I hope you all had as good of a holiday time as I did! This will be the last update for this story this year, so here's to 2013! Have fun on New Years, and I'll see you soon!
For Tony the next few days, time passed absurdly slow. He was at the airport, waiting for Happy with the plane so that he could head back. The team had already had their debrief, and he had his own Skype with Fury about his, limited, involvement.
There was a small amount of pride, and a large amount of anger, as he dragged his bag towards Happy where he was waiting. He and Pepper had figured out what was wrong with the figures they'd been reviewing from the factory. It was an embezzler, who had managed to stay under the radar for years, and had managed to siphon off almost two million. Only a couple of days in Mexico had allowed him to figure it out, fire and arrest the man, and hopefully prevent another occurrence. Tony would do his best to make sure the man actually served time in prison, which wasn't common with white collar crime, but he detested anyone who tried to make their living by stealing.
As the plane took off, he decided to get some more work done for some new SI products. While he enjoyed being Iron Man, he knew that he had an obligation to his family's company. Even though Pepper was the CEO, there was still quite a bit that he had to do.
When he finally arrived on US soil, he didn't have the time to go home to see Pepper, but immediately grabbed the suit and took off for the Helicarrier, where there was another meeting. SHIELD did have another headquarters on land, but given the secrecy of this mission, Fury had decided that a moving target would be better in case they were found out.
By the time he made it into the conference room, the rest of the team was gathered there. He saw Bruce and Thor talking quietly together, Natasha and Clint debating something, and Steve was speaking to Fury. Both were looking worried, though it was harder to tell with Fury.
Hill was the first to see him there, and she cleared her throat so that Fury would turn around. "Everything alright?" Tony asked, looking around. Everyone seemed to be more subdued than the last time.
Fury rubbed his bald head wearily and motioned for Tony to sit with the others, while Steve also took a seat. "Rogers here brought up a couple of his concerns with the mission."
Natasha turned her head, but didn't look surprised. Neither did Clint, but they were both waiting patiently to hear what Steve had to say.
Fury didn't keep them in suspense. "That was supposed to be their headquarters, but not a single person was seen, correct?" he asked the two spies, who shook their heads. "A piss poor security system, no guards or cleaning crews working late, and the information we needed was practically out in the open, just waiting for us to grab it. I'm smelling a set up."
"What does your agent have to say about it?" Bruce asked, cleaning his glasses and perching them back on his face.
"Haven't heard from him since I sent you all in there. That's making me even more nervous. He should have contacted us by now."
Tony was fidgeting, though he kept a cool exterior. "I can go back into their systems, and see what I can find. What's his alias?"
It was Fury's turn to hesitate, which made them all suspicious. He snuck a quick glance at Romanoff and Barton before he spoke. "Steve Remington."
Clint shot out of his seat. "Tell me that's a sick joke, giving his alias to another agent," he snarled, even throwing Nat's calming hand off of his arm.
Fury didn't shrink under the glare, and spoke calmly. He seemed unconcerned, but they could all tell that something was wrong. "I didn't give his alias to anyone else."
"Are you telling us what I think you are?" Natasha asked coldly, reading between the lines, but not wanting to get her hopes up.
Fury answered by throwing a file onto the table. Clint was the first to grab for it, and no one wanted to lose a hand by trying to beat him to it. He opened it once, then dropped it like a poisonous snake. Natasha glanced once, and turned away, teeth clenched in anger.
Steve reached for the file and passed it around. The first page was a picture of Coulson.
Tony felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. He had seen the footage of Coulson's 'death', himself. Why hadn't he bothered to ask why there had never been a funeral for the beloved agent? He knew that he had just wanted to get away from everything SHIELD related after the alien invasion, but he should have seen this coming. What was it that he'd said to Steve? "He's the spy. His secrets have secrets."
He was the first to speak again, and he kept his voice as controlled as he could, but allowed the iron of his rage to escape slightly. "Why?"
Fury dropped into a seat, looking world weary. "I didn't know myself until after the invasion was finished. One of the doctors had realized that he was still alive, and spent the next three days trying to stabilize him. Once he was recovered, we started getting wind of this group, and he volunteered to go in undercover. After all, as far as most people were concerned, Phil Coulson was dead. It would be easier for him. All of you were gone, or on other missions, and I agreed to keep this under wraps until his mission was complete. We didn't foresee him needing you guys to help."
Clint looked like he was about to jump across the table and throttle Fury where he was sitting. Tony made a mental note about the archer's reaction for later contemplation. While the rest of the group was planning Fury's disembowelment, he stood and walked over to the monitors, quickly connecting to Jarvis.
"We have an agent to find," he said, still in complete control of his tone. His AI might be able to tell, but that was because he knew Tony better than any other living person.
"Agreed, sir. I have already begun looking into the servers."
So, while the arguing started behind him, he dove headfirst into his work. This was something that he was good at, and something that he could do to help. He would have his time to bitch out Fury once all of this was over. As he worked, his mind flashed with all of his memories of Agent, and tried not to worry about whether or not he was injured, or worse.
It was taking him longer this time than before. Perhaps they had learned from their mistakes and had updated their firewalls? He was getting frustrated by the lack of progress that he and Jarvis, together probably the top two geniuses on computers in the world, were making.
When he finally thought they were getting somewhere, alarms began blaring, startling everyone in the room. Fury scrambled to his feet and made his way over to his people. "What the hell is going on?" he demanded on of the workers.
"Engine Four is down. We have no idea what happened!" one cried.
The woman next to him was calmer, though still looked quite panicked. "Electrical failure, same as last time."
"Stark!" Fury barked.
Tony growled low in his throat. He had only two options: suit up and throw himself into the grinder like before, or try to solve it from here. He chose the latter. While he didn't mind suiting up again for this, he figured there was more he could do where he was. So he jumped to the next monitor, leaving Jarvis to finding Agent, and he started looking at the engine plans.
"Fury, I'm updating your entire carrier once we get out of this," he snarled. "Was this thing designed by Hammer? Might as well have been." This was unacceptable! His hands flew over the touch screens as he tried to figure out what was going on.
Hill ran back into the room. "We have unidentified hostiles on the carrier."
The rest of the Avengers grabbed their weapons and hurried to leave the room. Tony wished that he was going with them, but he knew he was more valuable here. Too much to do, and he hadn't figured out how to clone himself. If he finished figuring all of this out in time, he would head up to the rest of his team.
"How the hell did they find us?" Tony asked Fury, who was practically looking over his shoulder. "Last time was because they had Barton."
Fury had been wondering the same thing. It made no sense, and he would try and figure it out as soon as they got through this. If it was a betrayal, he would keelhaul the bastard that sold them out.
Tony wished that he had grabbed his suit and put it on as he heard the fight get closer to them. As it was, he wasn't immune to bullets unless he wore the suit. He was struggling to get the first engine fixed when they felt the carrier drop beneath them as a second one failed.
"Stark…"
"I know," he snapped back to the director.
Fury knew that, but he felt useless right then. This was his Helicarrier, and these were his people. Would they all make it out of this a second time around? Right now, there was only one thing that he could do, and that was to protect Stark. It galled him to do that, but there was no one other than him that could fix the carrier and save them in time. If Stark fell, they all would.
He kept in contact with the rest of the Avengers through the ear pieces, and realized that they were struggling to keep most of them back. They seemed to know exactly where to go, and more managed to slip past them than they would like.
At long last, there was gunfire right outside, so Fury pulled his weapon out and aimed at the door. This was something that he could do, and do well. Bullets flew, and Tony cursed as his fingers started slipping; the carrier was still in freefall, causing him to lose his footing.
Fury was close to snapping at Stark again, but knew that the man was doing everything that he could to fix this. He looked up when he heard a grunt.
Tony cursed colorfully as he felt a bullet tear through his left forearm. Well, that arm was useless now, and he would have to move twice as fast to get through this. To get all of them through this.
Fury cursed himself for letting a stray bullet past him and quickly dropped that one, though several more came through the room. Hill was on the other side, picking gunmen off as quickly as she could. The blood would likely never get out of the floors this time around; it had taken forever before.
Tony grunted as he continued his work. "I'm almost there," he informed the man next to him. "I'm so designing the next carrier."
Fury rolled his eyes at the comment, but knew that Stark quipped when he was stressed. He had déjà vu when he heard Hill shout, "Grenade!"
He saw the small canister roll towards him and Stark. If he allowed it to explode there, not only would Stark die, but the monitors needed to fix his engines would be destroyed. Everyone on the carrier would die. He didn't take another moment to think, but jumped on top of it.
I don't usually do cliffhangers, but I couldn't help this one. I'd say sorry, but I love cliffies.
At least we know that Coulson hadn't died in Avengers, right? Not a comfort right now? Alright, I guess I earned that.
So, the attack on the carrier might seem far fetched, and like I just stole from the movie, which I sort of did. Things were quite different this time around. After all, Tony didn't need to jump into the engine this time. It was a problem that could possibly be solved by staying inside and working from computers. Taking a bit of leeway, as I have no idea if that's even possible, but for the purposes of this story, I say it is!
:-)