I was a nervous wreck.

I don't use those words lightly, either – I was jumpy, my sleeping patterns were worse than usual, and 75% of my brain was constantly looking for something I might have missed, something I didn't see the first time.

The reason behind all this anxiety? It had been two days since the first Iron Legion press conference, and we had not heard a single word from the Avengers. Not one text, no press releases, no activity whatsoever.

And everything says they should have responded by now – so why hadn't they?

This felt like that calm before a category 5 hurricane, and I was so on edge it wasn't even funny.

"Anything yet?" Darcy asks from behind me.

"Nope." I sigh and spin my chair around so that my back is to the monitor I had been staring at. "Nothing. It's unnerving."

"Why don't you work on the suit?" Darcy suggests.

"It's in the fabricating process and the only thing I can do there is wait," I groan. "Darcy, I'm bored."

"Go…" she makes a vague hand motion. "Make something. Hey, I need to borrow a tablet."

I hand her one of the nearby StarkPads. "And for the record, I do not make things. I create things. I am a creator."

"With a god complex to boot," Darcy observes, tapping a few things on the tablet.

"What are you even doing on there?" I lean over to try and look at the screen. "I don't have any game on there."

"I know. I'm sending an email."

"As long as it's untraceable…" I shrug. "Can I ask for what?"

"Retribution," she offers. "Revenge, justice, reprisal, vindication…"

"I get it." I cut her off. "And I'm not going to ask, the people you hang out with are scary."

She looks up at me, confused. "I hang out with you."

"Exactly." I grin mysteriously and turn back to the monito I was at earlier, opening up a diagram of the Avengers' jet to study it for weaknesses.

Silence settles over my lab, a silence that is pierced about ten minutes later by the intercom buzzing. "Beta, Darcy, need you for a meeting in the war room in five." Dad – or Iron Man, since he's using codenames – orders.

I'm immediately on my feet, shutting down various computers.

"He's serious?" Darcy asks, half-question half-statement, as she follows me to the elevator.

I nod and punch the button for the second floor. "Something wicked this way comes."

She simply nods at that and we fall silent again, each lost in our own heads, until we enter Conference Room Two.

"Take a seat," Dad says by way of greeting, lacking the usual preamble. I rush to my seat next to him and wait for him to begin.

"It's been precisely 49 hours since that press conference," he tells us. "Please tell me someone had found something."

Nobody says anything.

"Taylor?" he tries.

I shake my head. "Nothing new, just studying their jet specs."

"Rhodey?" Dad asks again, beginning to grow desperate.

"Nothing, sorry Tony."

"Bruce? Please?"

Bruce doesn't say anything, and that's answer enough.

My dad sighs. "Darcy…?"

"Sorry." is all she says.

My dad scrubs a hand across his face, sinking into his chair wearily. "So we're stuck."

"Pretty much," I admit, giving it to him straight – just like he wanted.

"There has to be something!" he insists. "I am the smartest person alive-"

"And I'm second," I interrupt. "Bruce is third. They know that."

"They've got to be playing us," he grumbles, getting up to go over to the window.

I watch his hands tighten around the windowsill before turning back to the other three. "Darcy, dismissed." I order, pouring authority into my voice. "War Machine, you too. Go back to monitoring air and land space alerts. Banner, go, but be prepared to be called back."

They all hesitate for a bit before Bruce stands and dips his head at me. "Understood, Iron Beta. Come on, Darcy."

I wait for them all to leave before I turn back to my dad; who, in my absence, has poured himself a glass of scotch.

(It's sad that I can tell that, five feet away, purely off smell.)

I frown. "Thought you kicked that habit."

"Desperate times, desperate measures."

I shrug and plop into my chair, propping my chin on my hands. "Just don't get too drunk, I can't lead these people."

"You'd do a better job than I am," he sighs. "You might have found something by now."

"The absence of any and all new info has nothing to do with the way you lead this team." I insist. "Nothing, nada, zilch, zero, nichego, rien, gar nichts, niente-"

"I get it." he sighs. "What was that last one?"

"Italian. Before that was German."

He glances at me. "I didn't know you knew German."

"I know enough." I shrug. "I'm not fluent though, I-"

I'm cut off by the door banging open – and I don't even know how it can do that, being automatically pressurized – and Rhodey rushing into the room. "Guys, we have a problem!"

I'm on my feet in a split second, as is my dad, who suddenly looks very sober. "What is it?" I demand.

He pulls up the air traffic monitoring system. "There's a blip – see, there? – but it's all blurry. It's a big plane, too."

"Do you think they hacked the system?" Dad wonders aloud, drink long forgotten.

I press my lips into a thin white line. "Not possible, we're the only hackers."

"But what if…?"

I worry my lip between my teeth for a moment before approaching Rhodey. "Let me see."

He willingly moves out of the way as I roll my chair over. I'm quickly to the root of the program, frowning as I browse through the lines of perfect code. "It's not the program," I announce. "Any interference is not on our end."

I can feel my father's body heat as he looks at the screen over my shoulder. "Cloaking device?"

"Maybe…" I muse. "Mirrors are also a possibility – we can see the ship, but we can't see the ship, if that makes sense."

"Does the Avengers jet have a cloaking device?" Rhodey asks.

I think back to the specs that I was looking at earlier this morning. "Yes," I confirm tersely after a moment, "yes."

The tension in the room skyrockets.

"Head count!" Dad barks. "Iron Beta, War Machine, Darcy…where is Bruce?"

I glance around the room, not seeing the usually-human green rage monster. I shiver slightly as I glance around the room, meeting four gazes of fear that were probably identical to mine.

My dad utters some colorful words before resuming to give orders. "Split up and find him! I'll search the labs, Darcy, do the ground floor, Beta, you take the roof, and Rhodey, you check this floor. Take your weapons."

I nod and sprint out of the room, first to my room to grab my bow and quiver since Beta IV wasn't quite finished, then back up to the roof.

Thankfully the weather of Rhode Island had decided to cooperate today, which meant that not only was it a pleasant seventy degrees outside, it was sunny and I could see the entire compound from my point on the west wing of the roof.

And there's no sign of Bruce anywhere. However…there was a weird feeling going on maybe fifteen feet in front of me. I couldn't see anything, but I was mentally cursing myself for not having my Sparrow gear, because the sunglasses could pick up heat signatures if I wanted, and I'd bet my quiver that I was looking at a really freaking huge heat signature right now.

I notch an explosive arrow and take steady aim at a target I can't even see, releasing it and praying for the best.

And it turns out that my aim is still awesome, because there's an explosion, the sound of shattering glass, and suddenly there's a jet.

I smirk and waste no time in drawing another arrow, this one a slow-burn one, and aiming again as the Avengers' jet takes off.

I pause. The Avengers' jet was here. One, how did they even find us? Two, why were they here? And three, why were they in such a hurry to leave? I mean, other than the fact that I was shooting at them, of course.

And, to add to the questions, where the fricking hell was Bruce-

Wait.

Bruce was missing. The Avengers were suddenly here. They had arrived almost under our radar. And now they were rushing away.

I had a feeling I was dealing with two 2's here, and guess what, I just got 4.

I swear under my breath and fire the arrow, watching as it slowly burns a hole through the jet's roof, before turning and tearing back inside.

Four sets of eyes snap to me as I re-enter the building, four gazes looking equally desperate.

"So?" Dad questions. "Did you find him?"

"No," I admit, "but I found the Avengers' jet, and they left in a hurry."

My dad turns and kicks the nearest wall. "You know what this means. The Avengers found us-"

"And they've got Bruce, damn it."