Aftermath - Chapter Eight
Author: Milady Dragon
Author's Note: Just a quick word to say I've made a story list for the Dragon-Verse on my profile page, in the order they should be read. It was requested by one of my readers and it sounded like an excellent idea.
8 May 2012
Enroute to New York
Clint didn't know how Fury had managed to get all their stuff onto the first available Quinjet, as well as a pilot for it, but he couldn't help but be impressed. There also was quite a supply of weapons on the plane that had Patrick drooling just a little, including the really big gun that the archer had heard through the grapevine Phil had used on Loki before finally dying.
He wasn't so sure how to feel about that. Pride in the idea that his ex-lover had kicked Loki's ass even when he was fatally wounded, but…kinda weirded out by that thing, as well.
Natasha, though, had taken the credit when Clint had found his bow and quiver onboard, even though she didn't admit to how she'd done it. The last time he'd seen them, they'd been confiscated by SHIELD when he'd been picked up during the so-called shawarma feast after the Battle of New York, as the news outlets were calling it.
Once the Quinjet was in the air, Ianto began the briefing on the Cybermen. Honestly, Clint already had enough nightmares to last a lifetime. He really didn't need anymore, which was now pretty much guaranteed after hearing all about these Cyber-douchebags' origins.
"The Cybermen are notoriously hard to kill," the dragon said. Ianto stood on the deck, hands behind his back like he was some visiting professor, his expression at ease but Clint really knew just how uncomfortable he was with flying. Ianto had once told him that it made him feel as if he was trapped, and Clint could understand it. Changing into his dragon form would have been nearly impossible unless Ianto somehow left the plane; which, at least in a Quinjet, it was fairly easy to do.
"Then how do you propose we do that?" Rogers asked, squarely into Captain America mode, although the cowl to his suit was pushed back to reveal his face. Clint could recall just how excited Phil had been about them finding the supersoldier in the ice, and how he'd had input into the creation of Steve's new uniform.
But then, Phil had also had input into Clint's own uniform, and he'd protested vociferously against the first version of Natasha's catsuit, saying it was way too revealing and impractical for combat. The idiots in R&D had laughed it off…until Natasha had returned the completed outfit shredded into little pieces. Clint still wasn't sure how she'd managed to cut up all that Kevlar-lined cloth, but it had been impressive as hell.
"Gold is the Cyberman's number one weakness. Since we don't have a handy supply of that, then decapitation," Ianto answered, "but you have to watch out for the heads trying to reattach themselves. So destroying it completely once it's been removed from the shoulders would be the best way to go. Tony," he turned toward Stark, who hadn't put on the armour yet although the case that contained it was sitting at his feet, "your repulsors should do well enough if you aim for the chest piece, as should that gun Patrick is trying to seduce."
"Hey!" Patrick exclaimed without heat. Of course, Patrick had picked the biggest gun of the lot, not coincidentally the Destroyer gun of Phil's. Patrick knew quality when he saw it, especially in weapons.
"I know, Clint, you can hit an eye at several hundred yards, which is the way to go in your case," the dragon continued, "if you can use explosive tips that would be ideal, but a regular broadhead should also make enough mess of a Cyberman's brain to take it down for good."
Clint nodded. He had quite a few explosive tips, but his normal arrows far outweighed those. Besides, while he might be an idiot who liked to jump off buildings, there was something about willingly carrying around mini bombs on his back that could, in some circumstances, make his skin crawl.
"Natasha, your guns most likely won't do all that much, but your Widow's Bites might knock the Cybermen for six. Just be careful, and don't let them get their hands on you. You might be deadly in a hand-to-hand fight with a normal human, but a Cyberman could rip your arms off without any effort."
"Well," Natasha drawled, "that's cheery."
Ianto gave her one of his best eye rolls and went on. "Tony, did you get in touch with Dr Banner?"
"Yep, he's gonna be on his way the moment I tell him we're five minutes out. He didn't want to engage without the rest of us there."
"That makes sense. It's going to be bad enough casualty-wise without the Hulk being shot at and it pissing him off. And Thor," he turned toward the Asgardian, "your lightning should be effective, and I'm quite certain you'll be able to flatten a few with Mjolnir."
Thor hefted his hammer, which had the effect of showing off those arms of his. Clint knew his own biceps were impressive, but he also knew when he was outgunned, as it were. "Aye, we shall make sport of these Cybermen. I have heard of them, and they would be worthy opponents."
"What about you?" Rogers asked. He'd been quite happy with letting Ianto make all the suggestions he had about how to fight this new threat, and Clint had been pleased by that. But then, Rogers was a strategist, and knew the need for complete intel, which Ianto had in spades.
Ianto gave him a small, cryptic, smile. "I have my own ways of attack."
"That's because you're not human." Clint wanted to bristle at that, but Rogers wasn't being confrontational; he was clearly just stating facts. "Thor happened to say something, and Stark pretty much confirmed it without actually confirming it."
That had Ianto laughing. "Yes, I'm not human, although I was born on Earth. Once we get into the fight, you'll see exactly what I can do."
"You know, Eragon," Stark put in, sounding slightly worried, "Jack's not gonna be at all happy with you showing yourself like this. Maybe you should let us handle the Cybermen…"
Clint wanted to hug Tony Stark in that moment. He suddenly understood exactly why Phil had held such a high opinion of the genius, even as his ex-lover had been complaining that Stark was going to drive him to drink. He was genuinely concerned about Ianto outing himself and was making certain that the dragon really wanted to take this course of action.
"If you keep rolling your eyes like that, Boss," Patrick teased, "they're gonna get stuck that way."
Clint snorted, and Natasha shook her head almost fondly. Stark barked a laugh, while Rogers sighed.
"If you'd done your own research," Ianto said, smirking, "then you'd know that Eragon was the boy in the story. If you were being correct character-wise, then you'd have used Saphira."
Steve looked confused, but then Clint doubted he'd had time to read any books or to see many movies since being thawed out.
Stark blew off the correction. "You didn't answer me, Ianto."
"I know." Ianto crossed his arms over his chest. "I know it's going to upset Jack, but we cannot risk the Cybermen even getting a single foothold here in New York. We don't have an accurate count as yet; we could be dealing with a full-blown army. There's no telling how long they've been here, and how many people they've assimilated. We need to hit them hard, and fast, and I'll be as successful at taking them down as the rest of you will be. Jack will just have to understand that."
"Will this put you in danger?" Rogers demanded. He didn't look happy, and now Clint wanted to hug him as well. He didn't even know what they were talking about.
"Not in danger, per se, but it will certainly make it harder for me to hide myself from now on. Luckily, no one will be able to connect this," he waved a hand down his body, "with what is going to fight with you. Although I suspect Her Majesty might not be too happy with me. She's quite protective."
He then settled back into lecture mode. "Captain, you asked me about Torchwood, and I think it's time you had an explanation."
That had Stark cackling. "At least it's you explaining it, and not Jack."
Clint couldn't actually disagree with that sentiment.
"We're Torchwood," Patrick said, doing a remarkable imitation of Jack Harkness, "outside the Government, beyond the Police. Fighting for the future on behalf of the human race."
"The twenty-first century is when it all changes," Clint piped up, not even bothering to do it the way Jack always did, "and Torchwood is ready." He did strike the pose, although he knew it didn't look as impressive without the greatcoat.
It was Ianto's turn to crack up, bending over slightly as he laughed. "My mate really is predictable," he said breathlessly. "Someone please tell me that was recorded."
"You even have to ask?" Stark said, sounded offended.
"I need a copy of that. Please send it to me when you get the chance."
Stark touched the Bluetooth device in his ear. "JARVIS sent it to your email."
Ianto took a deep breath to settle himself back down. "I apologise for that, Captain. Our Director, Captain Jack Harkness, gives that exact same speech to anyone new to the Institute."
"Tis an impressive speech," Thor allowed.
"I'll make sure to tell him that, although you didn't really get the full effect of the Harkness charisma to go along with it. Well, anyway, Torchwood has been around in the UK since 1879, when it was chartered by Queen Victoria in order to fight threats to the Empire…threats being extra-terrestrial ones. We' re almost like SHIELD…only it's all aliens, all the time, and we've been doing it much longer. We're also above top secret, and as Tony and Clint will tell you, they both had to sign a ream of documents when they were read into things. Captain…Thor…I'll have to ask you to do the same, once this is over. We cannot have Torchwood's existence made widely known."
"You have been doing this work as long as that?" Thor asked, sounding vaguely in awe.
"I've only been with Torchwood since 2000," the dragon answered. "Director Harkness, though, has been at it much longer."
Ianto didn't mention that Jack was immortal, but then of course Clint hadn't expected him to. It was bad enough that a dragon was about to show up with the Avengers; Jack's immortality was quite possibly the one thing that no one wanted to share outside their group. It had taken that shit with the Daleks for Clint to learn about it. The archer wasn't so sure that living forever was all that good a thing, to be honest.
"October 31, 2000," Patrick clarified. "That's the day Jack and Ianto took over the Institute in Cardiff. We celebrate it every year…with karaoke."
"Hey, now," Clint protested. "How come I've never been invited?"
"You've never been in Cardiff at the time," Patrick answered.
Alright, he had a point.
"If you come and work for us," Ianto added slyly, "then of course you'd be invited every year."
Rogers was frowning, and Stark fidgeted, but Natasha looked as if she really wanted him to agree with Ianto and go to work for Torchwood. To be honest, Clint was very tempted to do just that. After all, SHIELD was becoming uncomfortable to hang around, not that Clint could blame the agents who were holding what had happened at the Helicarrier against him. He'd led the assault, and people had died… including Phil, who Clint had loved for years, so much so that he'd let him go when he'd met Audrey. Sure, they'd been assigned apart more often than together at that point, but all Clint wanted was for Phil to be happy. And, if it wasn't with him…well, that wasn't the first time he'd thought that.
But, no one in Phil's family, or in Torchwood, seemed to be blaming him for that had gone on. It was almost inconceivable that the Coulson-Delawares wouldn't hate him for his part in Phil's death. Still, they'd accepted Clint into the family, even though he wasn't really connected to them any longer, and it was amazing to the archer that they were so willing to do just that.
And then there was Torchwood.
How could they really want someone who'd been so easily compromised? Honestly, how was he even in this Quinjet, joking around and going into battle with a race of creatures hellbent on assimilating everyone they could get their mechanical hands on?
A very vague thought crossed his mind, wondering if the creators of the Borg had somehow found out about the Cybermen and had adapted them for Star Trek…
Just how were any of them trusting him?
A hand rested on his shoulder, and from the heat of it he knew it was Ianto's without looking immediately. "Whether you believe this or not," the dragon murmured, "you are our family, and we trust you. But, I'm not going to pressure you on this. It's your life, and you can do what you want with it…unless, of course, you decide you want to end it, then Natasha will most likely find you and beat the life right back into you."
His eyes were so blue, and so old, and Clint could see all of the dragon's compassion and trust in them. The emotions radiated out of them like laser beams, and Clint could feel them scorching him with a fire that actually felt more healing than damaging. Not able to help himself, Clint leaned into the touch, accepting the heat as cleansing.
Clint could feel everyone's eyes on him. His instincts were telling him that Cap and Stark and Thor would try to talk him out of leaving, to come to the Avengers instead, but the archer wasn't at all sure he belonged there either, despite having saved the planet with them once. But, really, he'd done it twice with Torchwood, so that outweighed his rather tenuous connection to the Avengers Initiative.
Yes, Phil had wanted him in. He could still remember the day he'd been read in on the Initiative; it had been after Clint had returned from Cardiff, after the Daleks had stolen the entire planet to another sector of space. SHIELD scientists were still arguing about the mechanics of it, and they'd often come to Clint to ask he'd had any idea of how it had been done. Well, Clint might have been present, and he could recall exactly what the Doctor had claimed, but that didn't mean he'd understood it. Besides, he wasn't at all certain that it was a good idea to share that sort of thing with anyone not Torchwood, let alone the scientists SHIELD dug up. Well, there were FitzSimmons, but they were more the exception than the rule, they were both geniuses in their own right and had been read into Torchwood a couple of years ago, even spending time up at Torchwood House.
It had been the same with the CERN debacle, but Clint could honestly say he didn't know just what had happened then. He hadn't even shared Ianto's dragon status with his lover, and he'd trusted Phil with everything.
In that moment, Clint realised that he'd been a part of Torchwood since that moment in CERN, when he'd seen a man with dragons' eyes in a concrete tunnel under the ground, running from aliens who'd been pretending to be dead souls. That, while he'd gone back to SHIELD, his heart had stayed in Cardiff, in an underground base that had subway chic down to a fine art.
His soul, though, would always belong to Phil Coulson. Nothing would change that.
Clint didn't know Rogers. He barely knew Thor, only having met him the one time in Puente Antigua, New Mexico. Thor had been more Phil's acquaintance than Clint's.
As for Stark…well, Stark might think he wasn't a part of Torchwood, but it had its hooks just as deeply in him as the Institute did in Clint. It was just that Stark hadn't figured it out yet.
For someone so smart, Tony Stark could be remarkably dumb.
"He's right," Natasha murmured, getting right up into his personal space and looping an arm around his waist, "I'm not about to let you do something that silly, so don't even think it."
Clint knew he could reassure them that he wasn't about to be that stupid. Despite having lost his heart to a mad god and his soul to a death that should never have happened, he wasn't suicidal. He knew he could still do some good in the world. Now, how he did that…it was still up in the air. But he knew which way he was leaning.
"When the hell did it get so maudlin in here?" Stark demanded, breaking the heaviness of the atmosphere in the Quinjet. Clint wanted to hug him for it. Phil would have been slightly appalled at how many times in the last several minutes the archer had felt the urge do to that. Or, he might have felt grateful to Stark for it. "So, more about Torchwood…they hunt aliens. They have for ages. The base I saw was awesome in a subway station sort of way. I keep offering more tech, but Jack and Falkor here keep turning me down…"
Clint stifled a snort. Trust the billionaire to look up all sorts of fictional dragons in order to nickname Ianto, the way he did everyone…except Jack, and there had to be a story behind that, he just didn't know what that was.
Well, probably JARVIS had done the looking up part, now that he thought of it…
"Just how long have aliens been coming to Earth?" Rogers asked harshly. Clint could tell he wanted to say something else, but was holding his tongue. He must have realised it wasn't the time to get into things too much, which the archer appreciated.
"There have always been visits from other worlds to Midgard," it was Thor who answered. "The Asgard have been coming here for millennia…hence the tales of us in your own Norse legends. We were worshipped as gods, as I know you are aware."
"Thor is correct," Ianto said. "Torchwood came into being because Queen Victoria was attacked by…well, to put not too fine a point on it, an alien werewolf. That was when she realised that there was more out there than what was taught, and decided to do something about it. We've been protecting the British Empire ever since."
"I never really have worked out why Great Britain has had more alien incursions than anywhere else in the world," Stark groused, as if he was personally insulted by that fact.
The dragon shrugged. "Just lucky, I guess."
"But they also happen outside Great Britain," Clint argued. "I met Ianto, Patrick, and Toshiko in Geneva."
"And that was fun," Patrick snorted. "I still remember what it felt like to have all the neutrons sucked out of my body. And hearing my personal dead coming back and wanting me to join them."
Clint shuddered at that. Yeah, it hadn't been fun.
Stark was obviously curious, and rambled, "I've heard rumours about weird shit at CERN…you guys were in that?"
"It's classified," Ianto replied, giving the genius a raised eyebrow.
Stark put both hands up in surrender. "Whoa, put the eyebrow away! If you don't want to tell me, I'm sure Tosh would if I asked."
"She gives into your whims far too often. I should never have let the pair of you meet."
Patrick laughed, and Clint couldn't help the smile that pulled the corners of his lips upward. Stark and Toshiko could take over the world if they were so inclined. Although, he figured that Stark would promptly give his share to Pepper Potts, and Toshiko would give it all up in a day because it would take too much of her time away from her true love, technology.
"We're five minutes out," the pilot in the Quinjet's cockpit announced. They'd originally asked Clint if he wanted to fly it, but he'd turned it down, the better to join the rest of the team in the upcoming battle.
The vague playfulness of the banter vanished under the tension that suddenly ratcheted upward. "We don't have time to land," Rogers said sharply.
Stark was opening up the case his armour was in, and it clanked and rattled as it formed over him, leaving his face clear for the time being. "I can carry two of you."
"And I one," Thor added. He'd taken Mjolnir off of his belt, hand flexing on the magical hammer's grip.
"I have my own way down," Ianto added. His ancient eyes turned to Clint. "You want a lift?"
Despite the pain he was in, Clint grinned. "You're kidding, right?" Then he frowned. "How is that going to work, exactly?"
The dragon shrugged. "I jump first. You give me a thirty count, and then follow. I'll catch you."
"Sounds awesome." It really did. Plus, he trusted Ianto when he said he'd catch him.
"Then I'll cart around Capsicle and Coulson Jr," Stark volunteered. "Sparky can take Widow."
Patrick actually looked touched by the nickname. Clint supposed he couldn't blame the younger man; he'd loved his uncle fiercely, and being compared to him would have been the ultimate compliment.
"Fine," Patrick agreed. "But if you drop me, the last thing I'm doing before hitting the ground is blasting your ass with this really nifty gun."
"That sounds fair." Stark shrugged as best he could in all that armour.
Rogers looked like he wanted to argue as Natasha called back up to the cockpit, requesting the pilot let down the ramp. But, instead he said, "Do we have any sort of update on what's going on down there?"
"The NYPD are on the scene, but they're staying well away," the agent in the pilot chair answered. "UN Security has been able to keep the attackers back, but it's only a matter of time before their position is breached. Hulk is enroute, according to Agent Sitwell."
"Let the UN know we're coming in hot," Rogers ordered. Then he turned to Ianto. "I'm sure you know your own capabilities," he commented as the ramp lowered, the wind whistling about the interior of the Quinjet, "but it would be helpful if you'd clue me into just what you can do."
Ianto's eyes were twinkling. "Watch and learn, Captain."
With those parting words, he walked calmly to the end of the ramp, and launched himself off into freefall.
Clint reminded himself not to let Jack know that his mate just dove out of a Quinjet. Jack was going to be unhappy enough without knowing that little detail.
