Hell hath no Fury (NCIS/Avengers)
Title: Hell hath no Fury... which is a pretty good thing for Hell, as Nick's a scary guy. (or : When those closest to you, know you too well. OR: Abby goes to New York and the Stark Tower was just asking to be invaded visited)
Author: tari_roo
Fandoms: NCIS/Avengers
Disclaimer: I know nothing, I own nothing, I make no profit, claims or patents. But I'd kill to see Steve Rogers meet Ziva, and Tony hit on Natasha and Gibbs headslap Stark. Kill is too strong a word. I'd pay to see it
Summary: Inter-agency co-operation is almost unheard of. Assets are protected at all costs. Nick Fury firmly believes this. When Abby Sciuto is reported to be at the Stark Tower... he assumes the worst. Written for avengersgen
Warnings: None really. You have to know both the show and the movies, and general marvel verse things but no real specifics.
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"Sir?"
Fury flicked a single look in Maria's direction, eyebrow raised in query as he studied a rather large action report on his tablet. Hill looked about as nervous as she ever did, which was a rare enough occurrence that Fury put down the report and turned to face her. She didn't flinch, or shuffle her feet or even blink, but her mouth did this strange little twitch - like she was smothering a smile, or frown. "Do I want to know?" he growled and Maria shrugged, like it was of no consequence, the same way Stark tweaking Dr Foster's Einstein-Rosen bridge was of no consequence.
"How bad?"
Hill stared at him with her usual deadpan expression, waited five seconds and said, "On a scale of one to ten for scary world consequences - a one. How likely to piss you off? An eight."
Caught momentarily off guard, and knowing Maria saw it, Fury scowled. What would not trigger 'danger, world in peril,' but would definitely annoy the crap out of him? "Logan? Wilson?"
Maria smiled a small, smirk-tinged flash of lips and said softly, "Sciuto, sir." So, not nerves then... but amusement.
Fury blinked. "I'm going to kill Stark."
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Tony walked into Bruce's lab with a half formed thought already on his lips and stopped. He briefly closed his eyes, just to make sure that he wasn't dreaming, hallucinating due to an alien ray gun, or about to hit on one of his team mates who was having an 'I don't want to talk about it, just change me back' issue.
Slowly he opened his eyes. The animated, fast talking young woman dressed in a 'school girl uniform' reminiscent outfit (with standard tartan skirt), pig tails and steel toed boots was still waving her arms at Bruce. The arm waving was not the usual 'Argh, you're the dude, the one... the big green!' Nope, rather the arm waving was a lot more 'mutual geek joy at something cool.'
Stark dragged his gaze off the tiny skirt to the stool Rogers normally occupied on the odd occasion that he visited Banner. Which he did surprisingly often these days.
Yep, there on his stool, off to the side so as to be out of the way of scientific stuff, but close enough to see, sat Captain America, back straight, hands on the counter, a very bemused, confused expression on his face. In all fairness to Rogers, no matter which decade you hailed from, the young lady in the room was ... unusual. Distracting. Intriguing! Stark strolled over, closing the gap, nodding to Cap as he did.
"And no amount of coaxing would convince Maj... the masspectrometer to give me anything more than crazy ass readings. I did a lot of coaxing... even threatened it with a mallet but nada.. and then Tony took his replica mjolinar back and gave me wounded puppy dog eyes." This odd statement was followed by more arm flailing.
Dodging a flailing hand, Tony was close enough to see the pout he expected. And the dog collar, which he did not. The young lady caught his movement in her peripheral vision and turned, mouth open, eyes bright and wide.
"Oh, Mr Stark!" Her smile was radiant and beamed abundant enthusiasm. From behind his monitor, Bruce murmured vaguely, waving a hand in their general direction. "Tony, Abby Sciuto. NCIS Forensic Specialist."
"Hey." Abby stuck out her hand and shook Tony's quite vigorously. "Pleasure to meet you, Mr Stark. Really! Your clean energy programme rocks! I've been trying to convince the Navy Yard to go green, but they keep on dodging me going on about patent rights and monopolies ..."
Returning her grin with one of his own, Tony smoothly interrupted, "You don't seem the government employee type, Abby."
She grinned back, "Neither do you, Tony Stark. But sometimes they have the best toys." She bobbed a little on her heels, pigtails swinging with the motion. Stark resisted the urge to glance at Cap. The guy had a poker face of note with evil ne'er do wells, but with flirty girls... the guy was an open book.
Instead, Tony snorted, "I beg to differ. I have the best toys and the government wishes it had my R&D budget. " He picked up a crime scene photo from off the counter top and grimaced at the bloody scene. "Ewwww, since when did we become crime fighters?" neatly segueing away from the touchy subject of R&D budgets and appropriation committees.
Steve coughed into his fist and Stark rolled his eyes, conceding the nonverbal point, "Fine, since when did we start solving ordinary mundane, CSI crimes?"
Bouncing a little on her heels (again), Abby gently took the crime scene photo back, "Fear not, Mr Stark, the realm of navy related crimes remains mine and you can stick to super alien invasions and weird ass villains. I just needed Bruce's help with some evidence from a triple murder and then I'll return to the muggle world."
"Careful, you're mixing metaphors there, Abby. That's a dangerous habit. Besides, it excludes Rogers." Tony murmured demurely, idly scanning the other pictures and forensic tests results.
Abby's crestfallen expression prompted a scowl from Cap, directed at Tony. "Its fine, Miss Sciuto, please ignore him. I know I do," Rogers replied, his earnest expression directed at her. His foot though accurately (of course) found Tony's ankle.
"I'm hurt," Tony mock clutched his chest, and refused to wince at the real hurt in his foot. Dude kicked like a mule! Stark did move slightly out of Roger's reach and beamed at Abby, "None the less, this mundane crime intrigues me - or at least the fact that you need the good doctor's assistance intrigues me. Enlighten me, Abby." Tony pasted on a genuinely interested expression, even though he was already reviewing all the possible reasons the lovely Miss Sciuto could need Bruce. Had to be gamma related, that was obvious. But what wasn't?
Before Abby could say anything, Bruce straightened and said quietly to her - ignoring Tony as was his wont. "I don't think the gamma radiation is an indication of anything sinister, Abby. Certainly nothing Hulk or super soldier related."
'Ha!' Tony cried to himself. Abby deflated a little, like she was relieved. "Thank goodness."
Cap looked relieved too. "Good news," he sighed.
"Gamma radiation?" Tony deadpanned innocently. Neither Steve or Bruce were fooled. Banner though continued to ignore Stark and replied directly to Abby. "Low levels, indicative of something...sure but not in sufficient levels to..."
"But can I exclude it, Bruce? Is it ancillary or environmental or..." Abby's focus was now also back to the case, playboy billionaire philanthropist forgotten. She was scanning Bruce's results, biting her bottom lip in a completely adorable fashion.
Tony chimed in, trying to get in on the geek out and suggested, "Super soldier vitarays?"
Nothing. Not even a blink. Rogers though smirked at him. Bruce was reviewing his tablet and the multiple screens with all sorts of interesting looking graphs. Abby was following his movements, her gaze fixed and determined. Banner signed, "Not environmental, no. But so low, I'm surprised you even picked it up at all."
Abby scowled, pointing at something on the screen and muttered, "Then what was causing the crazy readings on Major Mass? I isolated it to gamma radiation or similar isotopes and the place was torn up, totalled, demolished in complete Hulk fashion..." She trailed off, no doubt realising that this may be a sensitive area. Tony opened his mouth to weigh in.
Bruce rambled on, either uncaring, or just 'carrying on' and suggested, "Contaminated sample, maybe? Just a run of the mill mutant incident?"
"Doubtful, on the contamination but..."
"I will not be excluded!"
Tony blinked at the loudness of his own voice, especially in the abrupt silence that followed. Abby stared at him, mouth open and Roger's expression exuded disapproval but it was tinged with amusement.
Recovering, Tony collected himself and said brightly, "Ok, sorry, that sounded far more petulant than I intended. But care to read me in?"
Taking a deep breath, Abby said, "I usually need a caf-pow for this. To sum up - three dead marines in a side street in Georgetown. Lots of physical evidence. No suspects. Gamma radiation. Paranoid Boss. Offbeat thread discussions about real life ogres pretending to be wizards on WoW and voila, I am here - probing Bruce's delicious brain."
"What's a caf-pow?"
Tony handwaved Rogers' question aside, fairly certain Cap didn't actually want an answer and said, mostly to Abby but directed at Bruce, "Which discussion board?"
"Not the point," Abby redirected. "I am here. Bruce is here. You are here. Even Captain America is here. Together we can figure this out and make Gibbs proud!"
Nearly getting distracted with the 'Gibbs' thing, Tony followed his main train of thought which mostly involved chatting politely with Pepper again about security breaches. Before though that train derailed where all thoughts on Pepper normally derailed, Tony mused quietly, staring at Bruce. "And just how did you get security clearance for the Stark building again? You're cute but JARVIS is immune... and Oh my... you hacked JARVIS didn't you!"
This was solely thrown at Bruce, who did not look up from his screen, but reddened just a little. "He's very... accommodating."
JARVIS was noticeably silent. Abby projected moderate consternation while Banner grew redder and redder. Undaunted, if not encouraged, Tony plunged on, "It's bad enough SHIELD are giving me a hard time about charging them rent on the third floor, but now we're bypassing their security systems!"
Before Bruce could stammer a defence, a decidedly shrill shriek spilt the air, and "Wait, this is... you work for Shield?" Abby cried.
A resounding, unified collective "No!" echoed through the room. Abby though turned a full 360 and exclaimed, "But, but... why would Bruce?" She pointed at Bruce and said seriously, "You're the big mean... green. I get you hanging out with the Batman wannabe over here and Mr Studly over there, but Shield?"
Tony squawked in outrage, and Steve coloured slightly, his cheeks a delightful red matching Bruce's. Abby bulldozed on, undaunted by Bruce waving her down. "Shield is like... Overlord aspirations central. A demi-evil, quasi-official, shadow government type agency with delusions..."
At the triple stunned expressions of horror, Abby paused and without missing a beat, whirled around, throwing her arms around Nick Fury.
"Fury! You apparated!"
Over her shoulder, Nick glared at the Avenger trio, who blinked back at him. "You were saying, Abby?"
Beaming like Christmas had come early, and Santa was wearing a skull cap, Abby dragged Fury over to the work bench, her pigtails hitting his jaw. Fury resisted the impulse to shoot the smirk off Tony's face as he followed her. Over Abby's head he saw the crime scene photos, Banner's amused expression and figured it all out.
"Need help on a crime scene?"
"Yep," Abby beamed.
Fury turned to the Maria shaped absence next to him and growled. He was going to kill Hill. Fury gritted out to Abby, "Not here to ... consult on something else? On someone else's request?"
Eyes big and wide, feigning anime hugeness, Abby shook her head. "Nope. Didn't even know you'd be here. Didn't figure Dr Banner for the government stooge type."
"Hey!" a resounding chorus cried.
"No, no. You probably didn't." Without missing a beat, Nick picked up a photo and said sharply, "Dr Banner, we need to discuss your internet presence again, I think. And Stark..."
Patented flippant expression pasted on, Tony interjected, "Just an FYI, Fury. We don't work for you. You rent space. Bruce can lurk on as many threads as he desires... that sounds kinda weird, dude."
All attention shifted to Bruce who went red again.
"I thought Spiderman was the web guy," Steve chimed in.
Abby clapped her hands and cried, "Oh, oh, maybe I can rent space too! Gibbs won't mind. Much... ok, maybe not. But..."
Gently, Nick placed his hand over Abby's mouth and sighed, "One Tony is enough, Miss Sciuto. Now let's see what we can do to get you out of here."
Abby nodded from behind his hand, eyes crinkled with laughter. Bruce cleared his throat, clearly ready to get this done.
Tony though, quietly drawled, "Wait, why were you worried about me calling Abby for a consult?"
Fury blinked. Shit.
Maria was so dead.
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Fin
AN: Thanks to claudiapriscus for the assistance on the title - she is however not to blame for its length and my indecisiveness. I have no idea where this came from and I am glad of the prompt. I fear sometimes that I can only write fic when prompted and infected with other people's bunnies. (this is not a suggestion).
I have no idea why Fury would think Tony could consult with Abby. I am not privy to the workings of SHIELD... no matter what evil!auntmo9 may say. (deny, disavow and nuke)
Avenger fic no 2! \o/