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[tavella]

harmonyangel and I were IMing, and I shared one of my dark post Civil War AU bunnies, and she said I should post:


tavella: My other dark AU idea isn't *quite* as bad. But
still creepy.
harmonyangel: What is that?
tavella: Basically, three years or so down the road
everything has gone even more to hell and Carol realizes
Tony is nuts and allies with various other pro and antiregs to take
him out, and in the course they discover just how literally Tony meant
that remark to Bob, about how he wasn't going to kill his friend, he
was going to lock him up until he saw reason.
tavella: There's a dead zone in the negative zone prison
that no one knew about, because it was built by Stark Enterprises.
tavella: And they go down to see what the hell is there,
nearly getting themselves killed by the various defenses.
tavella: And discover a cell attended by robotic
machinery, spartan but not unpleasant, in which Tony's been keeping
Steve locked up for the last three years.
tavella: And going to visit him every few weeks.
harmonyangel: Wow
tavella: And Steve's been trying to stay sane, but after
the first few visits the anger ran out, because Tony was the only
voice and face he saw, and if they talked Tony stayed longer.
tavella: And brought him books.
harmonyangel: This is creepier than your other idea.
tavella: it's not as bad! Cap gets freed! And helps the
revolution.
tavella: he's messed up, but not entirely *broken*.
harmonyangel: Stockholm Syndrome Cap scares me more than Cap clones.
tavella: Tony may even be better once they take the
Extremis out of his head.
tavella: He's strong! He'll get better.
harmonyangel: *pets him*
tavella: But Carol is very, very freaked when she forces
that door open.
harmonyangel: As she should be.
tavella: I may have just a titch of an Thing for the
Cap-as-King-Arthur theme.
harmonyangel: It's not a bad theme.
tavella: the sleeping king who returns in the hour of need.
tavella: He's written stuff too.
tavella: Tony always gave him paper. In fact, when they
search Tony's office they find at the bottom of a drawer a stack of
Steve's sketches.
tavella: Steve never knew where they went to, because
some days the food and water were drugged.
harmonyangel: Jesus.
harmonyangel: You should write this.
tavella: If only I wrote as compelling as I bunny.
harmonyangel: It would be very hard to screw up a bunny as
awesome as that.
tavella: For ages after he's released, he has this wierd
little habit where he'll only eat a bit of a meal at first. Not that
it made any difference in the end, because he couldn't stop breathing,
but at least it didn't make him a participant in his own submission.
harmonyangel: Wow.
* tavellalight pets locked up Steve.
harmonyangel: I might have preferred that to dead!Steve if
it was comics canon.
tavella: I figure he's pretty zen by the end, really.
He's gone through all the stages, but after a while despair and acting
out and all the rest get boring.
tavella: and his mind is too strong to just break entirely.
tavella: so he starts to write to give his mind something to do.
tavella: I figure he can write the most brilliant
handbook on tactics and strategy since Liddell-Hart :)
tavella: and maybe his memoirs, because trying to
remember everything keeps him occupied.
harmonyangel: Cap fixes his own continuity while in jail!
tavella: hee!
tavella: They've got Tony in an artificially induced
coma, because with the Extremis he's not safe any other way, and they
are still working on how to get it out of his brain.
tavella: So he's pale and silent in a hospital bed when
Steve comes to see him. Carol does *not* think this is a good idea,
but it's hard to say no to him right now.
tavella: Everyone tries very hard not to think about
whatever *else* Tony might have been doing when he had Steve
unconscious.
harmonyangel: O.O
tavella: ...I'm tempted to post this to Livejournal.
harmonyangel: Do!
harmonyangel: I am sure people will be interested.
tavella: I like the image of Steve almost as a monk, or a
jedi. Waking up, doing his exercises in the ten paces the longest bit
of the cell allows him, carefully portioning out the reading from his
small library, because he might get another book the next time Tony
visits, or he might not. And then settling down to write or draw -- he
finds himself writing more as the years pass, and the memories of
things other than his four walls fade, but there are faces he will
always remember
harmonyangel: *wibble*
tavella: When they find him, there's a neat little row
of portraits pinned to the wall opposite the bunk. Bucky doesn't think
he ever looked that good, but he runs his fingers over the one of
Sharon; it catches all the fear and strength that makes her.
harmonyangel: Awww
tavella: He really wishes they'd let him kill Stark when
the first took him down, but he doesn't know where they have him held,
and Fury won't tell him.
harmonyangel: Go Bucky!
tavella: It wasn't entirely Tony's fault! The Extremis
ate his brain!
tavella: ...they are going to have a hard time keeping
him from trying to die, when they finally get it out of his head and
let him wake up.
harmonyangel: *hugs him*
tavella: and they still need him, because they have a revolution!
tavella: and he's the most powerful man in the world,
both politically and economically.
tavella: Stark Enterprises having grown exponentially in
the intervening three years.
tavella: meaning that yes, at some point he and Steve
will have to be in the same room while strategy is planned, with most
of the rest of the participants knowing what Tony did.
tavella: making for the most awkward scene in the history
of the MU.
harmonyangel: Wow
tavella: Steve knows that it's not healthy that he's not
angry; a SHIELD psychiatrist with the highest security clearances has
been to see him, a case history folder full of neatly penned pages and
sketches in her hand. His friends are all angry on his behalf, and he
knows it scares them that he doesn't answer their anger, but the
conversations Tony and he had... were good. History and politics and art,
hours of talking all circling around the silent fenced zone of how he
came to be locked in that room.
harmonyangel: Ooh
tavella: sadly, this bunny kind of lacks a resolution.
harmonyangel: Perhaps it will come to you.
tavella: unfortunately, sex would be a very bad idea :)
harmonyangel: Well, yes.
harmonyangel: Though it probably wouldn't be the
unhealthiest thing that happened in that story.

(LJ-ify your IMs before pasting!)

I had forgotten one fillip, though; the drawings are how they end up discovering Steve. They find the stack and think that they are old drawings, until Sharon is flipping through them nostalgically, and realizes that one of them is of Tony in a SHIELD uniform. After a few minutes of disbelief (Peter: Maybe he drew it while he was in jail. Sharon: You think he was taking the time to do portraits of Tony two days after that fight?) they start tearing the place apart.