Chapter 7
For once in his life, Tony Stark knew not to overstep the boundaries. Darcy's kidnapping had affected everyone and they were all tense, you could hear the sounds of police cars below in the streets and the sound of the coffee machine humming at the other side of the room where Tony stood. JARVIS didn't say anything as he knew far too well what the responses might be. He thought better of it and faded back into the non-existent silence in the room
Thor had taken a distraught and badly withdrawn Jane to their room for some privacy but surprisingly Pepper was sitting on the sofa in the main sitting room, her arms waiting to hold Tony when he joined her.
Tony had earlier tried going to see Bruce in his lab, before being reminded of his current state by JARVIS and quite frankly, Tony didn't feel like getting his face broken today, he was already sore from the endless fighting yesterday. Plus that rocket launcher screwed up the suits systems, which JARVIS was now currently readjusting so thankfully it was nothing major.
This left the rest of the team, bar Bruce who was still in the lab, sitting around the muted TV, watching as the blurred images of Darcy and the Avengers flashed across the screen, their minds still reeling from the events of yesterday.
It was the morning after Darcy's kidnapping and it was a lovely, glorious sunny day, the sun shone bright and strong, making everyone uncomfortable. It was a lovely sunny day… but they all didn't feel like celebrating. The weather outside seemed to be tormenting them, depressing them even more. The halls were quitter without Darcy and they all knew that…They all missed her.
Tony looked around the room at the stone-cold faces that still never spoke, their eyes still watching the TV like it was a hellish reminder of the one failure they had come out of.
Steve sat alone; his hands cupped around a coffee cup which he never drunk out of yet pretended to. He'd been frozen for over 70 years, seen plenty of people fall to Loki's schemes but still couldn't process Darcy being gone. Darcy cared for each and every one of the Avengers; it shocked him and Bruce more than anyone.
Tony watched as Pepper reached out to him, she looked at Steve with a sad but confident smile and he could faintly hear the whispered "Thanks" fall from Steve's lips.
Tony turned his attention to the assassin and the archer; his arms holding her curled up body in a loving embrace, her head rested against his chest, her fiery red hair a tangled mess and he watched as the archer twirled and curled his fingers in her hair in an attempt to soothe them both and soon Tony had made his way to sit next to Pepper, her arms instantly had a tight grip on his.
"You okay?" Tony asked her, moving Pepper's arms so he could hold her instead.
Pepper nodded before looking up at him.
"Do….Do you think we'll find her?"
Before Tony could open his mouth to answer, Steve had beaten him to it and replied with a hint of revenge in his voice.
"Oh we will, we'll never give up. We'll make them pay."
"Bruce would make sure of that." Natasha snorts before looking up at Clint, her eyes getting wider.
Tony notices that Clint had tensed even more now too; his eyes grew wider as he paused the TV at a blurred picture of the truck Tony had tried to follow but failed as it disappeared into the night after throwing him off with a cloaking device and he ended up going the totally opposite direction as it scrambled with his systems. Nobody blamed him though, whoever had done this was obviously well prepared and planned it upon them all, unsuspecting that something would take Darcy from them.
"It can't be…." Clint whispered.
"Clint? Clint what is it?" Natasha crawled out of his arms, sitting next to him as his eyes never moved from the screen, she shook him and that's when he slowly answered.
"Nat…Nat look at the screen." He places the remote down on the coffee table in front of him.
Natasha follows his gaze and she looks at the blurred image of the truck.
"What about it Clint?" she asks softly, feeling the other's eyes burn in their direction.
Clint pointed at the blurred image of the truck; specifically the logo on the side.
"It's blurred, but look Nat. What can you make out?"
Natasha studied the screen carefully, her eyebrows knitted together furiously.
"A…I…M…" she pronounced carefully, confused. "Yeah, so?"
Then it hit her.
"Oh this is BAD." She jumped to her feet, stumbling a little as her mind tried to process where she'd seen this before.
Natasha looked at Tony, Steve, Pepper and then back to Clint.
"We need to get Bruce and tell Fury-"
"What makes you think I'm not already here, Agent Romanov?"
The voice called out to them and the Avengers turned their heads to see Nick Fury standing with his arms crossed, standing in front of the elevator.
"So, you ready to kick some ass?" and slowly, for the first time ever, Nick Fury smiled.
Short chapter due to writers block and figuring out how the others would handle this, I hope I still did justice!
