Update time! I won't have a chance to give you another before Christmas, so consider this one your gift from me! I'll definitely get you one more before the new year. Merry Christmas to all of you!
Everyone, sans Stark, landed at the airport in Zacatecas. Steve and Thor were the only two that didn't speak Spanish, so they willingly stayed in the background as Natasha, Clint, and Bruce took care of the details of getting them to the hotel they were staying at.
It took three cabs to transport all of them there, and they had four rooms reserved, and they were all next to each other with Clint and Natasha sharing a room. They were posing as newlyweds, which was believable enough, and gave them an excuse to stay together to plot and plan.
The first that they did was to have Natasha and Clint pouring over the blueprints of the building that they were going to infiltrate the following evening, giving them a full day to plan, while Steve called Tony.
"Hey, Cap," Tony's voice filtered over the phone that SHIELD issued Steve.
"Stark, we made it to the hotel. Where are you right now?" he asked.
Tony grinned. "I'm pulling up to my factory right now. The head manager here is going to give me a tour and tell me what's wrong and what needs to be fixed, and then I'm heading back to my hotel room to work through all of this. I'm supposed to be here for about a week, enough time to give this place an overhaul. I'll be able to fly there in a little over an hour at my top speed if you need me."
Steve thought that through, and nodded. "Alright. Stay by your phone, just in case. We'll be going through the plans tonight, and we'd like you on speaker, so you know everything."
"That sounds like the man with a plan we all love," Tony quipped with a smirk. "Call me when you need me." With that, he ended the call with a flick of his fingers.
Steve shrugged as he stowed the phone in his pockets. He looked around his hotel room and frowned. It looked quite a bit like his SHIELD issued apartment. Rather bland and uninviting. He sighed as he thought about what that implied, and decided to think about it later. He made his way to the others' rooms.
Clint and Natasha were debating on their approach. "That's way too dangerous, Nat," Clint snapped, looking quite upset.
"Oh, and your way is so much safer?" she retorted. "If we go in there together, not only will we be more visible, but it'll take us twice as long to find everything we need."
"Granted, but if we split up and something happens? What if we can't get a hold of the other, or the rest of the group?"
Natasha sighed. "I'm not saying that it's less risky, Clint. I'm saying that it's the best way to get everything that we need in the most efficient way possible. Our earpieces aren't the SHIELD issued ones, either. These are Stark's, and you can bet that they are the top of the line."
Steve looked somewhat shocked. He hadn't known that Stark had produced things for SHIELD, though it did make sense. He cleared his throat to alert them to his presence. Neither of them jumped, and he would bet a week's wage that they had known he was there from the moment he'd walked into the room. "Alright, talk me through what you have so far," he ordered.
They ended up getting Bruce and Thor into the room as well and ordered their dinner from room service. Planning lasted until well into the night, and Bruce made sure that Tony was on speaker the entire time. He had quite a few suggestions that made sense.
"I'd avoid the air duct, Katniss," Tony said distractedly, making a few notes on the production notes from the factory he was reviewing as well. "I checked out the ones at the factory today, and the ones in Mexico seem a lot smaller than in the US. Not sure if they'd hold up or just drop you in the middle of a group."
Clint's eyes widened at the suggestion, and grabbed the blueprints, quickly scanning them. Stark had been right, there was no way he'd fit comfortably.
Steve nodded at him. "That's a good idea. Alright, what else do we have?"
The next day, Clint and Natasha spent most of their time together cleaning guns, sharpening knives, and double checking their specialty weapons. Clint made sure that his quiver, bow, and arrows were ready to go, while Natasha made sure that her bracelets were fully charged, along with the rest of what she kept on her. No one knew everything she carried, and frankly, they weren't sure they wanted to know.
They had their suits on, and threw the bathrobes over them. It was a tense wait, but they tried to relax as much as possible. They paid for a movie and ordered room service, making quite the show for the unfortunate soul that had to deliver their dinner. As soon as it was clear that they had as much of an alibi as they could, they snuck out the window, ready for the couple mile hike. It was the best way to get there without being seen, though it was a pain.
As soon as they were at the building, they shared a glance, warning the other to be safe, or there would be hell to pay afterwards. Natasha went to handle the security cameras, and Clint climbed the side until he was on the roof. Now for the hard part.
Tony was sitting in his hotel room, feet propped up on the chair as he continued looking over the stacks of paperwork he'd been given that day. He was already regretting coming to this factory, remembering now why he usually foisted these off on someone else to take care of.
However, he also had the communications channel open in his ear. The sooner he knew that Clint and Natasha needed help, the better. His suit was in the closet, ready to be put on at a second's notice. His heart was hammering, but he was trying desperately to distract himself with the paperwork.
He also had Pepper on Skype. She didn't know much of what was going on, but she was a very smart woman, able to tell that something was going on. Though she had given him a hard time for taking off for Mexico when he was supposed to be home after the briefing, she understood. So she was helping him with everything he needed to do, while not commenting on the occasional twitches when he thought that his team had been compromised.
He knew that he was being paranoid. After all, the two had worked for SHIELD for years before the Avenger's Initiative had gotten off the ground, and they only had a single battle as a team. He couldn't help it, though. He always felt the same about when Rhodey was working with him, regardless of the fact that the other man had been with the military. He took care of his own.
There was a slight jump when he heard Romanoff speak. "Alright, I think I've gotten everything. Hawkeye, how're you coming?"
"Same. Time for extraction?"
Natasha murmured something in Russian that Tony couldn't translate, then agreed. "Meet back at the hotel. Romanoff out."
Tony felt a burden lift off of him, but he wasn't going to relax until he knew that they were back at the hotel. There were still quite a few things that could go wrong. Pepper, bless her, could tell that something was different, but directed his attention to one of the many inconsistencies that she had found in the numbers. He sighed and had to shift from 'Iron Man' to 'Tony Stark'. It was a distinction that he normally fought against, but this time was one that was required, as Iron Man wasn't the head of a Fortune 100 company.
By the time the two members of the team made it back to the hotel, Tony and Pepper had made it through all of their paperwork and the CEO had gone to bed. Tony was talking with Bruce on the phone when their two SHIELD agents knocked on the door.
Natasha stuck her head in. "Meeting in Steve's room," she said tiredly.
Bruce nodded, but kept Tony on the phone, just in case he had some more insight for them. Less than two minutes later, they were seated somewhat comfortably in their leader's room, and they were going over everything that they had managed to get. Natasha was on the computer, printing the pictures of the files that Fury had asked them to get, and sending them to the director via email.
Thor looked around at the group. Tony and Bruce were talking in hushed voices; it seemed as though Stark was making sure that the other two had returned safely. Thor nodded, pleased that for all his nonchalance, the engineer still cared about the rest of the team. Romanoff and Barton were talking about what they had found.
Steve, however, was fidgeting with his phone and biting his lip. The god walked over and took the empty seat next to him. "What is on your mind?" he asked softly.
The captain clearly wasn't sure if he wanted to voice his opinion, and fought with himself for a moment. In the end, though, he caved. "That just seemed way too easy. Neither of them ran into another person while they were there, and Barton was saying that the security system was a joke. This just smells kind of fishy to me."
Thor wasn't sure about the last phrase, certain that their Captain was not able to catch the scent of fish, and assumed that it was just another catch phrase. Perhaps he should learn some of these strange phrases that his teammates used. As he thought about it, he realized that he didn't like the situation, either. "Perhaps you should contact the director?" he suggested. "Inform him of your worries."
Steve thought about it, but shook his head. He was probably just jumping at shadows, still not used to this time period. "I'll talk to him when we get back to the States," he conceded, earning an approving nod from the god.
Tony was finishing his conversation with Bruce. He and Pepper had discussed the schedule, and decided that he would stay in Mexico for another couple of days, just to keep anyone from connecting the dots. It would also be good for the factory if he managed to fix everything that was going on there. Some of the numbers still weren't adding up, and it was frustrating to him.
Bruce assured him that they would be alright without him for a few days. The rest of the team was leaving the following day (it was already well after midnight, so a little over a day, actually). They would make sure to include Iron Man in the debriefing.
Things are starting to pick up now. Is Steve just jumping at shadows? Or is there more to this than they're thinking?
Next update will have everyone, and we'll finally get some action in this story.
