Chapter Text
Hulk’s mouth twisted in annoyance as he raised a hand to shield his eyes from the shimmering facade of the building. He and Thor had donned their diving suits, and he hated the way that the rubberized material pulled against his skin.
The building that they stood in front of had been inlaid with all sorts of white and iridescent shells in a curving pattern that resembled a fish’s scales. Above the curved spires of the door there was a sign in Atlantean writing the he couldn’t read.
Though his comm Hulk asked, “You’re sure this is the right place, Goldilocks?”
“I am certain of it.” Thor said, pointing at the statue of Neptune in the square across the street. “The street is just at the page boy described it.”
It’s Atlantis . Even in his own thoughts, Hulk’s voice was a grumble. For all he knew there were dozens of statues of Neptune littered around the underwater city.
“Let’s get this over with.”
Inside, Hulk and Thor ascended a large staircase and found themselves in another of the strange pockets of air. Hulk promptly undid the helmet of his diving suit, glad for a chance to escape it, and immediately humid, perfumed air hit him.
Hulk wrinkled his nose. “Is this what I think it is?”
As if in answer, two Atlanteans walked past, wrapped in towels that looked like they had been made with a substance as light and fluffy as seafoam.
Why would the counselor be at a stupid spa?
“Let’s look for him later,” Hulk suggested.
But Thor had already strolled up to the counter and pulled his bag of gold coins from his hip, ignoring Hulk.
So Hulk stomped peevishly after him. “Didn’t you hear what Hulk said?”
Too late. Thor turned and held out a little shell bracelet that was much too small for his green wrist.
“Have you never been to a spa?” The Thunderer asked. “By Odin’s beard, you will enjoy it! Let us start our search with the clay room.”
“Hulk does not go to spas!” he said petulantly.
“Today he shall, in order to help friend Tony.”
“Don’t wanna.”
Thor leaned in close. “The entry fee to this place is costly. It will shame us both if we leave here empty handed.
Hulk glowered, then snatched the shell bracelet. “Fine. But you owe me, Goldilocks.”
At least the towel things would be more comfy than his diving suit.
#
Clint and Steve found their way down to the lower levels of the castle with only half a dozen wrong turns. Clint was still trailing wet footprints from the door he’d accidentally taken that lead to a deep shaft of water--like an elevator, only without the mechanical bits.
“How do they keep track of it all?” Clint asked, exasperated. He was very much looking forward to heading back to the surface.
“I think they probably don’t mind the difference as much as we do,” Steve replied over the comm, diplomatic as ever. They had both doned their diving suits because they weren’t sure what to expect. A fishery probably meant open water, though.
As it turned out, it was a mix of both.
The castle had a long glass air tunnel that lead out to the periphery of the palace, beneath a veritable aquarium. The Atlanteans seemed to love their glass ceilings so. Then again, it did provide for quite the show. Clint gaped up at one of the biggest fish he’d ever seen. It was the size of a bus.
“Amazing, are they not?” Clint’s amazement swiftly soured into annoyance at Namor’s haughty voice. “None bigger exist.”
“Blue whales are still bigger.”
“They’re very impressive,” Steve assured Namor, trying to offset Clint’s quip. He glanced sidelong at Clint as if to say, be nice, we need him on our side.
Namor’s smile was genuine, Clint was sure of this. But it was too sharp, too pointed, as if Namor was here to take something. He seemed to like Steve complimenting his fish, though. So if that’s what Namor wanted, Clint would try.
Half-heartedly.
“I could--uh--watch them do that thing with their mouths all day.”
Clint tried to find some other compliment--he really wasn’t used to having to look for one for fish though--but Namor seemed intent on ignoring him.
“Steve Rogers. I hadn’t thought to find your here.”
Liar.
“Perhaps you would like to have that meeting I requested of you now?” Namor touched Steve on the arm and let his fingers trace upwards towards Steve’s chest.
Oh. That’s what Namor wanted.
Creep.
“I uh--” Steve stammered. “Uh.”
“You’ve only seen a facet of Atlantis’s grandeur from the castle. I wish to take you out in a chariot to show you the whole gem.”
“Uh--”
“I insist.”
“When do we leave?” Clint asked. Pointedly. Normally he’d picture Steve as the chaperone sort. This situation, however, was anything but normal.
Namor’s lips thinned and the gills at his neck flared ever so slightly as he begrudgingly acknowledged Clint’s presence. “As soon as the chariot is prepared, I think. Alas, it is only large enough for two.”
“But--”
“However, I believe the keepers will be feeding Aurochs here, soon.” He pointed to the Giant Sturgeon above. “If you find them so fascinating, perhaps they’ll let you join in.” He leaned in toward Steve, conspiratorially. “You, I’m sure, have much more pressing things to attend. So let us not delay.”
Steve looked over his shoulder as Namor drew him away with a look of help!
Don’t make Tony kill you, Clint mouthed silently after him.
#
“Make way!”
Tony scrambled and very narrowly avoided being bowled over by two Atlanteans carrying a huge statue of Neptune out the inner door. On their way up, he and Natasha had seen all manner of things being packed into carts: furniture, boxes made of coarse sea fibers, delicate items wrapped in thick bubbles of glass--feathery starfish fans, bottles, paper and inks, and more.
The house where they had learned that Rakaa lived was a mansion on a street of mansions. Inside they were greeted with a large, open room that, while not as grand as Namor’s palace, certainly looked as though it had been inspired by it.
On a landing above, where two sloped staircases met, Councelor Rakaa was directing traffic. “No, not the Ivory room, yet! That goes in the next cart. The Blue room still needs to be packed, and so does the kitchen! And will someone tell me where in blazes the appraiser is? She and the auctioneer were supposed to be here two hours ago!”
“Someone looks like they’re leaving in a hurry,” Natasha whispered to Tony.
Tony pulled his pad of paper from a water right pocket. She doesn’t look like she has time to talk.
Natasha patted Tony on the shoulder. “You just leave that to me,” she said, eyeing the lay of the place, and listening.
What are you looking for?
“Go make sure the cook isn’t making off the silver! I want that appraised first!” Rakaa continued shouting orders, and a young Atlantean scurried down the one of the staircases and through a doorway to obey.
Natasha waved for Tony to follow and her, and together they set off after him.
#
Counselor Gellis was reclining in a sauna, arms stretched wide across the bench, his gills fluttering languidly in the hot steam of the bath. In one corner, grates covered a crevice in the rock that dropped down into a pool of water that bubbled with heat from a hydrothermal vent.
It was nice. Except it smelled like fish.
Hulk dropped himself onto the bench next to the Councilor, who made a very undignified squawking sound. It died out into a squeak when he saw who had come to pay him a visit.
“How did you two find your way in here?” He asked, affronted by their presence.
“We paid, the same as you, I would imagine,” Thor replied, lowering himself with more dignity on the other side of the fat counselor.
The Atlantean’s silver eyes narrowed in Thor’s direction. “Rabble do not usually frequent this sort of place.”
Thor gave a hearty laugh. “Rabble? Take a care, sir. You speak to Thor Odinson, the Thunder God, and the Incredible Hulk, the strongest there is.”
“Am I to be impressed by that?”
“I told you,” Hulk muttered. “Puny fish man is too stupid to tell the difference.”
“Now wait just a moment--” Gellis puffed up like a toad.
“Aye,” Thor was grave. “I suppose you will have your dues. Five hundred gold coins from the vaults of Asgard, as promised.”
“Five hundred gold coins!” the councilor’s eyes got big. “I could buy this place for that much gold.”
“He’s terrible at betting,” Hulk told the counselor, in mock aside. “But he’s always good for the money.”
Thor sighed dramatically, putting one hand on the Gellis’ shoulder. “I am only sorry that I was wrong about this one.”
“Wait, wait!” Gellis pawed at Thor. “No, stay, please.”
Thor and Hulk exchanged smug looks.
“So you like this place enough to consider buying it,” Thor began.
“Not me,” Gellis said morosely. “Salaa. She has been accustomed to an extravagant life, you see, and she would come here everyday if she could. She was recently widowed, and I fear I will be unable to woo her if I cannot keep her in the fine things she loves.”
“Ah, a women.” Thor clapped a hand to his chest. “One of the sweet mysteries of life. Tell us more.”
Hulk groaned.
Gellis slumped. “I do not think there is much to tell. A councilship is prestigious, but I don’t have time same pockets as someone who inherited. I’ve had to take on more apprentices.”
“They pay you to study?” Thor asked.
“Oh yes. The more lackluster, the higher the pay. Your friend, Balen, inquired not long ago if he could study with me.”
“Oh? You do not sound pleased by this. I thought you wanted more apprentices.”
Gellis seemed flustered. “Yes, but too many bad apprentices, and one begins to look like a bad teacher. And your friend. Forgive my bluntness, he has never been the sharpest student. I asked him for a ridiculously high fee. I thought he’d give up, but he was bound and determined.”
“Truly,” Thor leaned in. “How did this fare for you?”
Gellis shrugged. “After he disappeared, I didn’t think any more of it. Now that he’s back, I suppose I will have to see if I can foist one of my other students onto Rakaa. She needs them just as much as I do.”
#
This was new.
There were many places Clint could have landed in life: henchman or supervillain, though stayed with the Crime Circus, he’d probably be in a supermax prison at this point in his life. Alternatively, he could have been a regular old joe, had a quiet life somewhere...he’d always liked the country.
One thing he had never pictured himself doing: brushing the teeth of a giant fish.
Now safely back in the comforts of the fishery’s air chamber, Clint threw the tool--part brush, part rake--in a corner, and began peeling off his diving suit with wet squelching.
“It was nice to have another set of hands today,” one of the fish keepers, Udu said. “The only reliable helper we’ve had is Balen, but only when he needs a few extra coins.”
The other one, Odo, was emerging up the steps with his own scale-and-slime encrusted brush. “Yes, and Aurochs seems to like you. He’s scared off everyone else.”
Aurochs was the big, bus sized sturgeon, and Steve couldn’t blame anyone from running away from the fish in terror. He pictured the giant fish flopping along the sidewalk after him and wondered what Cap and Tony would say if he asked to keep it.
“I don’t suppose you’d like to stay?” The two keepers asked Clint, hopes high.
It was such a pleasant change from the deep anti-surface bias he’d seen up until now. Not that Clint even considered taking them up on their offer--cleaning fish teeth versus being on the Avengers team. Not really a hard choice.
“I think the counselors would have a cow if a human stayed in Atlantis.”
“What is a cow?” Odo asked.
“Uh…” Clint scratched the back of his head. “Nevermind. Not important. They wouldn’t like me staying.”
“Oh,” Udu’s gills drooped. “I would risk the counselor’s wrath. I don’t think we’ll ever be able to find someone to stay on.”
Clint was not used to sad Atlanteans. Angry and with pointy spears? Yes. Yes, he could deal with that. But with sad, Clint didn’t know where to begin.
“Why? Isn’t a place in the palace staff prestigious?”
Udu shook his head. “ It used to be. But it won’t be any longer--not serving alongside us, anyway. We lost one of Auroch’s newborns.”
“It slipped through the pen netting,” Odo added hastily, earning a nasty glare from Udu.
“I am tired of that lie.”
Odo’s gills flared. “Surely--”
“Surely Clint Barton deserves the truth now. He worked beside us as a friend when no one else would.”
“But--”
“The newborn did not escape. It was stolen under our watch. Fish teeth cannot chew through our pen netting the same way a knife can.”
This didn’t surprise Clint. But the cover up did. “But then why say the baby escaped?”
“Giant Sturgeon look just the same as other fish until they reach maturity, it would be entirely plausible that the fish was out there, swimming the oceans.”
“You can be dismissed for losing a King’s property,” Odo added. “But if they thought we helped someone steal the King’s property, we could be exiled!”
“We’d never see our mother again.”
“A little shame is worth avoiding great shame.”
“But it wasn’t your fault!” Clint protested.
“But it was!”
“We saw yellow monsters cutting the netting,” Odo confessed. “They had a ship that looked like yours.” It all came out in a rush after that, like the opening of a floodgate.
“They also had big guns, and we had nothing.”
“And there weren’t any palace guards nearby, so we hid.”
“So you see, it was our fault.”
Clint still disagreed, but Odo and Udu begged him to keep their secret. Clint reluctantly agreed. He just needed them to tell him one more thing. “Did you happen to see them taking an Atlantean prisoner?”
They looked at one another, an unspoken battle of how much to divulge warring between them.
“No. But we did see an Atlantean with them, attracting a young fish for them. That is why we made up the story of the fish escaping.”
“It was too dark to see who it was.”
“But they were wearing a counselor’s white robes and casting spells.”
The rest of the problem unfolded before Clint’s eyes. “And without a smoking gun, who would the King believe, you or one of his advisors?”
#
“No, no, no!” Councilor Rakaa groaned as two movers bumped into one another. The glass bubbles they were carrying, piled high in their arms, scattered across the floor. Tony expected to hear shattering, but the glass was harder and sturdier than it looked. Instead they rolled across the floor like marbles.
“Perhaps a seat, Councilor?” Natasha asked as Tony proffered a stool.
The old Atlantean looked at the two surface dwellers suspiciously. “I’m quite capable of standing.”
“Maybe a drink then?” Natasha raised a glass, and this time Rakaa’s temptation was too great.
Shouting orders like that means she’ll have a dry throat, Natasha had pointed out as they had followed the young Atlantean to the kitchens. “But she’s proud. She’ll refuse the first thing we offer, but accept the second. The trick is making them both desirable.” That’s when her eyes had lit upon the stool.
“Thank you,” Rakaa accepted the water. She gulped down half the glass in one go, then wiped her blue lips on the back of a scaly hand. “You two!” She shouted down to the movers who were scrambling to pick up the orbs they’d dropped. “Have you had midday meal? Go take a break if you can’t focus.”
“But ma’am, you said you wanted everything out by--”
“It’ll be quicker if you aren’t so distracted that you keep running into one another.” She made a shooing motion and the movers, still surprised by their luck, scrambled off.
Rakaa rubbed at her forehead with a thin hand and looked at the stool that Tony was still holding. “I think I will take that seat now.”
“Busy day,” Natasha observed as Tony set the stool down.
Rakaa lowered herself onto it wearily. “And I don’t particularly need you adding to it.”
“Why such a hurry?”
“Because the house has been sold, along with half of my possessions.” Rakaa groused.
“Ma’am?” A skinny, Atlantean girl clutching a list interrupted as she summited the stairs. “I cannot find your Officiant’s robe anywhere. Are you sure it has not been taken to the new house already?”
“I am certain. Make sure the auctioneer hasn’t taken it by mistake. I need it for this afternoon’s ceremony.” Rakaa turned back to Tony and Natasha. “Now tell me plainly, what have you come for?”
“We wondered if you knew the Atlantean who went missing.” Natasha asked.
Rakaa looked at her suspiciously. “I did, in passing.”
“Do you think anyone might have had a reason to help in his disappearance?”
Rakaa grumbled at this question. “He’s certainly foolish enough to wind up in the nets of someone with a grudge. But perhaps it was just a case of him being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Maybe.”
“That’s all I know on the matter. Now was there something else?” The councelor was a clam, closing up after being tapped. Tony knew Natasha recognized this as well. They’d have to come at it from another angle.
Natasha inclined her head to the councelor. “No, thank you for your help.”
On their way out, they ran into the girl from earlier. She had pried open several chests and was kneeling in front of one. Clothing was strewn about the hall, and her silver eyes and nose were puffy and red. As she dug through piles of shimmering fabrics, her gills flared.
“No luck finding the robe?” Natasha asked, picking up a flowing blue piece of cloth and folding it.
“I don’t know where if could be,” the girl moaned. “I’ve looked everywhere. Maybe she just doesn’t remember selling it. She’s been forgetting things lately…”
“Maybe she’s too proud to admit selling it,” Natasha offered.
The girl started at the suggestion. “Why would she lie?”
“She doesn’t seem very happy about giving up any of this.”
“No,” the girl admitted. “But before the debt collectors, she’d never--that is to say, she wouldn’t make me keep looking if she remembered selling it.”
“Pride can do funny things to people.”
“No, she wouldn’t. One of Gellis’ new apprentices--that friend of yours--came around to settle a gambling debt. He wanted robes for his studies, but she didn’t want to part with any of them. They were above his station, she said. No, I’m certain she hasn’t sold it.” The girl got to her feet and pulled another trunk from the stack, waiting for movers to haul it out.
Do you really think Rakaa would torment the poor girl like that?” Tony held up his pad of paper for Natasha to see.
Out of earshot, Natasha said, “I think Rakaa has outlived her means and owes someone a lot of money. Maybe she was hoping for a payout that never came.”
From AIM?
“It would fit their MO. Maybe the deal was sweetened by the chance to get rid of a young upstart.”
What now?
“Now, we report back, and see what the others learned.”
#
“So to recap what we’ve found,” Natasha said as the group gathered around the table again that night. Everyone was present, except for Sam, who was on the verge of a breakthrough and had locked himself in his room. “We have two counselors that would both benefit from some extra money. Money that they might have been counting on getting from AIM.”
“Also fish like Clint a lot,” Hulk added, grabbing one of the dried seaweed snacks and chomping down.
Tony briefly considered whether the trouble of removing his breathing apparatus was worth appeasing his grumbling stomach. After the face Hulk pulled, he decided the answer to that question was a resounding no .
Clint scowled, arms crossed. He’d been unusually silent during the regrouping. “At least it was a fish cuddling up to me, and not Namor.”
Steve sighed.
Balen blinked. “I did not picture the King as a cuddler.”
If he had something further to contribute, Steve chose not to comment on it. “So today’s information doesn’t allow us to rule anything out.”
Balen looked uncomfortable. Learning that two of your heroes had equal motive to have you kidnapped would do that, though.
“This may take some time,” Natasha pursed her lips. “I think we should at least consider the possibility that it might be a long-term mission. Steve, maybe you should take a group back to the surface while a few of us remain down here looking for a solution.”
Tony’s heart began to thud heavier in his chest at the thought. No, he tried to will himself to be calm. He’d be all right. He could manage without Steve. The team wouldn’t leave him completely.
Unless they couldn’t find a cure for him, a dark part of his mind whispered.
Tony felt a strange numbness in his legs then, as though they’d fallen asleep. The brief tingling sensation quickly gave way to excruciating pain. He pushed on the table with shaking hands and nearly fainted when he looked down.
His feet weren’t feet anymore. They were spiny, brown fins. And his legs--he’d thought the sticky feeling on his legs had been blood, but maybe a more apt comparison was superglue. The diving suit that he had been wearing strained and the seams finally split at the seat of the pants. The rest of the change took hold rapidly as his legs fused into a tail.
Thor was sitting next to Tony, and he was the first to see. “Odin’s beard!”
This was bad. Very, very bad. His body felt heavy and sluggish and so very dry.
And why did it have to happen here, where they could all see? Without legs to sit properly, Tony slipped off the chair and onto the floor. He squirmed, pulling himself along by the elbows toward the edge of the water suite.
“Is that a tail?” Hulk asked in a rare moment of surprise.
“Tony!?” He hated hearing the worry in Steve’s voice. If he could just get to the water, slip beneath the surface, he wouldn’t have to hear it.
Then one of the bedroom doors opened, and Tony heard Sam, excited. “Guys, I just had a breakthrough. I cross-referenced all the samples, and there’s no marker matches for homo mermanus . I think Tony was exposed to a serum based on…”
Sam caught sight of Tony, moving along the floor with all the grace of a beached whale.
“...a fish,” he finished, lamely.
“Allow me, Tony,” Thor said, picking him up and depositing him in the water.
Perhaps he was an ingrate--it certainly felt nicer to be in the water--but Tony couldn’t help longing for it to be Steve instead. He felt safe with Steve’s arms around him.
Some instinct prodded him to flick his new tail in the water, and he shuddered at the foreign sensation. If the change could affect him on more than just a physiological level, what was next? Would he turn into a fish completely, like some ichthyoid Kafka grotesque?
He gulped as he saw scales spread across his hands.
Happy place, happy place, go to your happy place. He chanted to himself as he closed his eyes, hearing it in his head in Hulk’s deep voice.
His focus was interrupted by Clint. “So if Tony’s becoming a fish, who gets promoted to world’s smartest man? Reed Richards?”
“Clint!” For once it was Natasha, not Steve scolding the archer.
“What! Levity is important.”
Tony shut his eyes again and tried to drown them all out.
“Time and a place, man.” Sam sounded disgusted.
“But seriously,” Clint went on undeterred, “how much do you think the black market would pay for genius super-serum fish DNA? Can you imagine how much AIM would kick themselves if they knew what slipped through their fingers?”
For a moment, everything was quiet. And when Steve spoke, Tony realized why. He must have been giving Clint that quiet, disappointed look that could make a stone feel guilty. “AIM is irrelevant. We’re going to get Tony back to normal and then put this all behind us.”
“But--”
“Go to bed Clint.” Steve’s voice had a steel in it. “In fact, you should all get some shut-eye so we can go looking for more leads bright and early.”
And that was the end of the discussion.
#
Tony didn’t sleep well. The water, coupled with the even stranger developments in his body, left him too miserable to do more than doze. Instead of retreating to one of the sunken rooms, he opted to stay in the common area, floating close to the surface as he had the night before when Steve had held him. It gave him a morsel of comfort to hold on to, which was better than nothing.
Tony shifted in the water, rolling onto his back and looked up through the still waters at the darkened ceiling above. He had no trouble adjusting his buoyancy, which probably should have worried him--one more fishy aspect that he’d taken on--but Balen had brought a tea to keep him calm. He said it was a sedative.
Also, possibly a hallucinogenic--effects were varied among Atlanteans. Balen had no idea what sort of effect it had on fish.
Something rippled in his Tony’s vision--a bug skittering across the water maybe? Or perhaps it was the drug.
Then it moved again in the darkness, and something coarse and scratchy was shoved into Tony’s mouth.
He struggled. But where he would have kicked at his assailant before, now he only had a tail. It thrashed helplessly against something big and solid. Hands came up, clapping his gills, and it stunned him as much as a knee between the legs would have.
Then he felt himself being hauled up and out of the water. And that wasn't good. He’d start suffocating again, helpless as a fish dangling on a hook.
Something thin and light hit him then, and in the darkness Tony felt himself falling, crashing back into the water on top of his assailant. Momentarily freed, he pulled the course fabric that had been shoved in his mouth out and quested out with his fingers, finding that he was surrounded by nylon netting.
He bobbed up to the surface as his assailant’s scaly hands shoved him away, searching for the edge of the net. They didn’t succeed, however. Both of the them froze as the lights came on, and Tony found himself floating in the pool, looking at Balen.
“What are you doing?” He asked in a voice hoarse with disuse, utterly shocked.
Next to the lights, Clint leaned against the wall, a smug grin plastered on his face. “He was going to sell you out to the highest bidder.”
“What?” Tony goggled at the Atlantean. He was downright hurt. They’d saved him, and this was how he repaid them. “Why?”
The other Avengers, having been woken by the commotion, began spilling out into the common area.
Clint basked in the attention. “He’d needed the money. Apprentice fees are expensive, aren’t they?”
“What?” Balen flailed beside Tony in the net. “No. You’ve got it wrong.”
“I really don’t think so. Gellis was demanding exorbitant fees, but you would have done anything to become a magician like Merlin. You told us it was your dream. So you looked for any way to make it possible. You pitched in around the fishery for some extra money, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but that hardly--”
“You needed robes for your apprenticeship, and you tried to get them cheap from Rakaa.”
Galen sunk down in the water.
“But cutting corners and doing errands wasn’t doing the trick. AIM’s original plan wasn’t to kidnap you, was it? They were going to pay you for one of Namor’s prized sturgeon. There’s no way to tell them apart from common sturgeon when they’re that young. How else would you have known the fish they kidnapped along with you was valuable?”
“Lies!”
“I bet if we look through your room, we’ll find the trunk of Rakaa’s missing robes,” Clint said.
At this, Balen gave up the ghost. “I needed the money! No one would take me without it, and I never thought there’d be any harm,” he wailed.
Steve clapped Clint on the back. “Good work. We should go tell Namor.”
Clint grinned mischievously. “What, you don’t want to tell him yourself?”
Steve’s lips thinned. “You know what? I think it’s about time for you to start that fish search and rescue mission.”
#
Tony turned his hand over, goggling at the lack of fins between his fingers. It had only been a few days, but a few days of having his body change drastically had felt like five hundred. He could walk again, having ditched the tail. But best of all, he could breathe air like a good human being. The only evidence that he had ever been slowly turning into a fish were a few stubborn patches of scales on his arms. Balen had assisted Sam in formulating the counter-serum, under the advisement of Gellis, and they all assured Tony that the patches would disappear in the next few weeks.
“If not, you are welcome to return.” Namor said. He had called all of the Avengers, Udu and Odo, and Balen to his throne room after Tony’s treatment was deemed a success. Then he stared pointedly at Steve, “I encourage it, even if you do not require further aid.”
Odd. But maybe Namor had wanted to make it clear that all the Avengers were invited?
Udu and Odo received a pardon for their deceit, along with a severe warning to never let it happen again.
Initially, Namor wanted to send Balen back to the surface with the Avengers, saying exile was kind given what he had done. If he wanted to collude with the surfacers, then he could do so for the rest of his life.
While Tony certainly had little love for the Atlantean after what he had tried to do, it was hard to miss the tremble that went through him. Tony couldn’t help recalling the poignant fear that had gripped him personally at the thought of being left alone in a foreign land.
“He was helpful in creating the cure,” Tony pointed out.
“He’s young,” Steve added. “If nothing he did had irreparable damage...”
“My fish is still missing,” Namor pointed out.
“Actually, while you all were working on Tony, Hulk and I went back up to the surface and brought the rest of AIM’s experiments down for treatment too.” Clint waltzed in, a dozen Atlanteans pushing and pulling a large tank. Inside, a fish the size of a cow floated. Clint stuck his hand down in the water, patting it on the head like a dog, and it bumped playfully at his hand. “We found this one rapidly outgrowing its tank even though it wasn’t hooked up to any of their weird serums.”
“Plooka!” Odo ran over and pressed his face to the glass. The fish tried to like his face through the tank with a huge, bulbous tongue.
“I wish you’d stay,” Udu said sadly to Clint. “You have such a way with them. ”
Clint raised his hands, “No can do.”
“If they need help, maybe there’s a way for Balen to make amends to the King here…” Tony suggested.
“It would be fitting,” Namor conceded.
Clint grinned. “Balen, buddy, I hope you like brushing fish teeth.”
#
“Haven’t you all had enough of the ocean?” Tony asked, feet firmly on the sandy beach. He’d stripped down to swimming trunks and was standing side by side with Steve, their fingers intertwined. He had a snorkeling mask in the other hand. No flippers though. He’d had enough of fins for one week.
“No way! This is awesome!” Clint whooped as Aurochs towed him further out into the waves on his surfboard. It was the only way he was able to keep up with Udu and Odo, who had finally been given a long awaited vacation now that there was help around the fishery. “Eat my dust, Cap!”
“Are you just going to let him tease you like that?”
“Yes,” Steve squeezed Tony’s hand.
“I don’t need a babysitter, Steve.”
“What, you don’t want to go for a romantic walk on the beach?”
Tony glanced down the beach where Thor was burying the Hulk in sand. It looked more like he was making a small hill. “I don’t know if romantic would be the right word for it.” He sighed and looked back at the surf.
“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, Tony.”
“I know. But I do want to.” He fit the mask over his face. It should have been easy, after recent events, to wade out into the water. But minds are tricky things. Tony got up to his waist in the surf before digging his heels in, feeling the waves erode the sand between his toes, pulling at him insistently, as if willing him to take Namor up on the offer to return.
Strange to go from unwanted visitor to welcome houseguest in so short a time. Namor had been downright warm. At least to Steve.
Farther removed from the stresses of the transformation and cure, a horrible realization washed over Tony. It occurred to him that he needed to worry about someone other than himself being carried off by the ocean.
He looked back at Steve, who had only ventured out ankle deep. “So do you think you’ll ever take Namor up on the offer to go back?”
“No.” It was said quickly, possibly too quickly, and Tony couldn’t help the suspicious look.
Steve seemed to read him like a book. “Let’s just say we both have a reason to love dry land.”
Tony laughed. That was his Steve, all right.
“Do you still want to join Nat and Sam, or do you want to head back?”
Tony steeled himself and made up his mind. “No, let’s go. Race you there?”
“Maybe if I tie one arm behind my back,” Steve snorted.
“Hey, your suggestion, not mine!” Tony laughed, and dove into the waves.