Having Everything yet Nothing, 4/8ish
Having Everything yet Nothing
iv
Tony paced in front of the operating room in the helicarrier where Steve had been taken as soon as the backup had arrived. Fucking useless backup, arriving after Bruce had been taken and Cap had been fucking shot -
“Tony.”
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He turned around tiredly to face Nat as she shut the door with a click. Tony tried to get a read on her emotional state, but his empathy hadn’t been working particularly well for the past couple of hours after the whole being woken up by mutants trying to kill his team thing because of the way he was currently completely and utterly unable to control his own frustration, worry, fear, nervousness - the list went on and on. In the end, it basically added up to Tony being a guilty fucking mess and unable to control it like he usually could.
“Yeah, Nat?” he managed. His voice was rough, as if he had been screaming or something, which he hadn’t unless he had some weird case of mini-amnesia. Weird. The nice ring of bruises from where that fucker had tried to choke him probably didn’t help much actually, when he thought about it.
“You know, Cap’s going to be fine. Once they get the bullet out and stitch him up he’ll be fine in an hour. Bruce too; we’ll find wherever they’re holding him within a couple of days, and Richardson won’t even know what’s hit him.”
Tony knew that, but he was still needlessly worrying and driving himself half-mad with guilt about being unable to save Bruce or spare Cap from a bullet in the gut, tangled up in messy knots of regretting not looking out for Bruce and taking out the metal-skinned man before he could shoot Cap. If the attacker had been smarter, had aimed a little higher, he wouldn’t be here in a hospital.
He’d be lying on some autopsy table, skin cold with death, no longer breathing, no more smiles, no more small Good job, Iron Mans, no more warm blanketing protection -
Jesus, this had to stop, like, now. Tony absolutely refused to go there - to do this, whatever it was. He couldn’t get tangled up in these emotions, whatever they were. He had his suspicions, but he’d never admit them to anyone, not even Nat. At this point, even poking at the disaster of his feelings towards Rogers with his empathy set off internal alarms and a wash of panic-fear-pain-confusion that never seemed to get any better. The last time something like that had happened was when Pepper had broken up with him.
Tony was so fucked. He emphasized this thought by nonchalantly knocking his head into the wall.
“Tony?”
“’m fine, Nat,” Tony muttered. “Not right now, okay? I’ll talk to you later, just not now.”
She let out a quiet little sigh that Tony didn’t bother to look further in to. “Fine. Fury is calling us in for a debriefing at 0300. Cap will be out of surgery and fully conscious by then, so you don’t have to worry about that.”
Tony stared at her a little blankly.
“Two hours, Tony. Have a cat nap or something.”
He nodded a bit and ran his fingers through his hair. They both knew that wouldn’t happen. “Yeah, sure, I can do that. I’ll see you then,” he said distractedly.
Another near-silent, reluctant sigh, and then, “Of course.”
The door closed with a faint snick and Tony returned to the quiet sounds of pacing and the dark murmur of his thoughts.
Nat was right, as she usually was. Rogers was fine and (almost) ready to go under an hour and a half later. Tony left the medical bay before he woke up. It was bad enough that Nat had seen and comprehended his frantic worrying and the reasons behind; he wasn’t going to let anyone else see it. Nat had seen to the core of him a thousand times over and had no intention of betraying the trust he had given her, but the thought of letting anyone else even remotely close to the level of access she had to his inner workings made him nauseous.
Tony let out another grumbling sigh (sighs had been all too common recently; it was starting to get repetitive. He needed to figure out another way of expressing his annoyance/worry/whatever he was sighing about) as he poked ferociously at some particularly stubborn blueprints on his tablet. He slouched deeper in his chair and looked out through the glass windows of the meeting room that looked down on the control room of the helicarrier, registering but not really seeing the normal hustle and bustle of the necessary operations. This whole situation was a complete and utter clusterfuck, Jesus. What with Richardson crawling out of the woodwork with some mutant army and Bruce being kidnapped, he was almost surprised things hadn’t fallen apart into something totally and utterly irreparable.
But it was only a matter of time. He’d heard people from Congress and the White House talking about regulating and monitoring mutants. While Tony had always been understandably firmly for mutant rights, he’d also been careful to keep his position hidden from the general public and tempered his views with the thoughts on how normal people would view it. If people had started questioning why Tony Stark gave a fuck about mutant rights, especially while he had still been commonly known as the Merchant of Death, things would not have ended well for Stark Industries or for himself. So yes, Tony knew people rather high up in the government who were involved with mutants. Recently, mutants had been treated in a more sympathetic light after the creation of the Department of Mutant Affairs and Dr. Hank McCoy’s appointment as the head of said department, but according to what Tony had been hearing, that might not last very long. People were growing restless again, what with the Avengers being an active, world-wide force, the Fantastic Four continuing their work, the X-Men schooling young mutants, and new superhumans showing up literally all over the world like LEDs. These masked protectors had no true credibility unless their identities were well-known and they kept their destruction to a minimum or helped repair it. The only team that met both requirements was the Avengers. Most met neither. Yes, they were defeating supervillians and taking down street-level criminals, but it wasn’t unfair for the general populace to want some sort of security. It was like expecting people to trust masked cops with the authority to arrest without charge.
In a way it went both ways, as well; if superheroes were trained and supplied by SHIELD, there would be less of a chance of people getting hurt. It was safer for everyone involved to send off well-trained (former) civilians then just civilians.
And…Richardson. High possibility of a mutant army. That would be the straw that broke the camel’s back. There would be some sort of regulation passed, but the real question was how the rest of the superhero community would react to that.
Well, that was a lie. Tony knew how most of them would react. The question was what the hell he was going to do about it.
“You’re early, Stark.”
Tony hid his surprise at the Director’s silent entrance with an unimpressed eyebrow. “Fury,” he greeted neutrally. “I’d say I’m happy to see you, but I was taught not to lie, you see.”
Fury glared, irritated and impatient. “Stark.”
Tony waited. Fury had something to say, and the man didn’t keep quiet for long when that happened.
“You’ve heard mentions of the SHRA.” It was a statement, not a question.
“No idea what you’re talking about,” he drawled blithely as he returned to looking at his tablet.
Fury let out a little angered huff, “Super-Human Registration Act, as it’s being called by Congress.”
Tony sighed and closed the program he had been working with on the table and leveled his eyes with Fury’s one where he had sat down across the table. The Director was being serious and for once, so was Tony.
“Rumors,” Tony admitted. “No names, just the general idea. Publically registering mutants and putting them under direct government control and other less desirable things. I’ll tell you flat out that while the basics are good, the things I’ve been hearing aren’t quite so pleasant. A law like that will pass over my dead body.”
“Good thing SHIELD and the UN are planning on doing it differently.”
Tony eyed him sharply. “It’s still a government system and therefore corruptible. Don’t tell me you won’t take advantage of the control you’d have over mutants, especially. How many people will you experiment on ‘for the greater good’, Fury?”
Fury ignored him and continued, “The SHCA - Super-Human Credibility Act - is what SHIELD and the UN have been working on. The plan is to keep the database in UN or SHIELD hands instead of any one government, which should help prevent abuse of the information by any governments. The database will keep tabs on missing person reports and masked superhumans. If they’re enemies of the state, the SHCA will help track them down, and if they’re on the supposed side of the angels, SHIELD can find them, help them if necessary. There are also plans in the works for international schools for mutants and other young superhumans.”
“So, what happens to someone who isn’t registered if they’re caught? Even if they’re fighting the baddies? You can’t honestly think I’ll believe that you’ll just let them go! I might agree that superhumans need some sort of control and the public deserves security, but if there’s no way that will happen safely, I’d rather things stay as they are.” Tony snapped.
Fury’s emotions didn’t even flicker. “They’ll be given a fine of five hundred and registered in the database, if they haven’t done anything beyond what’s deemed necessary to keep themselves and others safe. This is already a compromise. There have been calls for mutants to be rounded up one by one and experimented on or have their powers removed. It’s this or the fucking end, and I thought you’d know that better than anyone.”
Tony knew that. He didn’t have to like it.
“You really believe this will work,” Tony muttered. “You really think all the superheroes and villains in the world will admit to who they are, just unmask themselves to the world. Any supervillian could just hack into the database and have the identity of every superhuman at their fingertips. Are you a moron? Jesus, Fury. Do you plan on tracking down every bloody mutant in the world and forcing them to register?”
“Stark, there’s no preemptive search for super-human status in the SHCA. The only people we care about are those who will actually use their abilities to fight. We don’t give a shit about the telekinetic housewife who uses her abilities to fold the laundry. We just want to keep the world safe from powers that the vast majority of the population has no defense against except for superheroes that have no true credibility. The SHCA database will be kept top secret, but if the people know that someone knows who these superhumans really are underneath the spandex and Kevlar, at the end of the day they’ll feel safer.”
Tony sat back and leveled Fury with an assessing look. He was, for once in his life, being at least honest. He truly believed that this was the best way and that a lot of superhumans would participate in the SHCA. Tony could easily see why the SHCA could be a good idea. It was like gun regulation; keeping tabs on potentially dangerous weapons. If the SHCA didn’t pass, then it was really only a matter of time until the SHRA did, and the things he had heard about that particular piece of legislation sounded distinctly more ominous. “Fine,” he bit out. “But I want every single piece of information you have on the SHCA, every single scrap. And I’m making the firewalls for the database.” Tony almost snorted at the quiet relief that ran through Fury. “Don’t get too happy about it, Director. You’re hurting your image.”
Ah, there it was, the common and comfortable surge of anger and irritation, as familiar to Tony as an old friend would be. Fury felt like he was about to snap out something, but he stopped when the door opened, revealing the other four present members of the Avengers.
So instead, Fury merely instructed, “Take a seat. We’ve got a lot to cover.”
The Avengers did so, but not before Thor boomed, “I demand that you tell us where our green friend is being held, Director of the Shield!”
Fury’s jaw worked in a show of the mixture of exasperation and annoyance he was feeling as he appeared to attempt to formulate a suitable answer. “SHIELD is looking for Banner’s current location as we speak. We suspect that wherever he is also holds some other mutants that have been less then cooperative with Richardson.”
“What about the two men we captured?” Barton asked, brows drawing in as he slipped into his serious ‘mission mode’.
“One of them, Michael, is just a lackey. He knows about nothing except for the base where Agent Romanov and Stark escaped and has no training. The other one is a professional of some sort - the leader of that little squad, at the very least - and he’s not talking.”
“You mean his mutation is making it difficult to interrogate him properly,” Barton said flatly. “There’s no need to soften your words here, Director.”
“We’ll crack him eventually,” Fury answered resolutely.
Fine, but Tony didn’t give a fuck about eventually. He wanted that information now. And with Bruce, the Avengers, and an unknown number of mutants on the line, he wasn’t afraid to step on toes - or break them - to do what needed to be done. Tony slipped his tablet off the table and settled the thin piece of glass and machinery on to his lap before opening up the SHIELD mainframe with a couple taps of his fingers. He would have the location and access codes he needed within the minute. “Okay, so long story short, you’ve got nothing useful for us,” sniped Tony as he stood up, tablet in hand and heading for the door. There was a flash of anger from everyone in the room.
Good.
Hopefully none of them ended up deciding it would be a good idea to follow him. Tony didn’t want any of them to have to see this.
It took ten seconds for Natasha to figure out where Tony was going and another three to excuse herself with a quick, “I’ll get him,” and make her way down to the helicarrier’s detainment cells. She stopped herself from running. Panicking or hurrying wouldn’t do anyone any good.
Intellectually, Natasha knew what Tony could do. All the same, nothing could have prepared her for what she saw when she pushed open the door where the apparent leader of their attackers was being held.
Tony was standing - no, to the looming - over the man they had captured. One of his gloves was off, and the ungloved hand cupped around the man’s cheek in a calculated parody of gentleness. He was looking up at Tony, eyes wide and looking utterly terrified.
Tony drummed his fingers along the man’s jaw and said, “I’ll ask again. Where is Bruce Banner?”
Tony must have done something to the man’s emotions, because he flinched so hard he could have broken something. A couple seconds later, he let out a rasping sob and a single tear trickled down his face.
“Stop!” the man pleaded.
It was revolting on some deep level, watching someone who by all accounts was a trained professional break down into a helpless mess by a simple touch.
“Not until you tell me where Dr. Banner is.” Tony’s voice was cold and unyielding. The man shivered violently and his breathing turned into ragged, gasping half-sobs.
“N-Nevada, twenty miles east of highway 238, hundred and fifty from the south border. Just make it stop!” the man stuttered out.
“How many prisoners, scientists, soldiers?”
“I-I don’t know, maybe fifty scientists? A hundred soldiers? I don’t know!”
Tony looked like he was about to ask another question, but he stopped and dropped his hand when the door opened. Nat shifted her position against the wall slightly so she could mostly face the entrance and Tony at the same time.
Fury stalked into the room, followed closely by Clint, Steve, and Thor. A nervous-looking junior agent quickly closed the door behind them.
“Stark -“ Fury started.
Tony let out an angered sound that was half-sigh, half-snarl and touched the man again, doing something that made him fall backwards, boneless, into his chair. “I got the information. Is there a problem, Director?” Tony snapped.
Nat pursed her lips into a thin line. Now she understood another face of Tony Stark; he wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty, to manipulate and break his way into getting what he wanted.
And he was afraid of that.