A/N: Hey there, and thanks for , the plot begins, but it's still not any different from the movie at this point.
The first two parts of this chapter- Clint's and Natasha's PoVs, have most of their dialogue taken from the movie, and all I added is observations, daemon's reactions, and thoughts and slight character study. So if you know the movie well (which I assume you do), and don't feel like reading it all, you can skim through these first two parts, except for pretty much anything italicized and the end of Clint's part. I'd be glad if you do read it all, though.
The next parts- Tony and Steve's PoV, are mostly character/daemon developement and are pretty much my own, if still in the same sets as the movie as of now. So those you should definitely read.
Hope you enjoy!
(also, I'm not a native English speaker, so if you see any awkwardly-worded sentences please tell me, so I can improve)
Disclaimer: I don't own the Avengers or the idea of Daemons.
Chapter 1- Assemble
It had been over a year since anything interesting happened in the Tesseract lab. The panther, who was responsible for the excitement, had been taken away on Fury's orders, and Clint hadn't seen her since. Natasha too had gone off the grid, probably on some undercover mission. And Clint remained sentry in this lab, watching for disturbances that didn't come.
And he was bored. Deija was always focused, her golden eyes watching the glowing blue cube intently for movement while he leaned on the rail of his balcony, absent-mindedly stroking his bow.
"Clint. Clint!" Deija said. "Something's happening." A shout from one of the scientists down in the lab indicated that they'd noticed it too. Clint didn't need their fancy tech to see the cube flare brightly once every few seconds, in seemingly irregular intervals.
The two watched as the scientists scurried below, attempting to cut the power off from the Tesseract, with evident failure. The cube produced its own energy, and it was doing so with enthusiasm.
"Is it just me," Deija muttered after what might have been ten minutes, or perhaps only five, "Or are they coming faster?" She was right. When Clint focused, he noticed that the intervals between the flares were becoming shorter. He didn't need to say what was on his mind- they both knew it. If the Tesseract was a door, then it had been opened. Something was coming.
A single figure entered the lab, followed by a massive bear. Clint took in the eyepatch and signature coat. Fury. He leaned forwards, trying and failing to overhear the conversation between his boss and Selvig.
Selvig abruptly jabbed a thumb in Clint's direction, and Fury's voice sounded in his earpiece, "Agent Barton, report." He didn't even bother to reply. Instead, he slid down the cable that stretched from his balcony (which the scientists jokingly referred to as his "nest") to the floor, and landed near Fury, who continued to talk.
"I gave you this detail so you could keep a close eye on things."
"So I see better from a distance," Clint argued, and Deija chirped in agreement.
"Have you seen anything that might have set this thing off?" Before Clint could answer, one of the scientists- a blonde woman with a butterfly daemon, said, "Doctor, it's spiking again." Near her, a monitor flashed in purple and blue, beeping incessantly. The director walked over to the pedestal on which the Tesseract was set, and Clint followed.
"No one's come or gone." Clint answered Fury's previous question. "Selvig's clean. No contacts, no IMs…" He hesitated for a split-second, glancing at Deija who gave a slight nod. "If there was any tampering, it wasn't on this end."
"On this end?" Fury asked flatly.
"Yeah, the cube, it's a doorway to the other end of space, right?" He turned towards Fury, and shared the thought that had been on his and Deija's minds since the disturbance had started. "Doors open from both sides."
A mechanical whir came from one of the computers, followed by a burst of sound and light from the cube. The light was different from before- visible bursts of energy, crackling like electricity along the frame that held it. "Not yet… Selvig muttered frantically, his daemon scurrying across a control panel, pressing buttons with its small feet. "Not yet…"
The fluctuations increased, and Clint could feel the floor under him shaking. Something was happening- a vortex of swirling blow forming around the Tesseract, bathing it in a blinding light… and a single bolt of energy shot out- a blue beam that hit another raised pedestal near the end of the room. And the doorway opened.
For the briefest moment, Clint caught a glimpse of space- distant stars and nebulas, and that unearthly blue light. Deija squawked in excitement, and she wasn't alone- a growl from Fury's Kenara, and various chirps and whines from the other daemons in the room.
And then the portal exploded, sending a surge of blue through the room, knocking Selvig, as well as half of the other scientists and agents to the ground, shaken but unharmed.
Where the opening had been was now the figure of a man, still glowing. He was kneeling, with a spear in his hand that looked like nothing Clint had seen before. As the light faded, Clint observed black hair, dark clothing, and a pale face shrouded in shadow. A number of agents slowly walked towards him, guns in their hands.
The man looked up with a predatory smile, and Clint shuddered in unease. There was something wrong about the man, but he didn't know what.
Still breathing heavily, the stranger got to his feet and surveyed the room.
"Sir, please put down the spear!" Fury commanded with remarkable calm. The man glanced at the weapon in his hand, a vicious, silver-gold thing with jagged edges and a glowing orb that looked a lot like the tesseract set in it, as if he had just noticed it was there. His eyebrows drew slightly closer to each other, and then he jabbed the spear forward, sending a bolt of blue energy crashing into the approaching agents.
A computer exploded, a muffled shout sounded, and the man leaped from the pedestal and drove the weapon into the chest of the nearest agent. From there, it was a slaughter. Even Clint found it difficult to follow his swift movements. Al he knew was that when it was over, two agents were dead with daggers in their throats, three killed by the spear itself, and even more sported injuries from its blasts of energy. The scientist with the butterfly daemon was thrown aside, and another man lay crumpled next to the wall which he had been flung against. The lab was destroyed- the computers and tech were all damaged and emitting sparks.
How can he DO all that? Clint thought silently, and Deija dug her talons into his shoulder. He got shakily to his feet, and not a moment too soon, as the man was suddenly in front of him. Clint's arm was grabbed so roughly he could feel the bones grind against each other, and he grunted as he attempted to struggle against an inhumanly strong grip.
"You have heart." The intruder said softly, the first words since he had arrived, and pressed the point of his spear against Clint's chest.
Deija cried out with alarm and flapped frantically around the man's face, coming close but never touching. The dark-haired man ignored her, and Clint knew he was going to die. But the tip never pierced his skin.
The orb in the spear glowed blue, and Clint felt something rush into his chest and fill his body. The world swam in front of his eyes, and the last fully conscious thought that passed through his mind was that he had finally realized what was wrong with this man.
He had no daemon.
Natasha waited in the shadows of the small cottage, struggling to maintain her calm exterior. There weren't many things that ruffled her, but the man she had been sent to see… There was good reason to be tense. Raskanor hung on a thread from the ceiling, watching the door burst open.
The little girl ran in first, as she had been instructed, her daemon, now in the form of a wildcat, running at her side. Without a word she leaped out of the window, leaving the man who had followed her behind. He was of average height, with short brown curls and thick glasses. Seeing her leave, he scoffed, and muttered to the lizard daemon on his shoulder, "Should have got paid out front, Jin."
"You know," Natasha said, stepping out of the shadows. "For a man supposed to be avoiding stress you picked a… hell of a place to settle."
"Avoiding stress isn't the secret," he said.
"Then what is it? Yoga?" She challenged with a raised eyebrow.
"You brought me to the edge of the city, smart." He observed, rubbing his hands together and pacing the room in a way that reminded Natasha of nothing more than a caged beast. "I, uh, assume the whole place is surrounded?" He peered out of the window, as if to search for the SHIELD agents who were waiting for him.
"Just you and me," she lied, and his daemon's tongue flicked out, tasting the air.
"And you actress buddy? She a spy too? They start that young?"
"I did," Natasha said, her face devoid of emotion, hiding the memories that flooded. Running. Pain. Smoke. The burning hospital. Dreykov's words… "You've done well…"
No. She pulled herself back to the present, focusing on the job at hand.
"Who're you?" The man, Banner, inquired, looking down at his hands.
"Natasha Romanoff."
"Are you here to kill me, Miss Romanoff?" He raised his head and met her gaze squarely. "Because that's not gonna work out. For everyone."
"No, no, of course not." She assured. She knew that even she couldn't kill him, not matter how hard she tried. "I'm here on behalf of SHIELD."
"SHEILD." His daemon, Jin, whispered something in his ear, and he gave a slight nod. "How'd they find me?"
"We never lost you, doctor. We've kept our distance. We've even kept some interested parties off your scent."
"Why?" Banner asked, and that single word, the way he said it, reminded her of someone else who had asked the same thing. Over a year ago. She hadn't seen the panther daemon ever since, but the memory weighed on her mind. For a moment, Banner reminded her of that creature- abandoned, alone. But he was infinitely more dangerous. She couldn't allow herself to forget.
"Fury seems to trust you," she replied, "but now we need you to come in."
"What if I say no?"
"I'll persuade you." She said, and Rask lowered himself from the ceiling to hang between them. Jin hissed at him.
"And… what if the…" he licked his lips, "Other Guy says no?"
"You've been more than a year without an incident, I don't think you want to break that streak." She wasn't afraid. Not now.
"I don't every time get what I want," he absent-mindedly nudged a rocking cradle that lay in the center of the room, and his daemon scurried from his hand onto it, curling her tail around the rail.
"Doctor, we're facing a potential global catastrophe."
"Those I actively try to avoid." He chuckled.
Ignoring him, she pulled out her phone and showed him a picture of the tesseract. And then she explained.
"So Fury isn't after the monster?" He said skeptically when she was finished, and the lizard on the cradle raised her head and glared, unblinking.
"Not that he's told me." She sat down by a rickety table.
"And he tells you everything."
"Talk to Fury, he needs you on this."
"He needs me in a cage?"
"No one's going to put you in a cage—" She reached a hand out, but his face contorted in sudden rage.
"STOP LYING TO ME!" He roared, slamming a fist onto the table. His daemon leaped from the cradle and landed on a shelf in front of Raskanor, and the spiked frill around her head rose threateningly as she hissed dangerously.
Instinctively, Natasha drew her gun and pointed it straight at Banner's forehead, knowing that it would do her no good. Blood pounded in her ears, and for the first time in many years, she knew true fear.
But then Banner straightened and smiled sheepishly, and Jin relaxed and jumped back to his shoulder. "I'm sorry," he said, "that was mean. I just wanted to see what you'd do." Through the dissipating fear, Natasha felt a flash of sympathy. She knew what it was like, to be feared. "Don't kill me…" the little girl pleaded, "please let me go…" Once more, Natasha tore herself from her memories and back to the present. She was going to bring Banner in, one way or another. She preferred him to come quietly, but if not… she would deal with it.
In the end, he came quietly. The SHIELD agents waiting outside were completely unnecessary.
The gym was empty when Steve came in. It was a large room, complete with weights, a boxing rink, treadmills, and monkey bars. What caught his eye, though, was a pile of heavy punching bags next to a hook to hang them from.
His daemon, Taron, a yellow-white Labrador, trotted over to the pile and nudged one of the bags with her muzzle.
"I don't think so, Taron." He said softly. "It won't help."
"Steve," she said, her warm brown eyes meeting his. "You need to relieve some stress."
"I don't think punching inanimate objects will do the trick." He sighed, sitting down on one of the bags.
"It's better than nothing," she insisted.
"The only things I feel like punching right now are people. And even they aren't alive anymore…" He pressed a hand to his temples. "We don't belong here, Taron. Let's go home."
"Don't you just give up." She snapped, frustrated. This wasn't the first time they'd had this conversation. Steve hadn't been the same since they had been thawed, always dwelling on what he had lost. Taron kept trying to keep his spirits up, if only by the tiniest bit, trying to get him back in the world. Yes, it had changed, but not necessarily for the worse. "I'm going to get you to do something with yourself." She continued.
"Why? The war is over. We're not important anymore." He could feel her fury spark in her, and her next words were relentless blows.
"We survived, Steve. That means we still have a purpose. So go and find it! Do you think Bucky would have wanted you to just give up? Do you think Peggy would have wanted that?" He winced, and his own anger ignited. With a grunt, Steve rose to his feet and grabbed the bag he'd sat on and hung it on the hook.
Jab. Cross. Jab. Jab. Cross. Right hook. Cross. Jab. Left hook. Jab. Jab. Jab. Cross.
From the corner of his eye, he saw a slight grin twist Taron's lip. With each punch, he felt his mind settle into the familiar motions. He didn't say so, but there was something satisfying about the action. He let his body move in the routine it knew so well, and allowed his mind to wander.
Jab. Cross. Right hook. Jab. Jab. Cross.
The final cross was slightly more forceful tan he's intended, and the bag tore from the hook and fell to the floor a few feet away. Steve looked down at his fist, confused for a moment.
"Better?" Taron asked sardonically.
"Slightly." He replied, and hung another bag.
Jab. Cross. Left hook. Jab.
The bang each time his fist hit the bag reminded him of a different bang, and the memories resurfaced in his mind. The guns shooting. The Howling Commandos charging. Deflecting a HYDRA blast with his shield. His own voice, saying, "there's not enough time." The plane approaching the sea. "We've got to put her in the water!"
Jab. Cross. Jab. Jab.
The approaching water. A glowing blue cube. Peggy's picture. "You won't be alone." The cold washing over him. Blackness.
The bag flew from the hook and slammed into the floor, leaving Steve still posed for a punch, panting heavily. Taron whimpered softly, her memories just as keen as his.
"I can't do this." He told her.
"I know, Steve," she trotted over to him and nudged his hand with her head. He felt her warmth on his skin, and the soft rasp of her tongue.
Steve was a soldier. Now, with no battles to fight, he was lost. He was out of his home, out of his time, worse than useless. He needed something. A purpose. A role to play. So when Fury approached him with his request, Steve barely hesitated.
Tony carefully directed a controlled beam of energy to weld the metal together, careful to let none of the system's wiring touch the water that surrounded him. He was wearing his suit, of course, that red and gold armor he had created quite by accident and somehow kept improving.
With the last piece in place, he turned the power source on, and watched with satisfaction as the green glow emanated from his device. "We're done." He said smugly.
"Shall we see the show?" Brakia said, and Tony knew she was grinning behind her mask. When Tony'd first decided to make the iron suit a thing and fly around in it regularly, the question that had arisen was how he was going to stay close to his daemon. If she was a bird or a bat or something, then it would have been easy. But Brakia had chosen to settle in the form of a small, red monkey, which had, admittedly, been embarrassing at first, but later proven very useful when he discovered she could type and handle delicate equipment nearly as good as he could.
When Tony built the Mark I to escape his captors, the problem of Brakia hadn't even occurred to him until it was actually time to wear the suit, and at that point there was no option but stuff her into the shoulder area, which he had thankfully built slightly too wide. Nonetheless, it wasn't a comfortable fit, and when Tony set to work on the Mark II he knew he needed to find something better.
It was only two prototypes and a battle with Obe later that Tony realized what the solution was. It was so laughably simple he was surprised his genius mind hadn't come up with it earlier.
Build Brakia a suit.
Both Pepper and Rhodey had initially tried to discourage him. He remembered Pep's words- "building an iron suit for yourself is one thing, but you can't build a suit of armor for a monkey!" To which he had replied with his customary- "Why the hell not?" And then, just to spite them, he did.
And he'd succeeded, hadn't he? He was Tony Stark, after all. And after his battle with the Crimson Dynamo, Brakia had won the nickname "Iron Monkey", and spiked a new level of creativity in the human race that showed itself through T-shirt logos showing the "evolution of Iron Man", from monkey to human. Needless to say, Tony owned at least three.
With a blast of energy from his heels, Tony shot to the surface of the water, breaking through near a cruise ship. A small child that had been leaning of the railing cried out and stared at him wide-eyed.
As he flew in the direction of Stark Tower, he instructed JARVIS to call Pepper, waiting to enthuse on the success of his latest project. In front of him, the tower lit up floor by floor, and Tony felt childish glee rise in him as the word "Stark" sprang to light at the top.
"Just like Christmas," Brakia said, sounding every bit as pleased as he was.
"Yep, except better. More me." He was going to tell that to Pepper, he decided. And then they were going to have dinner. A glass of champagne. Possibly more than one. Scratch that, definitely more than one. For the first time in weeks, they were going to have a quiet, peaceful night together.
In hindsight, Tony should have known that was too much to hope for.
A/N: So how did you like it? What do you think of my choices of animals?
Review please!
