Tony threw himself into the air more on instinct than anything else. His thrusters sent him flying upwards, out of the path of the enraged Tevanni but he was a little too slow; one of the massive fists collided with one of his legs, knocking out the thruster there. He floundered for a moment before regaining is balance and hovering in the air well out of arms reach of the beast that had whirled to look at him with a glare.
"Tony? What's going on?" Natasha's voice was firm and it cut through whatever thoughts darted around the billionaire's head.
"I have no idea. I might need some help though," he was aware that he sounded a little breathless as the adrenaline began to flood his blood stream.
"What have you done now?" Fury demanded, irritated.
"I didn't do anything!" He retorted, a little bit offended. "The thing just charged at me. No provocation or anything." The beast in question hadn't moved, just continued to stare at him with what looked like hatred – to Tony at least.
"Are you alright?" Bruce that time, forever the worrier.
"It took out a thruster but I'm ok. It won't stop staring at me though." Just as he finished speaking the huge creature opened his maw and roared at him, a sound so deep and booming that Tony felt his bones shaking apart. On instinct he tried to bring his hands up to cover his ears before he realised that he was in his suit and the movement would be fruitless – the action upset his balance enough that he wobbled dangerously in the air, flailing to restore the equilibrium.
For a moment there was complete silence, when the world just blinked in shock and then Tasha was screaming into her comm. again.
"Tony, behind you!" He spun automatically at the warning in time to see a huge shadow falling through the air directly at him. There was no time to act as the hulking mass of the alien crashed into him, knocking him cleanly out of the sky and slamming him into the unforgiving sidewalk. The chest plate of his suit had bent inwards under the force of the blow but he could still breathe – he was counting that as a win.
"Shit, where the hell are you guys?" He yelled into his comm. link as he hurriedly tried to pull himself from the crater he had created and away from the Tevanni that had landed beside him. This one was far smaller than the one he had talked to – who, he decided, must be the leader – but it was still huge, with muscles that looked strong enough to tear him limb from limb. The most alarming detail however was the long thin piece of metal that resembled a sword grasped in one of its claw-like hands.
In response to his question the automatic machine gun mounted on the front of the quinjet activated and the air was filled with the thunderous noise of bullets. Tony took the beast's momentary distraction to pick himself up and haul ass out of there, narrowly avoiding fire himself and rocketing up into the air.
From his new vantage point he could see the rest of the Tevanni crowding together near the leader, moving like an organised unit; it looked almost military.
"Ok, does anyone have any clue as to what is going on?" He snapped into the comms, thanking any deities out there that he voice wasn't trembling as much as he was. That was something that he would never live down.
"Yeah, you pissed them off," Clint observed sardonically, sounding as though he wasn't really concentrating on the conversation; focusing on the controls of the jet Tony assumed.
"But I didn't do anything!"
"You're you Tony. Your very presence has aggravated me in the past," Natasha replied, sounding pissy. The billionaire flinched.
"I don't really think we can put this on Tony guys," Bruce argued back. Any further conversation was cut off by Fury as he practically growled at them.
"Heads in the game, team!" He ordered. "Agent Hill is working on a weapon to fight these guys with. We have a plan, but it's all or nothing." As he spoke, Tony was forced to dart higher into the air as one of the enraged creatures hurled a motorcycle at him that had been discarded in the middle of the street. He grimaced behind the face mask, idly noting that the machine gun had fallen silent and the quinjet was hovering beside him. The Tevanni were all glaring up at them with their tiny, dark eyes – it was like a scene from a zombie film.
"Care to fill us in?"
"Our engines contain acid, like car batteries. But far larger."
"And you can weaponize it but in doing so you compromise your precious ship," Stark guessed, his voice filled with a little more bitterness than he had intended.
"We could stay in the air but our systems would be shot," Fury admitted after a long moment. Somewhere, one of the team cursed softly.
Another piece of unidentifiable rubble flew out of nowhere and Stark was forced into action again, moving away from the less maneuverable quinjet to draw fire towards him instead. Flying with only three of his four thrusters was not a good plan and he was struggling to maintain his balance; fighting would be almost impossible from the air.
"We don't have another choice," Natasha was saying, sounding grave. "We can't fight these things."
"Then clear out of the way," came the order and Clint immediately fired up the quinjet. Tony was about to follow suit when a group of the Tevanni broke off from the main group with wild shouts in a language Tony didn't speak and began heading after the jet.
"Damn. If we go, the pack will break up; you'll never hit them all," he observed breathlessly, half a plan already forming in his mind.
"Tony, whatever you want to do, no," Bruce hissed at him. He was ignored.
"My suit is faster than the jet. I can catch up in a minute; I'll just keep them distracted until Fury can fire." He was already looping around in the air, drawing the individuals that had taken off after the others back into the main crowd.
"Of all the stupid plans Stark, this has got to be number one," Natasha growled at him.
"I don't know, flying through a portal with a nuclear missile wasn't exactly genius," he admitted, trying to cover the way he was breathing heavily, the missing thruster making movements in his suit heavy and laboured. Still, it seemed to be working – none of the Tevanni had left – but they were getting riled. More and more pieces of debris were being hurled in his direction and he swore loudly as what looked like a chunk of concrete crashed into his side, throwing him sideways like a rag doll.
"Stark! I'm turning the jet around," Clint announced suddenly.
"No! Trust me on this one; I'll be able to clear out in time." Stark sounded earnest and the rest of the team found themselves conceding. The suit was fast and though the quinjets were hardly slow, the billionaire could quite easily fly laps around them even when they were at full speed – he'd done it on more than one occasion, just to prove a point.
"The helicarrier is in position. We need another minute at most," Fury informed them calmly.
Tony's heart was thumping heavily in his chest and his lungs burned from the exertion. The bent in chest piece was really starting to bother him; it made movements more awkward and he was fairly sure that at least one internal system was compromised, though going by the flickering HUD it was probably at least three or four.
'How do I keep getting into these situations?' He asked himself with sardonic humour just as he threw himself out the path of yet another projectile. The leader of the Tevanni was shouting something in the same language the other creatures had and though Tony couldn't understand the words, it sounded a lot like orders of some kind; for reasons he couldn't quite fathom, it made chills run down his spine.
"Where are you Fury?" He yelled as he narrowly avoided one of the Tevanni's makeshift weapons when he made the mistake of flying too close. There was a beat of silence, then:
"We're ready. Get out of the way!"
He didn't have to be told twice and he twisted around in mid air, shooting off as fast as his incomplete thrusters could take him. He could hear the noise of the helicarrier's engines and then the air was filled with the horrible, bone shattering screams of the Tevanni. The howling tore through Tony like a thousand knives had penetrated his suit and the billionaire almost tumbled from the sky as he cringed against the onslaught; very distantly he realised that he was shouting, though he hadn't the faintest idea what words fell from his lips.
'Keep going Tony, you stop now and you're dead,' his self preservation ordered, finally kicking in and instructing him through the movements. Level the thrusters. Lean forwards. Calculate speed and trajectory, factor in gravitational pull. Keep moving.
It took him a second to realise that he could hear rain over the sounds of the agonised creatures behind him – that unmistakable sound of liquid pinging off metal.
'Oh,' he realised suddenly, feeling a little dazed. 'It's acid. There's acid hitting my suit.' Now he concentrated, there was the sound of fizzing as the gold-titanium alloy burned away, revealing vulnerable circuits and wires that sparked angrily, burning his skin. He hissed, pushing himself faster; he had to clear the area before his suit gave out on him.
"Clint, you might have to swing by and pick me up," he warned but all he could hear in response was static.
'Damn it.' He cursed just as one of his hand repulsors spluttered and went out; his path swerved alarmingly before he was able to compensate. He had to land. If he didn't it was likely that he would be meeting concrete face first at an alarming speed - that was never fun, he knew from past experience but with a compromised suit it could very well be fatal. He couldn't tell if he was clear or not but he dropped to the ground anyway, stooping into a random building for some protection just in case.
From what he could tell most of his systems were entirely shot, including communications. He cursed fluently under his breath as he yanked off his helmet and dropped it onto a table beside him, glancing around for the first time to find himself in a deserted office. He tried one of the phones but the line was dead – the acid had probably destroyed the power lines.
The billionaire was just considering what else could possibly go wrong when he heard the very distinctive sound of a Tevanni roar. Right outside. Barely ten metres away.
'Well damn.'
..
I really really really don't like this chapter. Like, it's terrible. But I wasn't going to make you wait any longer, especially as you've all been so patient. Basically, I hit some major writers block. If you want a full description of why this took so damn long there is a complete explanation in the new chapter of my fic Taken (which might not be out for a little while :/ ) That's completely not a shameless plug for you to go read it... Either way, my apologies for the long wait.
After this, there is actual storyline for once. Yay! I have a couple of things mapped out – the Tevanni bore unexpected fruit, to steal the words of Raza (sort of).