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cap_ironman2012-06-09 12:41 pm
Fic: Worshiping at the Modern Altar Chapter 6, R
Rating: R
Warnings: Language, a bit of violence
Beta: None
Summary: In which Steve meets Rhodey and Tony gets left behind when the others get to go 'play'.
Pairings/Characters: Steve/Tony, plus loads of other characters... like everyone.
Word Count: About 6,300
A/N - Look, look! I have an actual icon :D I had a panel from the comic that has probably made the circulation here where Steve is asking Tony about his 'safe word', but it was too big to use T_T
Chapter Five - LINK
Chapter Six - All is Fair in Love and War
“It’s a sandwich,” Steve stated, his irritation mounting.
The guard didn’t seem to care. He was a lower-level agent, armed to the teeth and looking every bit the black-ops soldier he probably was before SHIELD recruited him. He sounded bored when he responded, “Fury said nothing goes in or out without inspection.”
Steve pulled the red and brown sack away from the guard’s reaching hand, holding it over his head since the man was several inches shorter than he was, “If you inspect it, Tony won’t eat it. He doesn’t like other people to touch his food.”
“Captain Rogers, Fury was explicit in his instructions-”
His patience reached the breaking point. He raised his voice enough to make it an order, “Call upstairs and clear the damn sandwich.”
It was twenty-seven hours into Tony’s allotted forty-eight and the eccentric billionaire hadn’t slept, or eaten, as far as Steve could tell. All the attempts he’d made to get Tony to take a break were met with silence or mumbled responses about the state of Jarvis and what Tony had left to finish. Steve had brought food more than once, but always came back to find it untouched. The missing salad at lunch had given him hope, until he realized Jane was the one to eat it. In desperation to find something that would make Tony stop working for ten minutes, Steve had gone all the way to his favorite restaurant to get a meal Tony reserved for ‘splurges’. He wasn’t going to let the guard ruin his chances of getting some sustenance into his boyfriend before he passed out.
While the agent was talking into his radio, Steve heard a door slam on the street. He glanced over his shoulder to see a military hummer pull away from the curb and a dark-skinned man in a perfectly pressed air force uniform headed for the building. Even in the gathering twilight, Steve immediately noticed the silver eagle on the man’s hat and saluted him, “Colonel.”
Returning the salute with a slightly creased brow, the colonel said, “At ease…” He drew it out, clearly waiting on Steve to fill in his rank. Steve was in a collared shirt and kakis, which was hardly helpful in identifying him. The dress uniform they’d given him when he’d woken up from the ice was still in his closet, gathering dust with Tony’s electronics.
“Captain Steve Rogers, US army, sir. You must be Rhodes, Tony’s been expecting you,” Steve explained and gave his hand a firm shake.
“Army?” Rhodes echoed as they got waved into the building. Taking off his hat and tucking it under his arm, Tony’s friend questioned, “I thought Tony was done with the military, what’s he doing with a liaison officer for the army?”
For a second, Steve didn’t know what to say. It was obvious enough that Tony never brought up their relationship with Rhodes and Steve didn’t feel like it was his place to tell him. Steve’s chuckle was awkward in his own ears, “I’m not a liaison. Tony and I… work together.”
Rhodes didn’t know him from Adam, but the man was sharp. Suspicion hovered in his gaze as he studied Steve. Whatever he suspected, he didn’t ask. They passed by the armed guards at the security desk and had to go through a second checkpoint at the elevator. Rhodes told the officer on duty to expect a shipment to the garage. Steve could only assume it was Tony’s long lost War Machine.
When the elevator arrived, they got inside the normally polished space. It was covered in fingerprint powder from SHIELD’s attempts to identify Natasha’s doppelganger, so Steve had to wipe his thumb on his shirt after he’d selected his floor. The black smear on his button-down didn’t bother him as much as it would on his kakis.
On the long trek upstairs, Steve decided to sate the curiosity that had been building since he’d found out about the wayward MARK, “So how did you convince him to turn over one of his suits to the government? I know how possessive he is, it couldn’t have been easy.”
“I take it you don’t watch C-Span.”
“I don’t have a TV, actually… well, I do, it’s just not unboxed yet.” Steve scratched the side of his head, hoping C-Span was a television show. If it was something else, he just made himself sound like an idiot.
“After Senator Stern failed to get him to release the suit to us, I took it.” The statement was plain enough, but Steve detected a hint of pride in it. It faded away when Rhodes added, “Figured out later that Tony let me walk off with it, but the damn bastard still gave me a hell of a fight when he was drunk off his ass.”
There was a failsafe in the suits to keep unauthorized people from using them, even Steve knew that much. And without a reactor, it wouldn’t go far. If none of those things were an issue, Tony would’ve had to have been expecting Rhodes to take a suit. No matter what scenario he imagined, Steve couldn’t figure out why Tony would do that.
“He just let you take it,” Steve said skeptically.
The colonel set his eyes on his polished dress shoes, “Well, the man was dying and wanted somebody to pick up the mantel.”
Steve’s chest iced over. He slammed down the emergency stop button a few floors from the top. The alarm bell went off and the shoebox-sized space flooded with red light as the elevator stilled. Crowding Rhodes a bit more than he intended, Steve demanded, “What do you mean ‘dying’?”
Rhodes wasn’t intimidated by Steve. Their chests were nearly touching, but the ex-pilot didn’t move away. He lifted his chin and said, “Not surprised you didn’t hear about it. I don’t think he told anybody that the reactor was killing him. Something about the metal he was using to fuel it, I’m not sure. I’d tell you to ask him, but he’d probably just be pissed that you knew.”
Steve backed off, his head swimming in denial. How could he not know? Why would Tony keep something like that from him? He was so wrapped up in the news he barely noticed Rhodes disengage the emergency switch.
Trembling fingers pushed into his hair. They were shaking so badly he was certain they couldn’t be his. Steve could handle a physical threat. He could beat the tar out of anything that might endanger Tony’s life (though he left Tony’s personal defense to him most days since the man wasn’t a pushover), but sickness was different. How was he supposed to fight that?
“He’s alright now,” the colonel told him, as if he knew Steve needed to hear it.
Thinking he had to look like an anxious mess, Steve squared his shoulders and nodded, “Good to know. How did he fix it?” He hoped his voice was level.
“It’s Tony, he just built a new reactor. Whether it’s broken or not, Tony fixes it,” Rhodes said with a shrug and stepped out of the elevator.
The graffiti on the wall made Rhodes pause long enough that Steve got ahead of him. His stomach was still doing queasy acrobatics over his discovery, but he reminded himself that Tony wasn’t in any immediate danger. What had happened did so before he’d been revived and there was no reason for him to be worked up about it. By the time he got to the makeshift workroom, he’d managed to push it into the back of his head.
Tony hadn’t moved from the position Steve left him in. He was bent over one of the four computers he had set up on the floor around him, typing furiously and occasionally checking one of the other screens. The room was covered in Styrofoam, plastic bags, and boxes from the new equipment. Jane was curled up around a large black cabinet with a screwdriver still in hand, sleeping soundly. Her valiant attempt to keep up with Tony had finally been overtaken by exhaustion. The coffee cups with lipstick stains sitting on every available surface gave credence to her efforts.
“I’m going to need that,” Tony muttered, pointing over at the cabinet Jane clutched possessively in her sleep.
He had his back to the door, so Steve was surprised that he was aware of his surroundings enough to hear him come in. Often times when Tony was neck-deep in a project, a bomb could go off outside and he wouldn’t notice. Steve had no intention on bringing him the electrical cabinet until he’d seen Tony eat something. Rhodes waited in the doorway while Steve crouched down beside Tony and unpacked the coveted sandwich. He had it laid out on the red-check paper it was wrapped in before Tony recognized the smell.
His tired brown eyes flicked off the lines of code to inspect what Steve brought him, “Is that a Ruben?”
“Yep.”
“From Valencia’s?”
“Yep,” Steve said again with a smile, knowing he’d succeeded.
Tony scooped it up and took a gigantic bite. He closed his eyes and breathed deep through his nose as he chewed, talking only once he’d swallowed most of it, “You didn’t have to go so far uptown to get me food.”
“I know.”
The lines in Tony’s face suggested that he was beyond tired. There was slight bruising under his eyes and all of the normal swagger and arrogance was missing. He looked beat down, almost ready to collapse. If the idea wouldn’t get shot out of the air like an enemy in Tony’s cross-hairs, Steve would suggest he get some sleep. He tossed around the notion of carrying Tony to the nearest bed and holding him down until he succumbed, but that would get him punched and possibly the silent treatment for a few weeks. He tried to be satisfied with Tony wolfing down a meal.
As Tony finished his second bite, he leaned towards Steve in an obvious invitation, “Com’ere.”
The gesture made Steve acutely conscious of Rhodes’s presence. He wanted to kiss Tony, especially after learning about his brush with death, but instead he mentioned, “Your friend made it.”
Tony twisted around to see Rhodes and Steve realized too late that his dog tags were lying on top of Tony’s Black Sabbath t-shirt. There was no way he could tactfully say something without bringing attention to them. He chewed the inside of his lip while Tony bounced to his feet with an excited cry of, “Rhodey, my man!”
The two shook hands and Tony cracked a smirk, “What took you so long, you get lost on your way back from Disneyland?”
There wasn’t any annoyance in his tone, but Rhodes’s response was flat, “Afghanistan.”
“Right, whatever. So, did you bring it?”
Steve glanced down and noticed that his sketchbook was open to a profile drawing of Tony. The man never sat still long enough to sketch, so Steve had abused the opportunity while they were waiting for word from Fury. He’d had enough time to meticulously shade everything, down to Tony’s absurdly long eyelashes. It was a good rendition, but made it too obvious he’d been staring at Tony for hours. He flipped it shut with the toe of his boot, hoping the air force officer hadn’t noticed it.
“I brought it, but like I told you, it’s not in the best shape,” Rhodes said as Tony draped an arm over his shoulder and started to leave.
“It can’t be that bad, I built it. Oh!” Tony turned both of them, gesturing at Steve, “I figure you met downstairs, but this is Steve Rogers. Steve, this is my buddy James Rhodes. You’ve both saved my ass a few times, so be friends for me, alright?”
Shaking his head, Steve scooped up the forgotten sandwich and told Rhodes, “Sorry, he hasn’t slept. It makes him weird.”
“Not weird, enlightened,” Tony defended.
“Don’t worry, I’m used to it.”
Tony took the Ruben from Steve and continued to eat it as they walked, “Let’s go see what kind of damage you’ve done.”
Tony idly chatted as they made their way downstairs. Between thoughts, he ate his sandwich, giving Rhodes a chance to answer. Steve stayed a few steps behind them. His friend’s company seemed to rejuvenate Tony, giving him a spur of energy. Steve wondered if it was just Rhodes or Tony knowing that there was a suit he could use to rejoin the fight. It was probably a mix of the two.
“I’ll join you in a minute,” Steve said as they passed by the hall that lead to SHIELD’s temporary office.
Flashing him a tired grin, Tony led Rhodes towards the garage. He really was going to have to hold Tony down so he could get some sleep. If he didn’t, the man was going to fall off his feet soon. When they rounded a corner, Steve went to find Thor.
The office was still a flurry of activity. Every monitor had a different file pulled up depicting one of Natasha’s potential enemies. From what Steve could tell coming in and out over the last few hours, there weren’t enough computers. The Russian spy and Fury were talking in subdued tones by the conference table SHIELD brought in and Thor was standing petulantly by the covered windows. The demi-god never liked waiting for the fight to start. Glancing around, Steve didn’t see Clint but that didn’t mean anything, and he was fairly certain Banner was still hiding in the laboratories.
Steve tapped Thor’s bare arm to get his attention, “Your girl is asleep on the floor upstairs. Might want to put her to bed.”
Thor studied him a moment, then nodded, “Thank you, I will. What about Tony, has he been at all cooperative in your attempts to get him to rest?”
“No, and I don’t think there’s much chance of that now, his buddy just got here with the other suit,” Steve groused. “And it needs work, apparently.”
Thor snorted, his expression amused, “Are you not the dominant partner in your coupling? You should assert yourself, demand that he leave his work for tomorrow. Tell him you will not accept his denials.”
Steve stared at him. Even with as often as Thor came to Earth, he still had the strangest concept of human interaction. Steve couldn’t help imaging the suggestion, envisioning the look on Tony’s face. It would be somewhere between amused and pissed. Then he would laugh it off and dismiss Steve with a wave. “Yeah, because that would go well.”
“You could overpower him.”
“That would go even less well.”
Thor lifted his gigantic shoulders in a shrug and held out his hand to call his hammer from the floor. Mjölnir leapt to his palm with a metallic whistle. As he left, the blonde god tossed out, “You need to remind him of your dominance.”
Three-quarters of the SHIELD staff were peering over their computers at Steve. Blushing, he rubbed the back of his neck and muttered something incomprehensible before going to join the director and Natasha. Natasha’s knowing smirk only made things worse. Steve pretended he didn’t see it, asking Fury, “Have you found anything?”
“Whoever they are, they seem to be laying low. We’ve got eyes and ears on every facility that manufactures what they would need to replicate the serum, but no hits yet,” Fury explained with some agitation. At his core, Fury was as much of a fighter as the rest of them. He didn’t like waiting for results any more than Thor did. “Do you have any idea how much longer it’ll be before Tony’s computers are back online?”
Steve regrettably answered, “I’m not sure. He’s gotten a lot done, but Rhodes just got here with War Machine.”
“Good, at least we’ll-”
“Sir!” A roundish kid who didn’t look old enough to shave popped up from his station. “I think I’ve found them.”
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Tony couldn’t believe what he was seeing. War Machine wasn’t just a mess, it was a cluster fuck. Nestled in the gray military shipping crate were pieces and parts that were roughly assembled into the shape of the machine Tony built years ago. “What the hell did you do to it,” Tony growled, picking up a chunk of the scorched chest plate, “use it for target practice with an anti-aircraft gun?”
Rhodey had the decency to look embarrassed, “It was on a plane that got shot down, coming back from repairs.”
Tony’s head jerked up at the word ‘repairs’. He liked that even less than the machine getting damaged in the first place. “Wait, who was working on the suit?”
“We have guys that have-”
“You’ve been letting other people tamper with it? What the hell, Rhodes?” Grabbing the helmet, Tony inspected the exposed circuitry. Everything was in disarray. It wasn’t just poorly repaired it was hooked up incorrectly. If it hadn’t gone down in a plane, it would’ve gone down in a firefight and not because it got hit. “This isn’t restoration, this is sadistic.” He thrust the helmet towards Rhodey, griping, “Do you see how they rewired the targeting system? You would’ve been shooting at clouds instead of enemies.”
Rhodey blinked slowly, something that told Tony he was way beyond annoyed, “We have good engineers. I trust them.”
“Well, I don’t.”
“Tony, the machine belongs to the US government now. We’ll do whatever we need to do to keep it running.”
It was clear enough that War Machine was military property. They’d painted the air force logo just above the port for the reactor and Rhodes’s station was detailed on the shoulders, as it would be on a uniform. The state of the second MARK suit upset Tony enough, but something about the paintjob dragged across his nerves. When he was done with repairs, the emblems would have to be buffed off.
Giving Rhodes an acidic glare, Tony dropped the headgear in with the other parts and said, “Help me get it up to my workshop.” After the words had left his mouth, he remembered that his workshop looked like a war zone. More of his tools were broken than not. The crater in the middle of the floor where his new car used to be was a problem too. The near miss with Steve was a little raw in his mind and looking at the blast area reminded him of it.
“This crate takes four people to lift, get some of-”
“You know what, change of plans,” Tony cut into Rhodey’s rant. “I want my stuff brought down here. I’m going to need my soldering equipment and a propylene torch and…” He stopped when he realized no one was taking notes. The half dozen guards scattered throughout the garage weren’t even paying any attention to them. He glanced over at Rhodey, who only raised his eyebrows.
“Don’t look at me, I’m not hauling your shit around.”
Tony did a three-sixty and settled on the closest guard, one of SHIELD’s black-suit agents. Like all the others of his station, he wore the obligatory sunglasses even though they were inside and an earpiece that made him look like a member of the secret service. “You,” Tony yelled at him, pointing to make it clear. When the agent glanced over, he said, “Yes you. I need a propylene torch, my soldering equipment, a relay tester, and the big metal box next to the mini-bar in my workshop marked ‘IX Scrap’.” The MARK IX had not done well in testing and Tony decided he’d rather not explode, so it had been abandoned.
Giving him the same blank expression Coulson used to, the agent agreed to an extent, “I’ll see what I can do, Mr. Stark.”
“Now,” Tony barked when the agent didn’t immediately start moving.
The agent ran his tongue over his teeth with an impatient ‘tsk’ sound, but got on his walkie-talkie and gave out the instructions. When he knew his stuff was on the way, Tony started looking for a place to put it.
There wasn’t anything in the garage Tony could use as a good workbench. They were in the receiving and delivery garage and it was set up a little differently from the parking structure. There were two slanted slots big enough for an eighteen-wheeler to back into, allowing the container beds to be level with the flooring for easier unloading. The tilt of the concrete made a large chunk of the garage unusable. The unloading area was big enough, but he would need a power supply. It would be simple to run a line out to the garage.
“What’s with the dog tags?” Rhodey asked abruptly, interrupting his thoughts.
Automatically reaching for his chest, Tony caressed the raised letters without meaning to. He hadn’t remembered that he still had them on. They probably fell out of his shirt while he was running around the tower and he hadn’t noticed. So far, only the people closest to Steve and Tony knew about their relationship, even with Tony’s complete lack of discretion.
The other Avengers were first to find out, since he was apparently louder in bed than he realized, then Happy, and eventually Fury because nothing stayed off SHIELD’s radar for long. Though he and Steve went out on dates in public, they tried to stay low key enough that they weren’t recognized. It was difficult, and Tony was always half expecting there to be a photo of them in the next day’s paper with some glaring headline. There hadn’t been an incident yet.
He trusted Rhodey and the colonel was the closest thing he had to a friend for a long time, but he wasn’t sure how he’d take the news. Tony didn’t have to make the decision to trust him with the secret; Rhodes figured it out on his own.
“They’re his, aren’t they?”
Tony glanced up and dropped the tags on his chest. Cautiously, he asked, “And if they are?”
“You act like it isn’t obvious,” Rhodey said and perched on the edge of War Machine’s shipping crate. “I just wasn’t expecting you to be-”
“Bi? I am considered a sexual deviant, Rhodey. There shouldn’t be much that surprises you on that front.”
The line of Rhodey’s mouth thinned as he crossed his arms over his chest, “That’s not what I was going to say. I wasn’t expecting you to be so happy in a monogamous relationship.” Rhodey cut the air with the side of his hand to stop Tony’s impending argument, “And don’t you give me some bullshit about you still being a player, because you’re wearing his dog tags. You don’t accept gifts, especially not personal ones.”
Rhodey had him cornered on that one. Tony shied away from anything overly sappy, but, for a reason that was beyond him, he enjoyed the weight and meaning of Steve’s tags. It was grossly romantic and he didn’t know why he would willingly participate in something so sticky-sweet.
Tony sighed, wanting to avert the conversation from how painfully sentimental his relationship made him, “No bullshit?” When the stern air force officer shook his head, Tony admitted, “The sex is great.”
“You’re impossible.”
“Yes, and I need a workbench,” Tony said and cast around the room again for a usable surface.
He was considering getting the oversized table from the meeting room on level two when Steve hurried into the garage. The super soldier’s expression alerted Tony that something had changed. They’d found them.
“A medical facility in Louisville just went under attack. We’re suiting up,” Steve told him. “Can you get your repairs done in…” His question died when he saw the state of War Machine.
Tony knew Steve was mentally taking him out of his tactics. Scratch one airborne assist, potentially replace with helicopter. There was no way he could be of use without the armor, at least not on the field. It would take him hours to fix it, too much time to keep the rest of the group. If they waited that long, the attack would be over and there’d be nothing left for them to work with.
Grinding his teeth hard enough that the others could probably hear it, Tony said, “Go, I’ll catch up when I can.”
Steve gave him a sympathetic look that didn’t help. Glancing at Rhodey, the big blonde hesitated. Tony could guess what he wanted. He grabbed the collar of Steve’s shirt before he could go and yanked him into a kiss. There was tangible shock to push past and then Steve melted and his tongue swept through Tony’s mouth. They lingered a moment longer than Rhodey was comfortable with, making the colonel clear his throat.
Tony pulled away, looking into the calm, blue depths of Steve’s eyes when he said, “Give them hell.”
“I plan to,” Steve responded.
Tony watched him leave silently. The muscle in his jaw ticked as he forced himself to go back to work. Men came in with the tools he requested, setting them up along the wall. Tony picked up the silver helmet and the faceplate came off in his hand, he had to fight down the urge to scream and throw it across the room. Drowning himself in scotch sounded really appealing, but it wouldn’t get him back in the air.
“I can’t believe you’re fucking the American, good-ol’-boy icon. There’s something really wrong about that,” Rhodey deduced far more easily than he should have. He’d always been good at figuring people out, a talent that Tony lacked most days. For him to know that he and Steve were dating and Steve was Captain America in only twenty minutes was pretty normal.
Tony didn’t answer him, his mind occupied by the replacement chip the air force grunts had put in for processing flight information. It was a low-end model, too old to keep up with the stream of data the suit required.
“Well, technically I’m supposed to be the only one in that machine, so I’m not leaving the codes in the crate and I didn’t hear anything about you taking it for a joyride, clear?” Tony’s grunt was enough of a response because Rhodey got to his feet. He clasped Tony’s shoulder and said, “Good luck, man,” before he left.
Then Tony was alone with the broken shell of what was once Iron Man.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
“Is anybody else worried about Stark?”
Steve leveled a look at Clint that said ‘don’t start’. If the archer wasn’t across the plane from him, he might’ve hit him over the side of the head for bringing it up. Without him asking, Natasha did it for him.
“Shut up,” the Russian hissed.
Clint’s brow dipped, but he ignored the strike, “I’m being serious. Tony’s like the kid on the playground that always gets picked first for everything and all of a sudden he’s not allowed to play. He’ll be plastered by the time we get back.”
“Did you just compare our work to children’s games? How exactly does saving the world equate with Red Rover?” Bruce asked from where he was standing near the cockpit. Always curious, he’d been watching the gauges and instruments while they were in the air. Their pilot was accommodating enough that he even explained what some of the readouts meant after take off.
Thor looked puzzled, “What is a Red Rover?”
Steve wasn’t sure what it was either, but didn’t much care. He watched as Natasha leaned to whisper in the archer’s ear. Even with as quiet as she was, Steve’s hearing was good enough to catch it, “We really don’t need the Cap thinking about that right now, he needs to focus.”
“You don’t have to worry about me losing focus in a fight, Ms. Romanoff,” he said as respectfully as he could.
He was worried about Tony, and Clint’s fears were directly in line with his. If Tony didn’t narrow his attention to his work, he’d be halfway into a bottle of scotch before they got home. It was a major character flaw that Steve didn’t know how to begin to approach. Tony was undeniably self-destructive when things were out of his control. It reminded Steve of what Rhodes told him in the elevator.
Setting the edge of his shield on the floor in front of him, Steve rested his forearms on the lip, “Natasha, you were assigned to Tony when his first reactor went bad. What do you know about it?”
“Don’t, Cap.” The spy shook her head slightly, her curls bouncing around her face, “You don’t need to be thinking about that before a fight.”
“Tell me.”
“You should be asking him,” there was nothing about the statement that gave room for argument. Natasha sat back in her seat with a faint creak of leather, checking the charge on her gauntlet taser. “All you need to know is that the effects were reversed and he’s fine.”
“How close did he come?”
“Close enough that he was divvying up his stuff,” Clint said and dodged Natasha’s swipe. “What? It’s true.”
Natasha’s exasperated sigh was cut short by the pilot announcing their arrival. Thor was up first, pressing the door release. Air rushed into the plane. It tugged at their hair and clothes, so loud it was almost impossible to hear anything else. Thor went to the end of the ramp and looked out into the darkness at the ground below. Steve picked up his shield before he joined him.
They were still high enough that the city lights spread out like a swarm of fireflies, the liquid glare of roads criss-crossing through the brilliance. Even from the height they were at, Steve could see the flash of emergency vehicles clustered around a building. It would take them a little time to descend, but Steve wanted eyes and ears down there now.
“Thor!” Steve yelled over the scream of wind, “Go ahead of us and assess the situation. If there are any civilians in immediate danger, you get them out of the way. Don’t engage the enemy until we get there, unless there’s not another choice.”
With a nod, Thor whipped his hammer into a turbine and leapt from the ramp. He was gone in a blink. Steve grabbed the roof railing to stabilize himself as he went back to the others.
“Bring us down,” he called to the pilot.
The Avengers were waiting for their instructions. Just like with the Howling Commandos, he’d evolved into their leader without intending on it. Other people followed him, so Steve had become accustomed to taking the first step. In the war, they’d given him his title for things he hadn’t done yet so they could make him an icon. Now, he felt as if he’d finally filled the shoes the designation came with.
“Natasha, we’re going to move around the sides of the building to make sure they only have one way in and out. Clint, I want you on the roof. If you see one getting away, put him down, but don’t kill him. We’re going to need somebody talking when this is all over.” Steve turned to Bruce. The situation didn’t call for the mayhem the Hulk caused, which he was sure the doctor would be grateful for. “Banner, I want you to stay on the ship unless I give the word. You’re backup.”
Bruce gave a sardonic smile, “And do you need me to jump out of the plane or is he going to stay on the ground?”
“Whatever works for you.”
The plane jerked as it touched down on the roof. Steve and the spies jogged onto the gravel surface, the jet lifting into the air as soon as they were clear. When the engine-noise was gone, Steve realized how quiet it was. There was no sound but the wind in the small trees ringing the parking lot. Emergency lights flared over the building over and over, an endless SOS.
“Where’s the noise?” Clint asked as he went to the edge of the roof. Nothing surprised any of them anymore, but the line of the archer’s shoulders visibly tensed. “Cap, come look at this.”
Steve knew he wasn’t going to like what he saw. The tops of the trees came into view first, their leaves illuminated in alternating red and blue. A fire truck was parked in the middle of the lot. It was on its side, a massive dent in the middle as if it had been hit by a wrecking ball. Bits of rubber and metal trailed across the cement where it slid. The police cars were worse. Some had been flipped upside down and crushed nearly flat. One was wrapped around a young tree like a lover. There wasn’t a human soul in sight. There was evidence of them, blood smears and a forgotten limb lying across the hood of a squad car, but the people were missing.
A massive crash burst through the silence, spurring them to the other side of the roof. They got there just as Thor was climbing to his feet three stories below them. “You know not who you trifle with,” the demi-god snarled.
A collection of men trickled out of the building after him, five in all. A brunette in a long black coat was laughing, “What’s she want with these losers anyway?”
“Doesn’t matter, she said keep the blonde and the doctor alive and the rest are fair game,” another answered.
They circled Thor, the one in the coat speaking again, “How does she want us to bring him back? Should we knock him out?”
Thor’s smug expression was beyond dangerous. He lifted his hammer threateningly, “You can attempt it, but you would be testing the fates.”
Steve had seen enough. He pointed to Hawkeye, “I still want you up here. There’s something weird about this and I want somebody watching our backs.”
The archer snatched an arrow out of his mechanical quiver and notched it, “Gotcha, Cap.”
“You’re with me,” Steve told Natasha before he jumped off the roof. He knew she’d find her own way to the ground.
The three-story freefall got his blood pumping, shooting adrenaline through his system like a drug. He hit the cement lot in a tuck, shield first, and rolled to his feet. The impact jarred him a little, but not enough to slow him down. The loud ring of metal on stone drew the men’s attention. It was too late for them to react. Steve slung his arm in an arc, letting the shield go. It slammed into the chest of the closest, rebounding into the man on his right and returning to Steve’s wrist.
He lowered the shield and lifted his chin, “I believe you boys have the wrong blonde.”
“May I engage the enemy now that you have arrived?” Thor asked through his snarl, the restraint clearly too much to deal with.
Before the group could recover from Steve’s initial attack, he gave the order, “Keep at least one alive.”
At war with the Nazis, they’d left no survivors, and Steve still hadn’t gotten used to the idea that criminals and villains needed to be subdued instead of killed. These men had broken into Tony’s home, into the Avengers’ home, and destroyed everything. They’d intended to kill Tony. Steve could find no mercy for them.
Thor threw his hammer at a tall man with more tattoos than blank skin. The hunk of metal hit low on the man’s ribcage with a crunch, sending him flying through the building’s brick wall. Red dust exploded from the point of impact, hanging in the air.
Steve whirled around and slammed the edge of his shield into a jaw. The man he’d hit went down as dead weight, limp and lifeless. Pivoting, he used his momentum to sling a punch into a gangly guy that was coming at him with a knife. His bulbous nose crumpled under Steve’s knuckles.
A crackle of electricity made Steve swivel with his shield raised. Natasha had her legs wrapped around one of the culprit’s necks, her built-in taser crammed against his skin. When he fell, Steve realized it was the same one he’d just knocked unconscious just moments ago. It was hard to mistake the jagged scar running through the guy’s eyebrow.
The man with inked skin climbed through the wreckage of the building, dusting himself off as though he’d taken a bad spill instead of Thor’s hammer to his vital organs. On the ground, the man in the trench coat was laughing. Natasha traded a glance with Steve that carried the same question he was asking himself. What was going on?
With a shout, Thor lifted Mjölnir high above his head and brought it down on the brunette. The man’s hand shot out to catch it. Cement ruptured underneath him, but the weapon never struck him. Thor’s muscles corded and strained from the effort. After a second of fighting with him, Thor released his hold on the hammer and let the enchantment making Thor its only wielder do its work. It crashed into the brunette’s shoulder with a bang.
The brunette screamed, the scream morphing and deepening as his flesh bulged. Other voices joined his. Steve took a step back and cast his eyes around the abandoned lot. All five were shouting, their muscle and bone rearranging under their skin in a way that was disturbingly familiar.
As they gained mass, Steve pressed the communicator in the side of his helmet for a connection with the plane, “Banner, I think we’re going to need you after all.”
Chapter Seven - LINK
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(and I love your Steve/Tony- so very hot and great combined interaction+characterisations)
(and your Thor)
(and your Rhodey)
(ok, just assume I love everything....)
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Ohh, I Tony is so pissed, i cant' wait for him to have is revenge ! ^^
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Thanks for reading!