A/N: Team one-shot. All included. This wasn't meant to be sad or so long, I swear!
This part and the final (second) part of this one-shot is to make up for no updates for my other fic this week.
Disclaimer: I do not own Marvel.
Absence
Home doesn't always feel safe.
Safety comes in doses. You can carry them with you- trinkets of your past life or that of someone else's. Little things that make you feel safe. Your home is the same- the people you fill it with, the things they bring with them that remind them of their homes.
Suddenly their things, your friend's favourite sweater, or that heavily worn and beloved book that really isn't yours spell safety without using words or even actions.
It's the presence of the thing.
Suddenly Bruce's glasses on the coffee table makes Tony feel safe. Reminds him of home when he sees them on the conference table on the Helicarrier while they explain to Director Fury what happened. Tony is exhausted, in numbing pain, the fight he battled on account of the one member of the team that's missing from the briefing haunts him until his eyes lose focus on the drone of hushed conversation.
Tony knows how close a call it had been, he doesn't need Fury to berate it and drive it into them again. Tony was there, he knows what the others don't, and they still blame me.
They are all gathered except one, and the silence that drops after the Director stops talking says it all. He dismisses them, and Tony leads them back to the Quinjet.
He knows it's not four walls that make a home, because it feels like they're leaving a piece of home behind on the Helicarrier as they board.
They're leaving Captain Rogers, and going to an empty place to sleep for the night.
Tony thinks it's his fault that Natasha won't stop glancing at him as she lifts the Quinjet into the air.
He thinks Thor is fidgeting because he is leaving a comrade in arms behind, because of him.
He honestly believes Bruce won't look him in the face because of what he allowed to happen.
Steve almost died; they almost lost a part of their home because of him.
What Tony doesn't realize is that Natasha can't stop thinking about the moment she saw Tony drag Steve out of the outpost building. Thor can't stomach looking at the bruises and scratches Tony didn't notice he had marring his face, or the hand wrapped heavily in bandages that blood still managed to leak and stain through the pristine white. Bruce just can't handle the anger he's feeling towards the organization that did this to his friends.
Clint just wants to redo the last seventy-two hours, pretend that the silence on the jet is nothing compared to the chaos they'd escaped. The absence they all felt was too heavy, too much.
72 Hours Earlier
Static… slow steady beeping… heartbeats out of control screaming protest after protest-
"STARK!"
"Cap he's going to die!"
"Tony what are you doing!?"
"Anyone have eyes on Banner? Anyone have eyes on FUCKING BRUCE?"
"No one wants to see Bruce fuck, Hawk."
"Tony!"
"We're under heavy fire- shit! Cap is down!"
Static…
"-and thanks, Cap, you got your entire team killed. So much for being a tactician." Clint's Xbox controller hit the edge of the sofa, narrowly missing Steve's foot. The archer stretched his legs across the floor, arms above his head. It felt good to stretch after almost six hours of playing on Stark's new system, the screen now back to its default setting, lighting the whole penthouse floor with iridescent black and red light from the fake blood splat on Steve's POV screen.
Steve kicked the controller away, pulling his headset off, almost growling. "I hate video games. Give me real action any day." His eyes were sore from the display of pulsing lights and so much camera movement he thought he would be sick. How do people play these ALL THE TIME?!
"Clint" Pepper warned from her position on the second couch, a book in hand and a file opened on her bent knees. "Be nice. It's his first game and he lasted longer than I did."
"Really?' Natasha piped up from where she sat beside Clint, her own headset still on and ready for another round. It was a sad reality that's how she now spent her Friday nights, in Stark's tower with her team and playing video games like a teenager. She never really was able to be a normal teenager, like many of the Avengers, so she didn't think on it too much.
She'd never admit to liking the bonding time, and the insight to how they all played a combat game was right up her alley.
"Tony always 'accidentally' kills me. Something about unlocking some achievement?" Her sweet smile was just that, sweet and loving. She went back to her notes, not noticing the cold stares levelled at her boyfriend, whose mouth was open in shock.
"Wow, Stark that's cold."
"Shut it angel wings." Tony got up, stretched while asking JARVIS to raise the lights. Dim lights illuminated the floor, blocking out the view of the city they'd had in the semi-darkness.
"I think twenty failed games is enough," There were murmurs of agreement; Clint patted Steve's shoulder on his way to the elevator in silent apology. "Nat and I got to check in early to SHIELD so we're off."
"Clint it's a five second ride to our floor, it's still early." Natasha followed anyway, knowing it was moot. She could tell Clint was drained, rubbing knuckles into his eyes in a way he hadn't done for a very long time. She tried not to worry much, but her brow creased anyways, soon smoothing over once Clint put his arm over her shoulders. "Sayonara,"
Everyone said their own versions of 'goodnight' and 'byes'. Pepper peeled herself off the couch eventually when the conversation moved towards the bar, Bruce already seated with a glass of scotch, matching Tony's.
Steve grabbed his carton of milk from the small mini-fridge- something Tony vehemently opposed to when he'd found it. No healthy, dairy products near the booze. Steve and Tony's friendship had been stagnant, but there was camaraderie. In the field they were perfectly in sync, so the team didn't care much they bickered like rowdy siblings most of the time.
"Think the wonder twins are dong the nasty?" Tony said it with such sublime innocence that Bruce made a face.
"Not really any of our business, Tony," The doctor commented quietly.
A snort came from behind Pepper, where Steve had retreated to stare out the glass towards the city skyline. "Everything is Stark's business, so he believes."
Pepper, sensing one of their more heated fights on the horizon told them she was retiring. "Don't forget, Mr. Stark, you're going with Clint and Natasha to SHIELD tomorrow."
"Not going to remind them too?" With his glass he gestured to Steve and Bruce, who wore matching smirks. Fury had called them all in that afternoon and Bruce had managed to push it until Saturday morning- almost blaspheme for Tony, who'd rather be in his lab.
Pepper grinned, heels held in one hand and files in the crook of her elbow. "Do not make me tell JARVIS to wake you up, tomorrow. I promise it won't be pleasant." The doors closed before Tony could reply.
"You're to retrieve the device without any problems, understood?" Fury, hands behind his back and eye on the team seated around the table, had swept in dressed in black, suspiciously contrite for what the team believed to be a run of the mill mission.
Tony removed his sunglasses for the first time since entering the building. "You're sending all of us to… fetch a hard drive? What's on it?" His phone had been sitting on the table, untouched for the last half hour. Fury eyed it warily, knowing if Stark wanted to know what the drive contained he'd hack his way to it and find more damning evidence. Better to just tell Stark and get it over with.
"Photographs. Delicate ones."
"You dressed as a playboy bunny in a pink furry suit?"
Not even Captain America could hide the grin at that. Clint outright cackled, "Sorry sir," He whispered once his composure was back, indifferent look on his face mirroring Natasha's. Her mouth hadn't twitched.
A voice overly feminine and hard as smelted steel spoke behind where they sat, body holding open the conference room door, "Stark I admire your humour, but now is not the time."
"Ah, Agent Hill, I was wondering when Fury's shadow would arrive."
"The drive contains classified weapon information. If it were to get to the wrong people…" Hill flitted out as fast and she had come in, apparently only passing on her way to more important things. The silence filled them in, each Avenger playing different scenarios through their minds.
"So, we get the disk and no harm done. Where is it?" Steve reached for the open file, flipping to the appropriate page only to find a stamped Classified where the drop location should have been.
"Again… this mission is to be under the radar. There's a pilot waiting in the Quinjet for you, I suggest you get a move on." Fury swept out wearing an odd expression but Tony couldn't decide if it was good or bad.
Bad, always go with bad, Tony thought, locking eyes with Natasha who only shrugged, noticing her boss' foul mood too.
It wasn't the duration of the flight to the secret drop location. It wasn't the fast reactions of the local militia noticing the Avengers had infiltrated their operation. It wasn't even the fact that Tony's reactor was threatening to fail any moment that weighed on him and made his heart start skipping normal beats.
It was the sight of Captain America, lying on the floor of a dingy abandoned outpost building in the middle of an African jungle that had Tony staggering to find his balance.
Steve was in deep shit and Tony couldn't wriggle out of his captors grasp long enough to even yell at him, the hand at the billionaires' throat and mouth clamped too damn tight the he had no choice but to watch.
Steve looked up with glassy eyes at the ring leader's shaven face and Armani suit, his pristine manicured hands clutching the hard drive they'd been sent to recover. "So, Mister America, give me reason to spare you and your friends, yes? You are surely not getting everything you want this day, because even the great SHIELD cannot steal my personal property." At that point in his speech the man had crouched down beside Steve, careful not to get bloodstains on his expensive clothing or hands. "Either you're entire team are lambs for the slaughter, including you and the Iron Man my friend is entertaining, or you tell me why Fury wants this." He flicked the hard drive so close to Steve's face it riled Tony, wriggling against his captor's body in vain.
Tony remembered the flash bomb, the effects still straining his own eyes and wondered how horrible that had been for Steve, who still had episodes of PTSD when he was caught off guard.
Walking through a harmless jungle with monkeys hooting at your every step had been the definition of off guard, distracted.
White dots still crowded his vision- and Steve had been the closest to the explosion. Pieces of shrapnel stuck out of Steve's neck and Tony had panicked for a few moments when he'd woken to see it. Tony knew how harmful shrapnel could be, especially when these African dick bags had loaded them with nails and screws.
Not even a super soldier was immune to that. It had weakened him, and the beating these guys were giving him didn't help. Steve's dirty blonde hair was smeared with dirt and blood, a small cut on the inside pinnae of his ear where someone had ripped out an earpiece.
The Iron Man suit was propped up in a corner, guarded by three men loaded to the necks with guns. The suit was an old Mark III, so it wouldn't turn on without JARVIS, which they'd lost connection to as soon as the bomb had gone off and scrambled the signals, knowing out all systems in the alloy suit.
"I.. don't know what's on it." Steve's unwavering voice tore Tony's eyes away from his empty suit and onto his teammates face.
Oh God, Steve looked about to faint.
Armani wouldn't allow that, his fingers dug into the rip on Cap's torso and pushed in, eliciting what the leader thought to be a delightful moan of pain.
"Cap don't-!" Tony's outburst earned him a punch square to the jaw. He'd bet all his money there was a pretty pattern across his face and arms by that point, not to mention the strangling bruise forming around his throat he could feel burning itself in.
This wasn't like the video game they'd played the night before. This time, the Captain had made all the right calls to deliver them in and out safely. He just didn't anticipate the counteraction the operation would make so soon after they'd grabbed the disk from the crappy two building warehouse in the middle of nowhere.
Armani let go of Steve's head, resulting to it rolling to the side after a sickening smack on the floor. Steve locked eyes with Tony for a few seconds, blinking. It had been two hours, and half that time Tony guessed they'd both been unconscious. There was no telling where the rest of the team were- Tony hadn't exactly been hearing the Hulk smashing his way through the forest around them.
Steve held a hand flat over his fist, wrists bound behind his back. The way his hand-
Oh, it clicked and Tony felt retarded, he almost grinned in forgetful exhaustion that this wasn't funny. It was a code. Tony had to give the guy some credit- even being beaten past the point any other man would have given in, Steve remained the exact man Tony's father had known.
Cap's gesture told Tony very clearly to stop talking, stand down.
Two men hauled Tony up by his arms, pulling him to a wall on the other side of the room. There they cuffed him to it and left, walking past Steve without so much as a second glance.
Before Armani left through the steel door of the windowless room, he looked at Tony for the first time. "I do hope your friends find you in time. As I understand it, you cannot last long with your chest piece malfunctioning like it is."
The door shut, enveloping them in darkness that only lifted with the faint flickers of Tony's reactor hitting the walls, bathing them in pale light.
Tony swore, using words he knew the Cap would oppose to if he had strength enough to speak.
"Cap?"
Keep calm. No good ever came of freaking the fuck out like Tony wanted desperately to do. He'd been in this situation before, so had Steve. They were two grown men, Avengers, they could get out of this.
In the chaos and noise of Tony's mind, he realized Steve hadn't answered his call.
"Captain?" Tony tried again, keeping the panic at bay.
A grunt. "Stark." Steve didn't sound like himself.
Perfect, the only time he wasn't chipper and dandy like white on rice. "How ya doing?"
"Peachy." Steve's silhouette was hunched, facing away from Tony, lying on his side, head bowed. "You?" He spoke to the concrete floor, stained with blood.
"Ah, finally we agree on something. I'm great." Lie. Tony's arms were held high above his head by metal cuffs on a bracket, attached to the wall behind. They were pretty high, not enough to raise Tony off the ground from his sitting position. They'd left his arms uncrossed, because if they had been… Tony would be in too much pain from his shoulder blades separating to be talking. Still, the way his arms were twisted was certainly painful.
"Stark, your arc reactor,"
"I know," He could feel it, a heavy weight on his chest remaining steady not unlike a concrete block dragging him down under the sea.
Steve grunted like he'd tried to move, but from what Tony could see the soldier hadn't shifted an inch. "Can you fly?"
Good question. "No. Not enough power."
"Can you get free?" His voice was becoming softer, calm. Tony admitted he missed the hard-ass voice of Captain America, because that's who they needed right now.
"They took all my tech."
Tony was sure Steve would have given a hearty laugh, but his voice was still hardly audible amidst the silence. Even the jungle beyond was quiet, if they still were in the jungle. It was humid enough, still in a tropical wasteland but how far from where they'd been separated from the team? What had Armani suit done to the rest?
The small building had to windows, and Tony could guess even if they were to walk out that door there would be posted guards.
Steve wasn't sounding so hot, his breathing became shallow and quick, and still didn't attempt to move from his position lying sideways and hunched over himself, still facing away.
What was he trying to hide?
Steve was too still, it was too quiet. Tony despised uncontrolled silence; the kind of quiet one submerges themselves into when they know there's nothing to be done.
The dark silence didn't last long, with less sarcasm than Tony expected from his friend, Steve said, "You're telling me the man who built the Iron Man suit in a desert cave can't pick handcuffs?"
"Lend me one of your old timey bobby pins, Princess, and I'll do just that."
Usually his smart-ass remarks would entice Steve to make one of his own. For all the good soldier hype he got as Captain America, his snarky comments rivaled Tony's at times.
"Don't faint on me Cap."
As his eyes adjusted, Tony could see miniscule movement of Cap's arm, the rustling Tony before then believed to be coming from outside was in fact Steve's attempts to move. A few seconds later, Steve tossed something over behind him to land at Tony's feet. "Use that to get out. I'm fresh out of bobby pins."
"Can't reach it, my arms are above my head. Would you be so kind?" His words were not charming or pleasant; Tony couldn't muster enough energy to play pretend anymore.
It hit him how much deep water they were in when he'd turned his body painfully to glimpse what Steve had thrown over. It was a nail, from the bomb that had separated their team.
Pale light from his reactor illuminated the slick, dark blood covering half the nail.
Steve had dug it out from his side; the one he kept turned away.
"Give me a second Stark."
You don't need a second, you need help. "Know what? I'll figure it out. You just stay posed like a French girl and I'll shuffle my feet a little and pull of one of my many escape plans. I built Iron Man in a cave, remember? It'll take a genius like me to get us out of this. Remind me when we get back to SHIELD to ask eye-patch to pair you with Natasha for missions from now on. Yeah, we'll be fine." His not fine rambling distracted him from what Steve started doing. Tony wanted to look anywhere but at him. True to his word Tony tried pulling the bloodied nail closer to him by a foot.
Steve pulled himself along with one arm, finally turning to face Tony. In the little semi-circle of light the reactor created, Tony saw that there were two more nails embedded in Steve's torso, one of them sticking halfway out, the other almost right in.
Punctured lung, severed artery, impaled organs, all of those possibilities Tony could think of ran in and out of his mind before he could shake the jolt away, huffing to catch the breath that had been stolen by his teammates state.
"Christ." Escaped passed Tony's thin, angry lips before he could think of anything else to say, anything except acknowledge how bad this was getting.
"Not as bad as it looks." At least Steve could still string a whole sentence together without losing his breath.
"Really? Are you fucking serious? Is that why you tried to hide it? Because I wouldn't freak out at how not serious that is? You may be a super soldier with that serum running in your-"
"Stark!" Steve's head was bowed; he'd made it onto his knees but no further. His shoulder shook, one hand over the nail embedded almost to the flat edge. In the face of Steve losing his temper, which really was not an often occurrence, Stark shut his mouth.
"Can you-" Steve's eyes shuttered and fell closed, his body soon following. All Tony could see from the meager light his reactor produced was his legs, the rest of the Captain remained in the dark.
Tony shifted, effectively pulling the nail closer to his body. "Cap!" If he could get the nail into his mouth, even if it meant dislocating an arm to get free, Tony would pull out every piece of foreign object in Steve's body. "Captain?!"
A confused, semi-annoyed voice. "I'm injured… not dead, Stark."
"Natasha would be able to pick the cuffs with her fingernails I'd bet. Pull some kind of weird spy trick on it."
"Nat wouldn't… get caught…"
Not panicking even a little when the nail skittered across the floor when he'd panicked at Steve's weak voice and the blood that should have been in the soldiers body and not on the floor, Tony got a very bad idea.
It was the only idea he had. Fuck this is going to hurt.
Tony tried ignoring how much Steve trembled, going for his usual trick of speaking to distract them both while he mentally prepared himself. "Red riding hood gets caught all the time." Tony needed to keep Steve talking.
"Always … her… intention..." Steve struggled for air, anything to suck into his lunges but all Tony could hear were wisps of strangled breathing.
Shit.
"Okay, Okay, only option. I can afford the best surgeons, yeah. Let's hope I don't black out from the pain."
Mentally counting to three, Tony yanked as hard as he could on one arm, pulling it down with all his strength, breaking his hand. Layers of skin were shaved off, seared against the metal, blood dribbled down into his hair and shoulder, the side of his face before he yanked a second, grueling time, hand slipping from its cuff.
The adrenaline rushed, blocking the pain centers of his mind momentarily so all that spread with the blood up his arm was a warm haze of tingling numbness. With his broken hand he managed to grab the nail, keeping himself from screaming by biting his lip until it was bloody.
After a few clumsy tried at the thing, with the cuff slick with blood and his arms covered in it, Tony dragged himself over to Steve using his one good hand to brace himself overtop the soldier, straddling his chest.
From the pale pallor of Steve's face, there wasn't much time.
"Steve!?" The shout was lost on the soldier, echoing around them like shadows getting lost on their way into the bare corners of the room, hanging there with no purpose. His screaming did nothing to rouse the fallen hero.
Tony slowly came back to himself, the tunnel vision receding until all that was left were sparse black dots clouding his vision. Swiftly, he pulled the two nails from Cap's torso, feeling still warm blood gush slowly before stopping. He should be healing by now. Tony stared at the pricks, so small they shouldn't be causing so much damage, to the nails he carelessly threw away as if connecting the two in his mind would help, to will such small nails powerless weapons. No, no this is NOT where you-!
A serenity seized him, all of a sudden setting Tony's mind at rest, his thoughts as slack as the pale Captain's face.
His focus pulled solely to one motivating piece of this puzzle, the men who did this. Tony Stark prayed there were guards at the door, standing guard hidden in the greenery of the jungle.
"Steve?" One last time. No answer came, only their shallow breathing mixing to make one lonely sound as if only one of them existed in the semi-darkness.
Tony would make every single one of those bastards pay.
End of Part 1.
A/N: It is a one-shot, but it will be in two parts.
Review please!