Leviathan

Chapter One: The Triskelion

“Welcome, Agent, to the Triskelion. What is your Agent ID?”

Steve looked around at the futuristic headquarters in awe. He’d been playing Leviathan for years, but had only just made it out of the Badlands. Most players managed it in a year, but some hardcore players who did nothing but grind XP could manage it in a few months. Unfortunately for Steve, Leviathan was the kind of virtual reality game that required its player to actually move and walk in place. His health prevented him from going too far in a day, though thanks to the game he was much stronger than he would have been otherwise.

“Welcome, Agent, to the Triskelion. What is your Agent ID?”

“Sorry, yeah,” Steve mumbled. He’d gotten used to talking to people no one outside his headset could see or hear, but the triumph of finally making it to Leviathan headquarters had temporarily struck him dumb. “Murmur.”

“Welcome, Agent Murmur. You have been selected to join the elite forces of Leviathan based on exemplary skills you displayed in the past.”

The Greeter wasn’t talking about Steve’s past. The Badlands were set in the past, specifically medieval Europe. (Or medieval-like not-Europe as they seemed to dislike invoking real places in Leviathan.) Steve was still outfitted in armor and carrying a crossbow. There was some plot in the Badlands, but mostly it was just saving villagers and killing bandits until you reached level thirty and were recruited to the Triskelion. Steve probably should have stopped before taking on that last bandit camp, but he had realized just how close he was to thirty and couldn’t stop. So he all but cried when the Greeter started leading him down the hall, making him do even more walking..

“The Triskelion is where you will begin your training for other missions. Leviathan is dedicated to peace and order. You will be trained in many weapons and combat styles. Your first mission requires proficiency in both melee and ranged weapons, and land transportation. Master level is recommended. Sparring with other agents is encouraged. This occurs on level one. You will also find equipment for solo training. Medical is on level two. Be aware of your health. If your health reaches zero or remains at less than five percent for over twenty-four hours, you will be expelled from the program.”

Steve had read about this. If you died in the Badlands, you lost experience toward your next level. If you died in the Triskelion, you lost all of your experience and had to start over in the Badlands with nothing. The only difference between someone expelled from the Triskelion and someone just starting the game was that you knew which quests were most profitable in terms of XP or loot.

Steve was not starting over in the Badlands.

“Energy can be replenished at the canteen on level three,” she continued. Steve was struggling to keep up with her pace. He definitely wasn’t going to be able to do anything here tonight, but knowing that he’d gotten there was enough. “Levels four and up are the dormitories. Your dormitory is on level 32,557,038. Good luck.”

With that, the Greeter opened a door to a staircase and waited expectantly for him to go in. “Is there an elevator?” he asked uncertainly.

“Elevator use is restricted to Level 2 Agents.”

“How does one become a Level 2 Agent?” he asked nervously.

“Save the city,” she replied. “Good luck, Agent Murmur.”

Steve sighed. There were three big Badlands-length storylines once you reached the Triskelion, and the city was the first. He was probably never going to see that dormitory, so he’d have to sell some of his gear to make space for the new stuff. He entered the stairwell and saw that he was on level zero. The door shut behind him and vanished; apparently there was no going back to the tutorial. There was also no more climbing stairs tonight, so he hit the logout button on his wrist and took his gear off.

~*~

Steve skipped class the next day. He told himself he was going to rest after playing too long the day before, but eventually he grew too curious about the Triskelion. He’d done his best to avoid as many spoilers as possible, but he did know he’d run into other players much more frequently. He logged in at the bottom of the stairwell where he’d left off the night before and began to execute the strategy that had kept him up half the night.

He skipped the training at level one and went straight to medical. He was able to exchange his spare crossbow for two medi-packs, which would hopefully keep him from dying before he could earn more. Fortunately, the game was an MMO that passed in real time, so Steve’s energy levels had replenished while he was logged out because his avatar was predictably capable of a lot more physical activity than Steve himself. On the bright side, he didn’t have to go up and find coins for food before heading down to the training room.

There was a long hallway (because of course there was) with various doors. Steve walked right past the one labelled PVP and continued on. The left side of the hall had doors with various weapons listed and the right side had attributes like strength, dexterity, constitution, etc. He went into the strength room first, knowing his favoring ranged combat had impacted his character’s strength scores.

Regrettably, he couldn’t just push a button and solve some puzzles. He had to push his arms out and pull them back as though he was actually lifting weights. This was the kind of thing that was easy for players who hadn’t had three different heart surgeries since the age of two, but for Steve this was a task where he might only be able to earn half a dozen XP per day. He counted and it took ten reps to gain one experience point. That made his decision to keep exploring easy.

One of the doors was labelled Charisma, and Steve was so genuinely curious what kind of motion he’d have to do to develop that skill that he couldn’t pass it by even though it was collectively considered a useless skill. What he found was a nice surprise. Inside that room was a beautiful courtyard. There were trees, bushes, and flowers in an array of colors that made Steve’s fingers curl around a non-existent sketch pencil. Even better, there were benches. He sat his Avatar down on one of those and hit the movement lock button so he could lie down on his bed and he wouldn’t move in game.

For a while, he just took it all in, but it didn’t take long for another player to show up. It was easy to tell the difference between players and NPCs because players all had an asterisk on their left shoulders you could point at to reveal their stats. The new arrival noticed Steve immediately. “Hey, Thirty!” the guy called and immediately took a seat next to Steve. “Welcome to the Triskelion. I’m Wingman.”

“Nice to meet you,” Steve replied. He hadn’t gotten a good look at the guy and wasn’t about to unlock his movement, but he’d been blond like Steve and had a country accent. “I’m Murmur.”

“Don’t get a lot of players in the charisma park, especially not their first twenty-four hours. You going for squishy?”

Steve snorted. “Not really, I’m just tired, and this seemed like a good place to settle into movement lock.” Steve grinned ecstatically as +1XP faded in and then out of his vision. “Okay, so I get charisma by chatting with other players.”

“Yeah, it works like that all the time, but you level up approximately a million times faster in the park. I have a friend I usually play with, and we’d get maybe a point a day in the Badlands- and trust me, we never shut up.”

Steve laughed again. “I solo’d pretty much all of it, so I never noticed.”

“Well, no wonder you’re tired, Thirty. Must’ve taken you like a year to get through it alone.”

“Two,” Steve admitted dolefully.

If Wingman thought that was pathetic, he didn’t let on. “Falcon and I managed to team it in about eight months.”

“Yeah?” Steve acknowledged. “You must have played constantly.”

Wingman snickered. “We logged some hours, yeah. But it really does go faster the more people you have. No one you can rope in?”

Steve shook his head before remembering he was locked. “No, I don’t really have any gamer friends.” He didn’t really have much in the way of friends at all, but he didn’t need to tell some stranger in an MMO that. “Are you all still working on the city or?”

“Yeah. We’ve done a bunch of the lead-up missions, but if there’s one thing Leviathan’s good at, it’s drawing shit out. Shit. I mean, sorry. You’re not, like, a twelve year old using a voice mod and I’m cussing at you, right?”

Steve laughed again. “No, I’m twenty-four. You’re good.”

Wingman let out a hefty sigh. “Okay, good, because I curse like a fucking sailor most of the time. You should hear me if a mission’s going sideways.”

“Well, if I ever get my stats up, maybe I will. I mean, not that you’d want to drag along a-”

“Relax, Murmur. Falcon and I are here to have fun. We’re not asshole elitists like most players.”

Steve stretched in his bed, trying not to think about his poor, exhausted muscles. “That’s nice to hear. Gotta warn you, I’m probably never gonna catch up.”

“Too much real life?”

“Basically,” Steve agreed.

“Yeah, Falcon’s got a new job so I don’t see him online as much anymore.”

“Sorry, that sucks,” said Steve.

Wingman was suddenly in Steve’s line of sight as he started circling the pond. Apparently he was a restless player. That made sense, seeing as they were in a game built to make you move. “It’s alright,” the other player shrugged. “We’re roommates, so we still see each other at least in passing.”

“Do you ever run into each other playing at the same time? Like, in your apartment or whatever?” Steve asked, laughing a little to himself.

Wingman chuckled. “Once, yeah. We knocked into each other and I tripped over the couch and broke my pinky catching my fall. It’s exactly as funny as it sounds. Especially because we were in the middle of a bandit camp and they were asleep until I fell on their leader. Anyway, after that, we played in separate rooms.”

Steve laughed and suddenly Charisma +1 mod flashed on his screen. “Hey, you just helped me get a charisma modifier,” he said.

“You are welcome, good sir. Now that you’ve got that, want to check out the rest of the stuff? Wisdom’s basically Temple of Doom.”

“I appreciate the offer, but I really am just gonna lay here for a while.”

“Lay-?” Wingman repeated before remembering why Steve’s avatar was sitting so still. “You really are tired.”

Steve replied with a self-deprecating chuckle, “Yeah, I should’ve stopped way before thirty yesterday, but I saw how close I was and, I mean, I’ve been waiting two years so I should’ve waited another day but I just…”

“Dude, I get it. You’re talking to the guy whose best friend bought him a refurbished kit because he wanted a friend to help him get there faster. And now I’m the one nagging him to get on most of the time.”

Steve grinned. “Yeah, this game can be pretty addicting.”

“I’m probably going to farm ammo for a while, but-“ Wingman paused in Steve’s vision and started poking at Steve in a way that made him flinch. As soon as he realized Wingman was going for the asterisk that brought up his player menu, he felt ridiculous and glad movement lock wouldn’t have shown it. “-there. I added you. Feel free to add me back if you want. I don’t mind playing backup. It’s practically my name!”

“Thanks,” he replied genuinely and tried to point at the other guy’s menu before realizing he’d have to turn off movement lock to do it. “I’ll look you up next time I’m on.”

Wingman actually shot him some finger guns as he headed out of the park. Steve wondered if he checked the park because he wanted to level his charisma or if it was more to make friends. If Wingman’s roommate was truly too busy for him, it might be more of the latter. Like he said, only squishy characters cared about charisma. Steve waited a few more minutes before deciding he’d seen enough and that it wasn’t doing him any good to sit in an empty park. Reaching up to the logout button on the side of his helmet, he removed the kit and proceeded to curl up and get some sleep.

~*~

The sleep helped at least a little, but Steve was still worn out the next day. He forced himself to go to class, where Professor Stark was lecturing on the stone-age shortcomings of flash animation and using a lot of words most of the class probably didn’t understand. ArcOn was a programming language of the man’s own invention and Steve had thought it would be amazing to learn from the Tony Stark, but the game development course was a lot more tech oriented than art. Steve liked designing worlds. One of the reasons he took so long to clear the first world in Leviathan was that he spent so long just admiring the scenery. Every line and color had to be designed by someone, and he wanted to be that someone some day.

“Hey, Pint-Size, hold up,” the professor called as class began to let out. Steve didn’t even bother to glance over his shoulder. Professor Stark had tenure in spite of all the disrespectful nicknames he called his students, and Steve was pretty sure he was the shortest student in the class. Steve turned and forced a smile onto his face. Thankfully the instructor didn’t make him ask and just demanded, “Why weren’t you in class yesterday?”

Steve sighed and his gaze fell. “Wasn’t feeling well,” he mumbled, embarrassment evident not just in his tone but his body language as well.

“Did you work on the assignment at least?”

“Which assignment?” Steve asked, his voice pitching up nervously.

“Design an environment and put a MOB in that fits the scene.”

“Right,” Steve replied. He wished he sounded more certain about it.

“Do you know what a MOB even is, Shortcake?”

Steve opened and shut his mouth without a word. His face was deep red, judging by the burning.

“Mobile object, kid. Basic, basic game term. Seriously, have you even played a video game before?”

Steve nodded.

“I mean one with a world, not just PacMan. MMOs, RPGs, that kind of thing.”

“I play Leviathan,” Steve mumbled.

Stark lit up at that. “Now that is some worldbuilding in there. I hear it takes a year just for most players to clear the first zone.”

Steve sighed. “Took me two,” he admitted. “Not because… Look, I’m not bad at games, I’m just… I have a lot of health issues and you have to move to progress in Leviathan, and I get tired really easily.”

Stark looked him up and down, seeming to finally realize Steve wasn’t just short, but hideously sickly too. At least he probably wouldn’t think Steve was lying about not feeling well so he could slack off. Finally, whatever he was thinking seemed to reach a conclusion. “You know they make accessibility kits, right? You could navigate via a keypad and joystick.”

“Yeah. I’ve heard those are kind of clunky. Besides, the point is that it makes me move. My allergies and immunodeficiencies make it so I have to stay inside and my asthma and heart issues mean I can’t do anything too strenuous, so Leviathan’s kind of the perfect way for me to get some kind of physical activity.”

“Okay, answer me this, short stuff: why are you taking my class? What do you like about video games? Why do you want to program them?”

Steve pressed his lips together, feeling in his bones that his answer to this question was extremely, life-alteringly important somehow. “I’m an artist. I’ve been drawing since I could hold a pencil. The first video game I played was a medieval RPG and the detail was beyond amazing. Grass blades moved individually, flowers had petals, trees had fucking limbs, and things moved naturally when I walked through or into them. I want to make that, something that real and natural. I can’t do that with any other medium. I mean, maybe animation, but I like the idea of a story and a world my audience can interact with. Walk around in. Examine every fucking blade of grass because the game is that cool, that realistic.”

Stark considered him for a moment. “Cool,” he said, and Steve believed him. “So what’s the problem with your assignments?”

Another sigh. “LIke I said… I’m an artist. All the coding and numbers just kind of…” Steve made an indecipherable gesture with his hands.

“Okay, so you work on a project with me, we call it tutoring or something, and that can be your assignment.”

“You can do that?”

“I’m Tony Stark, I’m pretty sure I can do whatever the hell I want.”

Steve actually laughed a little. In spite of the man’s abrasive attitude, he was actually pretty cool. Steve probably wouldn’t end up best friends with him, but working with him on some kind of program sounded fun. Especially if he was interested in Steve’s artist perspective.

Stark dismissed him with a promise to show him the project and fill in some details after class tomorrow, and Steve’s good mood followed him out the door. He almost didn’t feel tired anymore, and didn’t even hesitate to gear up and log in to the game. The first thing he did was add Wingman back and noticed he was online and in the Strength room. Steve made his way down the hall to find the trainer simulation and saw him sparring with about half a dozen other players- no, not with. Against. Even worse, Steve wasn’t sure it was even sparring. This looked like an all-out execution.

Without a thought, Steve drew his bow and shot the biggest guy. He didn’t go down, so Steve shot him again. This time, he turned and gave Steve a look that made his breathing speed up. He must be ridiculously high level to show no disability after two arrows to the back. Steve started firing as rapidly as he could because the guy began to charge him. It barely slowed him down and he saw Wingman take a shot to try to get the guy away from Steve.

The last thing Steve saw was the guy’s broadsword disappearing into his avatar’s torso before the whole world went dark. It lasted for a full three seconds before plain, typewriter style text typed itself onto the screen: You have died. All experience lost. Restoring life essence. Transporting to The Beginning.

Steve fell to his knees on that damn grass in that fucking medieval wasteland where he’d spent two goddamn years leveling only to leave it behind for a single day. His breathing grew shallow and harsh and he realized he was crying. Just to add to his humiliation, Wingman suddenly materialized right next to him. “Dude, that sucked. Those assholes like to- You okay?”

Steve nodded, wiping furiously at his eyes under his helmet. “Yeah, sorry. It just… took me two years to get out of this place the first time…”

“Hey, don’t even worry about it. Falcon will blast himself back here, we’ll be back in the city in a month or two with all three of us..”

Steve just shook his head. “It took me so long because I physically cannot play this game for that long. My handle is Murmur because I have a fucking heart murmur, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg, pal. You know those goblin runners in Flaggron? I lost a level and had to log out because even fake game-running can trigger an asthma attack.”

“Shit, Murmur,” Wingman replied. “I’m sorry… Why’d you jump in like that? You could’ve gone back out and kept leveling…”

Steve shrugged. “I don’t like bullies.”

“Yeah, obviously not,” Wingman said with a humorless chuckle. “Look, just let me message Falcon real fast. We can probably clear the first level today. With three of us, it shouldn’t even take an hour.”

Steve nodded, but he didn’t feel as positive about it as Wingman. He wanted to appreciate the help he was being offered, but the pain of knowing he’d lost two years of hard work in about one second was still very fresh. “Thanks,” he mumbled.

“Dude, it’s my fault you’re back here. It’s the least I can do. Plus you’re gonna help me get back to the City faster too, right?”

“Yeah. Of course.”

“Okay, I’m gonna log out real fast,” Wingman said, practically dripping enthusiasm. “Don’t start rat smashing without me!”

“Right,” Steve agreed. As if the game heard, something wriggled behind a bush at the edge of his range of vision. He contemplated going after it as Wingman blipped out of existence, but he wasn’t about to waste energy when it was clear he was expected to stay until they cleared the first level. He walked over to a nearby stump and sat down. The first few times he’d sat on a rock or a stump in-game while feeling the softness of his own bed in reality, it had been jarring. Now, Steve was pretty sure he’d find it jarring to sit on something hard in the real world and have it be solid.

Finally, after about two minutes Wingman reappeared. He looked around before spotting Steve. “Yeah, he’s on his way,” the blond informed Steve. “It’s kind of hard to die intentionally in the Triskelion. You can jump off the edge of the city, though. That does the trick if you’re not ridiculously high lev- Falcon! You have a nice trip?”

“Man, I can’t believe you talked me into starting this whole damn thing over. You’re lucky I like you,” Falcon replied. Steve liked his outfit. He had some kind of mask that was probably one of the things you could buy in the gem (micro-transaction) shop. It was like a helmet with built-in goggles, but there was no top. Instead, it had two points above the ears like wings. His Avatar was Black, and he and Wingman both sounded like they were probably as tall as their digital selves. Then again, Steve had a pretty deep voice for a guy who was five foot nothing and ninety pounds soaking wet. He’d gotten a few comments on it over the years, how surprised people were that he didn’t have a high voice.

It was fucking rude.

“Hey, you’re the one who wasn’t around to save my ass!” Wingman replied, holding up his hands in a sort-of shrug. “Murmur here’s my new best friend. He actually landed some arrows.”

Steve wondered if his avatar would show his blush or if the motion capture only read motion. Falcon turned to Steve and he was suddenly painfully aware of his basic, freebie-ridden starter avatar. It was just the basic shades-of-brown peasant outfit without an ounce of customization. “Look, this guy- this guy... “ Falcon shook his head, laughing. “You picked the wrong Wingman, Murmur.”

Steve grinned self-consciously. “Pretty sure he picked a bad third party member.”

“Man, shut up,” Falcon rolled his eyes. He pointed to Steve’s shoulder and was already adding him. “Wait. Your highest was thirty?” He turned on Wingman. “You got a thirty killed?”

“It’s no big deal,” Steve mumbled.

“Murmur, it’s a big fucking deal,” Wingman insisted. “Falcon, this punk was in the Triskelion for literally a day before taking a sword to the chest.”

“What the hell, man? Why?” Falcon was looking at Steve now.

“I don’t like bullies,” Steve shrugged.

Falcon stared at him for a long moment. Then he burst out laughing, trying to say something that Steve couldn’t quite discern, but probably had something to do with him being hilariously stupid. He couldn’t help but smile a little in response as the ridiculousness of it all finally started to seem more amusing than painful. “Come on, man. Let’s rat smash until we clear this level,” Falcon finally said and threw an arm around Steve’s shoulder. The world moved as his avatar was forced to walk, but Steve had one of the cheaper kits that didn’t provide haptic feedback. He’d heard Leviathan’s developers were working on something even more intense. Supposedly they were trying to create a kit that managed to tap directly into the player’s nervous system so that they could see and hear and smell everything like it was really happening. The idea of hacking into his brain was a little bit too much for Steve. Not that he could afford an upgrade if he wanted it.

Fighting with Wingman and Falcon came easily. They talked endlessly about nothing as they exterminated every rat stupid enough to so much as stick its little nose out until first Falcon, then Wingman and Steve got level two notifications. Steve looked at his skill market and realized this could actually be a good thing. He knew at least this first level of the game well enough now that he should focus more on constitution and not just strength. He’d repeated the fifth level at least a dozen times because his health just wasn’t high enough (the irony wasn’t lost on him), and his overloaded strength stats could do a lot of damage, but not if his health was at zero.

“Well, boys,” Wingman said, spreading his arms like he was trying to embody his own moniker, “I’d say that’s a good day’s work. The rats of the Badlands will now fear the Murmur Birds.”

Falcon pointed at him accusingly. “You’re on your own if you’re calling us that.”

Steve held up his hands at Wingman’s imploring gaze. “I’m with Falcon on this one.”

“Bird Murmurs? Bird-urs? Birders, that a thing!”

“Bye, y’all,” Falcon said and reached for his log button.

“Bye, Falcon,” Steve said at the same time as Wingman yelled, “Murmur and the Birds!”

Steve was laughing and shaking his head as he hit his own logout button.

~*~

Steve was antsy in his seat for the entirety of his classes the next day. He did his best to focus on the lecture in his English class, but he was already familiar with Hamlet and then Stark was once again using technobabble that probably wasn’t even in the course. Steve was pretty sure Professor Stark just got up and talked about whatever he thought was interesting and didn’t really care if it was relevant or if the class was following.

The guy was excited about it, at least.

Finally, finally the class ended and Steve approached the front with more than a little trepidation. “Oh, good. Yay. You don’t mind a field trip, do you? I’m probably not supposed to bring students back to my place or anything, but the computers here are slower than a drunk squirrel.”

“Uh-”

“Seriously, have you seen a drunk squirrel? There are these videos on YouTube where they eat fermented pumpkins or crab apples... “

“Field trip is fine,” Steve agreed.

“Good. You’re going to watch a drunk squirrel during the drive, just so you know.”

“I feel sufficiently warned,” Steve agreed, feeling off kilter. He’d taken the class, so he knew Stark was manic and had a tendency toward hyperfixation on the most interesting shiny idea in front of him, but he never would have guessed drunk squirrels.

It was pretty funny to watch the squirrel jump up and down in the snow, though.

Even knowing Stark was a billionaire couldn’t prepare Steve for the massive size of the house. It was covered in windows and natural light, every angle a darling of modern architectural design. He followed the professor down a set of stairs with a wall of glass on one side until the workplace came into view. “So this is the lab, it’s much more fun than the stuff they have at the school. Remind me to upgrade them or something before next semester.”

Stark keyed in a code while Steve politely looked away until he heard the door open. “This is… a lot,” Steve admitted. “Uh… what exactly am I supposed to help you with?”

“Hold please,” Stark said as he marched to the middle of the room and gestured. Suddenly the entire center of the room lit up with screens that seemed to be nothing more than projections. This was the kind of sci-fi that made Leviathan look like a kid’s game. Then again, Steve couldn’t call it sci-fi since it was real and in front of him. “This is where you skip all the boring typing and just point and shoot. If you want a shape, motion, different colors, you just…”

Steve watched eagerly as the man demonstrated how he could literally draw in mid-air with a few properly executed swipes and pokes. Steve wandered into the circle and immediately started to create a tree, and then designed a squirrel climbing it. Stark poked at it and swiped back and forth to make the squirrel stumble back and forth and then hit a green check.

“I just programmed it to be drunk,” he giggled, and if this wasn’t already a blast, hearing Tony Stark giggle would have sealed it for Steve. The squirrel now climbed the tree, falling to the side and backward randomly. “Great, so you get the basics. If you need more, ask me, Google won’t know. Now. What we’re working on is, uh… hard to explain. But basically, I need someone with a good eye for detail and realism and all that jazz to help design a realistic avatar.”

“That’s it?” Steve asked before he could think better of it. “I mean, it seems like you could do that yourself…”

“Nope, need a fresh pair of eyes. I’m trying to make a suit, avatar, whatever, to check out this game Leviathan but I need it to pass for a real, in-game avatar.”

“So why not just make a real, in-game avatar?”

“Because real, in-game avatars have to follow the rules. Duh. I want my own programming and algorithms, so-”

“So you can cheat?” Steve interrupted.

Stark rolled his eyes. “I’m not really interested in playing, Mr. Morality. I just want to poke around in the game. See what makes it tick.”

“So you want to steal their programming?”

“Jesus Christ, kid. Do I look like I need to copy someone else’s programming?” He sighed and rolled his eyes again. “Look, I have a friend… well, I say ‘friend’... who’s been playing this game for years and I just want to prank him a little bit, and to prank him I need to hack the game. I’ll reset all his stats when I’m done, but first I want to mess with him a bit.”

Steve stared at him hard. He wasn’t sure if he believed the professor’s story, but there was one way to test it. “So you’re saying you think you can reset someone’s stats?”

“Oh, definitely. I just need to poke around and confirm some theories.”

“What if someone got PK’d and wants to restore their stats before they died?”

“Yeah, sure. Consider your stats reset.”

“You might not like the avatar I make you.”

“That’s okay!” Stark replied gleefully, and Steve almost felt like he was being challenged. “I don’t need to look pretty, I just need to get in the doors.”

Steve smirked a little. Stark was going to look very, very pretty.