Author's Notes: A brief explanation about the title of this story so that there's no confusion. In the movie, Zemo referred to the Avengers as an empire—talked about toppling it. "An empire attacked from outside enemies will rise again, but if it crumbles from within, it will die." With that thought in mind, plus Peter Parker's reference to "that old movie" (ha!), "The Empire Strikes Back" seemed like an appropriate title for a story about the Avengers reuniting and fighting back. In the "Star Wars" saga the Empire are the bad guys, but that's the opposite case here. Don't strain yourself trying to make parallels between the two franchises. Sure, you could say that Ross' betrayal of Tony is like Lando and Han, but that's probably as far as the comparisons will go *wink*.
Enjoy this one! I cranked the drama up to 10! And don't forget to review!
The Empire Strikes Back
PenPatronus
Chapter 9
Casualties
"The first casualty of war is truth."
-Hiram Johnson
Bucky Barnes was dreaming.
He and Steve were in a bar in Brooklyn, celebrating the end of the war with Peggy Carter, Howard Stark, and the Howling Commandos. They clinked their glasses together, sang songs, and toasted the brave men and women that defeated HYDRA. There was never a fall from a train, never a metal arm, the Winter Soldier, or his own hand pointing a gun at innocent people…There was just a smile on his best friend's face.
The dream retreated. Cold replaced it. Liquid like lava burst through his brain and his eyelids flew up. The cryo chamber's glass door opened and revealed King T'Challa standing in the Wakanda lab with his arms crossed against his chest. Bucky lifted his head and looked around for Steve. He wasn't there. The soldier recognized a bad sign when he saw one…
"What happened?" Bucky croaked.
T'Challa wore his Black Panther suit. "Your friends are in trouble. I should have gone with them…And I know that you do not trust your own mind, that you only have one arm, but—"
Bucky leapt out of the chamber like a jack from a box. He held his hand out as if reaching for a gun. One arm wouldn't stop Captain America. "Let's go."
A tranquilizer dart plunged into Hawkeye's vest. Barton ripped it out before it could break the skin, and sent it flying into one of the HYDRA agents' thighs. Beside him, Natasha took two darts in the stomach. She managed to finish knocking a thug unconscious before the drugs caught up with her, and she collapsed.
"Scott," Clint bellowed as he drew back his bow to unleash three arrows into the approaching soldiers, "shrink her!"
Lang took out a red particle disk and tossed it at Natasha. She shrunk to the size of an ant, and Barton stood protectively in front of her. "Not that I'm complaining," Scott said, "but why aren't the bad guys firing bullets?"
Six more soldiers entered the hallway. "Hide!" Clint ordered. "Scott, take her and hide, now!"
"Not thrilled about this plan!" Lang called before he minimized. Barton swung his bow as the group got closer, then dropped it to switch to hand-to-hand combat. His knife took two more down before he was overtaken. Clint ended up under eight pairs of fists pummeling every inch of him. One man dove over the top of the dogpile and stabbed a dart into Clint's arm.
Sizzling warmth electrocuted Clint's body. He shuddered, fighting it. All four limbs went limp and numb. Vaguely, as if through a wall, he heard voices shouting, and then rough hands started dragging his body. He scrambled to get his feet under him. Fingers clawed. His lungs felt like a pair of bricks in his chest. Around him the red lights switched back to their normal glow, and the piercing alarms went silent.
Clint heard a familiar voice shouting, grunting. "Cap—" he whispered before he passed out.
Time passed. He wasn't sure how much. Hawkeye woke up beside a piano. Not a real piano, he realized. A gray, fake model next to an equally artificial couch. Clint wiggled his hands under his torso and did half a push up. Although it was like looking through water, he spied Steve on his left, lying unconscious on his side. The man in front of him lay on his back—fingers and toes twitching, dried and fresh blood on his skin, more bruises than Clint could count. "Stark," he croaked. "TONY!"
Crawling to Stark's side felt like swimming through quicksand. Clint had to stop twice to catch his breath. He sat up on one elbow, legs curled underneath him, and leaned over Stark's body. Someone had taped a pair of blinking glasses to Iron Man's face. It took several tries but, eventually, Clint managed to pry them off.
The vacant, tortured look on Stark's face reminded Barton of Natasha's after Wanda Maximoff zapped her mind back to the Red Room. Tony's eyes were open, but not seeing anything. Clint waved his palm back and forth but the pupils didn't even dilate. "Dammit," Clint gasped. Sweat trickled down his face and he rubbed it away with shaking hands. "Dammit, Stark, wake up! Tony! Tony, look at me!" Clint tried a harsher tone. "Snap out of it, Stark!" He reared back to slap his hand across his cheeks, but didn't want to add to the bruises there.
Suddenly, Steve moaned. Clint called his name, but it took Cap another five minutes to completely wake up. When his eyes focused they broadened wider than half-dollar coins at the sight of Stark. "No, Tony," he hiccupped. He ripped off his cowl, crawled to Stark's opposite side, and shook his friend's shoulders. "Tony?" Steve pried off the top half of his uniform, everything but a gray t-shirt, and rolled it up into a pillow under Stark's head. Then, both he and Clint peeled off their gloves and pressed the fabric against the biggest bleeders. Tony flinched at the pressure. His bottom lip trembled for a moment, but the rest of him remained still.
"Tony, Pepper's alive," Clint said. He leaned over his friend's face and tried to catch his eye. "The woman you saw was just disguised as her. It wasn't real—it wasn't Pepper." Clint's frown deepened as he waited for some reaction. "Stark, do you hear me? Pepper's alive. PEPPER'S ALIVE!"
Tony's nose suddenly wrinkled like he caught a whiff of something rotten. He squinted, and his breathing sped up. Brown eyes blinked. "Sorry," he whispered. "So sorry…"
Clint perked up. "Tony?" He took Stark's hand and squeezed. "Tony, you with us?"
Tony's eyes focused on his—just for a moment. "I killed Steve," he whispered. "I'm sorry…"
"No, you didn't. Cap. Cap, he needs to hear your voice." Clint grabbed Steve's hands and shoved Tony's between them. "Talk to him!"
Steve swallowed the nothing in his throat. "Tony? It's me. It's Steve. I'm alive. And I'm right here. I'm with you."
Tony's eyes focused, and finally stayed that way. "No, I killed you," he gulped. "And Clint…Clint hates me. I burned that bridge…"
Clint rubbed a trembling hand across Tony's forehead, down his cheek, and through his hair. "I came for you," he said, voice angrier than he intended. "I saw, Tony. I know what you did for me and my family. And even if I hadn't…We're a team, Tony. I'll—I'll always come for you."
"You're just a hologram," Tony whispered, eyes on Clint. "And you're just a ghost," he told Steve. Stark's throat worked. His Adam's Apple bounced up and down. "I killed you, I killed you…"
"He's stuck in a memory," a voice announced from behind them. Steve and Clint turned to see Ross watching the entire scene. "Neutral-electric interfacing allowed me to insert an image of his own hands killing Captain America, and force him to watch it over and over again." Ross lit a cigar and spoke with it poking out of the corner of his mouth. "I set the scene using his memory of that silo in Siberia. Melded real life and fiction—fiction is always more believable with a dash of reality, don't you think?"
Steve kept his hands on Tony's. "You wanted us to come here. You baited us with those video clips of Stark. You didn't even try to disguise the video's origin. This whole thing was a trap."
"You're alive right now only because I want you to be," Ross confirmed. "And if you behave, they might stay alive for just a little while longer." Ross nodded at the back wall. Clint and Steve shared a look of dread before they turned.
Wanda and Sam, in various states of semi-consciousness from the tranquilizers, hung from the ceiling by their wrists. Steve's shield and Clint's bow and arrows lay scattered with Falcon's wings beneath them.
"Here's what happened. Or, rather, here's what the press will think happened." Ross approached the stage and sent a ring of cigar smoke across Steve's face. "In the morning the local police will respond to an anonymous tip. When they storm this place they'll find your dead bodies perfectly arranged to make it look like you all killed each other. Zemo couldn't get you to murder each other, but I'll do the next best thing. So…" Ross sneered, "any last words?"
To Be Continued
