Chapter Text
“Pepper, don’t make any plans for tomorrow,” Tony told Pepper’s voice mail as he and Dum-E double checked the first of Clint’s new batch of arrows for defects. “The Avengers have a mission but I’ll be home. It should be simple data gathering.” He sat up and stretched. “Okay J.A.R.V.I.S. the arrow looks good, fabricate a couple dozen, make sure Katniss has a full quiver waiting in the armory. We’re wheels up at the crack of dawn and you know how Capsicle is about punctuality.”
“Of course sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. replied.
“Then bring up the specs on that wearable glucose monitor Pepper’s been asking for, might as well get some real work done while we wait,” Tony said.
“Sir, might I remind you that Ms. Hill also requires briefing about the impending mission?” J.A.R.V.I.S. asked politely.
“Shit, Cap hasn’t talked to her yet? Well, I guess technically, she is my employee. Put her on the speakerphone.”
A few moments later Maria answered her phone with a crisp, “Agent Hill.”
“Maria, light of my life,” Tony gushed. “Have I mentioned that you and a few of your favorite agents are invited on a sightseeing trip to exotic Montana? Plane leaves first thing in the morning.”
“Why and why didn’t I know sooner?” Maria demanded.
“Because we only just learned about it, intel’s fresh from Maximum Ride,” Tony frowned to himself, Sam had been around for several days, so why had Steve waited to inform the team until the last minute? “An abandoned HYDRA base but it might have some leads as to where they are now. We’re bringing the whole team after the traps Steve and Nat ran into the last time out.”
Maria sighed, “At least it’s in the U.S., I’ll have us cleared for an operation before morning. But you owe me coffee, Stark, the good stuff.”
“J.A.R.V.I.S. and I can handle the hacking but I could use some extra eyes and hands to go through any antiquated files,” Tony continued. “I think I might be allergic to printed media.”
“Papyrophobia, we’ll add it to the laundry list of mental issues in your file,” Maria said with excessive solemnity.
“You think that would get me off the hook with Pepper and her reams of forms?” Tony asked.
“Let me think about it,” Maria paused for a very deliberate second. “Nope, not a chance.”
Tony laughed, “I’ll see you in the morning, with coffee. Sulawesi Toraja Coffee work for you?”
“I don’t have a clue what that is but if you’re buying I’ll be delighted to give it a try,” Maria replied.
The next morning Tony was the last member of the team to arrive. Cap was looking disgruntled and Tony figured that was the reason. ‘It was only a couple of minutes. I ought to have him compare notes with Rhodey.’ Tony thought with amusement. ‘And I’m in my armor. There was that one board meeting where I showed up in a bathrobe, Pepper was not amused… Neither was Obie.’
He also had a tray of coffee cups which he promptly handed over to the waiting Maria Hill and her ex-Agents, “For keeping you up all night,” he said. “I assume you got all the clearances?”
Maria grabbed one of the cups and held it beneath her nose savoring the aroma and the warmth of the cup. “You’re forgiven for the last minute request, this time anyway, Stark.”
Cap’s frown darkened a few shades. “You knew the mission was first thing in the morning,” he said quietly, pulling Tony aside as soon as they were in the air. “You should have made sure the people you brought into this were fresh for it instead of keeping them up doing you favors.”
Tony rolled his eyes with exasperated fondness, it hadn’t taken any time at all for Steve and Nat to join Pepper and Rhodey in attempting to correct his behavior as if they were Jarvis or his mom. Thor’s too clueless. Clint’s every bit as crass and mannerless as I am, without the money to get suck-up to label it eccentricity instead of assholeishness, got admire that. Bruce… Hell, I don’t have a clue why Bruce doesn’t.'
“Eight hours is a myth perpetrated by geriatrics like you Cap,” Tony waved off the criticism.
Less than an hour later the quinjet touched down on an expanse of cracked, weed-infested concrete near a granary on the outskirts of Fort Benton, Montana. “There’s the entryway, just like Sam said,” Steve guided them toward an old, abandoned, silo that looked like it had last been used when ox-drawn wagons had been in fashion.
Tony used his sensors to scan the ground beneath them, “I’m getting more heat signatures than an abandoned base warrants.”
“Sam wouldn’t give us bad intel,” Capicle said as if Birdboy was there to get his feelings hurt.
“Just because HYDRA moved out, that doesn’t mean someone else hasn’t moved in,” Natasha cautioned.
Steve stared at Natasha for a moment then, proving his ‘just a guy from Brooklyn’ spiel true, he caved. “You’re right. Agent Hill, hold your men back until the site is secured. Clint, Natasha, you think there’s enough cover for you to safely scout it out or should we go in hot and try to subdue them before they can get their bearings?”
“If they’re underground I guarantee they’ve got a healthy vent system,” Clint said.
“We’ll be in and out with none the wiser, trust us Steve,” Natasha added.
Steve nodded. “Be careful and don’t hesitate to call us in if things go pear-shaped.”
Tony stepped out of his suit for a moment to help Natasha and Clint disable the alarms on secret entrance below the old grain silo then joined the ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. trio and Bruce Banner while the spies headed inside. “J.A.R.V.I.S., does anyone in this hicksville have their security camera saving footage to a server?”
“The bank, two liquor stores and a 7-Eleven, Sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. reported.
“I shouldn’t stereotype, but let’s start with the liquor store footage,” Tony instructed. “See if anyone interesting has been hanging around town.”
“The liquor store would be your first stop,” Maria said. “Start with the 7-Eleven, in a town like this it’s likely the only place open after midnight, if this is a villain lair they’ve got 7-24 security, if the guards are human the night shift has been hitting the 7-Eleven for snacks on their breaks.”
“You heard the lady J.A.R.V.I.S.,” Tony said.
Several minutes later J.A.R.V.I.S. announced, “It seems Mr. Wilson is correct, this is not an active HYDRA base, however I have paired the security footage to mug shots of several individuals associated with the Serpent Society.”
Just then the comms crackled to life. “I count upwards of thirty grunts wearing the Serpent Society emblem and carrying heavy artillery,” Natasha reported to Steve.
“I could have told you that,” Tony broke in.
“If you don't have anything useful to say…” Steve reprimanded him. “Clint, what’s your count?”
“Another five mooks plus four costumes,” the archer said. “One of them’s a hottie but no one we've seen before- Shit, I'm made.”
“Iron Man, go through the ceiling. Get us to him and Nat, now” Steve ordered.
“Aye, aye mon Capitaine,” Tony said as his faceplate snapped down and he blasted off. A quick scan of the tracers in Clint and Natasha's comms overlaid with a sonar and IR map gave him a feel for the bases’ layout and the position of the players. Then he used a small missile to punch through the roof of the complex. Steve was first through the hole, hitting ground along with the last of the debris from the shattered ceiling. Thor was a moment behind him. Tony waited until the two of them had cleared the opening then cut thrusters and dropped through the opening as well.
The underground complex was a light with explosions as Clint fired arrow after arrow into the ground in front of the costumes while Natasha fought off a half-dozen thugs. “Damn! Why didn’t I have these on our last mission?” Clint exclaimed as he fired off another round. Tony decided to take it as a compliment on the arrows rather than a criticism that he hadn’t developed them sooner.
Steve and Thor plowed into the four, snake-themed costumes, which gave Clint a chance to focus on taking down the growing crowd of minions harassing Natasha. Tony held back, surveying the battle for several moments before shooting off a series of repulsor blasts that caved in a tunnel, trapping fifteen of the minions away from the fighting. Clint's arrows made quick work of a half dozen more. Natasha had rendered four unconscious before Steve made his entry and took out another pair while Clint and Tony were taking their shots. She put down the last man with her signature leg-lock. “What a way to go,” Tony observed as the body hit the floor.
Natasha rolled her eyes then glanced over at Clint, “Thanks for the assist.”
With the thugs down the two spies and Iron Man switched their focus to the four costumes going up against Steve and Thor: A caped man with a large frill around his neck and an unfortunate mask. A man in green whose lower-body terminated in a snake tail, his arms were clawed prosthetics. A man wearing a mask that covered the top half of his face and supported a cobra like hood. And last, a woman in pink who held back from the fighting to target both Thor and Steve with throwing knives.
“I've got the girl, so you boys don't have to feel guilty about hitting her,” Natasha said. Tony nodded to himself, the other team’s sniper should be a priority, Steve had his shield but Thor was simply shrugging off the small wounds caused by her knives and the woman was looking way too smug about the relatively minor damage she'd inflicted.
The half-snake man faced off against Steve, his artificial limbs were a match for Captain America's enhanced strength while his snake-like locomotion played havoc with Cap's ability to read his attacks.
The hooded man ducked under Thor's blow and managed to get both hands wrapped, with disturbing flexibility, around the demi-god’ wrist to immobilize Mjolnir, turning their battle into a contest of strength.
The man with the frilled collar stood back watching. ‘Mastermind,’ Tony thought. He saw Clint targeting the man as the other two were too closely entwined with Steve and Thor respectively and even the best archer in the world couldn't predict how the rapid trading of blows might shift the fight and put the wrong person in the line of fire.
Tony started toward Steve and the snake-man, judging Thor's situation to be more secure.
An explosion engulfed the ledge where Frill stood. Then Frill appeared out of nowhere behind Thor and sent a jolt of electricity into the demi-god’s hand. Thor cried out as his hand spasmed and Mjolnir tumbled to the ground. Hooded snaked a foot behind Thor’s ankle, spilling him to the ground. As they fell together Frill teleported to where Natasha and Pink were trading blows. Natasha spun the moment Frill appeared and managed to punch him solidly in the throat but wasn’t fast enough to completely block Pink’s thrown blade. A thin line of red appeared on Natasha’s cheek and she stumbled dizzily. “Not going down that easy,” Natasha growled as she threw herself at Pink with a renewed determination. She kicked Pink into a wall and Clint pinned the woman there with a net arrow.
When Frill appeared near Steve’s battle, Tony was expecting him. He swooped down, grabbed the teleporter around the waist and rocketed upward. As they approached the roof at rapid speed, suddenly Tony found himself halfway across the room and upside down. “Let’s see who loses their lunch first,” Tony challenged and sent the armor into a tight spin, locking his arms around the struggling teleporter. The pair of them blinked in and out around the room careening wildly from one near collision to the next until they dove, head first, into the floor. Laying flat on his back, Tony glanced over at Frill and saw the other man was bloody and unconscious. “I win,” he declared, trying to blink the spots out of his vision.
Still lying on the floor, Tony turned toward the main fight. Without Pink sniping him Cap had started to get the upper hand against Snake-man, he was using his shield to bash at the man’s prosthetics until the claw-like arms were nothing more than bent, sparking metal.
Thor laughed as he and Hooded fought for the leverage to pin the other. The demi-god’s face was flushed, his eyes dilated and the small cuts from Pink’s knives leaked discolored blood. “Victory will be Thor’s Midgard Serpent!” he exclaimed jovially as he managed to free a hand to summon Mjolnir. With one hand on Hooded’s throat Thor pressed the man to the floor and raised his hammer as if to smash in his skull.
“Thor stop!” Steve exclaimed, he sounded as disturbed by Thor’s murderous good humor as Tony felt.
Power crackled around the hammer and lightning filled cavernous room. “Fuck.” Tony swore spotting two teenager peering into the hole in the roof from where he lay on the ground.
“Tony! Grab Clint!” Steve shouted.
Tony lurched to his feet and blasted back toward the hole, grabbing the two teens and yanking them clear just as another lightning bolt answered Thor’s call. “No gawking! Run!” Tony shouted as he dropped the teens several meters from the mouth of the hole.
“Tony!” Steve shouted. Over the comms Tony heard the sound of breaking bones and a pained grunt from Clint. He flew back into the cavern and saw Clint lying prone on the edge of a high ledge. Steve had his hand raised to catch his shield as it rebounded.
“Big guy, I think he’s down,” Natasha said, adopting her Hulk-calming tones as she staggered toward Thor. “The day’s won, no reason to bring the roof down on your shield-brothers, hmm?”
Thor blinked owlishly at her then glanced at the charred corpse at his feet. “A glorious victory,” he said smiling. “We shall feast.”
“Right after Clint and I get a little hospital time,” Natasha promised, leaning into Thor’s side. He lowered the hammer to offer her support. Both Steve and Natasha sighed in relief.
“Everything alright there?” Bruce asked worriedly over the comms.
“Fight’s over,” Steve confirmed. “Tell Stark and Agent Hill it’s time for them to get to work.”
“I think I might have a concussion,” Tony said. He barely kept himself from asking if they were grade school with the ‘Bruce tell Tony to go fuck off because I’m not talking to him.’ crap. Believe it or not, even I know when to keep my yap shut occasionally.
“You’re lucky Clint isn’t dead,” Steve replied angrily.
Tony couldn’t respond to that so he pointed several of the ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents toward the Serpent Society thugs that he’d trapped in the cave-in then took their data experts and tried to find a computer console that had survived the battle. “I got this,” he told the ex-Agents, making an abortive movement to crack his knuckles before remembering that he was still in the armor. “Go look for file cabinets or something.”
“Keeping all the fun stuff for yourself?” one of the ex-Agents snarked.
“Naturally,” Tony replied. The ringing in his ears made it hard to follow the comm chatter but he gathered that Cap was helping the EMTs extract Clint from the base and they were worrying about possible spinal injuries.
Tony looked at the console for the moment weighing the difficulty of keyboarding in the armor versus the odds of staggering like he was drunk if he didn’t have J.A.R.V.I.S. compensating for the fun side effects of having his brain smushed into the inside of his skull.
By the time Bruce had satisfied his doctor instincts on Clint- ‘Not that kind of doctor my ass.’ -and joined the data retrieval team Tony had delegated most of the programing duties to J.A.R.V.I.S. Bruce spent several minutes pretending to read the data scrolling by on the screen while actually staring at Tony then asked, “Tony? You okay?”
“I’m great, in better shape than Clint,” Tony insisted. ‘And talking totally doesn’t make my head throb in time with my pulse.’
“That’s not-” Bruce began but Tony didn’t stick around to let him finish.
Tony recalled a brief glimpse of the base’s layout and a server farm in the compounds’ lowest level. ‘I’m not avoiding anyone, we need to bring the servers back for additional review incase there’s anything segregated from the mainframe.’ Tony was physically disconnecting the HYDRA servers and stacking them for retrieval when Cap somehow managed to track him down.
“I’m sorry,” Steve said and for a moment Tony felt disarmed but Cap kept on talking, “I was angry because you ignored my orders in the field the only way I had available to save Clint left him with broken ribs. I didn’t realize you were really hurt.”
“You notice the two lookie-loo kids?” Tony asked shortly. “Was I supposed to ignore them?”
“It’s hard,” Steve said. “I know it’s hard to make that sort of choice but collateral damage is going to happen in a battle.”
“Collateral damage, Tony,” Obie said lifting a van full of kids over his head.
“You saved those two but Clint’s going to be out of commission for months who knows how many unnecessary casualties will happen because we’re a man down next time? We can’t save everyone, I know that’s horrible to say, but it’s the fact of the matter. And if we throw our lives, our teammates’ lives away trying, in the end we won’t save anyone.”
“Fuck you Rogers,” Tony muttered shoving past the blond.
Much later. After he’d spent some time with Pepper. After his head had stopped throbbing, Tony told himself it wasn’t a big deal. ‘Friends argue. I’ll upgrade his bike or maybe make him something to retrieve his shield in a battle. It’ll all be good. No big deal really.’