AN: Sorry I took so long to update this, I was too busy watching the entirety of Supernatural. Thank you so much to everyone who's reviewed/followed/favorited! It really means a lot to me. Feel free to drop a review letting me know what you think.~
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"So, what's up with your sword?"
"Huh?" Eragon glanced up at the unfamiliar woman who had just entered the room. He had noticed her earlier, but his small chambers always seemed to have a steady flow of men and women entering and leaving, and so he hadn't paid her much attention. Besides, the one-eyed man, who Eragon had learned was called Nicholas Fury, had recently provided him with a large, heavy book detailing the history of this world, and Eragon was too fascinated to care about much else.
The women gestured at Brisingr, where it was leaning against the wall, sheathed, a few feet away. "We ran some scans of it, and it turns out it's releasing some kind of radiation that we don't recognize. Know anything about that?"
Eragon blinked once. "Well, it is enchanted."
Bruce had been in Tony Stark's lab for over forty-eight hours.
He had managed to catch a few winks here and there – nodding off in his chair, passing out on a nearby couch until Tony inevitably woke him with a triumphant or frustrated exclamation, and once or twice, he was convinced, actually falling asleep standing up – but around hour thirty the excitement wore off and the wear and tear and started to get to him. Whether it was because of his lack of sleep or the extended time period in which he was in close proximity to Tony, he was pretty miserable.
Tony, meanwhile, hadn't slept at all – at least, not as far as Bruce was aware – since Fury had entrusted them with the task of finding the "Shadeslayer," or, as Tony had taken to calling him, the "Rogue Knight."
"It's ridiculous," he had said, waving a hand dismissively. "It makes him sound like some kind of B-list super-villian trying way too hard to impress his mom, whose basement he probably lives in."
"To be fair," Bruce had felt the need to point out, "the kid's, like, sixteen. He probably does still live with his parents."
"Which makes him even more pathetic."
Regardless of the questionable rationale behind the title, Bruce had to admit that Rogue Knight seemed a more fitting description of the armor-clad fellow, and at some point in the delirium had slipped into using it. Tony seemed particularly smug about it.
The man might not have slept, but he was incredibly energized, seeming to both survive and thrive on the gallons of coffee and energy drinks the two of them had been consuming. With each passing hour Tony's frustration increased, thereby increasing his determination to find the knight. As best as Bruce could tell, this resulted in a kind of limitless maniacal energy.
Bruce, meanwhile, was just getting tired.
"C'mon, buddy, work with me here," Tony called across the rows of equipment. Bruce glanced over at him, vaguely wondering if the comment was addressed to him or Jarvis. When his silence didn't prompt any further reaction save Tony's indistinct mutterings, he assumed the latter.
Wasn't there something he was supposed to be doing? He felt like there was something he was supposed to be doing.
Bruce checked his watch and groaned, wearily rubbing a hand across his face. "It's almost six," he told his friend, sure that Tony was too engrossed in his work to be keeping track of the time.
Sure enough, the response was, "AM or PM?"
"AM. Fury's going to be here in an hour."
Tony continued staring at the holograph in front of him, zooming in to view the molecular structure of the blue sword's blade. "Hang on a minute, let me just double check and see if I care."
"Are we going to have anything to show him?" Bruce asked, pulling out a handwritten list of their findings the two had started early on, in an effort to keep their heads on straight. It wasn't very long, and the second half or so was all in Tony's handwriting, each bullet point suggesting that Nick Fury shove various objects up certain orifices. Bruce grimaced and set it back down, resting his head in his hands for a minute.
Fury had given the men two days to find the knight. What exactly had he been expecting of them?
A sudden ding from across the lab drew Bruce out of his thoughts, and he looked up hopefully. Maybe this time...
"Calibration's done. Again," Tony announced, turning to pull up a second screen, this one depicting a map of the world, a blinking red dot hovering over New York. Tony immediately made a selection of the area.
"And...?"
"And... nada." He demonstrated by gesturing at the map, and the solid red line cutting a path from Manhattan to SHIELD headquarters. "Same old same old. He appeared with the sword. He brought his sword to SHIELD. And then..." Tony snapped his fingers. "Poof."
"So we've got nothing," Bruce confirmed, feeling remarkably dejected.
But then again, maybe he had a reason to be. It seemed there was just no getting around it; either their Rogue Knight had somehow left his sword at the prison, hidden from Fury, or did something to it once he reclaimed it which halted the energy release, or else escaped with it to another dimension – but whatever Tony and Bruce did, however they reworked their equations or reprogrammed the satellites, or even in a fit of frustration scrapped everything and tried again, the trail always ran cold.
It was enough to put Bruce on edge. It was enough to drive Tony insane.
"Maybe the little bastard'll have something more for us to play with," Tony halfheartedly suggested, sounding like he was clutching at straws. He was staring desperately at a screen full of equations now, his arms folded. As Bruce watched, he bit down on one of his knuckles and frowned spectacularly.
"Maybe," Bruce agreed, although he wasn't entirely sure what to. His head sure did feel funny.
"Anything turn up in those cameras?"
"What? Oh, no. Still nothing." Bruce pulled out a second program that they'd been running from the get-go, using the cellular-based cameras that SHIELD had access to on the off chance that their Rogue Knight showed his face in public. It seemed that the kid was either laying low, or exceptionally clever.
"Forty-eight hours," Tony muttered to himself. He spun slowly in a circle, taking in the screens of data surrounding him. "Forty-eight hours, and we don't even have a clue. I mean, c'mon, he's just one little freakshow with a fancy sword, right? Right?"
"Right."
"All of SHIELD's resources..." Tony trailed off, shaking his head. Then he slammed a fist against his desk.
Bruce jumped.
Tony groaned. "We should have done this. We should have been able to do this, Bruce."
"C'mon, Tony, it's not like it's the end of the world. I mean, do we actually know that he's plotting global damnation?" Bruce tried to keep his tone light, but Tony just snorted and shook his head.
"No. But in less than an hour, Fury might be."
"What's Fury doing?"
The new voice came from Steve Rogers, who had just stepped into the room. He was wearing sweats, and looked like he had showered recently. And slept.
Bruce looked away with a pained expression.
"Morning, princess," Tony called in a sing-songy voice. "We were just talking about how your BFF Nick Fury's gonna have us strung up and executed."
"Why, what's going on? Have you found him?"
"Found? Found who?" Tony pointed to himself. "Were we supposed to be looking for someone?"
"No, we haven't found him," Bruce supplied. "The lead Fury gave us was a dead end."
"You're sure?" Steve asked, eyes scanning the room as though he expected Shadeslayer to be standing in the corner somewhere.
"Yes, we're sure," Tony responded bitterly. "But if you think you've got a shot at doing any of this better, please," he gestured broadly at the room at large, "be my guest."
"I was just asking, Tony."
"Well ask somewhere else, Spangles. Bruce and I are busy."
"We're really not," Bruce put in. "Unless you want to try recalibrating the satellites again, which we're not going to have time to finish before Fury gets here."
"We could reset the program."
"For the dozenth time? It's too late, Tony. We've done all we can."
"Fine, then!" Tony had a hostile gleam in his eyes that somehow seemed even more intimidating when paired with the impressive bags underneath them. "Stars and Stripes can join our boy band... it's not like we were actually capable of doing anything, anyway..."
Bruce and Steve watched, a bit concerned, as Tony continued grumbling to himself and obsessively checking the screens in front of him. Finally, he announced, "I need a drink," and stalked out of the room, brushing past Steve's shoulder as he passed. When he was gone, Bruce met Steve's eyes.
"He's in a bad mood," he explained.
"I could tell."
"And he hasn't been sleeping."
"Neither have you, by the looks of it."
Bruce grimaced but didn't respond.
Steve paced further into the lab, watching the screens full of equations and code pass centimeters beneath his fingertips. "Any police reports? Sightings? No one's seen him?"
Bruce collapsed onto one of the sofas pushed against the wall with a sigh. "No one with the decency to tell us about it. And we've been scanning facial recognition software, which means he's probably holed up somewhere, staying put."
"So he's got allies?"
"We don't know." Bruce hesitated and glanced over at the door, where Tony had disappeared. The other man would certainly have something to say on this topic. "Maybe."
Steve shook his head and sat down on one of the stools pulled up to Tony's main working desk. He locked eyes with Bruce, and then said seriously, "So what do you guys think?"
Bruce frowned. "About the kid?"
"Yeah, about the kid."
"Well for starters, I think he's a little pain in the ass." Tony had reentered, holding a glass of what looked like whiskey.
"Think he's up to something?" Steve asked, immediately latching onto the new arrival. "Illegal genetic manipulation and all that? Or actually from another world, like he says?"
Tony shook his head while taking a sip from his glass. "Everyone's up to something, Cap. The kid..." He started flicking at one of the screens with his free hand. "I mean, he's clearly a lab rat. There's no doubt about that. We know what sort of energies are released when Thor opens up one of his stairways to heaven, and that blueprint matches this," here Tony pulled up a radiational deconstruction of the explosion, taken from a SHIELD satellite, "by about negative four percent."
"And what is that?" Steve asked, squinting at the colorful collection of dots that Tony was now spinning with a flick of the hand.
"Energy signature at Lancelot's first appearance. And here's Thor's." The second holograph looked more like a faintly glowing orb of golden light.
"So he didn't teleport," Steve confirmed.
"Not even close."
"But he did... appear? I mean, he wasn't there earlier, was he?"
"All the cameras close enough to tell were destroyed."
"Figures," Steve huffed. "Well, at least you'll be able to tell Fury something."
"Speaking of which, what are you doing here, exactly?" Tony gestured with his glass at Steve. "You got something important to say to the one-eyed bastard? Been doing some research of your own?"
"No, Fury asked me to come. But that is a good point. Why call us all here before we know where we're headed next?"
"We're supposed to know by now," Bruce pointed out. "Fury set us a deadline, and we didn't meet it."
"But haven't you been keeping in contact with him?" Steve seemed surprised. "I mean, what's the point of having a team meeting? Couldn't you have just kept him updated as you went along?"
"It's psychology," Tony explained, like it was the simplest thing in the world. "If he's actually coming to meet face to face, the deadline's more meaningful. It's probably why he called the rest of you guys in, too." He took a sip from his glass. "Peer encouragement."
"That doesn't really sound like Fury," Steve objected.
"Well then maybe he's got a plan B, and it revolves around you folks." Tony looked at Steve thoughtfully.
"Well," said Bruce, as he noticed a silent message from Jarvis appearing on one of the screens, "It looks like we're about to find out."
The meeting was reminiscent of the one held a few days ago, when Fury had first briefed the team on Shadeslayer, only with the addition of Clint Barton, who was seated next to Natasha, and Agent Coulson, who was standing against the wall behind Fury with his hands behind his back, and the fact that this time the meeting was actually taking place in a conference room instead of around Tony's bar.
It had been at least a month since Bruce had seen Clint. He was looking well, with a kind of fiery intensity in his eyes which Bruce suspected was left over from his most recent mission, considering that the man was even now still geared up and in uniform. Bruce wondered vaguely what he'd been doing – all he knew was that Clint had been out of the country – and if he had actually completed his mission, or if Fury had pulled him out prematurely in order to deal with this crisis.
He didn't ask.
Instead he took a seat at the table, next to Tony and across from Natasha. The redhead gave him a faint smile, which he did his best to return. Then Fury cleared his throat, and Bruce braced himself for whatever disappointed talking-to he and Tony were about to receive. He was a scientist, damn it, one of the best. And he was technically classified as a potential global catastrophe. He wasn't about to let himself be intimidated by Nick Fury like he was some kind of misbehaving school boy.
"Barton, you've been briefed?"
Clint nodded.
"Good, we'll get straight to business." Fury swiveled his head to stare down Tony and Bruce. "I'm assuming you two don't have anything interesting to tell me?"
Huh?
"Whoa, whoa, wait a minute," Tony said, holding up a hand. "How do you know that? How does—" He turned to look at Bruce. "How does he know that? Did you tell him that? C'mon, Brucie, you're killing me, I wanted to see his face—"
"What do you mean, nothing interesting?" Clint asked. "I thought you guys were supposed to figure out where this kid went?"
"I didn't tell him anything," Bruce told Tony. "I thought—"
"Well in that case, Fury," Steve spoke up, "What's your play? Do we have a mission? Plan B?"
Before Fury could respond, Tony was saying, "Wait, hang up, hang up, before you answer that, how about you share with the class how you knew the sword was a dead end? Because Bruce and I sure didn't tell you that. You been keeping tabs on my search history?"
"You gave them a dead end?" The spark in Clint's eyes had grown into a blaze. "Intentionally? Something you want to tell us, Fury?"
"What exactly are you suggesting, Barton?" Fury's voice sent chills down Bruce's spine, and the whole room stilled.
After a brief but awkward pause, Natasha spoke up, seeming almost amused. "To be fair, it wouldn't be the first time you sent us running in circles."
Now everyone was looking at Fury.
He sighed, then turned to share a glance with Agent Coulson. Coulson nodded, then briskly left the room, pulling out a phone as the door closed behind him.
"To be clear, in general I'd appreciate it if you fellas restrained yourselves from jumping to conclusions, and making unfounded accusations."
Bruce found himself looking back at Natasha, who was smirking down at the table.
Fury sighed.
"But while you're at it, there's probably something I should show you."