Anchors in the Static

The low thrum of the Quinjet vibrated through the floor plates, a familiar rhythm that did little to soothe the tension coiling in Steve’s gut. Outside the reinforced cockpit door, the rest of the team was a murmur of voices and the clatter of gear being checked one last time. Here, in the cramped navigation alcove, there was only the blue-green glow of a holographic map and the man standing in front of him.

Tony Stark had already sealed his helmet, but the faceplate was retracted. His eyes, dark and impossibly deep, were fixed on Steve’s. The air between them was thick with everything they never said when others were around.

“Last chance to back out, Capsicle,” Tony’s voice was low, filtered slightly by the suit’s internal comms, but the smirk was all his. “I hear the Alps are lovely this time of year, but I’m not sure about the HYDRA-infested parts.”

Steve didn’t smile. He reached out, his gloved fingers tracing the sharp, unforgiving line of Tony’s jaw. The metal of the Iron Man suit was cold under his knuckles, a stark contrast to the warmth of Tony’s skin. “Just stay close, Tony.”

“Always do.” The words were a promise.

It was a reckless, stupid thing to do, minutes before a drop into hostile territory, but Steve couldn’t stop himself. He leaned in, closing the small gap between them, and pressed his mouth to Tony’s. The kiss was hard, demanding, a release of the anxiety that had been building for hours. Tony’s lips parted instantly, and his tongue met Steve’s in a slick, hot tangle. One of Tony’s gauntleted hands came up to cup the back of Steve’s neck, the metal plates surprisingly gentle as they settled against his skin.

Steve pressed closer, his body flush against the unyielding armor. He could feel the low hum of the arc reactor against his chest, a steady beat that was as much a part of Tony as his own heart. He slid his tongue deeper into Tony’s mouth, a possessive stroke that made Tony groan, the sound vibrating through their joined lips. Through the thick fabric of his tactical pants, Steve felt himself harden, a familiar and frustrating ache. He wanted more. He always wanted more.

Tony pulled back just enough to speak, his breath ghosting against Steve’s mouth. “Careful, Rogers. You’ll have me deploying countermeasures right here in the cockpit.”

Before Steve could answer, the calm voice of the Quinjet’s pilot filled the alcove. “Cap, Iron Man. Two minutes to the drop zone.”

The moment shattered. Tony’s hand fell from Steve’s neck, and the faceplate slid down with a soft hiss, hiding his expression. The glowing blue eyes of the Iron Man mask blinked once. “Showtime.”

Steve nodded, his own focus snapping back into place. “Let’s get this done.”

The drop was clean. They landed in a swirl of snow and pine needles, the silence of the alpine forest absolute after the roar of the jet. The HYDRA facility was a concrete scar carved into the mountainside, just as the intel had described. They moved like shadows, a silent, efficient unit, until everything went wrong.

There was no sound, no warning. Just a blinding, silent flash of white light that pulsed outwards from the base. Steve felt it like a physical blow, a wave of energy that scrambled his senses. The world went dark. His comm unit died with a burst of static, plunging him into an unnerving silence. The lights on his tactical gear flickered and went out.

He looked for Tony. The Iron Man suit, usually a beacon of light and power, was just a dark, motionless statue in the snow a dozen yards away. It had dropped from the air like a stone.

“Tony!” Steve’s voice was swallowed by the snow-heavy air.

Panic, cold and sharp, lanced through him. He sprinted, his boots sinking into the deep powder, his shield a dead weight on his arm. As he reached the inert suit, a shudder ran through it. With a groan of protesting metal, the faceplate manually retracted, revealing Tony, pale and disoriented, his eyes wide.

“EMP,” Tony breathed, the word a puff of white in the frigid air. “Son of a bitch. They fried everything. The suit, the comms… all of it.”

Gunfire erupted from the direction of the base, bright flashes against the grey twilight. The rest of the team was cut off, blind. They were exposed.

Steve grabbed Tony’s arm, hauling him to his feet. The suit was dead weight, an iron coffin. “We have to move. Now. There’s a SHIELD safehouse. Five klicks, northeast.”

Tony stumbled, his reliance on the suit’s power making his own limbs feel clumsy and weak. “Five klicks? In this? I’m a walking tin can, Steve.”

“Then we walk,” Steve said, his grip on Tony’s arm tightening. He slung Tony’s arm over his shoulders, taking on most of the weight. “Come on.” They were alone, stranded, with HYDRA soldiers closing in. The only way out was together.

The trek was brutal. Every step was a testament to Steve’s endurance, the dead weight of Tony and his inert suit a crushing burden. Snow soaked through the knees of his pants, and the cold was a physical ache in his bones. Tony, shivering and silent, leaned heavily against him, his face pale and strained in the dim light. When the squat, dark shape of the cabin finally emerged from the thick pines, a wave of profound relief washed through Steve, so potent it almost buckled his knees.

He practically kicked the door in, half-dragging, half-carrying Tony over the threshold into the pitch-black, frigid interior. The door swung shut behind them, plunging them into absolute darkness and a silence that was even more profound than the one in the forest. For a long moment, they just stood there, breathing heavily, the air frosting in front of their faces.

“Okay,” Tony’s voice was a low murmur, close to Steve’s ear. “First things first. Get me out of this goddamn thing.”

Steve didn’t need to be told twice. His fingers, clumsy with cold, found the manual releases at the neck and chest of the armor. He worked with a practiced familiarity, unlatching plates and easing the heavy pieces away from Tony’s body. The suit came off in sections, each one landing on the rough wooden floor with a heavy, metallic thud. When the chest plate came away, revealing the soft black undersuit and the steady, reassuring glow of the arc reactor, Steve let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

Freed from the armor, Tony sagged against him, his body trembling from cold and exhaustion. Steve’s arms wrapped around him instantly, pulling him flush against his own body, sharing his warmth. Tony buried his face in the crook of Steve’s neck, his cold nose pressing against Steve’s skin.

“You’re freezing,” Steve stated, his hands rubbing up and down Tony’s back, trying to generate some friction, some heat.

“No shit, Rogers,” Tony mumbled into his shoulder, but he didn’t pull away. He melted into the embrace, his smaller frame fitting perfectly against Steve’s. The tension of the escape, the adrenaline, the fear—it all coalesced into a different kind of energy now that they were alone and safe. Steve felt it in the way his own body responded, the ache in his groin stirring to life despite the cold and their grim situation.

He tilted Tony’s head back, his thumb stroking over a cheekbone that was far too sharp. In the oppressive dark, he could only make out the faint, silvery outline of Tony’s face, illuminated by the soft blue light of the arc reactor. He lowered his head and captured Tony’s mouth with his own.

The kiss was nothing like the frantic, possessive one on the Quinjet. This was slow, deep, and searching. Tony’s lips were cold, but they warmed quickly under the pressure of Steve’s, parting with a soft sigh. Steve slid his tongue inside, tasting the faint, metallic tang of adrenaline on Tony’s. He explored the warmth of his mouth, a slow, deliberate claiming that was meant to reassure, to ground them both. Tony’s hands came up to fist in the front of Steve’s uniform, pulling him impossibly closer. The kiss deepened, growing hungry. Steve’s hand slid down Tony’s back, cupping his ass through the thin fabric of the undersuit, pulling their hips together. He felt Tony press against his erection, a low groan vibrating from his chest.

“Steve,” Tony breathed against his lips, breaking the kiss. “Generator. We need heat before we can do… this.”

Steve rested his forehead against Tony’s, his breathing ragged. “Right. Generator.”

They found it in a small, stone-walled cellar, accessible through a trapdoor in the floor. It was an old diesel model, bulky and smelling of oil and damp earth. Tony produced a small penlight from one of his pockets—of course he had one—and cast its thin beam over the control panel.

“Okay, this is old SHIELD tech. Pre-Banner, even,” Tony muttered, his fingers tracing the wiring diagrams etched into the metal plate. “The EMP must have fried the primary ignition relay. I can bypass it, but I’ll have to reroute the main power feed.” He pointed the light at a thick, insulated cable. “That’s the main line to the cabin’s grid. But look at this.” He shifted the beam to a second, slightly newer-looking conduit branching off from the main junction. It was wrapped in a different kind of shielding, one Steve didn’t recognize. “This one… it’s not on the schematic. It looks like a more direct, efficient line. Probably a later upgrade Fury forgot to document.”

Steve watched him, the focused intensity on Tony’s face a familiar, comforting sight. “Is it safe?”

“It’s a shortcut. Should get the power flowing faster,” Tony said, his mind already working through the problem. He didn’t sound entirely certain, but he was shivering, and the need for heat was becoming urgent. He stripped the ends of two loose wires with his teeth, his expression one of pure concentration. “Gotta get the juice flowing. Hold the light steady.”

He leaned in, his hands sure and precise. Steve held the penlight exactly where Tony directed it, watching as he carefully maneuvered the exposed wires toward the terminals of the unfamiliar conduit. With a decisive move, Tony pressed the copper filaments against the contacts.

There was a sharp crackle of ozone, and a deep thrum resonated up from the stone floor, a vibration so low it was felt more in their bones than heard with their ears. It was a resonant, bass hum that seemed to sink into the marrow, unsettling and profound. Tony pulled his hands back with a satisfied grunt, the immediate danger of the live wires gone.

“And let there be light,” he said, his voice echoing slightly in the small stone room.

Upstairs, a series of loud clicks echoed, followed by a sudden, strobing light that bled down the cellar stairs. It wasn't the warm, yellow glow of an incandescent bulb, but a sickly, violet pulse that flashed three times, plunging them back into darkness between each beat. The strobing effect was disorienting, casting Tony’s face in sharp, alien angles, the blue of his arc reactor clashing with the strange purple light.

Steve felt a prickle of unease crawl up his spine. “Tony? Is it supposed to do that?”

“Power fluctuation,” Tony said, though his voice lacked its usual unshakeable confidence. He was staring up the stairs, his brow furrowed. “Old grid. Just needs a second to stabilize.”

As if on cue, the violet strobing stopped. The light settled into a steady, functional white, but the afterimage of the purple seemed burned into Steve’s vision. The hum, however, didn’t stop. It continued its sub-audible thrumming from deep within the cabin’s foundation, a constant, almost imperceptible vibration under the soles of their boots. A faint, inexplicable sense of wrongness settled over him, like the feeling of a storm gathering just over the horizon, a pressure drop in the air that his body registered before his mind could process it.

“There,” Tony announced, turning away from the generator. He rubbed his hands together, trying to restore circulation. “Heat should be kicking on any second. Let’s go upstairs before we actually freeze.”

He led the way out of the cellar, and Steve followed, his senses on high alert. The main room of the cabin was now bathed in a sterile white light from a series of bare bulbs in the ceiling. It was rustic and spartan: a stone fireplace, a threadbare sofa, a simple wooden table and chairs. Dust motes danced in the air. As Tony had predicted, a wave of dry heat was already beginning to emanate from vents near the floor, a welcome relief from the biting cold.

The relief, however, felt incomplete. The hum was still there, a constant presence that seemed to make the silence feel heavier, more deliberate.

Steve closed the trapdoor, the heavy wood muffling the sound of the diesel engine, yet the deeper, foundational hum remained unchanged. “I still feel that vibration.”

Tony waved a dismissive hand, already moving toward the small kitchenette. “Harmonic resonance from the generator. It’s an old beast sitting on a rock foundation. Bound to be some weird acoustics.” He opened a cabinet, his back to Steve. “Now, let’s see what passes for five-star dining in this SHIELD-issue hellhole.”

Steve didn’t move. He stood in the center of the room, turning in a slow circle, trying to pinpoint the source of his disquiet. It wasn't just the hum. It was a feeling. A subtle charge in the air that hadn't been there before. The space felt occupied, watched. He looked at Tony, who was now examining a can of beans with theatrical disgust. The unease sharpened, twisting into something ugly and unfamiliar. For a split second, an utterly baseless thought sliced through his mind: He did that on purpose. He knew that other conduit was different.

The thought was so foreign, so irrational, that it startled him. He shook his head, physically trying to dislodge the feeling. It was the EMP, the cold, the exhaustion. That had to be it. But as he watched Tony turn back toward him, a cocky smile on his face as he held up the can, Steve couldn't completely shake the cold sliver of suspicion that had taken root in his gut. The warmth from the vents was finally chasing the chill from his skin, but a deeper, more insidious cold was just beginning to settle in.

“Dinner of champions,” Tony declared, shaking the can. The sound was tinny and loud in the quiet room. “Hope you like botulism.”

Steve forced himself to relax, to push the bizarre, intrusive thought away. It was fatigue. Nothing more. “We’ve eaten worse.” He managed a small smile, taking the can from Tony. The metal was cold against his palm. “Let’s just see if we can get it open first.”

The search for a can opener proved fruitless, but Tony, ever the improviser, produced a multi-tool from another hidden pocket and expertly carved the lid off. They ate the cold beans directly from the can, passing it back and forth in a silence that felt different from their usual comfortable quiet. The constant, low-frequency hum from the foundation seemed to absorb all other sound, making their chewing and swallowing feel jarringly loud. Every glance Steve took at Tony felt loaded with a question he couldn’t articulate. He saw the way Tony’s eyes darted around the room, the slight tension in his jaw, and wondered if he felt it too.

“I’m turning in,” Steve said finally, placing the empty can on the table. The heat from the vents had made the air stuffy, but it hadn’t warmed the core of him. “There are two rooms down the hall. I saw them when we came in.”

“Yeah, I’m beat,” Tony agreed, not quite meeting his eyes. “You take first pick. I’m not proud.”

The comment was typical Tony, but it lacked its usual easy charm. It felt defensive. Steve just nodded and headed down the short, narrow hallway. The two doors were identical, plain wood set in the stone wall. He pushed one open. The room was little more than a cell: a narrow cot with a thin mattress and a single wool blanket, a small window showing only impenetrable blackness. The hum was just as present in here, perhaps even more so, seeming to vibrate up through the cot’s metal frame.

He stripped off his uniform, leaving on the thermal undershirt and pants. Lying on his back, he stared up at the wooden ceiling, his hands laced behind his head. Sleep felt a thousand miles away. The silence from the rest of the cabin was absolute, save for the incessant vibration. He couldn’t hear Tony moving around at all.

The thought returned, unbidden and stronger this time. He knew. He knew that conduit was different. He chose it. Why? To prove he was smarter than the original SHIELD engineers? To show off? The recklessness of it, the sheer arrogance of tampering with undocumented technology in a crisis, grated on him. It was the kind of move that got people killed. It was the kind of move that Steve had spent years trying to train out of him. And in the oppressive, humming silence of the cabin, it felt less like a lapse in judgment and more like a deliberate act of defiance. He felt a coil of anger tighten in his chest, hot and unfamiliar. He was angry at Tony, and he didn't fully understand why.

In the next room, Tony lay just as rigid in his own cot. He hadn’t bothered to undress, too drained to do more than toe off his boots. He could feel Steve’s presence through the wall, a solid, unmoving weight. And he could feel his judgment. He’d seen it in Steve’s eyes when the lights had flickered that violent purple. He’d heard it in his clipped, quiet tone over dinner. Disapproval. Captain America’s silent, stoic disapproval.

Tony had gotten them power. He’d gotten them heat. He’d bypassed a fried relay in a system older than he was, in the dark, while half-frozen. And Steve had looked at him like he’d endangered the mission. Like he was a liability. The old insecurity burned in his gut. For all their progress, for all their trust forged in battle, in the end, Steve still saw him as the reckless merchant of death, didn't he? A problem to be managed. The hum vibrated through his bones, and each pulse seemed to amplify the thought. He’s just waiting for you to screw up. He’s always waiting.

They lay there in their separate, identical rooms, a single wall between them. The silence stretched, thick and hostile, poisoned by a suspicion that had no name and no source. The low, steady hum continued its work, a sound that was not a sound, slowly and methodically pulling them apart.