rings?" Steve reached for the file while the news feed shifted to a livestream of Tony's Malibu home. "I don't remember anything about rings."

"He has or will have ten rings. They're... alien or extradimensional tech. I never had enough time to study them before the breakout happened," Tony said, tilting his head as he watched that strange Californian home.

"Huh," Steve said. "Maybe that's what's causing the explosions. They've burned incredibly hot."

"He also had a cult dedicated to him," Tony added helpfully. "Too scared to refuse him."

"That part seems about right," Steve said, pulling up the Mandarin's latest televised lesson. "Did he look like this?"

"...I suppose? In very broad strokes," Tony replied slowly.

"What's his organization like in your world?" Steve asked. "Maybe it'll give us some leads in mine."

"They're fanatics mostly," Tony said, taking a seat on the arm of the couch. "But he's smart. Dangerously smart. Last I heard he just disappeared into China and not a peep has been heard from him since. Which can't be good for anyone."

"Probably not," Steve agreed. "He's all about teaching us lessons, apparently."

He clicked the Mandarin's message aside just to watch a missile aimed at Tony's house. "Holy shit."

Tony tilted his head, only a little tightening of his mouth in response to that as he worked through the payload of that missile vs the integrity of the house and cliff side.

Because of course he was.

"Does he have an armory there?"

"He must," Steve said, scanning the building anxiously for the familiar flash of red and gold.

And of course someone would be just filming this for everyone to see. Tony gritted his teeth, trying to piggyback onto that signal to latch onto any unsecured systems near the house.

"Give out your damn address," he muttered. "Idiot."

Steve had gone entirely tense on the sofa as he watched, hating the all-to-familiar feeling of absolute helplessness. "You called out a terrorist, Tony," he muttered. "You had a plan, right?"

Well, he probably had a plan? Maybe? Tony usually had plans that went to shit and needed to be reworked all the time.

Tony put his hand on Steve's shoulder. "There," he said, pointing to a flash of gold that wasn't part of the explosion.

Steve let out a relieved breath. "Thank God."

That relief wouldn't last long, though.

Awww, c'mon. Didn't Steve want to visit Everything Is Awful Land?

"Where is SHIELD during all this? It's being aired live for god's sake."

"I'm calling right now to ask," Steve said, picking up the phone just as most of Tony's house crumbled into the Pacific. "Fury, what the hell--" he began.

Tony had a moment to think that he must have assumed the surrounding stone was the wrong material because he'd honestly thought it would have taken at least ten more minutes for that to happen.

"Where is he?" Tony muttered under his breath, trying to will the smoke and debris to clear. With his magic powers.

"I don't know," Steve snapped. "Fury? You've got a tracker on him, right?"

The voice on the other end of the phone seemed far more concerned with Steve's tone than telling him anything.

Yeah, that sounded like Fury.

"Remarkably glad my team never joined SHIELD," Tony muttered. "It won't help if I say I've survived worse, will it?"

"Not right now, no," Steve said, scanning the water for any signs of the suit.

"It's waterproof." A beat. "Or should be."

"Okay," Steve said, remembering to breathe again and tuning out the breathless and inane prattle of the television commentators.

"We'll find him," Tony promised despite really not being able to keep that promise.

"I want to do something," Steve was all but snarling at Fury on the phone.

Fury's response was succinct and soon Steve was holding a dead phone when he crushed it just a little too hard.

"Whoops."

Tony sighed, trying to pry the unfortunate and poorly made phone from Steve's hand. He'd... have to figure out a replacement for that.

"What did he say?"

"He said that I couldn't teleport to Malibu," Steve said, "so I couldn't do much good right now."

"But you can look for the Mandarin in the meantime," Tony replied. "You know someone who caught him before, after all."

Steve nodded, scrubbing his hand through his hair. "Okay, we can do that. Should I call Rhodey? He's point at the Pentagon for this."

"He'll be raising hell over this," Tony said with a small grin. "So he's a good bet. I don't--other people I'd ask to help don't seem to exist for you."

Steve nodded, chewing on his lower lip. "And Tony would get in touch with him practically first, right?"

"Is he War Machine there?" Tony asked, frowning as he tried to picture Rhodey not being.

"He was rebranded about a month ago," Steve said. "He's Iron Patriot now."

Don't laugh, Tony.

He did not laugh! He looked positively murderous for a second before forcing it into a calm expression.

Because of course Osborn would have picked that name too.

"I would contact him once I was certain I wouldn't put him in harm's way." A beat. "And Rhodey would punch me for it after putting himself there on his own."

"Sounds like the Rhodey I know," Steve said, calling Rhodey's number.

"Hey, it's Rogers," he said. "Don't suppose you've heard from Tony yet?"

There was a long, awkward pause and Steve's face fell. "Yeah, me either. Not that I'm exactly his first call, but--"

But he can't be gone.

"I'd wait," Tony said, low enough that the other Rhodey wouldn't hear him. That would probably just make things weird. "Formulate a plan first."

Steve nodded. "Has Pepper heard--"

His eyes went wide. "She was in the house too? Is she alright?"

He nodded for Tony to know. "She's with some visitor who showed up--Maya Hansen--who works for AIM? Tell her if she needs anything, I'd be happy to help."

"AIM. Advanced Ideas Mechanics," Tony said. "Maya Hansen works for them?"

He covered his mouth.

"Maya, what have you gotten yourself into this time?"

"So AIM is bad news?" Steve asked, covering the bottom of his cell phone with his hand like it was an old-fashioned ~~miraculously repairing, oops~~ hand set.

It was just a little cracked!

"Remember MODOK?"

"The weird head thing?"

"Built by AIM," Tony said with a smile that wasn't exactly happy. "And Maya... Maya Hansen was the primary programmer of Extremis."

Steve hissed in a breath. "Hey, Rhodey? Any chance you can run down the location of where Maya works? It might be important."

"See if this version of her is as lax in following ethical guidelines as the one I know," Tony muttered just a bit bitter. "God, the idea of the Mandarin with that is just..."

"Terrible," Steve said succinctly. "Call me back if you get anything good, Rhodey?" he asked, then disconnected. "How does Extremis work?"

"The pure version that Maya and FuturePharm created was meant as a technological version of the super soldier serum," Tony replied. "Nano-technology that reprograms a subject on the cellular level."

He took a breath, rubbing his forehead.

"One soldier to take down all resistance in a city by themselves."

Steve made a face. "Great. And what did the stuff that didn't work do?"

"The paired down version is the one I programmed for myself using her last sample of the injection." Ahem. No big.

Steve made another face. "What did Extremis do before it was pared down?"

"Enhanced strength, speed, regenerative capabilities, uh... breathing fire." That one had sort of puzzled Tony, but hey. Different strokes. "I got the feeling it was just a hodgepodge of powers go see what stuck?"

"And what happened if it doesn't work correctly?" Steve asked, turning off the stream of vaguely panicked commentators babbling about the death of Tony Stark.

"Psychosis," Tony said, finding absolutely no way to soften that one. "It's... see, with you and even Schmidt, they only enhanced the possible limits of human capabilities. With this guy, it was everything and the kitchen sink. Not something the human brain can adapt to all at once."

Steve winced. "So anyone they've experimented on will need to be stopped entirely? Or is there a way to reverse the psychosis?"

"I don't know," Tony replied. "This strain could be different. Butterfly effect and all that. And I didn't really get a chance to try with the other test subject back home."

Nope, just blew his head off and panicked a lot.

"I'm wondering if the bombings are linked to failed experiments," Steve mused. "Take someone who's going to die anyway, strap a bomb to 'em...gets rid of your evidence..."

"That would fit the Mandarin's MO," Tony replied slowly. "If Extremis is involved... you don't need to build a bomb. A subject could be one."

Steve's eyes went wide. "They can blow themselves up?"

He tilted his head at Tony. "You're not going to blow yourself up, right?"

"What? No, I reprogrammed it." On pain mess, with one hand shattered. Tony, look at your life, look at your choices. "But it's possible to do. With the right tweaking yo the code."

"Anything that could tell us that they're doing that?" Steve asked, reaching back for the SHIELD file.

"Do we have a reconstruction?" Tony asked, settling in for a little science and a little sleuthing. "Or video I could pull one from."

Steve nodded, handing over a flash drive. "I trust you," he said with a small smile. "Oh, a warning. Happy Hogan was one of the victims at the Chinese Theater--he's still alive, but in the hospital. Didn't want seeing him to be a shock for you."

Tony went still for a moment, looking at the drive before nodding and taking it. He perfectly capable of compartmentalizing this.

And subtly checking on his Happy and Pepper. No big.

"We'll get this figured out."

"Of course we will," Steve said. "Let's make it sooner than later."

"Don't underestimate what I'm capable of, Rogers," Tony shot back with a quick smile that nearly reached his eyes.

"Only made that mistake once," Steve replied, smiling back.

"Keep me informed," Tony said, heading for his lab to, undoubtedly, come to the exact same conclusions as his counterpart had.

Weird, right?

Eerie! Or something!

"Will do," Steve said, going back to scanning his files.

Above Stark Industries, Thursday afternoon

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