Author's Note: I don't speak any Arabic at all so please excuse my terrible translations here.
"Sir, Director Fury wishes to video conference with you," Jarvis said politely.
Tony turned off the blowtorch and flipped his visor up, "Put him on, Jarvis."
"Very good sir."
One of the digital display panels lit up, displaying the grim visage of Nick Fury. "What's shakin' Nick?"
Fury's frown deepened slightly at Tony's cavalier attitude, "We have a mission for you. I need you to come in for briefing at 9 am tomorrow."
Tony considered making a smart remark but the truth was that he had been a little bored since the Loki disaster. He was sort of looking forward to a mission. Putting on his most serious face he answered in a solemn tone. "You can count on me, Director Fury. I won't let you down."
He caught a moment of Fury's flummoxed expression before cutting the feed. Tony cackled to himself at the reaction. If he had known it would get that kind of response, he would have tried it ages ago.
-9:00 AM; Thursday-
Nick Fury stood before the assembled Avengers, hands clasped behind his back.
"Avengers, we have a situation that needs your particular talents. Agent Romanov recently returned with information that Syria has been running a secret agency that is attempting to create super soldiers. Our intel says that they have at least three subjects that have some form of success. "
"So what do you want us to do about it?" Tony asked with a calculating look in his eye, "Science departments aren't exactly illegal."
"No, but kidnapping is. Only one of the subjects is Syrian. The others are both American and I can promise you that they didn't sign up for this voluntarily."
Steve's lips tightened as images of Bucky strapped to a table flashed through his mind, "I'm in. What's the play?"
Nick turned to Natasha and nodded for her to take over. She brought up a projected map of Syria in the center of the table. "The department is called Alensan Tslyh Aljysh. It means the Military Human Weaponization Project. They have been attempting to create a perfect soldier through everything from chemistry to radiation bombardment to genetic splicing. Recently they got a hold of some people that have some kind of ability they wanted. I wasn't able to find out what those abilities were but it's a good bet that they have military applications."
Natasha switched from the map to a spread of documents in Arabic and their English translations. Most of them documented failed experiments but one was a list of current subjects. There were three of them but they were at the bottom of the page. If there was a second page there was no telling how many people were trapped in this facility.
"These guys aren't much more sophisticated than Josef Mengele was. We can't be certain that we will find the hostages alive. Our job is to get in, destroy their research and rescue the hostages if possible. Hawkeye will be on point. I'll lead us through hostile territory to the installation. That's where you take over Cap. You'll lead us in from there. Tony, you're the fastest and most maneuverable. You may need to get those hostages out of their in a hurry if it all goes tits up."
Tony blinked and turned to Clint, "Did she just say tits up?"
Clint let a smirk curl the edge of his lip for a moment and just nodded.
"I think I just fell in love."
Steve frowned, "Hey Tony, wanna keep your head in the game here?"
"Aye, aye captain," he replied with a smirk before turning his considerable mind to their mission.
Natasha's knowledge of the seedy underbelly of Eastern Europe got them into Syria without issue. The Installation was partially underground with a large concrete dome showing above the barren landscape. Hawkeye dropped from his perch to join the rest of the team, "No movement recently. Looks like the base is running on minimum staff right now." Captain America nodded and moved forward, taking point from Black Widow and moving to the door.
"Got a quiet way to get this open?" he questioned.
Ironman's arm began to glow as he swiftly cut the door from the lock to prevent alarms from sounding. They moved through the empty entry quickly. Natasha was able to get a layout of the place and had a good idea where the subjects were held and where the research was.
"Alright. Widow and Hawkeye, you find that research and destroy it. Ironman, let's go find those prisoners." Widow nodded and lead Hawkeye up a set of stairs as Cap and Ironman continued down the winding subterranean corridors. Suddenly they came upon two guards holding AK-47s. One of their shouted, "Aldkhla!" as they turned to fire on the Avengers. Captain America slammed his shield into one of the guards heads before he could squeeze off a round while Ironman simply punched the other guard out. Captain America turned to his friend, "Punching, really? Isn't that sort of my thing?"
Ironman shrugged and Steve would bet money that he was smirking behind the helmet, "What can I say? You're a bad influence on me, Cap." Captain America shook his head and pulled the guard's key from his pocket before opening the steel door they had been guarding. Inside was a narrow hall with a dozen barred cells on either side. With a glance of understanding they each took one side and moved down the row of cells, looking for prisoners. The first few cells showed no signed of recent occupation.
"Shit" Tony said from just ahead. Cap turned to look at the cell and felt a wave of pity hit him. The man inside looked like he couldn't be more than twenty. His body was covered in crudely stitched wounds. Dirty brown hair fell over dead brown eyes that stared vacantly at the wall. His hand was pressed against it, as if he were taking comfort from the solid cement. Captain America felt a cold, steel hand rest for a moment on his shoulder before they moved in unison to the next cell. A person crawled towards the back of the cell, every movement showing her fear. Her long brown hair was dirty and tangled and she was dressed in a plain white shift that fell to cover her feet. Steve knelt to bring his face to a level with hers, "It's okay ma'am. I'm Captain America and we're here to get you out."
The woman stopped moving and turned her head to look at him before letting out an incredulous giggle, "Captain America," she mumbled, staring off into space, "I finally cracked up." A slightly hysterical laugh bubbled up before turning into a defeated sob as she buried her face into her knees.
"Great job, Cap," Tony said as he grabbed the bars and pulled them apart, "Maybe you shouldn't introduce yourself to someone as a person that's supposed to be dead." He stepped through and gently pulled the woman to his chest before standing with her in his arms, "Hey, good-looking, where you from, huh?" The woman's tears stopped but she was still shivering. It looked like Tony had it under control so Captain America quickly checked the other cells. All were empty, although one looked to have had an occupant recently.
He returned to find that Tony had finally gotten the woman to stop trembling. She was answering his questions, although mostly in monosyllables. "Ma'am," he said gently. He didn't want to scare to woman again but he needed to find out if there were any more survivors. The woman turned to look at him with bleak, broken eyes, "Captain America. You're my grandpa's hero," she said absently. "Ma'am, we need to know if there were any other people here."
Her eyes cleared for a moment, "Two. We talked sometimes. But Ahmad didn't speak English much. He wanted to be here," disgust and disbelief mingled in her tone, "He thought it was an honor to be sliced and stabbed and crushed." She shook her head to bring herself out of whatever nightmare image clouded her mind. "Ahmad was taken away yesterday. That's where they all went, the scientists. Guess they finally succeeded. Too late for Jay though. Too late." She sunk back into herself then, as if the effort to speak had drained her. Tony nodded his head to the exit and they turned as one to leave.
"Widow, you copy?" Cap asked into their com unit.
"I'm here."
"We got one prisoner out. One more is dead and a Syrian man was taken away yesterday. Sounds like they succeeded in whatever they were doing to him. Is there anything in there about it?"
There was silence for a moment before Hawkeye answered, "We're destroying all of their equipment but we'll keep the data files. If they did succeed we may run up against this guy. It would be good to know what his weak points are."
"Good. Let's get out of here."
Please leave a comment. I usually have no idea where I'm going with stories so I'm very open to suggestions.