The Dead

[starkingenuity]

It might seem counterintuitive for the most connected person on the planet to be the last to know something is happening, but when Tony Stark is working, Hell could swallow the world up and he would make an off handed, disinterested remark that he would have to check the AC. Up in his hi-tech Tower, where he had meant to spend the week finishing up boxing the more precious pieces of unfinished projects, Tony had gotten himself caught procrastinating the only way a man like him is capable of procrastinating: by rebuilding hardware to help him finish a gadget rather than packing that gadget away.

FRIDAY had already been installed in the compound Upstate, though she never left his back pocket really. Tony didn’t hear her alerting him, therefore, when people started dying. How could he with the sound of heavy metal playing and the grinder in his hands?

Tony had stayed in his mostly disassembled, partly reassembled lab for thirty-two hours before deciding he was hungry enough to stop making do with granola bars and dried fruit and call in some pizza.

The alerts on his phone are terrifying when he finally sees them. The number of missed calls leave his mouth dry.

Despite everything, Tony’s first thought is to call Steve Rogers of all people, even before he puts the armor back on. He has no idea that Captain America fell with the rest of the country he loved hours ago.

Comments

[endof_theline]

Everything happened so fast, they hadn't even made it to Wakanda. When Steve was called in to help with a dire situation, Bucky stayed behind. There was still tension between the broken up Avengers, but whatever was going on must've been bad enough for them to all band together again.

That's exactly what they did. They banded together, and it was their downfall as well. By the time Bucky realized what was happening, it was too late. The dead were rising in extreme numbers, and the Avengers were at the heart of it all. Bucky watched as Steve ripped into another human being, and it was too much to bear, so he ran.


When the call comes through, Bucky's finger shake as he looks down at the phone, still covered in blood. Dead people don't make phone calls, right? He answers it, because he doesn't know what else to do. This would have been a nightmare not too long ago- but now there are worse things than facing Tony Stark again. "Stark?"

[starkingenuity]

Notifications flicker over the UI of the helmet once it is in place. The phone had still been ringing then, seemingly into oblivion, and the news articles stored in FRIDAY’s cloud waiting for him are like a macabre puzzle spread across his vision. Brown eyes dart across the virtual space in front of them, filling in the detail that the words and images aren’t doing themselves, when the ringing stops.

Tony thinks it’s going to voice mail when an unfamiliar voice says his name.

“Who is this?” The suit is powering up. In the darkness of the roof landing pad, the reactor and the eyes on the helmet are lit. Tony, however, doesn’t take off. He doesn’t know where to go first. The city still looks like the city, after all. There are lights in the office and apartment windows. There are lights on the street too—

They’re not moving though. The cars aren’t moving, not even at their typical Manhattan snail’s pace.

[endof_theline]

Bucky is back at the safe house Steve had set up for him. Their interum before he had decided that Wakanda was the best place for him. Steve argued, but not for long. He wanted to give Bucky the freedom of choice. Now... Steve is gone, and Bucky is collecting an arsenal of weapons so he can go back out there and- fight this? Help people? The Winter Soldier is still clawing at his brain.

He's quiet for a moment, swallowing down the dread he feels. "It's Bucky." With Steve's phone, because Steve is... he's... "I thought you were with them. I thought you were..." He trails off, not knowing where to even go with this.

[starkingenuity]

Bucky Barnes. Murderer. Victim. The good soldier twice over, though neither time by choice. It’s been a minute since Steve Steve his heart and Bucky was granted MVP status, but not long enough for Tony to feel anything but bitterness.

“With who?” Tony isn’t parsing how bloody and raw the world has become. Three minutes of photos and videos from social media aren’t doing reality any justice.

Focus.

“Doesn’t matter,” he grumbles. “Be a good boy and put your mom on for me, will you?”

Tony clicks his heels together and the repulsors on his boots flare to life, sending him into the sky before he twists horizontal to scoop back towards the street.

[endof_theline]

An icy dread crawls up Bucky's spine. Yeah, he gets why Tony is calling Steve, but he's so damn casual about it all that Bucky realized Tony might not even know. How could he not know? Steve must've called him as well, when he was assembling.

"With the rest of the Avengers. Stark- do you even know what's going on out here?" God, he barely knows. He knows what he thinks he's seen, and yeah- he's seen a lot, so it's possible, but it's still hard to believe.

Bucky grabs some more knives, puts them in a holster he grabbed off a dead person. He closes his eyes, letting out a shaky breath when Tony asks for Steve. Steve... "Steve is dead. They're all dead."

[starkingenuity]

Okay, maybe the Mom joke was a little much, but Barnes doesn’t have to insult his intelligence. Tony scoffs, though now that he is just above street level, that scoff dies in his throat and rattles around like a choke. Up on top of the Tower, despite the stillness of the city, things had looked fine. They had smelled fine. There is no barrier down here, however.

Tony jerks his body upwards, over the pile of limbs and corpses sprinkled across the sidewalk, falling out of cars, and sticking out of broken store windows.

He does not ask FRIDAY to zoom in for a better look on his helmet. He doesn’t do more than hover.

‘Steve is dead’ has hit his ears.

Steve Rogers is dead.

The rest will come in later when he can scoop some of his thoughts back inside a numb brain.

“Where are you.” The icy tone to Stark’s voice? Gone. The tone is gone completely. He doesn’t even ask the question. He demands the answer.

[endof_theline]

Bucky can feel it. Even through the phone he can hear the moment it hits. He hasn't had time to stop and think, but now it's hitting him too. Steve is dead. Steve is dead.

And then a different kind of panic sets in when Tony asks- no, demands to know where he is, because the last time they saw each other Tony was trying to kill him too.

This is different, though. It has to be.

"Safehouse downtown. Mott street. I'm- I came back here to gather supplies. I was gonna head back out there and..." He trails off again. He's having trouble finishing his sentences, clearly. "They're zombies, Tony. I think they're zombies."

He can hardly believe the words coming out of his mouth.

[starkingenuity]

Downtown. Right under his fucking nose. Tony holds onto the anger because it’s better than the grief. “There’s no such things as zombies.” No one below him are moving. He thinks. Tony doesn’t stop to look. “Stay where you are. I’m coming.”

It all sounds very heroic. In reality, Tony hasn’t decided if they’ll replay Siberia yet or not. It might make him feel better? He puts a pin in it.

Still numb, and turning again with the help of an up current in an alley way, Tony lets FRIDAY guide him towards Mott Street, triangulating Steve’s phone for good measure. The red wayfinding arrow cutting through the grid of buildings is something mindless to focus his attention on.

Because Zombies? Ridiculous. Tony swallows, banking around a corner, and drops back down to car top level. He glides over rows of cars more or less on the street before he sees a swell of bodies. Pulsing. Moving. Survivors! His boots hit the ground before he flips up his helmet. “Hey! Are you—“

First one head and then all of the heads snap towards him. Their eyes are blood red. With a snarl, they charge towards him and Tony barely lifts off of the ground. “Holy shit!” he cries, thankful for the pneumatics in the armor’s arm joints for pulling free of grabbing hands. He hovers over the mass of bodies, trying to climb one another to get to him, and then, panting, heads back towards Barnes. “Show the videos, FRIDAY,” he says, shaken, letting the AI pilot the suit to the other end of town.

[endof_theline]

Bucky doesn't want to believe it either. He doesn't want to think of the way Steve looked at him- red eyes instead of ocean blue, face and limbs all distorted. Blood and guts...

He doesn't even try to argue it. Tony will see it soon enough.

And then he realizes, maybe Tony won't make it either and he just gave his location away. It would have been better to go at this alone. It's what he's been doing for two years now, after escaping from HYDRA. Maybe he should leave this place. Tony is coming.

He grabs some more supplies- guns, first aid kit, a single notebook that used to be Steve's, shoving it all in a backpack. Maybe this is the safest place for right now, but he can't stay here.

He heads out quickly and makes his way up to the roof. He figures it's his best bet for right now, whether Tony makes it here or not.

[starkingenuity]

The target is moving. Vertically. Banishing the videos of an uprising fueled by super human dead, all strangely out of sync and shakey from formerly live social media posts, Tony thinks about calling Steve’s phone back to demand Barnes stay still, just in case he decides to actually run.

Bad idea. He doesn’t want Barnes to run. Just in case he’s the only person left in the city.

Everyone is dead—

Rhodey? Pepper? Happy? Parker? He should confirm— But later. One thing at a time.

At least Iron Man would be able to keep up with Barnes if he makes a mad dash across town. The suit is flashy, though. The red zip across the sky gives him away as he appears over the roof.

“Barnes!” Using the vocal amplifier? Not one of his better ideas. The dead can walk. And they can also hear. Hopefully they are too far below as he drops down in front of the Winter Soldier.

[endof_theline]

Will the dead start scaling buildings? Possibly. He doesn't know. He's never seen anything like this before- there's no president for it. Bucky thought he felt alone before, but now... now he really is, with no one but Tony coming to get him.

He can't think about that now.

He's up on that rooftop quick as anything, laying low the way being a soldier had taught him. Not just the Winter Soldier but even before that. He's nervous, but alert, looking out for the flying suit above, not knowing what he'll end up being face to face with.

When he hears his name from above, it's somewhat of a relief, Bucky realizes. Tony is alive. He made it here in one piece, unbitten.

He's careful though, facing Tony with a defensive stance, eyes searching, but it's hard to tell anything when Tony's got his full armor on. "Stark. Are you still you?"

[starkingenuity]

Whatever nonsense Barnes is spewing means so little to Tony that he doesn’t even answer him with a witty quip about being Jesus, come for the Rapture or Santa Claus personally delivering his coal. The videos he’d seen, the encounter he’d had, Tony is desperate to get real news from someone that might know better.

Yanking off the face plate to his helmet, a generally unnecessary sort of thing since it could easily retract, Tony’s brown eyes are wild and confused— But not murderous. His skin is pallid, but that is from exhaustion of spending the last thirty plus hours awake before seeing the city.

“What the hell happened?” Tony gestures to the street below with a large, sweeping arm gesture. “It’s been a fucking day! What kills everyone in the city in a day?”

[endof_theline]

It's Tony. It's really him.

Bucky didn't think he'd ever actually be relieved to see Tony- and yet there's also that dread still settled in his bones. He's sure Tony hates him, and he has every right to, but in this moment they have no other choice but to face each other in this way, hopefully without ripping each other apart.

It seems like on his way over here Tony had finally seen what was going on. He looks horrified, confused, disturbed, same as Bucky does.

What happened? What the hell happened?

"Steve... he got called away- it was urgent. He said it was bad, real bad. Bad enough that all the Avengers had to get together again. He said they called you too." Where was Tony? What happened? In the end it's better he wasn't there, because he might be the only one standing after it all. "And then the city just started to collapse. The newscasts went down. Helicopters, cars crashing. When I went outside there was wreckage- bodies everywhere. But then they all started to rise. Distorted, sickened, as if some sort of virus had ravaged their bodies."

Bucky takes a breath, dragging his fingers through his hair. He looks and feels haggard. He already told Tony it was zombies, but it's still hard for him to believe it as well. He doesn't know how else to explain it.

"I went to find Steve, but by the time I got there, it was too late. They were... they were killing people. Ripping into them. Clint, Natasha, Steve...They were all..."

[starkingenuity]

Bucky’s said maybe six words out loud in his entire life, Tony thinks, and now he won’t shut up. There is almost too much information. His first thought is to sit down, his knees feel ready to buckle, but the suit itself catches him. In a way, he’s grateful for that. No need to look defeated when his armor protects his body, and his dignity.

His mind categorizes what Barnes says into issues. Disease. Of course, that is his main concern. Mass casualties due to vehicles crashing. Broadcasting down. Avengers gone.

No. No they’re not gone are they?

Tony hasn’t listened to any of the voicemails he’d received. He hadn’t checked to see who had called or texted him either. He isn’t sure he can bring himself to do that now. So he skips over Bucky telling him that Rogers’ had asked him for help. That will take time to unpack.

More than Steve ripping people apart now.

It’s so grim.

“Where are they?”

[endof_theline]

Tony asked, and Bucky doesn't know what else to do but give him all the information he can, because it's unreal. Because who the hell else will he ever be able to share this with again?

He still hears sirens in the distance, but he knows soon enough those will die off as well. Would they even be able to rescue people if they wanted to?

When his words trail off he feels exhausted, like that's all he had left to give. He looks up- another helicopter crashing into a building further downtown and people screaming below. He almost doesn't hear Tony's question.

Blinking, he looks at him again. "Midtown- but that was a couple hours ago. Who knows where they are now." Tony's not thinking of trying to find them now, is he? "I tried calling a few more contacts from Steve's phone but no one answered."

He didn't call Tony.

"I thought you were with them. I thought you were dead."

[starkingenuity]

There are no hard feelings that Tony hadn’t been top of the call list for Barnes. He’s too distracted by the sound of something crashing in the distance. He doesn’t have Barnes’ hearing. He doesn’t know what the sound was but it makes his eyes rove across the roof.

He’s just standing here. He’s not helping.

Does it matter that the last people he tried to help had attacked him? Shit. He has people he cares about that need his attention—.

“FRIDAY, get the Legion mobilized,” he says. Twenty minutes ago he’d learned that the city had gone to shit and he hadn’t even started the damned process of humanitarian aid. Where is his head? He finds himself sucking in a breath. “Midtown. All right. Cell Towers might be down.” He’s on his own network. The Veronica satellite in orbit provides him better communication. “FRIDAY, ah, go through the Rolodex. Just try everyone. You connect to someone, put them through.”

The voice in his ear is silent for just a moment. “Sorry Boss. No answers.”

Tony grows more pale.

“I’m going to Midtown.”

[endof_theline]

Bucky hauls his backpack further up on his shoulder as he watches Tony. He's not sure who he's talking to- there's a lot he still doesn't understand about this world, let along Tony's suit. He watches Tony try to connect to anyone, to no avail. It's as bad as Bucky suspects it is.

They can't all be down though, can they?

Tony declaring that he's going downtown has Bucky going rigid. He has a feeling that if they part now, they'll never see each other again. All this time he would've thought that would be best, but now?

"What are you gonna do once you get there? You need a plan. If we wanna help people we need to figure out how." Running into a mess of dead people isn't going to help, so matter how tempting it is to just go forth. "If we're going to find survivors we need of a way of getting them out of harms way, otherwise we'll both be overrun."

[starkingenuity]

Who died and named Barnes Captain America?

The irony of that thought tastes as foul to him as if he’d said it out loud. Tony swallows and his eyes look almost watery. He has a way of working his jaw that melts the age off of him, and one might be forgiven to think he’s still just a kid trying to prove himself when he doesn’t have all of the answers right at his fingertips.

“We? Yeah, uh, I’m not great with the whole team meet up thing.” He immediately regrets saying it. He’s alone right now. Any ally is better than none. He’s learned that many times. “But I won’t say no to a Super Soldier shield. Brace up. I’ll take us down to recon.”

[endof_theline]

Bucky doesn't even realize he says it- we- and he's not great with the whole team up thing either. Worse by a long shot than Tony, he imagines. But here they are, and there's no one else. Maybe eventually there will be, and god he hopes so, but it's looking pretty bleak.

"Neither am I," he mutters, figuring Tony won't listen anyway- he has no reason to- and that he'll just fly off and leave him here. It'll be fine. He'll come up with his own plan. He'll grab as many people as he can and find a place for them to hide.

It's hard to even know where to begin.

But Tony doesn't leave. Bucky doesn't want the other man to take him down either though.

"I'll meet you down there." They still need a plan, regardless. If they're not smart about this, they'll end up dead.

[starkingenuity]

“No.” Why are so many old men from Brooklyn so unreasonable? Tony gives Barnes a withering look. “You won’t make it on the ground. There aren’t enough roof tops to jump.” He gets why someone wouldn’t want to cling to the outside of a suit of flying armor though. Big brown eyes roll all the way around in their sockets. “And until we know what happened— I’m not going to give you cover, got it? I’m not killing people.”

The group that tried to catch him didn’t look like corpses…. Well, they did because they looked like they all had injuries you just don’t get up and walk away from. But they didn’t look like they were decaying either.

Tony finds himself clenching his jaw again.

“Listen. I don’t got a lot of ways to compromise here. The flight is quick and I’ll put you down on a roof closer to the scene.”

[endof_theline]

The scene, Tony says, as if the whole city isn't a scene. Tony just came up on this twenty minutes ago, but Bucky's been fighting through this for a couple hours now. He doesn't know how to argue any of that, though.

He doesn't know what to say to make him realize the truth and gravity of what's going on here.

"I made it from here to midtown and back on my own. I've been out there for hours. Those dead down there are killing people." He gets it. Tony doesn't want to kill them. Bucky doesn't want to either, he feels sick with the thought of it, but these undead- dead- zombies- whatever the hell they are, they're not leaving them much choice.

"There is no scene, Stark. The whole thing is one big scene." He shakes his head, heading back to the entrance of the roof so he can go back down. "I'm gonna find a van and look for survivors and get them off the streets. You do... whatever it is you wanna do Midtown."

He could use an overhead lookout to track people down and direct him to the best locations, but he isn't going to ask for that.

[starkingenuity]

Asshole. Asshole!

Frustrated, Tony strides after the other. “You just said we needed a plan and for some reason, that actually makes sense.” No one is answering. There is one person here who is breathing. Steve Rogers is ripping people apart in Midtown.

If, of course, there is anyone left to rip apart.

“Before you turn into a suicidal Good Samaritan, could you at least let me catch my damn breath? I just found out the New York is fucked twenty minutes ago.”

[endof_theline]

Bucky is descending the stairs- hoping Tony will follow him. He really is, because as much as he prefers to go at this alone... he doesn't really want to, deep down. This is a mess. It's devastating. If they're all that's left, then....

Tony follows and Bucky slows down, glancing back at him.

"Letting you catch your breath isn't flying into a part of the city that fell two hours ago." Because Tony only found out about this twenty minutes ago. "I was there. Believe me. There's nothing left.... no one left."

The most populated part of the city is gone, and now their best bet is to work the outskirts, like this downtown area, if they can. "Wasn't there a wizard? He's got protection spells, right?"

Does he want to hide away from the world, put up a thousand walls and not deal? Yeah. But he can't right now, so he won't. Steve would be so disappointed in him.

[starkingenuity]

“A wizard. Maybe.” There are a lot of characters floating around. Most of them seem to be turned into zombies. How is that even a sentence?

Tony touches the reactor in the heart of the armor and the nanotechnology retracts from around him, minus his helmet. He’d made the conscious choice to keep that whole. He needs it for the projector.

“There are probably hundreds of thousands of people locked in their apartments. But first? FRIDAY has a database of videos. Got a blank wall I can use?” Maybe Bucky can walk him through the visuals.

[endof_theline]

Tony seems to calm down and take a breath- assess the situation for what it really is. Bucky nods, continuing down the stairs.

He leads them back into the safehouse he and Steve have been staying in. locking the door behind them and setting the security back up. Tony can take a little more time to catch his breath while they're here, and then they can head back out.

"Blank wall. Right there." He points to the wall of the room- but they're all blank. There are some of Steve's things in the corner. While Tony sets up the projected videos, Bucky stuffs those things in his bag.