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cap_ironman2012-06-11 02:06 am
tresmaxwell.livejournal.com) wrote in cap_ironman2012-06-11 02:06 am
Entry tags:
Fic: Worshiping at the Modern Altar Chapter 7, R
Universe: Movie
Rating: R
Warnings: Strong violence
Beta: None
Summary: The point of a team is that no one ever has to go in alone. Tony isn't patient enough for that.
Pairings/Characters: Steve/Tony, plus loads of other characters... like everyone.
Word Count: About 6,000
Chapter Six - LINK
Chapter Seven - Flying Solo
A/N: So I have to give a shout out to all of you lovely people that keep leaving me reviews. They make me super happy and inspire me to keep writing. Thank you so much for letting me know what you think of my story. Those of you who come back to comment again and again, you know who you are and you always make my day.
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The flames from his blowtorch sparked, throwing flecks of blue and green. Heat curled across the bare skin of his arms where his thick, leather gloves ended. Tony had long since lost track of the hours. What he knew was that War Machine had a solid power supply to every weapon and extremity and he'd fixed all of the 'repairs' to the targeting system.
Tony sat back to check the new seam along the side of the helm. It looked a little rough, but for the time he had, it would suffice. Fury was standing near the end of his workbench. He'd been there for several minutes. Though Tony noticed the moment he'd walked in, he'd chosen to ignore him until he finished what he was doing.
Setting the helmet down, he pushed the welding goggles onto his forehead and said, "If you're here with bad news, I don't want to hear it." He cranked down the gas intake on the torch until the fire sputtered and went out.
"Then you'd better shut your ears," Fury said without any fanfare, holding his hand out to one of his agents. The man brought over a shipping box that had already been torn open and set it in Fury's outstretched palm. "You received a package. Since you've been the target of some unexplained anger, we took the liberty of opening it."
Tony could explain the anger. He could explain it in eight ways, and all the reasons started with M and ended with ARK. The package was nondescript, no emblems or shipping labels on the surface. It would've been delivered by courier, giving them a chance to hunt down the original sender. From where he was sitting, Tony couldn't see inside.
Fury didn't keep him waiting long. He reached into the box and pulled out the golden mask for one of his suits. The mask was one of the few things that didn't change drastically from suit to suit, so he wasn't sure which one it belonged to without examining the seals and lock points. Ugly black letters were scrawled across the bright metal in what looked like greasepaint.
Tony jumped up and snatched the faceplate from Fury, reading the note, 'For the return of your heroism, you will send $5,000,000,000.' He turned it over. There was nothing else inside. They were probably planning on contacting him with details once it had arrived. The mistake would put them in SHIELD's net. Tony wasn't so sure he wanted to wait that long, he was already wondering why they would send him a ransom note when they thought he was dead. If they had a camera in the workshop, they would've seen Steve go down instead and that would explain the change in plans.
"Do you have the courier?"
"He's downstairs answering some questions," Fury said and put his hands on his hips, "Now, Stark, you shouldn't consider-"
"Paying them?" Tony filled in, glancing up at him.
It was a good bet that Fury hadn't wanted to bring him in on this. The director probably wanted to locate the culprits without him so they could go in with the team and leave Tony in daycare. Tony wasn't going to be left behind. His biggest connection would be the camera, if there was one, and there was no way he was giving that up to Fury.
"You have no idea what they'll do with that money, you need to let us track them and go in to recover the suits," the director explained as though he was talking to a kid.
It made Tony's eye twitch. He bit out, "I know what I need to do, Fury. Thanks. Why don't you focus on the courier service so I can finish my work?"
Fury stood there a long time, studying Tony with his one good eye as if he knew exactly what Tony was thinking. It was easy enough to go back to War Machine, Tony was more than comfortable ignoring things while he worked. Setting the faceplate to the side, he picked up one of the boots and tested the control surfaces. The two main flaps at the calf lifted the way they should, but the smaller ones were still too damaged.
As he reached for a pair of pliers, Fury finally went for the door. He heard him tell the agents in the room to keep watch, skipping the 'on him', but it was definitely implied. Tony yanked his goggles over his annoyance. He couldn't just run upstairs to look for the camera without being obvious, so he bided his time. Finishing the control surfaces on the left leg took forty minutes, long enough that he wouldn't be suspected if he went upstairs.
Tony made a show of taking off his gloves and putting away his equipment, rolling his shoulders and rubbing the back of his neck as if he'd been at the grindstone too long. "Any of you boys want some coffee?" he asked without waiting for an answer. "There's a Starbucks around the corner at thirty-first and sixth, get me one while you're out. Double espresso, no fat, tallest one they make."
It was difficult to keep his pace casual, even slower than casual since he was supposed to be tired, as he went into the lobby. Well, he was tired. Exhausted, actually, but the possibility of getting his suits back was more powerful than the lull of sleep. Upstairs, there were fewer agents and he was able to jog towards his workshop. The light in the media room caught his eye. He slowed enough to look in.
Jane was awake again and reading through his code for Jarvis. The four new server cabinets were lined up along the wall like sentinels. Cords ran back and forth between them and the computers Tony had been rebuilding Jarvis on, so Jane had gotten as far as data transfer. She chewed at one fingernail absently while Tony watched, typing a few lines.
"Can you follow what I was doing?" he asked.
Jane yelped and looked up at him with wide, guilty eyes, obviously expecting Tony to be angry that she was adding to his programming. She put her hands in her lap, stuttering, "I was just looking at- at the... Your iteration for streamlining the decision process is sublime; I've never seen anything like it."
"It keeps things simpler," Tony said. Working with her for the last two days, Tony had found a lot of respect for Dr. Foster. She was as brilliant as everyone claimed she was, which was the only reason he trusted her with Jarvis, "Do you think you can finish it?"
She looked at the screen a long time, her eyes flickering over the code before they returned to his, "Yes, I can."
"Good, because I'm going to need it up and running as soon as possible," Tony picked up one of the extraneous laptops and left.
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Steve felt something crack underneath him and hoped it was the concrete and not his spine. He figured there would be more pain if it was a bone. With a shout, he kicked the gigantic creature off of him and rolled to his feet. There was no doubt that Banner's serum was farther along than he thought. Steve would ask him about it, but the doctor was green and not particularly talkative at the moment.
They'd managed to narrow the five monstrosities down to four, but they were all worn out. These things were almost as big as Bruce was at his full, gamma-created height, and nearly as strong. Each one was a little different. The man in the trench coat had morphed into a slumped, gray mass with enough muscle on his shoulders to sling a bus across a football field. He was smarter than the others were and could still manage complete sentences. He'd also stayed out of range of Thor and the Hulk, focusing on Steve.
The one with the tattoos had grown a number of spines along his back and the crest of his skull, though several of them were broken this far into the fight. He had an arrow sticking out of one shoulder, and either didn't notice or care as he tried to grab Natasha.
She slid between his legs and clambered up his back using the spikes as handholds. The knife she jammed behind his ear snapped off at the hilt. As she reached for her gun, the spiny creature snagged her arm and chunked her across the parking lot. The spy hit the ground hard, rolling end over end until she could regain control. Natasha continued to slide on her toes and fingertips, her head snapping up to judge where the threat had gone.
Thor grappled with a bluish-green beast that had a mane of dark hair around his neck and claws like daggers. He wrapped Thor in a bone-crushing bear hug, his grin showing off his four-inch teeth. Steve ran towards him to help. Before he could get too close, a gray fist careened towards his back. He dodged to the left and slammed his shield down on the wrist. A snap preceded the gray creature's howl of pain. The thing's thick brow tilted down so heavily that it almost blocked his eyes. Steve kept his stance tight and low, waiting for the next attack.
A searing bolt of lightning leapt out of the sky and struck Thor. The demi-god's scream was more rage than pain as the electricity crackled through him and his enemy. Even Banner stopped in his fight to watch. More volts than Steve could even begin to guess at made the blue monstrosity seize and sizzle, so bright it sent the parking lot into sharp relief.
As soon as it was over and he fell, steaming, to the ground, Hulk grabbed his opponent and threw him into a white truck parked near the building. The metal came apart like tissue paper, the force of it knocking the vehicle onto its side. One leap and the Hulk was on the other abomination again. He planted a foot in his back as he pulled the thing's arms hard enough to rip them out of the socket. Flesh parted with a sound like tearing fabric, blood pouring onto the ground in rhythmic gushes. Three arrows streamed from the rooftop in quick succession. All three sunk into the creature's head before Banner could finish tearing him apart. His plaything dead, the Hulk beat his chest with his fists and gave a victorious cry.
Steve ducked under a wild swing, focusing on his own fight. He deflected a blow off the striped edge of his shield and jumped into the air to kick the leader in the stomach. Stumbling back on legs as big around as an elephant's, the gray brute balanced his weight on his knuckles and snarled. He lunged at Steve, feinting to the right. Steve was halfway into the dodge when he realized what he'd done. He barely managed to get his shield between him and the fist streaming towards him.
The hit rang off the building, reverberating through Steve's arms and sending him flying. He tucked up to lessen the impact of the cement, but hit a car instead. Glass exploded around him. For a moment, there was nothing but the gut-wrenching grip of agony. He fell forward onto one knee, vaguely aware that his shield skittered away across the pavement. The heavy thud-thud of a large approaching mass made him shake his head and stagger upright. Screaming, the gray monstrosity thundered across the lot, beady eyes intent on him.
Steve tried to be ready for it, but he was still recovering from the last strike. Hulk smacked into Steve's foe with the sound of flesh slapping flesh. Both were bare from the waist up, having outgrown their clothes very quickly. The gray one was definitely the biggest of the five. When he straightened up to roar in Banner's face, they were the same height. Hulk returned the bellow, the veins standing out on his thick neck.
Out of the corner of his eye, Steve saw the spiny creature catch a handful of Natasha's hair and pick her up. The demi-god was closer and Steve knew he'd never get there from where he was standing. "Thor!" Steve shouted, pointing out at the Russian spy, "Help her!"
Thor lifted his hand to call the hammer as the spiny muscle mass lifted a hand to swat Natasha like a bug. There wasn't enough time. Steve darted for his shield. The scrape of metal on stone seemed deafening as he snagged the red edge and prepared to throw it. Mjölnir landed in Thor's hand and the demi-god immediately shifted his weight forward, his arm stretching out. Natasha grabbed the thick fingers tangled in her hair and swung up to wrap her legs around the thing's forearm. She went for a firearm strapped to her thigh, her mouth open in a silent cry.
Clint dropped off the roof with a bowie knife in hand. Using the momentum from the fall, he slammed it into the abomination's eye. They went down together as the rest of Clint's body caught up and he crashed into the thing's shoulders. The archer tumbled out of Steve's view, but his grunt of pain was hard to miss. Natasha fell from the slack hand, landing on her side. She was on her feet before Steve could blink.
"Clint?" she called, her voice calm, but loud. "Talk to me." She climbed over the still twitching body so she could get to Agent Barton.
Steve ran over to see the extent of the damage. Clint was a few feet from his kill, left hand gripping a deep gouge on his thigh. Blood ran freely through his fingers. When Natasha pushed his hand away, Steve saw the broken piece of spine sticking out from the flayed tissue. He must've landed on it. Clint grimaced and dropped his head onto the cement when Natasha drew the spike out, his shallow intakes of air hissing through his teeth.
"You shouldn't have done that," she scolded as she put pressure on the wound.
Clint curled his hands into fists, pushing them against his forehead. Even heavy with hurt, his voice was as level as Natasha's was, "I've done stupider for a lot less."
"Why didn't you just shoot-"
"Couldn't. The only tips I had left were explosive," the archer explained and let his hands drop from his face. When he slid bloody fingers around the back of Natasha's neck, she got still, her eyes searching his. Clint added, "You were too close."
Steve suddenly felt that he was interrupting an incredibly intimate moment. He backed off with a flush. As he turned, he saw the Hulk smash the head of last survivor between his palms. The only order he'd given when this started was to leave one alive. Now they had no connection back to the woman pulling the strings. With an aggravated sigh, Steve called their ride and a med-evac, and pushed his mask off his face.
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The camera was hidden more effectively than Tony thought it would be. He'd searched all over the workshop, in every nook and cranny he could find within view of the blackened crater in the middle of his floor. It was extremely compact, part of the reason why it was so easy to hide. The lens was the size of Tony's thumbnail and the attached transmitter was approximately the dimensions of a matchbox.
He found the device built into the frame of his red and blue Shepard Fairey painting of Iron Man. It was situated in the corner of the metal rectangle, the black on black almost unnoticeable unless someone was looking for it. From the slight build-up of dust around the edges of the lens, Tony could tell it had been there for a while. There was no way to be sure how long they'd been gathering intelligence on him. Tony's lip curled at the thought. He'd figure out how they got in to set it up later, right now he needed to know where the wireless device was sending its data.
Tony pried open the backing on the frame with a folding knife and carefully extracted the gadget. After setting up a secure line to ensure no one downstairs would be monitoring his search, Tony hooked up the wireless transmitter to computer he'd brought with him. The connection was encrypted, but he bypassed that in less than a minute. A map of the tri-state area illuminated the screen, several red cross-hairs scanning the image as the computer pinned down the feed. They met over a sparsely populated part of northern Pennsylvania. The image zoomed and enhanced and the tracking started again. It narrowed down to a large, sprawling building that appeared to be a shipping warehouse. A few dozen eighteen wheelers were backed against the sides of the building, sticking out at the same angle both the north and south ends.
Tony memorized the coordinates, a feral grin tugging at the side of his mouth. He dropped the camera on the floor and smashed it under his heel. The plastic ruptured, sending flecks of black dust out in a starburst. Satisfied, Tony went for the stairs. He took them two at a time, leaping to the next landing when the fall wouldn't be too far.
He stopped at the industrial door that led to the garage. There were a dozen men surrounding War Machine. They might let him go, since Fury didn't usually get in the way if there was work to be done, but he knew that Fury would want details. Tony wasn't in the mindset to stand around explaining. He needed to be in the air yesterday.
There was a security pad by the door. Brain humming with inspiration, Tony slid his hand over the dark screen to wake it and tapped his access code on the glowing, blue letters. He bypassed the base program and got into the mainframe. A few quick adjustments and the crisis alarm started screaming. Strobes flicked on, filling the stairwell with a dizzying pattern of light.
SHIELD would track the alarm directly to his keypad, so Tony vaulted up the stairs to the level above. He heard voices behind him, but didn't turn back. There was another stairwell in the center of the tower, Tony sprinted to it and returned to the ground floor. Easing his head out into the open to make sure it was clear, he slid through the back halls to avoid Fury's agents. The garage was empty when he got there.
Tony got the silver armor in place as quickly as he could, tightening each piece with a tool he'd specifically designed to fit in the narrow creases. The alarm shut down. Tony glanced at the nearest strobe and yanked on a boot. He didn't have much time before they descended on him. Reading the launch codes Rhodey left him, Tony put on the gauntlets and twisted the dial at the wrist that would close the dozens of clasps.
"Stark!" Fury's shout reached him before the director walked into his line of sight. "That suit isn't even close to deployment ready, don't you dare-"
"Stay out of it." Tony snapped the helmet closed. The HUD brought up one line of text asking for the access key. Backing away from Fury, Tony spoke the nine digit password in the military's phonic alphabet, "Whiskey mike four seven eight three, foxtrot dash Juliet Romeo."
The screen blinked black, and then a silver eagle appeared under the words, 'Welcome Colonel Rhodes'. Scans of the local weather and air traffic immediately appeared, but the layout was foreign to Tony. His heads up display was incredibly efficient and clean, but the air force programming was just as cluttered as the 'repairs'. A line of minute text scrolled by on the left side, some kind of feed from the military network. Through all of it, he saw Fury's disapproving face getting closer.
Tony engaged the thrusters and lifted off the ground, "Gotta go." He turned the hand-stabilizers towards the wall, pushing the thrust to fifteen percent and bolting out of the garage. The exit tunnel whipped by him. Tearing through the metal gate without slowing, Tony shot into the sky and put the boosters on full-burn. The boom from him breaking the sound barrier rattled nearby windows.
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While the medical team loaded Clint onto a helicopter, Thor and Steve explored the building. They were looking for any evidence that would lead them to the mind behind the attack. The facility wasn't what Steve was expecting. After seeing labs like the ones in the tower, the blocky equipment and plain, sterile rooms were almost tame. Steve wondered if it was an old laboratory or if Tony's 'toys' were just that high tech. The latter was more likely.
"I do not understand what we are searching for," Thor complained from the next room.
"Anything that will help us find them."
A moment passed and the tall blonde joined Steve. He rubbed his beard thoughtfully, or in a way that Steve hoped was thoughtful, "Many of the items they would need to recreate Banner's monstrosity are here, but they have not been disturbed. We did not arrive in a timely enough fashion to catch them before they could load the transportation, so why have they not taken the medications?"
Steve shook his head as he looked around the neat room. Thor was right. Except for the damage they'd caused from the outside, it didn't appear that anything else had been touched. Enough time went by between the initial alarm and their arrival that they should've been chasing the perpetrators through the streets instead of catching them in the act. And there were still the missing cops to consider. Steve couldn't quite make the picture come together.
The presence of the men proved that Banner's serum worked well enough to use as-is, but Steve didn't know how much of it had been stolen from the tower. There couldn't have been enough to create the five monstrosities they faced with the massive margin for error Bruce talked about. They had to be producing the serum in large scale already.
"This place was meant to entice us," Thor said suddenly. "They knew we would be searching for them and used it against us, leading us into a snare like the unwitting greckneir."
Steve didn't care that Thor's references only made sense to him, the rest of his words rang true. They'd pulled them out into the open and ambushed them with a force that should've been enough to wipe them out, and the serum still wasn't right. Steve didn't want to imagine what the results would be when it had been perfected.
"I don't think the cops were bait or they would've left them alive," Steve mentioned, his mind chewing on the puzzle. He snapped his fingers and slapped his fist into his palm, "They needed more test subjects, but how did they get them out of here?"
"Of that, I am not sure."
"We need Fury to check flights in the area, see if anyone reported an unauthorized aircraft," Steve said and went to the exit.
The area was teaming with SHIELD agents. Most were cleaning up the bodies and gore, their normal clothes covered by white biohazard suits that crinkled loudly when they walked. The upper-crust agents were monitoring the progress and doling out orders. Someone had gotten Hulk to calm down enough that Banner was stooped over the gray creature that had it out for Steve. The doctor was holding up his pants with one hand, the loose material flowing over his knuckles.
Seeing the consequences of Bruce's unauthorized experiment so close to the man himself, it brought Steve's anger back. He wanted to ream the doctor even it wasn't going to change anything. Unfortunately, Banner was only a few minutes out of his other form and the slightest word could send him into it again. There were too many people in the area now, too many potential victims for Bruce's rage, so Steve choked on his righteous argument and turned away.
"Rogers," Natasha's use of his name brought him back to reality. "Fury's been trying to get a hold of you, where's your earpiece?"
Steve had communications built into his mask because he very rarely remembered the tiny bud that was somehow both a speaker and receiver. It was one of those things he'd never had to deal with before the ice. Grabbing the nose guard, Steve pulled the hood on and tapped the sensor over his ear, "This is Rogers to Fury, come in."
"Either keep your damn mask on or start wearing that earpiece, don't make me kick your ass over this," Fury's thin voice growled.
"Yes, sir."
"Listen up, Stark has gone rogue and you're the only one who can reel him in before he gets himself killed."
Steve pressed the earpiece against the side of his head, certain he'd heard that incorrectly, "I'm sorry, what? What do you mean rogue?"
"He took off about ten minutes ago. We're still trying to decode the search he performed before he left, but it's a good bet he's found the home base for these people."
Eyes going wide, Steve looked around at the serum-enhanced monsters it had taken almost the entire team to destroy. If there were more like them, there was no way Tony could handle it alone, not with the busted up War Machine. Tony had no idea what he was flying into.
"Has anyone contacted him? We can be there soon, tell him to wait. He doesn't need to go in alo-"
"Captain."
"He needs backup-"
"Captain!" Fury barked, finally getting Steve to shut up. "War Machine isn't set up on the same system as Iron Man, we don't have access to his communications. You're going to have to intercept him."
"But you don't have the coordinates yet."
"No, but I'll send them to you as soon as we do."
Steve stood listening to the empty static on Fury's end, his mouth set in a tight line. After a few seconds, the speaker went quiet as the director terminated the connection. He was aware of Thor and Natasha watching him. They would've picked up enough from his side of the conversation to know what was going on.
Clint pushed a medic out of the way and slid out of the helicopter, limping over, "What's the news?"
"Tony went alone."
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Tony circled the building while he decided on the best angle of entry. It looked exactly the same as it did in the satellite screenshots, down to the number of trucks backed against the sides. There was a good chance that those didn't move much. They were probably just there for appearances. Never one for determining a treat level or doing an enemy count before launching into a fight, Tony wasn't terribly concerned that the old MARK suit didn't have infrared built in. It would've been nice to know where the enemies would be inside, but not necessary.
Tony preferred blowing things up first and asking questions later.
Picking a spot in the center of the roof, Tony rocketed towards it. At the very last moment, he flipped so he was going feet-first. The structure gave away easily under the weight of the suit. He slammed into the warehouse, landing on one knee with a clang, his hands raised to throw out a pulse of energy at anyone close.
The open space was full of men. They were unloading boxes off trucks that were marked with a dozen different logos, biohazard symbols, and radiation warnings. War Machine's HUD scanned them quickly, throwing up notes about the contents. There was no doubt Tony was in the right place. There was enough material gathered to make Bruce's serum a few hundred times over. Tony wondered how they'd managed to get away with so much of it with SHIELD's network scanning for police reports and hospital alarms.
Most of the men stayed frozen, watching him with cautious eyes, while others were putting down their freight and moving towards him slowly. The lineup didn't much resemble a trucking crew. With the variety of gang tattoos, it looked more like a prison lot. Tony stood, rotating his head so the targeting system could get a lock on as many of them as it was capable of.
Giving enough power to the hand thrusters for them to brighten and hum, Tony said, "I think you all know why I'm here, so hand over my stuff and I won't blow you all to kingdom come." The MARK's amplifier made his voice sound deeper, more mechanical. It was a glitch he never bothered to fix.
No one backed off. The men in the room didn't even blink. Tony wondered if he should've started the threat with Rhodey's massive shoulder Gatling gun. It was overkill, but made a definite impression.
"Mr. Stark, what a pleasant surprise," a female voice crooned, though she didn't sound at all surprised. Tony detected a faint Russian accent hiding in her tone.
He turned to see a woman saunter into the receiving bay from another part of the warehouse. Though she was compact, barely five foot three if Tony had to guess, and couldn't weigh more than ninety pounds, she commanded the attention of the room. She had raven hair that fell down her back in gentle waves and a smile that was strangely disarming. Her floral, summer dress added to Tony's feeling that she was out of place. She was very normal, so normal that she could've walked into his tower as a waitress at one of his parties or a maid and he never would've given her a second glance.
Tony lowered his hands slightly, letting the power-level drop as the convicts moved away, "Who are you?"
The woman looked away, her lips pursing as if she was thinking through his question, "You hero-types love names with cryptic double-meanings, so..." She trailed off and heaved an exaggerated sigh. Her face lit up with fake realization and she said, "You may call me Scorn." The smile that followed was nowhere close to the sweet, innocent grin she'd given him moments earlier. It was laced with darkness.
"Right, and the Avengers have done something to piss you off, so now you're 'scorned' and you're going to take it out on everybody in existence. I've heard this one before," Tony jumped to the conclusion quickly. "But you have no idea who you're messing with. Banner's serum isn't even close to usable and my suits are worthless to you without Jarvis, so you've already painted yourself into a corner."
Scorn trailed her hand over a green crate with a biohazard sticker that slanted across the front. Never taking her eyes off Tony, she said, "Well, the bit about your suits is true. I was really hoping the bomb in the workshop would take you out of the equation, but your boyfriend is just too good, isn't he?" Her hips swayed to the side as she leaned on the crate, her lips quirking up at the corners, "And isn't he just, though? I've had the privilege of watching a few of your rendezvous. On the hood of your last project..."
Tony curled his hands into fists.
"And over the workbench and against the wall. You nearly knocked the painting down that time. I was a little worried you'd find my camera and I'd lose my porn station," she continued, drawing crackles of laughter from the men around her.
As furious as it made him, it told Tony exactly when the camera was installed. What he was still trying to figure out was how the woman managed to hack Jarvis. She was definitely more than she looked, just like Natasha. It was part of what made her so convincing as a double.
"But as far as Doctor Banner's incredible serum, I stole that weeks ago. That's the beauty of your Avengers Initiative, you're very rarely all in one place. I knew he wouldn't notice until you got another crisis call, since that's the only time he's in the tower," Scorn said and walked towards him, her nails scraping lightly over the hazardous crate as she moved away from it. "I've had plenty of time to finish stabilizing the effects."
The tingle of adrenaline and fear prickled along the base of his spinal column and crawled up through his back, tightening every muscle it came to. When she reached to slip her hand around the back of his head, he was as taut as Clint's bowstring, his lip twitching behind the faceplate.
Scorn got up on her toes and placed a kiss on the crease of War Machine's mouth, pulling back just enough to whisper, "It's nothing personal, Mr. Stark. You were just in the way." Her eyes locked on the front of his mask, she raised her voice to shout, "Take him apart, but leave him alive. I want the reactor," before she left.
Tony pushed power into all of the weapons, heating up with a mechanical whir. Not waiting for someone else to make the first strike, he pushed blasts of energy at the two closest men and sent them flying with a trail of smoke. The Gatling clanked as it picked up speed.
The crowd was moving then. Instead of running away, they were running to him, screaming and shouting and grinning. Tony showered them with a stream of bullets that could cut through a tree trunk. He hit the ones that managed to get past the mini-gun with pulses from the thrusters. They went down as fast as they came at him, but Tony noticed that there was no blood. He wasn't hurting them.
A glaring warning popped up in front of his left eye as the Gatling made a horrendous screech and stopped firing. The flashing red screamed that there was a jam. Cussing, Tony switched to the arm-mounted missiles and fired them into the mass of men. The explosion left glare on his screen.
His opponents were getting bigger. One broke through his defense and smashed both hands into his back. Tony clanged against the cement, damage readouts blinking furiously before his eyes. The suit was in such a sorry state of repair that it wouldn't take too many hits. Tony briefly lamented not spending more time on it and rolled out of the way as an oversized foot came down where his head had been. The foot was so large it had broken out of the shoe, the remnants of the boot clinging limply to the man's ankle.
Tony scrambled upright and kept firing. His breathing was ragged and loud in the helmet, covering the shouts of the morphing convicts. He fired everything he could, everything he had. For the handful his weapons took down, there were a dozen more. They were everywhere. He was outmatched.
Tony put all of his power in the thrusters and shot towards the ceiling. Something clamped down over his ankle. He jerked to a stop, the boosters whining with strain. Tony twisted and let out a blast directly into the leering face of the monster holding onto him, but the thing pulled him down into the mob.
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TBC! OMG, TONY! I know I hurt your feels, I promise to fix them soon.
Before you all go running off to search for this villain, you won't find her. She is an OC. I know that might not please some of you, but I find a lot of the Marvel villains a little cheesy and wanted to bring in someone new. You'll find out more about her as we progress.
Edit: Aparently there is a character named Scorn... I fail at googling. They are unrelated, so sorry about that.
Chapter Eight - LINK
Rating: R
Warnings: Strong violence
Beta: None
Summary: The point of a team is that no one ever has to go in alone. Tony isn't patient enough for that.
Pairings/Characters: Steve/Tony, plus loads of other characters... like everyone.
Word Count: About 6,000
Chapter Six - LINK
Chapter Seven - Flying Solo
A/N: So I have to give a shout out to all of you lovely people that keep leaving me reviews. They make me super happy and inspire me to keep writing. Thank you so much for letting me know what you think of my story. Those of you who come back to comment again and again, you know who you are and you always make my day.
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The flames from his blowtorch sparked, throwing flecks of blue and green. Heat curled across the bare skin of his arms where his thick, leather gloves ended. Tony had long since lost track of the hours. What he knew was that War Machine had a solid power supply to every weapon and extremity and he'd fixed all of the 'repairs' to the targeting system.
Tony sat back to check the new seam along the side of the helm. It looked a little rough, but for the time he had, it would suffice. Fury was standing near the end of his workbench. He'd been there for several minutes. Though Tony noticed the moment he'd walked in, he'd chosen to ignore him until he finished what he was doing.
Setting the helmet down, he pushed the welding goggles onto his forehead and said, "If you're here with bad news, I don't want to hear it." He cranked down the gas intake on the torch until the fire sputtered and went out.
"Then you'd better shut your ears," Fury said without any fanfare, holding his hand out to one of his agents. The man brought over a shipping box that had already been torn open and set it in Fury's outstretched palm. "You received a package. Since you've been the target of some unexplained anger, we took the liberty of opening it."
Tony could explain the anger. He could explain it in eight ways, and all the reasons started with M and ended with ARK. The package was nondescript, no emblems or shipping labels on the surface. It would've been delivered by courier, giving them a chance to hunt down the original sender. From where he was sitting, Tony couldn't see inside.
Fury didn't keep him waiting long. He reached into the box and pulled out the golden mask for one of his suits. The mask was one of the few things that didn't change drastically from suit to suit, so he wasn't sure which one it belonged to without examining the seals and lock points. Ugly black letters were scrawled across the bright metal in what looked like greasepaint.
Tony jumped up and snatched the faceplate from Fury, reading the note, 'For the return of your heroism, you will send $5,000,000,000.' He turned it over. There was nothing else inside. They were probably planning on contacting him with details once it had arrived. The mistake would put them in SHIELD's net. Tony wasn't so sure he wanted to wait that long, he was already wondering why they would send him a ransom note when they thought he was dead. If they had a camera in the workshop, they would've seen Steve go down instead and that would explain the change in plans.
"Do you have the courier?"
"He's downstairs answering some questions," Fury said and put his hands on his hips, "Now, Stark, you shouldn't consider-"
"Paying them?" Tony filled in, glancing up at him.
It was a good bet that Fury hadn't wanted to bring him in on this. The director probably wanted to locate the culprits without him so they could go in with the team and leave Tony in daycare. Tony wasn't going to be left behind. His biggest connection would be the camera, if there was one, and there was no way he was giving that up to Fury.
"You have no idea what they'll do with that money, you need to let us track them and go in to recover the suits," the director explained as though he was talking to a kid.
It made Tony's eye twitch. He bit out, "I know what I need to do, Fury. Thanks. Why don't you focus on the courier service so I can finish my work?"
Fury stood there a long time, studying Tony with his one good eye as if he knew exactly what Tony was thinking. It was easy enough to go back to War Machine, Tony was more than comfortable ignoring things while he worked. Setting the faceplate to the side, he picked up one of the boots and tested the control surfaces. The two main flaps at the calf lifted the way they should, but the smaller ones were still too damaged.
As he reached for a pair of pliers, Fury finally went for the door. He heard him tell the agents in the room to keep watch, skipping the 'on him', but it was definitely implied. Tony yanked his goggles over his annoyance. He couldn't just run upstairs to look for the camera without being obvious, so he bided his time. Finishing the control surfaces on the left leg took forty minutes, long enough that he wouldn't be suspected if he went upstairs.
Tony made a show of taking off his gloves and putting away his equipment, rolling his shoulders and rubbing the back of his neck as if he'd been at the grindstone too long. "Any of you boys want some coffee?" he asked without waiting for an answer. "There's a Starbucks around the corner at thirty-first and sixth, get me one while you're out. Double espresso, no fat, tallest one they make."
It was difficult to keep his pace casual, even slower than casual since he was supposed to be tired, as he went into the lobby. Well, he was tired. Exhausted, actually, but the possibility of getting his suits back was more powerful than the lull of sleep. Upstairs, there were fewer agents and he was able to jog towards his workshop. The light in the media room caught his eye. He slowed enough to look in.
Jane was awake again and reading through his code for Jarvis. The four new server cabinets were lined up along the wall like sentinels. Cords ran back and forth between them and the computers Tony had been rebuilding Jarvis on, so Jane had gotten as far as data transfer. She chewed at one fingernail absently while Tony watched, typing a few lines.
"Can you follow what I was doing?" he asked.
Jane yelped and looked up at him with wide, guilty eyes, obviously expecting Tony to be angry that she was adding to his programming. She put her hands in her lap, stuttering, "I was just looking at- at the... Your iteration for streamlining the decision process is sublime; I've never seen anything like it."
"It keeps things simpler," Tony said. Working with her for the last two days, Tony had found a lot of respect for Dr. Foster. She was as brilliant as everyone claimed she was, which was the only reason he trusted her with Jarvis, "Do you think you can finish it?"
She looked at the screen a long time, her eyes flickering over the code before they returned to his, "Yes, I can."
"Good, because I'm going to need it up and running as soon as possible," Tony picked up one of the extraneous laptops and left.
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Steve felt something crack underneath him and hoped it was the concrete and not his spine. He figured there would be more pain if it was a bone. With a shout, he kicked the gigantic creature off of him and rolled to his feet. There was no doubt that Banner's serum was farther along than he thought. Steve would ask him about it, but the doctor was green and not particularly talkative at the moment.
They'd managed to narrow the five monstrosities down to four, but they were all worn out. These things were almost as big as Bruce was at his full, gamma-created height, and nearly as strong. Each one was a little different. The man in the trench coat had morphed into a slumped, gray mass with enough muscle on his shoulders to sling a bus across a football field. He was smarter than the others were and could still manage complete sentences. He'd also stayed out of range of Thor and the Hulk, focusing on Steve.
The one with the tattoos had grown a number of spines along his back and the crest of his skull, though several of them were broken this far into the fight. He had an arrow sticking out of one shoulder, and either didn't notice or care as he tried to grab Natasha.
She slid between his legs and clambered up his back using the spikes as handholds. The knife she jammed behind his ear snapped off at the hilt. As she reached for her gun, the spiny creature snagged her arm and chunked her across the parking lot. The spy hit the ground hard, rolling end over end until she could regain control. Natasha continued to slide on her toes and fingertips, her head snapping up to judge where the threat had gone.
Thor grappled with a bluish-green beast that had a mane of dark hair around his neck and claws like daggers. He wrapped Thor in a bone-crushing bear hug, his grin showing off his four-inch teeth. Steve ran towards him to help. Before he could get too close, a gray fist careened towards his back. He dodged to the left and slammed his shield down on the wrist. A snap preceded the gray creature's howl of pain. The thing's thick brow tilted down so heavily that it almost blocked his eyes. Steve kept his stance tight and low, waiting for the next attack.
A searing bolt of lightning leapt out of the sky and struck Thor. The demi-god's scream was more rage than pain as the electricity crackled through him and his enemy. Even Banner stopped in his fight to watch. More volts than Steve could even begin to guess at made the blue monstrosity seize and sizzle, so bright it sent the parking lot into sharp relief.
As soon as it was over and he fell, steaming, to the ground, Hulk grabbed his opponent and threw him into a white truck parked near the building. The metal came apart like tissue paper, the force of it knocking the vehicle onto its side. One leap and the Hulk was on the other abomination again. He planted a foot in his back as he pulled the thing's arms hard enough to rip them out of the socket. Flesh parted with a sound like tearing fabric, blood pouring onto the ground in rhythmic gushes. Three arrows streamed from the rooftop in quick succession. All three sunk into the creature's head before Banner could finish tearing him apart. His plaything dead, the Hulk beat his chest with his fists and gave a victorious cry.
Steve ducked under a wild swing, focusing on his own fight. He deflected a blow off the striped edge of his shield and jumped into the air to kick the leader in the stomach. Stumbling back on legs as big around as an elephant's, the gray brute balanced his weight on his knuckles and snarled. He lunged at Steve, feinting to the right. Steve was halfway into the dodge when he realized what he'd done. He barely managed to get his shield between him and the fist streaming towards him.
The hit rang off the building, reverberating through Steve's arms and sending him flying. He tucked up to lessen the impact of the cement, but hit a car instead. Glass exploded around him. For a moment, there was nothing but the gut-wrenching grip of agony. He fell forward onto one knee, vaguely aware that his shield skittered away across the pavement. The heavy thud-thud of a large approaching mass made him shake his head and stagger upright. Screaming, the gray monstrosity thundered across the lot, beady eyes intent on him.
Steve tried to be ready for it, but he was still recovering from the last strike. Hulk smacked into Steve's foe with the sound of flesh slapping flesh. Both were bare from the waist up, having outgrown their clothes very quickly. The gray one was definitely the biggest of the five. When he straightened up to roar in Banner's face, they were the same height. Hulk returned the bellow, the veins standing out on his thick neck.
Out of the corner of his eye, Steve saw the spiny creature catch a handful of Natasha's hair and pick her up. The demi-god was closer and Steve knew he'd never get there from where he was standing. "Thor!" Steve shouted, pointing out at the Russian spy, "Help her!"
Thor lifted his hand to call the hammer as the spiny muscle mass lifted a hand to swat Natasha like a bug. There wasn't enough time. Steve darted for his shield. The scrape of metal on stone seemed deafening as he snagged the red edge and prepared to throw it. Mjölnir landed in Thor's hand and the demi-god immediately shifted his weight forward, his arm stretching out. Natasha grabbed the thick fingers tangled in her hair and swung up to wrap her legs around the thing's forearm. She went for a firearm strapped to her thigh, her mouth open in a silent cry.
Clint dropped off the roof with a bowie knife in hand. Using the momentum from the fall, he slammed it into the abomination's eye. They went down together as the rest of Clint's body caught up and he crashed into the thing's shoulders. The archer tumbled out of Steve's view, but his grunt of pain was hard to miss. Natasha fell from the slack hand, landing on her side. She was on her feet before Steve could blink.
"Clint?" she called, her voice calm, but loud. "Talk to me." She climbed over the still twitching body so she could get to Agent Barton.
Steve ran over to see the extent of the damage. Clint was a few feet from his kill, left hand gripping a deep gouge on his thigh. Blood ran freely through his fingers. When Natasha pushed his hand away, Steve saw the broken piece of spine sticking out from the flayed tissue. He must've landed on it. Clint grimaced and dropped his head onto the cement when Natasha drew the spike out, his shallow intakes of air hissing through his teeth.
"You shouldn't have done that," she scolded as she put pressure on the wound.
Clint curled his hands into fists, pushing them against his forehead. Even heavy with hurt, his voice was as level as Natasha's was, "I've done stupider for a lot less."
"Why didn't you just shoot-"
"Couldn't. The only tips I had left were explosive," the archer explained and let his hands drop from his face. When he slid bloody fingers around the back of Natasha's neck, she got still, her eyes searching his. Clint added, "You were too close."
Steve suddenly felt that he was interrupting an incredibly intimate moment. He backed off with a flush. As he turned, he saw the Hulk smash the head of last survivor between his palms. The only order he'd given when this started was to leave one alive. Now they had no connection back to the woman pulling the strings. With an aggravated sigh, Steve called their ride and a med-evac, and pushed his mask off his face.
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The camera was hidden more effectively than Tony thought it would be. He'd searched all over the workshop, in every nook and cranny he could find within view of the blackened crater in the middle of his floor. It was extremely compact, part of the reason why it was so easy to hide. The lens was the size of Tony's thumbnail and the attached transmitter was approximately the dimensions of a matchbox.
He found the device built into the frame of his red and blue Shepard Fairey painting of Iron Man. It was situated in the corner of the metal rectangle, the black on black almost unnoticeable unless someone was looking for it. From the slight build-up of dust around the edges of the lens, Tony could tell it had been there for a while. There was no way to be sure how long they'd been gathering intelligence on him. Tony's lip curled at the thought. He'd figure out how they got in to set it up later, right now he needed to know where the wireless device was sending its data.
Tony pried open the backing on the frame with a folding knife and carefully extracted the gadget. After setting up a secure line to ensure no one downstairs would be monitoring his search, Tony hooked up the wireless transmitter to computer he'd brought with him. The connection was encrypted, but he bypassed that in less than a minute. A map of the tri-state area illuminated the screen, several red cross-hairs scanning the image as the computer pinned down the feed. They met over a sparsely populated part of northern Pennsylvania. The image zoomed and enhanced and the tracking started again. It narrowed down to a large, sprawling building that appeared to be a shipping warehouse. A few dozen eighteen wheelers were backed against the sides of the building, sticking out at the same angle both the north and south ends.
Tony memorized the coordinates, a feral grin tugging at the side of his mouth. He dropped the camera on the floor and smashed it under his heel. The plastic ruptured, sending flecks of black dust out in a starburst. Satisfied, Tony went for the stairs. He took them two at a time, leaping to the next landing when the fall wouldn't be too far.
He stopped at the industrial door that led to the garage. There were a dozen men surrounding War Machine. They might let him go, since Fury didn't usually get in the way if there was work to be done, but he knew that Fury would want details. Tony wasn't in the mindset to stand around explaining. He needed to be in the air yesterday.
There was a security pad by the door. Brain humming with inspiration, Tony slid his hand over the dark screen to wake it and tapped his access code on the glowing, blue letters. He bypassed the base program and got into the mainframe. A few quick adjustments and the crisis alarm started screaming. Strobes flicked on, filling the stairwell with a dizzying pattern of light.
SHIELD would track the alarm directly to his keypad, so Tony vaulted up the stairs to the level above. He heard voices behind him, but didn't turn back. There was another stairwell in the center of the tower, Tony sprinted to it and returned to the ground floor. Easing his head out into the open to make sure it was clear, he slid through the back halls to avoid Fury's agents. The garage was empty when he got there.
Tony got the silver armor in place as quickly as he could, tightening each piece with a tool he'd specifically designed to fit in the narrow creases. The alarm shut down. Tony glanced at the nearest strobe and yanked on a boot. He didn't have much time before they descended on him. Reading the launch codes Rhodey left him, Tony put on the gauntlets and twisted the dial at the wrist that would close the dozens of clasps.
"Stark!" Fury's shout reached him before the director walked into his line of sight. "That suit isn't even close to deployment ready, don't you dare-"
"Stay out of it." Tony snapped the helmet closed. The HUD brought up one line of text asking for the access key. Backing away from Fury, Tony spoke the nine digit password in the military's phonic alphabet, "Whiskey mike four seven eight three, foxtrot dash Juliet Romeo."
The screen blinked black, and then a silver eagle appeared under the words, 'Welcome Colonel Rhodes'. Scans of the local weather and air traffic immediately appeared, but the layout was foreign to Tony. His heads up display was incredibly efficient and clean, but the air force programming was just as cluttered as the 'repairs'. A line of minute text scrolled by on the left side, some kind of feed from the military network. Through all of it, he saw Fury's disapproving face getting closer.
Tony engaged the thrusters and lifted off the ground, "Gotta go." He turned the hand-stabilizers towards the wall, pushing the thrust to fifteen percent and bolting out of the garage. The exit tunnel whipped by him. Tearing through the metal gate without slowing, Tony shot into the sky and put the boosters on full-burn. The boom from him breaking the sound barrier rattled nearby windows.
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While the medical team loaded Clint onto a helicopter, Thor and Steve explored the building. They were looking for any evidence that would lead them to the mind behind the attack. The facility wasn't what Steve was expecting. After seeing labs like the ones in the tower, the blocky equipment and plain, sterile rooms were almost tame. Steve wondered if it was an old laboratory or if Tony's 'toys' were just that high tech. The latter was more likely.
"I do not understand what we are searching for," Thor complained from the next room.
"Anything that will help us find them."
A moment passed and the tall blonde joined Steve. He rubbed his beard thoughtfully, or in a way that Steve hoped was thoughtful, "Many of the items they would need to recreate Banner's monstrosity are here, but they have not been disturbed. We did not arrive in a timely enough fashion to catch them before they could load the transportation, so why have they not taken the medications?"
Steve shook his head as he looked around the neat room. Thor was right. Except for the damage they'd caused from the outside, it didn't appear that anything else had been touched. Enough time went by between the initial alarm and their arrival that they should've been chasing the perpetrators through the streets instead of catching them in the act. And there were still the missing cops to consider. Steve couldn't quite make the picture come together.
The presence of the men proved that Banner's serum worked well enough to use as-is, but Steve didn't know how much of it had been stolen from the tower. There couldn't have been enough to create the five monstrosities they faced with the massive margin for error Bruce talked about. They had to be producing the serum in large scale already.
"This place was meant to entice us," Thor said suddenly. "They knew we would be searching for them and used it against us, leading us into a snare like the unwitting greckneir."
Steve didn't care that Thor's references only made sense to him, the rest of his words rang true. They'd pulled them out into the open and ambushed them with a force that should've been enough to wipe them out, and the serum still wasn't right. Steve didn't want to imagine what the results would be when it had been perfected.
"I don't think the cops were bait or they would've left them alive," Steve mentioned, his mind chewing on the puzzle. He snapped his fingers and slapped his fist into his palm, "They needed more test subjects, but how did they get them out of here?"
"Of that, I am not sure."
"We need Fury to check flights in the area, see if anyone reported an unauthorized aircraft," Steve said and went to the exit.
The area was teaming with SHIELD agents. Most were cleaning up the bodies and gore, their normal clothes covered by white biohazard suits that crinkled loudly when they walked. The upper-crust agents were monitoring the progress and doling out orders. Someone had gotten Hulk to calm down enough that Banner was stooped over the gray creature that had it out for Steve. The doctor was holding up his pants with one hand, the loose material flowing over his knuckles.
Seeing the consequences of Bruce's unauthorized experiment so close to the man himself, it brought Steve's anger back. He wanted to ream the doctor even it wasn't going to change anything. Unfortunately, Banner was only a few minutes out of his other form and the slightest word could send him into it again. There were too many people in the area now, too many potential victims for Bruce's rage, so Steve choked on his righteous argument and turned away.
"Rogers," Natasha's use of his name brought him back to reality. "Fury's been trying to get a hold of you, where's your earpiece?"
Steve had communications built into his mask because he very rarely remembered the tiny bud that was somehow both a speaker and receiver. It was one of those things he'd never had to deal with before the ice. Grabbing the nose guard, Steve pulled the hood on and tapped the sensor over his ear, "This is Rogers to Fury, come in."
"Either keep your damn mask on or start wearing that earpiece, don't make me kick your ass over this," Fury's thin voice growled.
"Yes, sir."
"Listen up, Stark has gone rogue and you're the only one who can reel him in before he gets himself killed."
Steve pressed the earpiece against the side of his head, certain he'd heard that incorrectly, "I'm sorry, what? What do you mean rogue?"
"He took off about ten minutes ago. We're still trying to decode the search he performed before he left, but it's a good bet he's found the home base for these people."
Eyes going wide, Steve looked around at the serum-enhanced monsters it had taken almost the entire team to destroy. If there were more like them, there was no way Tony could handle it alone, not with the busted up War Machine. Tony had no idea what he was flying into.
"Has anyone contacted him? We can be there soon, tell him to wait. He doesn't need to go in alo-"
"Captain."
"He needs backup-"
"Captain!" Fury barked, finally getting Steve to shut up. "War Machine isn't set up on the same system as Iron Man, we don't have access to his communications. You're going to have to intercept him."
"But you don't have the coordinates yet."
"No, but I'll send them to you as soon as we do."
Steve stood listening to the empty static on Fury's end, his mouth set in a tight line. After a few seconds, the speaker went quiet as the director terminated the connection. He was aware of Thor and Natasha watching him. They would've picked up enough from his side of the conversation to know what was going on.
Clint pushed a medic out of the way and slid out of the helicopter, limping over, "What's the news?"
"Tony went alone."
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Tony circled the building while he decided on the best angle of entry. It looked exactly the same as it did in the satellite screenshots, down to the number of trucks backed against the sides. There was a good chance that those didn't move much. They were probably just there for appearances. Never one for determining a treat level or doing an enemy count before launching into a fight, Tony wasn't terribly concerned that the old MARK suit didn't have infrared built in. It would've been nice to know where the enemies would be inside, but not necessary.
Tony preferred blowing things up first and asking questions later.
Picking a spot in the center of the roof, Tony rocketed towards it. At the very last moment, he flipped so he was going feet-first. The structure gave away easily under the weight of the suit. He slammed into the warehouse, landing on one knee with a clang, his hands raised to throw out a pulse of energy at anyone close.
The open space was full of men. They were unloading boxes off trucks that were marked with a dozen different logos, biohazard symbols, and radiation warnings. War Machine's HUD scanned them quickly, throwing up notes about the contents. There was no doubt Tony was in the right place. There was enough material gathered to make Bruce's serum a few hundred times over. Tony wondered how they'd managed to get away with so much of it with SHIELD's network scanning for police reports and hospital alarms.
Most of the men stayed frozen, watching him with cautious eyes, while others were putting down their freight and moving towards him slowly. The lineup didn't much resemble a trucking crew. With the variety of gang tattoos, it looked more like a prison lot. Tony stood, rotating his head so the targeting system could get a lock on as many of them as it was capable of.
Giving enough power to the hand thrusters for them to brighten and hum, Tony said, "I think you all know why I'm here, so hand over my stuff and I won't blow you all to kingdom come." The MARK's amplifier made his voice sound deeper, more mechanical. It was a glitch he never bothered to fix.
No one backed off. The men in the room didn't even blink. Tony wondered if he should've started the threat with Rhodey's massive shoulder Gatling gun. It was overkill, but made a definite impression.
"Mr. Stark, what a pleasant surprise," a female voice crooned, though she didn't sound at all surprised. Tony detected a faint Russian accent hiding in her tone.
He turned to see a woman saunter into the receiving bay from another part of the warehouse. Though she was compact, barely five foot three if Tony had to guess, and couldn't weigh more than ninety pounds, she commanded the attention of the room. She had raven hair that fell down her back in gentle waves and a smile that was strangely disarming. Her floral, summer dress added to Tony's feeling that she was out of place. She was very normal, so normal that she could've walked into his tower as a waitress at one of his parties or a maid and he never would've given her a second glance.
Tony lowered his hands slightly, letting the power-level drop as the convicts moved away, "Who are you?"
The woman looked away, her lips pursing as if she was thinking through his question, "You hero-types love names with cryptic double-meanings, so..." She trailed off and heaved an exaggerated sigh. Her face lit up with fake realization and she said, "You may call me Scorn." The smile that followed was nowhere close to the sweet, innocent grin she'd given him moments earlier. It was laced with darkness.
"Right, and the Avengers have done something to piss you off, so now you're 'scorned' and you're going to take it out on everybody in existence. I've heard this one before," Tony jumped to the conclusion quickly. "But you have no idea who you're messing with. Banner's serum isn't even close to usable and my suits are worthless to you without Jarvis, so you've already painted yourself into a corner."
Scorn trailed her hand over a green crate with a biohazard sticker that slanted across the front. Never taking her eyes off Tony, she said, "Well, the bit about your suits is true. I was really hoping the bomb in the workshop would take you out of the equation, but your boyfriend is just too good, isn't he?" Her hips swayed to the side as she leaned on the crate, her lips quirking up at the corners, "And isn't he just, though? I've had the privilege of watching a few of your rendezvous. On the hood of your last project..."
Tony curled his hands into fists.
"And over the workbench and against the wall. You nearly knocked the painting down that time. I was a little worried you'd find my camera and I'd lose my porn station," she continued, drawing crackles of laughter from the men around her.
As furious as it made him, it told Tony exactly when the camera was installed. What he was still trying to figure out was how the woman managed to hack Jarvis. She was definitely more than she looked, just like Natasha. It was part of what made her so convincing as a double.
"But as far as Doctor Banner's incredible serum, I stole that weeks ago. That's the beauty of your Avengers Initiative, you're very rarely all in one place. I knew he wouldn't notice until you got another crisis call, since that's the only time he's in the tower," Scorn said and walked towards him, her nails scraping lightly over the hazardous crate as she moved away from it. "I've had plenty of time to finish stabilizing the effects."
The tingle of adrenaline and fear prickled along the base of his spinal column and crawled up through his back, tightening every muscle it came to. When she reached to slip her hand around the back of his head, he was as taut as Clint's bowstring, his lip twitching behind the faceplate.
Scorn got up on her toes and placed a kiss on the crease of War Machine's mouth, pulling back just enough to whisper, "It's nothing personal, Mr. Stark. You were just in the way." Her eyes locked on the front of his mask, she raised her voice to shout, "Take him apart, but leave him alive. I want the reactor," before she left.
Tony pushed power into all of the weapons, heating up with a mechanical whir. Not waiting for someone else to make the first strike, he pushed blasts of energy at the two closest men and sent them flying with a trail of smoke. The Gatling clanked as it picked up speed.
The crowd was moving then. Instead of running away, they were running to him, screaming and shouting and grinning. Tony showered them with a stream of bullets that could cut through a tree trunk. He hit the ones that managed to get past the mini-gun with pulses from the thrusters. They went down as fast as they came at him, but Tony noticed that there was no blood. He wasn't hurting them.
A glaring warning popped up in front of his left eye as the Gatling made a horrendous screech and stopped firing. The flashing red screamed that there was a jam. Cussing, Tony switched to the arm-mounted missiles and fired them into the mass of men. The explosion left glare on his screen.
His opponents were getting bigger. One broke through his defense and smashed both hands into his back. Tony clanged against the cement, damage readouts blinking furiously before his eyes. The suit was in such a sorry state of repair that it wouldn't take too many hits. Tony briefly lamented not spending more time on it and rolled out of the way as an oversized foot came down where his head had been. The foot was so large it had broken out of the shoe, the remnants of the boot clinging limply to the man's ankle.
Tony scrambled upright and kept firing. His breathing was ragged and loud in the helmet, covering the shouts of the morphing convicts. He fired everything he could, everything he had. For the handful his weapons took down, there were a dozen more. They were everywhere. He was outmatched.
Tony put all of his power in the thrusters and shot towards the ceiling. Something clamped down over his ankle. He jerked to a stop, the boosters whining with strain. Tony twisted and let out a blast directly into the leering face of the monster holding onto him, but the thing pulled him down into the mob.
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TBC! OMG, TONY! I know I hurt your feels, I promise to fix them soon.
Before you all go running off to search for this villain, you won't find her. She is an OC. I know that might not please some of you, but I find a lot of the Marvel villains a little cheesy and wanted to bring in someone new. You'll find out more about her as we progress.
Edit: Aparently there is a character named Scorn... I fail at googling. They are unrelated, so sorry about that.
Chapter Eight - LINK
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Tony would totally do something like that. He values action over planning, which is really ironic considering how smart he is :P
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I was scratching my head, wondering who the mystery woman was. So glad I didn't pull a mental muscle before finding out she was an OC.
Steeebe, bb, yer boifran needs ju~!
I shall sit here in great anticipation for the coming update.
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Yeah, I'll explain her as I go along. I actually really adore her character. She's grown on me a lot since I came up with her.
Go Steve, go!!!
I'll get the next chapter out as soon as I can. I've essentially stopped sleeping to work on this story >_>