Ghost in the Wires 6/10 (Tony/Steve--PG-13)

[sororexitium]

He heads to his room when Coulson brings them back to Avenger Mansion, after getting Clint a breakfast burrito from McDonald’s. He asks JARVIS if there are schematics on Stark Industries’ building in New York.

“Yes, sir,” the computer answers instantly. “There are several copies on Mr. Stark’s mainframe.”

“How accurate are they?” Steve asks, grabbing a backpack and wandering over to one of his dressers. He pulls open the third drawer, and grabs out some gear he’ll need. He remembers doing recon from his days in the forties. He remembers what he’ll need.

“Mr. Stark always kept his designs up to date, Captain Rogers.”

He nods to himself as he’s shoving all the things he’ll need into his pack. “Good, send me the most recent one.”

“Of course, sir.”

From his bedside table, he hears the ding of a new file attaching itself to his tablet. “Thanks, JARVIS,” he says as he pulls the draw strings tight on his pack. He grabs the tablet from his side table and brings up the designs. He studies them intently, his brows furrowed and his face going closer to the tablet as he memorizes every detail.

When he has it memorized, he puts the tablet into his pack as well, before changing into civilian clothes, an outfit he believes is closest to the style of today. He grabs a pair of sunglasses that Ms. Potts gave him for some reason and a baseball cap. He may get a few snapshots of him, but he’s had a map of the New York alley systems rememorized since a week after he woke up and knows he should be able to lose a follower soon.

He puts the Dodgers cap into his back pocket, the sunglasses into the neck of his tee and lopes downstairs with his pack. He makes sure his comm. link to SHIELD is in his ear and his phone is in his pocket just in case.  Most of the team is preoccupied.

Thor and Clint are playing Wii bowling again while Bruce seems to be teaching the puppy to sneak. Natasha leans against the entrance way, but she glances at him on his way out. At her confused look, he only says, “I’m going to stretch my legs for a few hours.”

Her gaze narrows on him, and he can feel it like a touch, but he leaves out the manor’s side exit, taking the longer way around, knowing that it will take more time, but it has less chance of getting him seen.

IMCA

There are too many ways to be seen in this day and age. There’s a problem with not being seen.

He’s doing pretty well, he thinks. He doesn’t see anyone following him and he escapes into the alleyways of New York City easily. There are some homeless people, maybe he’s getting paranoid for noticing them, but they catch his eye for looking… well, not terribly homeless. Instead of stopping and passing off what he could, he keeps moving, eyes lowered and head down. He navigates through the city by his tablet, because Google maps is probably the best thing ever be invented in the seventy years gap of his life.

He starts at the beginning, seeking out suitable buildings to do recon from. Trying to find a building with good vantage point as well as calculating ways he could get in and roofs that would offer him the most protection is as aggravating as he feared, but he plugs along, thinking of Anthony the whole time. He doubles back out of an alley after surveying the layout, the back entrances, and fire escapes and get lost in the masses of people walking by.

He plans to come back later, at night. He figures the security will be lowest then and he should be able to find the best time to sneak into the building. When he looks back on it later, Steve can’t quite pin down the moment he lost touch with his surroundings and was consumed with nothing but rage at Stane and worry for Anthony. He should have been paying attention.

They grab from behind. His first thought is that he’s been detected as Captain America. A lot of people notice him and would probably continue to notice him even if he wore a full body suit. Steve is disturbingly used to being grabbed from all directions by strangers. He turns quickly, expecting to see a mother and child or something, but instead there are two other people in his personal space and they don’t look at all friendly.

The two men behind him are dressed completely in black. One of them snaps a wire out of a pocket and lunges, trying to get it around Steve’s throat to strangle him. He manages to pull back just in time and step away.

“What the…?”

The words are barely past his lips when a shot rings out from nowhere, sending a bullet zinging past his head. He glances up to find the sniper, but the sound of gun fire tends to create havoc and sends civilians start running for cover. The guy with the garrote comes at him again and the other follows, pulling out another gun.

Swell.

At least this gun isn’t a high powered rifle. He doesn’t have his shield on him; his attempt to not be recognized immediately required leaving it behind in his room, and now he’s thinking that perhaps it would have been worth the attention, because he’s feeling pretty exposed at the moment.

He blocks garrote guy with a well placed kick, taking the wire as he goes down and using it against him. He dodges out of the way of the guy with the gun, just missing a round to the chest, and tackles him to the ground before he gets another chance. From the roof, the sniper fires a second time, and this time Steve feels the sharp bite of the bullet graze past his bicep.

To make matters worse? The guy on the ground with him raises his gun again as he’s assessing the damage to his arm.

A short, loud whistle sounds over their heads, a merry tune that sounds like ‘yoo hoo.’

It catches everyone’s attention; fortunately his opponent’s more than his own. Steve wants to land another punch on the guy with the gun and ignore the wound on his arm, he’s had worse, but before he can reach the guy Natasha is around him like a spider with its prey. She dislodges the gun and does her strange flip thing that brings the man crashing to the ground with a painful cracking noise. Thankfully it’s not his head, but his shoulder will probably need extensive work done on it.

He turns to the guy with the garrote, but instead of an enemy he sees a massive green body staring at his captive menacingly, a low growl coming from his mouth. Thor stands beside him, looking mighty as ever. Steve isn’t sure if it’s to have extra eyes on the detainee or to scare him further. The guy looks about three seconds away from fainting. Good.

Natasha stands up, a glare on her face as she drags her knocked-out bounty, hopefully by the arm she didn’t mangle, next to the first one.

“What the hell were you doing?” she demands grabbing his arm, inspecting at the already healing wound.

He lets her, because she looks like she might rip his arm off and beat him with it if he doesn’t. He shrugs. “I was just walking.”

“Without your comm. or your phone?” she growls, actually growls and sounds like Hulk does. “You’re lucky I followed you!”

“Hey, I have both of those!” he defends reaching to grab them, but they aren’t in his pocket.

Clint drops in next to him suddenly. “Yeah, you were pick-pocketed back in the alley. One of the homeless guys was your sniper. He’s on the roof by the way and I am keen on leaving him there for a few hours. You have no idea how much of a mouth he has. Makes the amazing webhead look pleasant.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out Steve’s electronics, regardless of the looks both Natasha and Steve are giving him. “Here ya go, Cap.”

He claps Steve’s healing arm and it stings just a little. He probably did it on purpose. Maybe.

Natasha takes a deep breath, and returns her glare to Steve.

“We need to get these people to headquarters,” he says as a way of heading her off. It won’t last long, but he’d like to know who these men are and if they have anything to do with Stane.

She knows exactly what he’s doing, but she takes her comm. out and calls for assistance, glowering at him the entire time.

When she’s done she turns to Clint, who’s been keeping his eyes on Steve though he tries to look nonchalant about it, and says, “Go get the third guy.”

He deflates. “Can’t I leave him there until the backup comes? Seriously, he’s the most annoying sniper ever!”

“Then gag him!” she bites out at him and he scrambles to do as she says.

It doesn’t stop him from calling back, “Phil would taze me and then him!”

Steve flushes a little and then something occurs to him. “How did you follow me with Hulk? I know I would have noticed that.”

She looks over at Hulk like it’s the first time she’s noticed him. “Bruce was with us until the first snipe-shot fired.” She looks the green monster over. “He really doesn’t like his friends being shot at.”

IMCA

“So, your undercover look. It’s terrible. You look like Bruce did when Natasha first found him,” Clint says immediately as Steve closes the door to the observation room.

“Hey!” Bruce snaps, clearly offended. “I was on the run!”

Steve shakes his head, moving to stand by Thor, who stares at him with his worried blue eyes. His last hour and a half has been spent listening to Director Fury scold him for running away, getting his communication gear stolen from him, and being the target of an assassination between filling out an incident report. He isn’t really looking forward to hearing a personalized version of it from Clint.

“And the backpack? You seriously told her you were going for a walk with a backpack? One with your tablet poking out of the pocket? Dude, come on!” Clint continues, uncaring of the look Steve is sure is setting on his face.

“Is this going somewhere, Clint?” Steve asks.

He’s trying to watch the interrogation that Natasha is conducting with one of the men from earlier. He’s hoping that garrote guy will roll over on Stane. It would make it easier to get Anthony. He and his team could storm Stark Industries without much suspicion. SHIELD would be able to help, making it easier to take care of Stane, not to mention quicker.

With Stane out of the picture Steve would be able to focus on finding Anthony, to helping him, and sorting out the damage done to Anthony’s body from the palladium poisoning.

Clint goes on beside him, giving him a very perturbed look as he proclaims, “It’s already gone to Hell. Lone Ranger is getting you nowhere. I thought maybe you would be into that teamwork crap you’re always on about.”

“He’s right,” Bruce puts in from Clint’s other side, and Clint and Steve both whip their heads around to look at him. Clint looks awed that Bruce is agreeing with him. Steve feels oddly betrayed. Bruce shrugs carefully. “You’ve been acting strange for a few months now, but it’s become worrisome the last couple of days.”

Empty spaces, this is what happens when there are empty space that need to be filled and suddenly can be. This is also what happens when those empty spaces aren’t brought up. Clint, Bruce, and even Thor are looking at him as if he has besmirched their honor by not including them on what was going on. Steve is aware that he probably has been.

Clint is sarcastic, but he’s right too. Steve is always demanding that they work as a team, and he’s been very rogue soldier.

“It’s,” he sighs, trying to find a place to start. Does he start all the way back to the recurring sixes, the empty spaces, the ghost he’s been following for two years? Should he start when he first met Anthony masquerading as a computer program? He doesn’t know. It gets jumbled in his head when he thinks about how this mission came to be. “It’s a bit complicated.”

Clint is obviously not impressed with his explanation. “It’s complicated? Like Facebook complicated or like Mission Impossible complicated?”

And everything that just came out of his mouth is lost on Steve. “What?”

“What is it that you keep from us, my good Steve?” Thor finally speaks up, which is really kind of odd for him. He usually has no problem saying exactly what’s on his mind even in the most inappropriate of situations.

“I…Look, this is gonna sound crazy--” Steve tries again, but he’s quickly cut off from even trying to get something like the word ‘crazy’ over on his friends.

“Crazier than a giant green rage monster?” Clint demands.

“Crazier than a guy who woke up after 70 years?” Bruce points out.

Thor’s input is to ask, “Crazier than a man who has stolen a hawk’s eyes?”

They stare at him for a second, but he just looks back at them, confused why they are all zeroed in on him now. It doesn’t take long for Steve to shake himself of it. He still thinks Thor speaks that way to get a rise out of them. Instead, he acknowledges, “Well, maybe not so much, when you put it that way.”

Yet still he pauses. He doesn’t know where to start and for him it’s a little unnerving.

Thor must read something in his face, because he leans down to whisper, actually whisper for the first time since Steve has known him, “Is it Anthony, my good Steve?”

“Whoa! Anthony? Who’s Anthony? Secrets destroy the world unless they’re told to me!” Clint whines, jumping over to stand nearly toe to toe with them. “C’mon, save the world, guys.”

“Anthony of the Wires! My newest friend!” Thor declares, with all the flourish he normally does.

“He’s not actually from the wires, Thor,” Steve tells him, and Thor for a moment looks confused. “You guys know who Anthony Stark is?”

Bruce nods. “Everyone knows who Tony Stark is. The guy was an engineering genius.”

“He still is. He’s alive. Stane has him.”

Whatever he’s expecting, it isn’t Bruce immediately asking, “When did you find this out?” like he had been expecting something along the lines of this all along.

Clint looks a little skeptical, but like he could go along with it.

“About a week and a half ago,” Steve answers Bruce. “but he’s been masquerading himself as a computer program in his lab for about two months.”

“And Stane has him? Where in a dark, dank cave?” Clint asks, sarcastically. He shouldn’t because they have found hostages in dark, dank caves, the sewers, and in a hollowed out hotdog stand. It’s not that hard to imagine.

“I think he’s somewhere below Stark Industries. Anthony told me he was beneath the suit.” Steve replies, thinking back to that suit. He wants to go back to it so bad. He glances quickly at Natasha in the other room. She looms ominously above garrote guy, a cold, deadly smile on her lips. He hopes she hurries.

“Why?” Bruce interrupts him.

“I second that ‘why’.” Clint doesn’t hesitate in asking.

“Why does Stane have him?” The three of them nod. “I think he’s been using Anthony to makes some weapons for Stark Industries,” he answers, thinking of when Anthony had admitted that the palladium poison had been based on him.

“You know, there was once a time when this would have seemed strange to me,” Bruce murmurs, staring hard at the ground, like he’s trying to figure something out.

“So we must rescue your Anthony!” Thor exclaims, lifting his hammer into the air and nearly smashing a light.

“And if not I’ll at least get to shoot some of his computers.” Clint shrugs, then smirks. “So, we’re, just, gonna sneak into Stark Industries.”

Natasha throws the door open at the moment, saying, “We’ll have to. If Stane knows we’re coming he’ll probably tighten down security and have an escape plan. As much as I’d love to shoot him down, I’d rather he…what?”

All four of them are staring at her, a small amount of shock written on their features, Steve’s sure. She stares at them with sharp green eyes, before crossing her arms and demanding again, “What?!”

“Did you hear all of that? Really? That’s super-ninja even for you,” Clint says.

Natasha rolls her eyes and picks her belt up off the table in the corner. Director Fury has forbidden her to conduct interrogations with it on. He says it made the detainees wet themselves, in various manners. “I conducted the interrogation…” She begins, as she’s clicking the belt and other weapons into place. She stops though. “You’re not talking about the interrogation are you? What are you talking about?”

“The nefarious Stane is holding Steve’s Anthony, my newest friend, in his magnificent fortress!” Thor booms immediately, though this time he doesn’t lift Mjolnir into the air.

“Steve figured out that Tony Stark’s alive,” Bruce clarifies.

“And Stane is apparently using his brain to create weapons of mass destruction,” Clint adds, not at all helpful.

Steve sighs. “Now, that actually does sound crazy.”

Natasha doesn’t flinch.

“Well that’s double the reason to go then,” she says, slipping her last knife into a secret pocket of her suit.  “Coulson is getting the car. Steve, one of the agents is on the way with your uniform.”

Two minutes later, Steve has his Captain America uniform on. Ten minutes later they’re all loaded up into SHIELD suburbans, rubber squealing as they head for Stark Industries.

IMCA

Steve, Natasha, and Coulson come up with a plan of action in the car. It’s dark outside, but they keep the lights off so they can zip through traffic without being seen. Natasha fills them in on the details of garrote guy rolling over on Stane with an impressive roll of her eyes. Coulson is detailing their entrance into the building, while Steve inputs some various tactics they should employ at certain parts of the building, since he has the blue print on his tablet.

Steve’s team keeps Anthony between them.

The Avengers go through a side entrance, one that is thankfully near the suit. Natasha takes out the locking mechanism with a small focused bomb.

Once they’re in they form a loose circle, checking the area.

It’s silent, which immediately strikes all of them as odd. The hall they’ve entered into is devoid of life, and they hear no signs of anything. Clint says there will probably be a silent alarm that’s been tripped, so someone has to know they’re here.

Steve and Thor lead the way to the end of the hall, one that will lead them to the lobby as well as the main way to the staircase which would lead them to Stane’s office. SHIELD agents are on their way to the different floors of the tower even now, but the Avengers have taken over the most likely places the current CEO would be.

He and Thor lean around the corners of the room, pulling back just in time as a jet of flames roars by the hall entrance.

Behind them Clint says, “I swear if that’s a robot I will fucking destroy this place.”

Steve leans back against the wall as fire continues to shoot. He looks at Clint, feeling the frustration of the other man. He really kind of hopes the archer keeps his promise. “It’s a robot.”

“Fuck my life!” Clint exclaims as the flames die down.

Steve makes use of his time and swings his shield around the corner, attempting to cut the board in half. His shield makes a dent but it flies back towards him without slowing the robot. He grabs it up just in time to slam himself back into the hall as the robot starts shelling out bullets.

Steve hears Bruce changing behind them. He knew it would only be a matter of time.

Soon the heavy clanking of robotic feet joins the sound of bullet fire, and above all that an electronic voice taunting them, “What the matter guys? Not going to at least put up a fight?”

Steve hasn’t felt this much rage since Red Skull, but at this moment he’s willing to say he hates Obadiah Stane.

Clint yells at Natasha with a cold look on his face he only gets when he’s thinking of doing bodily harm to the bad guys, “Least he’s not running!” It doesn’t shock Steve when she grins in response.

The gun fire still reigns. Glass shatters down the hall.

Steve glances over at his team. “He can’t have many bullets left. As soon as he’s paused, Black Widow and Hawkeye will have enough time to move in behind him! Stay out of his firing range if you can and get behind him!”

Another taunt, louder this time as the grating metal of the suit’s footsteps comes closer. “You wanted this Captain America. You wanted this fairy tale. You’re gonna have to take him over my dead body.”

The entire team looks like they would love nothing more than to do just that. Steve gets their attention again as the footsteps are almost on top of them. “Thor and I will keep him busy from the front. Hulk, I want you to do what you can to smash that suit!”

“Hulk smash!” he agrees.

Steve makes a motion with his hand, to which all of his team save for Hulk nod at.

When the bullets stop churning through the air, Thor and Steve rush out first, having reversed the plan just in case Stane could hear them. They draw the fire away, Steve behind his shield managed to take on the bullets with Thor just walking steadily behind him looking for the perfect throw with Mjolnir.

Just as the hammer goes soaring past Steve’s head on his right, he sees two black blurs of Clint and Natasha to his left. They slink past Stane while his glowing eyes focus on Thor. Mjolnir takes out the machine guns bracketed to the metal monstrosity and there’s a grunt of dissatisfaction from inside the suit.

As Stane aims his other arm, Natasha takes a leap to his back, pressing more centralized bombs onto the back plating. Stane rotates his attention to her, arm still poised in the air to breathe fire down on them all. He doesn’t have the chance as the small bombs slam him forward. Natasha and Clint back away. Behind them, Hulk has decided that to be his marker on entering the battle and stomps his heavy feet towards Stane, who is still stumbling.

“Hulk smash!” he yells, as he crashes into the metal in a silver and green mess.

Stane obviously isn’t sure what to do with a giant green monster tackling him and swipes around trying to get a hold on Hulk. They stand back for a few seconds before Clint raises his bow and takes a shot, aiming for glow from the chest plate. Two miss, but one manages to crack the glass that is obviously protecting the light.

“Think that could be his power source!” Hawkeyes yells.

“Try aiming for that then!” Cap yells back and is about to circle for the front, when Thor grabs his arm and booms, “You must locate your Anthony, Captain America! The Avengers will have glory on all fronts this night!”

Steve has reservations about running off in the middle of a fight, but over the comm. in his ear, he hears Natasha yell irritably, “While he’s still distracted!” as Clint throws in, “Go on, Captain Charming. We got the Iron Mongrel.”

He nods briefly, takes a running jump over the fray of green rage and silver metal. He clears it, looks back to check on his team. Natasha has both over legs around Hulk neck, trying to get into Stane’s suit. Hawkeye shoots another arrow at what they believe to be the energy source, missing when Stane ducks which sends it zooming by Natasha’s hair. Thor looks on, catching Natasha when a violent churn sends her off of Hulk’s shoulders.

He wants to go back, but he also wants to get Anthony out while Stane is distracted. After another brief hesitation, Steve runs into the lobby, his mind made up. He needs to get Anthony.

He sees SHIELD operatives on the way, all of them fighting robots and taking them down easily. These haven’t been fully put together, making them vulnerable to bullets. He goes by them, sending his shield smashing into robots when he can, until he stands before the metal suit that Anthony had made to escape.

He moves around the glass encased suit, looks it over. Anthony said he is under the suit, which leads Steve to believe that the entrance to the bowels of Stark Industries has to be around here somewhere. Unfortunately, he isn’t finding any seams or buttons around or behind the glass case. Frowning at it he looks again, trying to see if he’s missed something, a crevice and indention.

Still nothing.

The shield settles easily over his shoulders, as a new plan comes to mind. He gets a good hold of the glass and pushes. It budges, obviously not screwed into the marble. Steve feels hope in his chest. Another push, and something clicks audibly over the fray of bullets and metal shrieking on marble. The suit shifts on its own, and the wall starts folding, moving back and away just enough to reveal a long narrow entrance.

He’s moving down when crashing sounds nearly deafen him. He looks back to see the robots have fallen.

“TONY!” Stane’s voice echoes throughout the lobby.

Steve gets to the opening, loud, electronic crashes resounding as Stane obviously comes toward the entrance. The metal man moves quickly though and a cold grasp takes him by midsection.

“You got close, Captain. But I told you you’d never find him. And now I’ll make sure of it,” Stane says as the metal fingers begin closing around Steve’s midsection.

He feels his bones creaking almost instantly and grabs for the metal he can reach. It proves to be ineffectual. It actually has the opposite effect as the grip tightens.

Steve gasps through pain, looks around to see SHIELD members and his team coming towards him at a rapid pace.

Stane sees it too. He aims his free arm and sends a wall of fire towards them. “Oh no. No. I built this company up for the last thirty years. I won’t see it fall because of you!” His grip tightens, causing Steve to grunt in pain as his ribs crack. “If fact, I think this is the perfect way to push the Registration Act. The Avengers coming to destroy my company after the conference we had this morning. It’s in poor taste guys.”

The flames are spent for this round, but Stane wastes no time in shooting off small rockets towards them.

“Good bye, Captain America,” Stane growls.

Steve sees spots before his eyes. Breathing is causing him more pain than not, and it causes him to feel lightheaded. He’s sure his team is trying to come closer again, but isn’t sure how long he’s got being crushed as he is.

“Stane!”

A bright blue light flashes and Steve is dropped to the ground. He coughs upon impact, immediately forcing himself up to see what just happened. Through blurry vision, he can see Stane stumble a few steps. He turns his head, his vision clearing.

Anthony, with shaggier hair and a network of green tracing over his body, is coming towards Steve, electrical wiring leading up his arms and under an undershirt where a blue circular light can be seen glowing from the center of his chest.

The pain in his ribs is intense, but without them being compressed he can feel the serum doing its work. Still, Anthony stands over him, left arm out with the high-pitched electrical sound buzzing from his palm. The blue light flashes again, hitting Stane in the helmet.

The metal man stumbles, before aiming at Anthony, demanding, “Tony, you little prick. Where’ve you been hiding that?”

He apparently doesn’t really want to know the answer, because he gears up another rocket. Steve scrambles up, taking no care as his ribs protest while he yanks the shield off his shoulders and drags Anthony behind it with him. The missile hits his shield and it jars them both, sending them skimming across the floor a few feet.

When they halt, Steve peeks around to see another missile being aimed at them and curses under his breath.

The shot of the missile sounds, but not before both Hulk’s and Thor’s angry yells rock the building and the sound of Mjolnir crashing against marble shakes them violently. The missile never strikes Steve’s shield and he looks up to see it in Hulk’s hand as he redirects it forcefully into the glowing chestplate of Stane’s armor.

The explosion rocks Hulk back next to Steve and Anthony while sending debris of metal particles over them all. Steve raises his shield over their heads, protecting them from the slag. In that few seconds, Steve and Anthony make eye connection, and Steve breathes a sigh of relief to see his face, even through the latticework of green that is so obviously from palladium poisoning.

Steve smiles. “I told you I’d see you soon."

“Yeah, yeah, I guess you did, didn’t you?” Anthony replies, a strangely sad and happy smile on his own face. He sits up a little more, reaching under his shirt to disconnect some wires from the blue light in his chest. He strips the wiring efficiently and mangles the copper beneath before smashing the discs that had been in his palms onto the floor repeated.

“I doubt anyone would be able to replicate these, but just in case…” he murmurs to himself, unaware of the strange look Steve is sending him as he destroys his invention. When he does look up at Steve, he asks, “Can you, like, I don’t know. Smash this to bits with your shield?”

“Anthony,” he starts, but the man is reaching under his shirt again and pulling out the blue circle.

“Could you just do it please? I don’t want anyone getting a hold of it and if I’m going to with Men in Black over there, I have a feeling they’ll try to confiscate it,” he says with a mistrustful glance at the SHIELD agents, who are gathering around Stane. As he does this the blue circle which seems to be and energy source releases a smoking chip, which looks like Steve phone battery.

“You put that in your body?!” Steve asked incredulously.

Anthony quickly chucks it into the hidden passage without care and from his pocket pulls out a plastic bag of more phone batteries, saying blithely, “I’ve put worse things in my body, trust me, Steve.”

He then presses the glowing thing back into his chest and breathes deeply. He looks at Steve, who still hasn’t crushed his invention with his shield. “Would you please?”

Steve does as he’s asked, feeling sadness that he’s destroying Anthony’s product. Then, he stands, helps Anthony to his feet as well.  The Avengers had apparently been waiting patiently for them to do so, because suddenly they’re on top of them, including Hulk who is doing a small dance on his feet to avoid more damage.

Clint gets into Anthony’s face, studies him momentarily before saying, “You could design a whole new Pac-Man game outta your face, Stark.”

Anthony stares at him, non-plussed. “You have to be Barton.”

Clint doesn’t get to respond before Natasha cleanly pushes him out of the way, producing a syringe from one of her pockets. She stands eye to eye in front of him and studies his face. Anthony immediately tenses. “Uh, hi. This is actually really unnerving, and uncomfortable, because you’re really hot and all but what is in that…”

She jabs it into his neck and some small part of Steve feels he deserves it, even though more of him wants to scold Natasha. “He’ll need more soon, but this should help until we get him back to headquarters,” she says in a clipped tone, regarding Anthony with acidic eyes.

Agent Coulson is on his way over, having delegated what to do with Stane’s body and the remains of his suit.

“Mister Stark,” he says evenly, unflappable as ever. “Welcome back. We need to escort you to SHIELD headquarters and have you checked out. If you would.” He holds his hand out towards the exit of the lobby.

Anthony sends Steve a brief look of questioning, but it’s Coulson who answers, “Captain America will be riding with you. He likely needs to have his ribs checked anyway.”

Steve refrains from sighing, puts his hand on the middle of Anthony’s spine and takes them towards a suburban with Coulson and the Avenger’s following.

Back to Part 5 or on to Part 7