A/N Wow! 'Thank you' does not seem adequate enough! I was hoping, but not really expecting, this story to make it to 100 reviews and it is well past that and we're not even done yet! Thank you guys SO much! :D
All right, this one might be a bit dull in places but Tony needs to fill everyone in on the details of his escape. Don't worry, though, next chapter we will have some more action and angst.
Chapter 10
Tony slowly came back to awareness with a soft groan but didn't bother to open his eyes. He hurt, but not as much as he would have expected. The last time he had woken up, he had basically been in agony. This time, though he was in pain, it was muted and distant, more of an uncomfortable dull ache than outright pain. In addition to this, he felt an uncomfortable heat on his skin, like a really bad sunburn.
Great, so he was still in the desert. He had failed, and he and Clint were going to die under the hot desert sun. He would have thought he would be in more pain but he had heard on some movie that the pain faded when you were near the end. If that was true, then he must be pretty close. It really sucked too. If he was going to die, then let him stay unconscious through it. But no, he has to wake up just long enough to be aware of his death. This must be his punishment for teasing the other Avengers so mercilessly.
"Tony?"
He knew that voice. It was Bruce. Tony groaned again. This time out of frustration. As if it wasn't bad enough that he was dying, now he had to hallucinate too. Karma was so unfair sometimes.
"Come on, Tony. Wake up."
Tony cracked his eyes open and squinted at the blurry image in front of him. After a moment, his eyes adjusted and Bruce's face, which was about a foot from his own, came into focus.
"Do you not know the definition of personal space?" Tony croaked out.
Bruce backed away just a bit.
"How long?" Tony asked.
"Since you were taken? Almost nine hours," Bruce answered.
"Nine hours? He only had us for nine hours?" Tony rasped.
"No, he only had you for six. Then you were in the desert for two hours and since then, you've been unconscious here for almost an hour."
Six hours, Tony thought. It felt like so much longer.
"How are you feeling?" Bruce asked, breaking into his thoughts.
"Hot," Tony said.
"Now is not the time for jokes, Tony," Bruce said, rolling his eyes.
"Not joking," Tony rasped, "Feel hot."
"Oh, sorry. That's probably your burns," Bruce said.
Tony opened his mouth to say something along the lines of, 'what burns,' but what actually came out was, "Thirsty."
Bruce reached over to the bedside table, grabbed a cup of water, and helped Tony drink it.
"Better?"
"Yeah," Tony answered. "How's Feathers?"
"I'm fine, Tony," Clint said.
Bruce moved so Tony could see Clint laying in a bed to the left of his own.
"Oh, yeah, now you wake up, after all the hard work is over," Tony said teasingly.
Tony knew he had said something wrong when Clint's face hardened a bit. Before either of them could say anything else, though, Natasha changed the subject.
"Tony, what happened? How did you escape?"
"By using their own stupidity against them," Tony said with a smug smirk. "They put us in a room with a door that was bolted from the outside and had no handle on the inside."
"Then how did you get out?" Steve interrupted.
"They left the hinges on the inside," Tony said, grinning.
"You unscrewed them," Clint said in understanding.
"Got it in one."
"But how did you unscrew them?" Bruce asked.
"Once again I took advantage of our captor's stupidity. They overlooked one of Bird Brain's letter openers," Tony said.
"You used used one of my knives to unscrew the hinges," Clint said, following along.
"The one from your boot, along with a lock picking set I found in your vest. Oh, and sorry but I kind of lost both of them somewhere," Tony said.
"No problem, I can get more knives and picks."
"Tony, focus. What happened after that?" Phil asked, bringing Tony back to the topic at hand.
"Oh uh, I got the hinges undone and took care of the guard outside our cell."
No one had to ask what he meant by 'took care of.'
"Was it one of the individuals who tortured you?" Thor asked, immediately knowing that was the wrong thing to say when the rest of the team each sent him a death glare.
Tony's smirk had disappeared and it was as if a door had slammed on his emotions. The only expression of any kind on his face was a reserved and closed off look that clearly said 'how do you know about that.'
"They sent us some videos," Phil said by way of explanation.
Tony remained silent, teeth gritted together, for several long minutes before speaking again in a carefully neutral tone.
"No, it wasn't either of the Tweedle Twins."
"Huh?" Bruce asked in confusion.
"That's what I called the two lackeys. Up until the escape they were the only two I saw besides their boss," Tony answered.
"Hassan," Natasha filled in.
"So that was his real name," Tony mused.
"Yes, he was-"
"Raza's brother. I know. He told me that much," Tony replied. "How'd you find out?"
"Voice recognition," Phil answered.
"Hmm. Not bad," Tony praised, starting to relax as the conversation veered away from his torture. "Not bad at all."
"So you took care of the guard…" Steve prompted.
"Yeah and I hid him in our cell. Then I grabbed Legolas and got out of there. I had the guard's gun and I went through the halls looking for an exit and taking guys out as I went. At one point, I had to duck into a room to avoid some guards and lucky me, it just happened to be the room where Poultry Boy's quiver was." Tony looked over at Clint with a teasing glint in his eye. "I knew you would never forgive me if I left your precious quiver behind so I grabbed it and kept going." He looked back at the others, his expression turning serious again. "It ended up being a good idea because I was getting pretty close to the exit when I found a room full of weapons. I took two of Tweety's exploding arrows and set them on a delay. Then I hightailed it out of there. I made it a few hundred yards when the place went up. After that I took off walking," Tony finished.
"So what happened to my boots?" Clint asked.
"When the bunker blew up, a chunk of burning wood landed on your legs and set your boots on fire. I had to pull them off so you didn't get burned. So, they were kind of destroyed," Tony replied.
"Is that how you burned your hands?" Steve asked.
Tony looked down at his bandaged hands.
"Huh. I forgot about that," Tony mumbled.
If it was possible, Clint felt even more guilty.
"By the way, how did you guys find us?" Tony asked.
"You don't remember?" Phil asked.
"Remember what?"
"Us finding you," Phil answered. "You were walking out in the desert, dragging Clint, when I showed up."
"That was real?" Tony asked.
"Yes, that was real," Phil answered.
"I thought I was hallucinating."
"Is that why you tried to walk through me?" Phil asked.
"Well I didn't really feel like walking around something that wasn't really there," Tony said with a shrug. "Hey shouldn't Pepper be here?" He asked, suddenly noticing who was missing.
"She's meeting us in New York," Steve said.
"We weren't able to contact her until a couple of hours ago. She was on the west coast and had been in meetings constantly. Then her phone went dead and she forgot to charge it," Phil added.
Tony opened his mouth to say something but instead, let out a big yawn as his eyes started to droop.
"Hey, don't go to sleep yet," Bruce said. "Let me get your doctor first."
"You are my doctor," Tony mumbled.
"Not that kind of doctor," Bruce said with a smile and patted Tony on the shoulder before going in search of Tony's doctor. But by the time he got back, Tony was out.
"Go ahead and let him sleep," the doctor said. "He needs it. And if I remember correctly, he's not the only one." He looked pointedly at the rest of the team.
"You four have hardly left these two," he motioned to Tony and Clint, "since they first came on board."
"He's right. You guys go get some sleep," Phil all but ordered and the others were just tired enough to obey.
They said goodbye to an already drowsy Clint and left the room to get some sleep themselves while Phil left to update Fury.
Let me know what you think! :)
Next chapter we get get back to the fun stuff, like some action and maybe just a little bit more of the whump category. That's all I'm going to say. :P