Adopt - Chapter 7
Title: Adopt
Artist: cluegirl and waterofthemoon
Author: j_green_teeth
Rating: Explicit (Story), Teen & General Audience (Art)
Universe: MCU (AU)
Warnings: Subversion of reproductive choices by a third party, infertility, Violence (canon compliant level), Alpha/Beta/Omega, heat, mpreg, knotting
Beta: Many thanks to wylt for making this fic about a thousand times better.
Art: cluegirl did two wonderful pieces for this fic May I.. and Shovel Talk
waterofthemoon TBA
Monday morning was grey and drizzling when Steve woke up. Tony had moved during the night and was pressed against Steve’s side. For the first time in a long time Steve didn’t want to get up and go to work. But today was the trip to Oregon to track down the rest of the Black Knight's organization. Steve let himself have five minutes just to lay there and enjoy the shifting light from the rain on the windows and the contrast of the cooler air on his face and the sleepy warmth under the blankets then with a sigh he sat up and pulled the covers back. Tony made a half awake humphing noise and pulled the comforter around himself. Steve smiled fondly at him before heading to the bathroom. When he came back Tony was curled in the middle of the bed with the comforter completely wound around him.
Tony, not seeming really awake, rolled his head to look at Steve. "Hmm..Whe're you goin'?"
"I have to be in early this morning." Steve told him as he pulled clothes out of the dresser.
"Ok. Why?" Tony asked more intelligably.
"Uh.” Steve paused trying to think of something he could tell Tony without revealing classified information. ”I have stuff to do early."
"Classified stuff?" Tony asked with a yawn.
Steve sighed. "Yes." He hoped Tony would respect there were things Steve just couldn’t tell him.
"Fighting bad guys?"
"Maybe." Steve hedged.
"When will you be back?"
"Tonight."
"’K. Go kick some butt." Tony said then flipped the covers up over his head.
~*~
The flight out was pretty quiet. They were all fully briefed and suited up so the only things Steve had to do was to keep Peter from getting caught in the crossfire of Jack and Logan’s inevitable pissing contest and flying the jet.
The base was in an abandoned industrial park on the outskirts of an equally abandoned town. The warehouses had seen better days and tufts of determined weeds were pushing through the seams of the concrete slabs.
If the Black Knight’s organization was anything like the other criminal enterprises over the years it was a cult of personality and when the leader was removed the underlings would fall to infighting if they didn’t out and out flee.
Steve gave the order for Wolverine, Jack of Clubs and Spider-Man to explore in a loose line. Even halfway into the complex none of the buildings they passed showed signs of recent use. If Steve had to guess he would have said it was more than three years since anyone had been in them. Not too surprising since the best intel they had said that the base itself was under the complex not in it. Steve noticed immediately when Wolverine slowed down and started scenting the air, nostrils flaring.
“Got something?”
Wolverine snarled, eyes flicking back and forth. “It’s an ambush.”
Steve looked around and strained his hearing. Just on the edge of the muffled quiet of the complex he heard the clack of footsteps on concrete, first two, then ten, from the north, then more from the south and the east. After only five seconds it second like more than one hundred people were closing in on them. Steve swore. This was not what they had prepped for. They were supposed to be investigating and picking up stragglers. There had been no activity here since the Black Knight died. “Abort mission. Jack, Spider-Man head north east. Wolverine and I will go south.”
“There’s no one to the west.” Spider-Man said.
Jack grabbed his arm hustling him away. “Can you spell west? T-R-A-P.”
“Hurry. The more they close in the harder it will be to get past them.” Steve and Wolverine ran side by side in the narrow alley running between two buildings. Steve flung himself against a wall and Wolverine jumped as a black uniformed man swung out across the mouth of the alley, fired twice while turning and disappeared on the other side. Two expanding energy plumes in sickly blue shot down the alley. One barely missed Steve before hitting the wall, the other smoothly arced down the alley falling to the ground and making an oddly wet splat. Steve heard trickling and glanced back to see the concrete wall liquefying where the energy had hit it. Looking back at the mouth of the alley he saw more of the Black Knight’s troops gathering.
“Up!” He yelled.
Wolverine nodded, jumped and drove his claws into the wall using them to haul himself up the side of the building. Steve took as much of a running jump as he could in the alley and hit the opposite wall feet first. He pushed off the wall hard and twisted his torso propelling himself across the alley again hitting higher on the opposite wall. Slower than he liked he jumped higher and higher bouncing between the buildings. There was the telltale fizz splat of the blue energy hitting the walls around him. He was almost to the top when a well timed shot forced him to twist mid leap. He flung out his arms sure that the building was too far away. Even as his stomach clenched he started calculating where he would hit the wall and what he could grab to stop from sliding all the way to the ground. Before he missed the top of the wall by inches a hand grabbed his wrist and yanked with enough force to pull him half on to the roof. Ignoring the pain in his hips and legs from smacking against the lside of the building he scrambled the rest of the way on the roof. “Thanks, Wolverine.”
Wolverine grunted. “Let’s go.”
Steve jogged across the roof. “Spider-Man, Jack, what’s your status?”
“Enjoy the lovely view from the roofs too.”
“Met us at the jet.”
Steve and Wolverine raced along the tops of the warehouses twice doubling back when the gaps between buildings were too big to jump. The men with the concrete dissolving guns clearly knew where they were, every time they jumped or got too close to the edge another ball of blue energy would barely miss them. The shots tapered off as he and Wolverine neared the edge of the complex which Steve found ominous. The buildings thinned out here which had made them easier to track not harder. Then he saw Spider-Man and Jack coming in from the left flinging themselves on to the same roof Steve and Wolverine had come to. “Something’s wrong. They’re planning something.” Steve called out signaling them to stop.
“What?” Jack panted.
“Shh..Hear that?” Steve could hear the splat of the energy weapons and the strange seeping sound of liquefying concrete, a lot of it.
Spider-Man crept to the edge of the building they were on and peeked over. “These guys seem to know something about load bearing walls.” He mused.
Steve peered over and got a quick look at what was happening on the ground before he had to duck back to avoid a shot to the face. “They’re weakening the supports so this building will collapse.”
“Not just this building.” Jack reported. “All the ones around us too.”
“Jack, can you hit the wall on that building there at an angle?” Steve pointed to north corner of the building opposite where the men below were concentrating their fire.
“When I say I can hit that, I can hit that. And I can hit that.”
“They’re all focused on the other side. Take that one out and it will collapse the whole building.”
“It won’t stop them.” Wolverine said.
“No, but it’ll be a distraction. Spider-Man, web the goons on this side of the building so we can get down. Once Jack’s in the air we run like hell.”
The others three nodded. “Go.”
Steve, Wolverine and Spider-Man dropped over the side of the building. Four armed men were in sight, three fell quickly and the fourth only got off one wild shot before being hit by Steve’s shield. Above them Jack had already launched himself into the air. Steve set off running , not looking back, knowing the others would follow.
Jack was distracting to watch in a fight. He had somewhere acquired the ability to hurl himself end over end like a truncheon and become invincible while doing it, promptly dubbed himself the Jack of Clubs and made enough of a mess that SHIELD had brought him in. Steve had had trouble watching him do it until he got used to the particular unlaws of physics he followed during the throw. Jack would start running at a slow jog and suddenly catapult himself off the ground, gain momentum and spin rigid lengthwise until he smashed into whatever he was aiming at. Then he would shake himself loose and get up to do it again.
There was a boom and a crack that signaled Jack had hit the building then a cacophony of wrenching metal and crumbling concrete as the building listed and collapsed. Steve saw Jack’s black shape fly past from behind them heading towards the jet. Steve really hoped that Jack’s aim had improved enough he didn’t hit the jet this time. He ran harder, the distraction wouldn’t last long. They piled in the jet as fast as they could. Steve slid forward almost missing the pilots chair in his haste to start the emergency vertical take off. Shooting straight up they were just out of range when the first energy balls were fired on them.
There was a moment of silence then Jack said “So....”
“They saw us coming.” Logan said crossing his arms.
Steve glanced away from the flight controls. “That was a trap. A really well planned one.”
“No, really?” Jack asked. “What makes you think that? The fact that they let us wander into the middle before surround us?”
Spider-Man added. “Could be or that a place looked completely abandoned since the Black Knight’s death, three weeks ago was suddenly swarming with goons.”
Steve nodded. “Mostly that they were well informed enough to know exactly where we would have to end up if we ran on the roofs and were well coordinated enough to carry out a plan to catch us there.”
Logan raised an eyebrow. “What do you think?”
Steve frowned which gave Jack time to cut in. “That someone decided they look good in black and stepped into the Black Knight’s oh so fashionable armor.”
When Ant-Man and Wasp reported in it was the same story. Their surveillance revealed that the Black Knight’s operations in Hong Kong barely paused with his death. The recruitment, corruption and thuggery were going on like they always had. Someone had stepped up to fill the power vacuum.
Steve had the unfamiliar thought that he wished he had stayed in bed this morning.
Chapter 8
Artist: cluegirl and waterofthemoon
Author: j_green_teeth
Rating: Explicit (Story), Teen & General Audience (Art)
Universe: MCU (AU)
Warnings: Subversion of reproductive choices by a third party, infertility, Violence (canon compliant level), Alpha/Beta/Omega, heat, mpreg, knotting
Beta: Many thanks to wylt for making this fic about a thousand times better.
Art: cluegirl did two wonderful pieces for this fic May I.. and Shovel Talk
waterofthemoon TBA
Monday morning was grey and drizzling when Steve woke up. Tony had moved during the night and was pressed against Steve’s side. For the first time in a long time Steve didn’t want to get up and go to work. But today was the trip to Oregon to track down the rest of the Black Knight's organization. Steve let himself have five minutes just to lay there and enjoy the shifting light from the rain on the windows and the contrast of the cooler air on his face and the sleepy warmth under the blankets then with a sigh he sat up and pulled the covers back. Tony made a half awake humphing noise and pulled the comforter around himself. Steve smiled fondly at him before heading to the bathroom. When he came back Tony was curled in the middle of the bed with the comforter completely wound around him.
Tony, not seeming really awake, rolled his head to look at Steve. "Hmm..Whe're you goin'?"
"I have to be in early this morning." Steve told him as he pulled clothes out of the dresser.
"Ok. Why?" Tony asked more intelligably.
"Uh.” Steve paused trying to think of something he could tell Tony without revealing classified information. ”I have stuff to do early."
"Classified stuff?" Tony asked with a yawn.
Steve sighed. "Yes." He hoped Tony would respect there were things Steve just couldn’t tell him.
"Fighting bad guys?"
"Maybe." Steve hedged.
"When will you be back?"
"Tonight."
"’K. Go kick some butt." Tony said then flipped the covers up over his head.
~*~
The flight out was pretty quiet. They were all fully briefed and suited up so the only things Steve had to do was to keep Peter from getting caught in the crossfire of Jack and Logan’s inevitable pissing contest and flying the jet.
The base was in an abandoned industrial park on the outskirts of an equally abandoned town. The warehouses had seen better days and tufts of determined weeds were pushing through the seams of the concrete slabs.
If the Black Knight’s organization was anything like the other criminal enterprises over the years it was a cult of personality and when the leader was removed the underlings would fall to infighting if they didn’t out and out flee.
Steve gave the order for Wolverine, Jack of Clubs and Spider-Man to explore in a loose line. Even halfway into the complex none of the buildings they passed showed signs of recent use. If Steve had to guess he would have said it was more than three years since anyone had been in them. Not too surprising since the best intel they had said that the base itself was under the complex not in it. Steve noticed immediately when Wolverine slowed down and started scenting the air, nostrils flaring.
“Got something?”
Wolverine snarled, eyes flicking back and forth. “It’s an ambush.”
Steve looked around and strained his hearing. Just on the edge of the muffled quiet of the complex he heard the clack of footsteps on concrete, first two, then ten, from the north, then more from the south and the east. After only five seconds it second like more than one hundred people were closing in on them. Steve swore. This was not what they had prepped for. They were supposed to be investigating and picking up stragglers. There had been no activity here since the Black Knight died. “Abort mission. Jack, Spider-Man head north east. Wolverine and I will go south.”
“There’s no one to the west.” Spider-Man said.
Jack grabbed his arm hustling him away. “Can you spell west? T-R-A-P.”
“Hurry. The more they close in the harder it will be to get past them.” Steve and Wolverine ran side by side in the narrow alley running between two buildings. Steve flung himself against a wall and Wolverine jumped as a black uniformed man swung out across the mouth of the alley, fired twice while turning and disappeared on the other side. Two expanding energy plumes in sickly blue shot down the alley. One barely missed Steve before hitting the wall, the other smoothly arced down the alley falling to the ground and making an oddly wet splat. Steve heard trickling and glanced back to see the concrete wall liquefying where the energy had hit it. Looking back at the mouth of the alley he saw more of the Black Knight’s troops gathering.
“Up!” He yelled.
Wolverine nodded, jumped and drove his claws into the wall using them to haul himself up the side of the building. Steve took as much of a running jump as he could in the alley and hit the opposite wall feet first. He pushed off the wall hard and twisted his torso propelling himself across the alley again hitting higher on the opposite wall. Slower than he liked he jumped higher and higher bouncing between the buildings. There was the telltale fizz splat of the blue energy hitting the walls around him. He was almost to the top when a well timed shot forced him to twist mid leap. He flung out his arms sure that the building was too far away. Even as his stomach clenched he started calculating where he would hit the wall and what he could grab to stop from sliding all the way to the ground. Before he missed the top of the wall by inches a hand grabbed his wrist and yanked with enough force to pull him half on to the roof. Ignoring the pain in his hips and legs from smacking against the lside of the building he scrambled the rest of the way on the roof. “Thanks, Wolverine.”
Wolverine grunted. “Let’s go.”
Steve jogged across the roof. “Spider-Man, Jack, what’s your status?”
“Enjoy the lovely view from the roofs too.”
“Met us at the jet.”
Steve and Wolverine raced along the tops of the warehouses twice doubling back when the gaps between buildings were too big to jump. The men with the concrete dissolving guns clearly knew where they were, every time they jumped or got too close to the edge another ball of blue energy would barely miss them. The shots tapered off as he and Wolverine neared the edge of the complex which Steve found ominous. The buildings thinned out here which had made them easier to track not harder. Then he saw Spider-Man and Jack coming in from the left flinging themselves on to the same roof Steve and Wolverine had come to. “Something’s wrong. They’re planning something.” Steve called out signaling them to stop.
“What?” Jack panted.
“Shh..Hear that?” Steve could hear the splat of the energy weapons and the strange seeping sound of liquefying concrete, a lot of it.
Spider-Man crept to the edge of the building they were on and peeked over. “These guys seem to know something about load bearing walls.” He mused.
Steve peered over and got a quick look at what was happening on the ground before he had to duck back to avoid a shot to the face. “They’re weakening the supports so this building will collapse.”
“Not just this building.” Jack reported. “All the ones around us too.”
“Jack, can you hit the wall on that building there at an angle?” Steve pointed to north corner of the building opposite where the men below were concentrating their fire.
“When I say I can hit that, I can hit that. And I can hit that.”
“They’re all focused on the other side. Take that one out and it will collapse the whole building.”
“It won’t stop them.” Wolverine said.
“No, but it’ll be a distraction. Spider-Man, web the goons on this side of the building so we can get down. Once Jack’s in the air we run like hell.”
The others three nodded. “Go.”
Steve, Wolverine and Spider-Man dropped over the side of the building. Four armed men were in sight, three fell quickly and the fourth only got off one wild shot before being hit by Steve’s shield. Above them Jack had already launched himself into the air. Steve set off running , not looking back, knowing the others would follow.
Jack was distracting to watch in a fight. He had somewhere acquired the ability to hurl himself end over end like a truncheon and become invincible while doing it, promptly dubbed himself the Jack of Clubs and made enough of a mess that SHIELD had brought him in. Steve had had trouble watching him do it until he got used to the particular unlaws of physics he followed during the throw. Jack would start running at a slow jog and suddenly catapult himself off the ground, gain momentum and spin rigid lengthwise until he smashed into whatever he was aiming at. Then he would shake himself loose and get up to do it again.
There was a boom and a crack that signaled Jack had hit the building then a cacophony of wrenching metal and crumbling concrete as the building listed and collapsed. Steve saw Jack’s black shape fly past from behind them heading towards the jet. Steve really hoped that Jack’s aim had improved enough he didn’t hit the jet this time. He ran harder, the distraction wouldn’t last long. They piled in the jet as fast as they could. Steve slid forward almost missing the pilots chair in his haste to start the emergency vertical take off. Shooting straight up they were just out of range when the first energy balls were fired on them.
There was a moment of silence then Jack said “So....”
“They saw us coming.” Logan said crossing his arms.
Steve glanced away from the flight controls. “That was a trap. A really well planned one.”
“No, really?” Jack asked. “What makes you think that? The fact that they let us wander into the middle before surround us?”
Spider-Man added. “Could be or that a place looked completely abandoned since the Black Knight’s death, three weeks ago was suddenly swarming with goons.”
Steve nodded. “Mostly that they were well informed enough to know exactly where we would have to end up if we ran on the roofs and were well coordinated enough to carry out a plan to catch us there.”
Logan raised an eyebrow. “What do you think?”
Steve frowned which gave Jack time to cut in. “That someone decided they look good in black and stepped into the Black Knight’s oh so fashionable armor.”
When Ant-Man and Wasp reported in it was the same story. Their surveillance revealed that the Black Knight’s operations in Hong Kong barely paused with his death. The recruitment, corruption and thuggery were going on like they always had. Someone had stepped up to fill the power vacuum.
Steve had the unfamiliar thought that he wished he had stayed in bed this morning.
Chapter 8