A/N: Another huge chapter! Should I split them up, you think? Alas, I am running into some plotholes! Let me know if there are any that particularly bother you, although I get it's kind of hard to tell where they are before I give you the end of the story. We have only a few chapters left! The end is going to be epic!

No Clint in this chapter *groans* but have some Brutasha and Spiderman (:

I have a tumblr! Follow me for tons of Hawkeye madness! robinhoodofourgeneration dot tumblr dot com

Chapter 13

Peter wasn't surprised the Avengers were up to something again. He didn't really want to get involved, not necessarily. Except—Stark Tower going up in flames? That was a little unusual, even for them.

Something must be terribly wrong, and if something was wrong with the rest of the world's superheroes, it was up to the lower-level heroes to save the day.

He swung low along buildings next to the one he had his eye on. He had no doubt Stark's alarm systems were the best on the planet. Sirens just down the street told him that help was already on its way, but this fire was much bigger than any the NYFD could handle on their own.

Easily, he swung through the chilled night air, up over the top of where the flames were reaching. Slick glass rubbed beneath his fingertips, warm from the fire that was roaring barely a story below. It was fast rising, threatening to engulf the entire building. None structure would survive this.

He squinted down at the pavement. Pepper Potts was waiting below, the famous CEO. She was surrounded by several dozen others he didn't recognize. It couldn't be everyone who had been inside, even at this time of night.

He peeked through the window, not seeing anybody, and headed jump by jump to the very top of the Tower. This was the easiest place to get in—or so he figured. The sliding glass door that led out onto the roof balcony was locked tight and there were no other windows. A security camera followed Peter's movements as he ran around and, without warning, a siren started going off wildly.

"Oh, great," Peter rolled his eyes. "It goes off for me, the cavalry, but not for the flesh-consuming fire right underneath of us. Come on, buddy, just let me in. I'm trying to help!"

H turned only to find himself face-to-face with a security robot, the same size and shape as a full sized human. "You are under arrest, imposter," it repeated in a thin, metallic voice.

"Um, before you do that, you might want to look down," Peter pointed, before swinging a fist to the distracted robot's head. It roped to the pavement. Peter peered over the edge, only to find the fire was spreading much more quickly than he'd expected. Already, it was reaching toward the third floor, and accelerating even faster toward the fourth, fifth, and sixth.

He rolled over only to find that a second security robot had replaced the first. It replied to his unvoiced concern by thrusting a gun into his face, detaching a pair of handcuffs from a hook on its side.

"Whoah!" Peter's hands shot up. "Okay. All right. Robocop. Don't kill me. I know your vocab is limited, but please tell me 'fire hazard' is in there somewhere?"

It reached toward his wrists to snap on the first one. Peter flung a clump of webbing toward the barrel of the robot's gun, kicking it over.

"Emergency! Emergency!" it began screaming as it writhed on the floor.

"Yeah, take that, tinhead," Peter grumbled, getting to his feet. Suddenly he was surrounded by at least ten other security robots. He froze. "Oh, come on! HOW?!"

Flames began picking up over the side of the building and he yelped. What kind of fire was that fast? He turned back to the robots, realizing, not for the first time in his young and eventful life, that his attempting to save some people was going to get HIM killed faster than anything.

He had a choice—brave the fire, or brave the guns.

He leaped over the edge, just as three robots launched themselves at him and caught him around the wrist. Peter gasped. He shot his webs to the opposite building, but it was too late. He was falling in the other direction. Frantically, he shot more in that direction. He swerved around to clock one of the robots in the head, then shot again, but—

He'd shot in the wrong direction.

He was heading straight into the flames.

Peter screamed as the web pulled tight and he crashed into the glass paned window that should have been molten hot, rolling head over heels into the tower, into the flaming—

Wait. Where did the fire go?

"That's Spiderman!" Bruce Banner's voice came from the corner of the room, sounding aghast.

"Who?" a female voice grumbled in reply.

Peter sat up slowly, blinking. There was no fire inside the building, none at all. In fact, through the hole he'd made in the window, the flames continued to lick their way up the building but with no heat radiating toward the inside. The tile floor beneath him was ice cool.

Peter slipped on it and fell on his butt, totally in shock.

Then Tony Stark himself came running straight toward him. Peter's eyes went wide. "What's going on over here!" the billionaire exclaimed, folding his arms as he stood over the teen. "Look at this mess. What are you, some kind of alien love child? Or are those your underwear?"

Peter bewilderedly looked over at the security robot, who was still attached to his now-sore wrist. "Darn good handcuffs," he shrugged.

Behind Stark, Dr. Banner came striding up, followed by a couple of young guys, a giant pillow-balloon thing with eyes, and the source of the female voice he'd heard earlier.

Peter's mouth nearly dropped open.

She was—

She was—

All of a sudden his suit felt very uncomfortably tight and hot. He licked his lips nervously and looked back up at Mr. Stark, tearing his eyes away from the beautiful chick with the short black hair.

"He's—um, that guy from TV last night," Bruce supplied helpfully.

A few seconds later, Stark's face suddenly exploded in recognition. "Oh, you're THAT guy! Spider—monkey or whatever."

"Spiderman," Peter groaned, holding out his arms. "It's not that hard to tell I'm not a monkey. Just saying."

Look, kid," Tony winced, "we're kind of in the middle of a top-secret operation here, so if you could just—you know—skeddaddle before my girlfriend and ex-spy assistant get up here and decide to strap you to a chair, or stick you in a closet, that would be great."

"O—okay," Peter started, holding up a finger. He'd just gotten in here, the whole Tower was on FIRE and he was desperate to find out how they'd done it, plus he'd just seen a really hot girl he had no idea how to hook up with if he left. "First, I'm not a kid, I'm in college and at the top of my bioengineering program, thanks. Second, you've already got three other 'kids' in here, so why don't you at least tell me how you did the living hologram?" he pleaded.

Stark seemed almost pleased. "Why would that not be a good idea?" he turned to Bruce.

"Ah—huhm, because he—he might be a spy from Cap's people," Bruce supplied.

"Right." Stark pointed at him. "You, Peter Parker, are more than likely a spy, so why would we even let you look around in here? Don't you have places to go? People to—I dunno, snap photos of or something?"

Peter's mouth dropped again. "You know my secret identity?" he spluttered. "How?!"

Tony rolled his eyes. "SHIELD. Can't say anymore or I'll have to kill you."

He folded his arms across his chest. "It's the middle of the night. What else AM I going to do with my life besides stay here and hang out? Sleep?"

Tony chewed on his bottom lip for a moment. "I like this kid," he said at last, turning back to Bruce.

"Here you go again" Bruce muttered, pretending to work. "If you get arrested by child labor union, I'm not going to back you up."

Peter threw his hands up in the air. "I am twenty! You guys gotta be kidding me!"

"Then take your mask off and let us see," Bruce hid a smile.

Tony pointed again. "What he said," he demanded.

Peter had a feeling they knew each other so well they were like each other's personal communication service. One said something that didn't make any sense, the other took on the job of explaining.

He took a few steps back, mumbling about secret identities, but that chick was still watching him, VERY intensely, and he soon yielded. He pulled the hood back from his face, revealing his chiseled features to the group.

They sat in awed silence for a moment before Tony interrupted. "Oh! Your Majesty, I had no idea it was you in those spandex," he mock-bowed toward Peter. "Now, what do you want with my tech, now that you've established you're only around as a lonesome do-gooder."

Peter raised his eyebrows and held up his trapped wrist. "A handcuff-remover might be really helpful about now."

"Jarvis, Friday; release him kids," Tony waved his hand nonchalantly.

"Certainly, Sir."

No way," Peter started. Sure enough, the handcuffs clicked open. He grinned. "Sweet. What about that holoprojector? How'd you do it? Must take, what, eighty thousand megajoules at least? How do you power it?"

As if on cue, all the lights went out in the room and the group was plunged into blackness.

Tony started swearing, running over to his main computers. They were all down except for the big one that he'd routed to control the holograms outside.

The fire was still 'burning', but nothing else was.

"The charge from the projectors must have shorted everything else out," Bruce's voice came from the corner.

"That's just awesome. Kids? Any ideas? Looks like we're clear drained of power."

"It seems a breaker has exploded in your basement," Friday's mellow voice came over the intercom.

"I will be happy to provide a beacon of visibility," Baymax added, as he began to glow with a soft, orange light that filled the room like a large flashlight.

"I can see why Bruce liked you enough to put you in expo," Tony smacked the glowing robot affectionately in its round belly.

"That's Baymax for you," the taller kid spoke up with a smile, running a hand through his dreadlocks.

"Jarvis, what else is down?"

"Your security systems have also powered down completely, Sir," the A.I. responded.

"The entire tower is now completely vulnerable to attack," Friday added.

"I suggest you take refuge," Baymax put in. "The hologram outside only guarantees a 43% chance of safety for this building's occupants."

"Bu without Mr. Stark's Iron Legion technology, the battle against the occupants of Poggioreale will be stayed temporarily, perhaps permanently," Friday continued.

"This may allow enemies of the Excelsior disk technology to escape their refuge in Italy and come here with the intention to steal it," continued Baymax.

The three A.I.'s continued chattering in the background as Tony looked exasperatedly at Bruce, who simply grinned and shrugged. "You're the one who came up with artificial intelligence basically running the lab," he laughed. "You tell 'em to be quiet."

"Shut up," Tony said quietly. The three robotic voices stopped. The four younger scientists were left grinning in awe. "I have to go figure out how to get the disk running so we know where Rogers is at," he groaned, getting up from his seat. "You guys stay here and see if you can get my security drones working again. If you can't, I want to see if your microbots can somehow protect the Tower. I don't care about the lights—balloon man's got it covered, apparently."

"I can help with that," Peter spoke up, levelling his gaze with Tony's. "I read about your Excelsior disk in the papers. I thought maybe it could help me avoid bad press. I've been getting a lot of that lately."

"It can do that," Bruce spoke up, his tired face empathetic. "You're not the only one the news has looked on with—less than favorable—opinions. Excelsior's designed to help guys like us."

Peter faced Tony. "I know biomed engineering foremost," he explained, "but I also know wiring. I grew up doing a lot of electrical work with my uncle as a side job. I can get this Tower running. I know I can."

Tony's mouth evened out as he climbed into his suit. "Stay close to Bruce," he replied shortly, heading out of the lab.

Peter grinned, knowing that was as good as a yes.

"And stay out of trouble!" he called as the elevator closed.

The girl's eyes and his met, her issuing a challenging stare to see if he could actually pull off what he'd said he could. Peter's mouth went dry. "You're—" he gulped, "—stressful."

She gave him a look. "You're weird. Let's do this thing," she indicated everyone.

Peter mentally smacked himself in the back of the head. Seriously? Was he some middle-schooler drooling over a chick so hard the best descriptor he could think of was 'stressful'?

… … … … …

Sam yawned, pulling his sunglasses down over his eyes, trying not to attract attention. He was in a dangerous position, about to meet with Scott and Hope mere miles from Stark Tower.

Then again, they were preparing to raid it within a few hours, so respectively the danger wasn't so significant.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of silver metal through the window, just quick enough to make him stand and crane his neck in that direction.

The waiting area he was in was comprised of long, futuristic-looking sheen white hallways with people-movers lining the sides.

He hid behind a tall plant and peered out toward the window again. Sure enough, even though it was several hundred yards away, the metal bot was hovering around just outside the building. Sam recognized it instantly. It was one of Stark's security bots. They'd fought enough of those during the Ultron fiasco anyway.

He was found.

How exactly had they gotten to him? He didn't have anything trackable on him. He hadn't even worn his wings. He'd left behind his cell phone.

Excelsior.

That was the only explanation.

It must be functional, or nearly there.

Sam gulped and tried not to make any sudden moves. Tony had all their information. He could track them anywhere. Probably Ant Man and Wasp were being tracked as well, since they had superpowers themselves.

He bit back a curse as he turned to look for them. He'd just put their two accommodating new recruits in mortal danger.

The sound of gunfire interrupted his thoughts.

He leapt up, dropping his glasses as he did so and struggling to stick to the sides of the room as the crowd began running, screaming, from one of the terminals. "Let me through, let me through!"

A man and a woman, both carrying large briefcases, came running with one of Stark's drones directly behind them. "Get down!" he called, pulling out the gun he'd managed o sneak in. He aimed it carefully at the cracks between the robot's armor plates trying to draw it off guard, and fired a few shots before ducking behind a bench.

Screams continued to echo around him as the security guards arrived, but fortunately, they were smart enough to push the people back instead of trying to engage the hostile robot. No doubt they were writing down the name of the company written on the side of the faceplate. Stark Industries would be hearing big lawsuits for this one, rightfully so.

No longer distracted by Sam, the robot followed the man and woman into one of the bathrooms.

"Oh, come on, man, "Sam groaned, "You have to change?!"

He crept up behind it, grabbing a potted plant as he did so. It was in a heavy ceramic pot and somebody apparently thought to water it recently. Sam grunted, heaving it upward and smashing it toward the robot's legs. "Take that, you nasty hunka—"

The robot whirled around and started firing at him, taking a scan of his face for future reference.

"Aw, no!" He ducked as the bullets flew over his head and rammed his shoulder into the solid steel, attempting to pry it apart with his bare hands.

"Alert! Alert!" It struggled to respond and pry him off. Tony's security guards weren't designed all that sophisticated, unlike his suits.

A window above them crashed, glass shards falling to the floor, and another robot entered through the hole firing shots from above. Same grabbed the other by the head and sprinted into the bathroom before he could get hit by the gunfire.

The woman was right behind him when he entered. "What are you thinking?" she demanded. "You're Sam Wilson? Are you trying to get us all killed? We only just got here!"

"Believe me, ma'am, we've got you completely covered," Sam wheezed, popping the head off the first guard and standing flat against the wall, ready to engage the second when it emerged.

"I thought we were going on a heist trip, not entering a warzone," Scott grumbled, emerging in his suit. The two grabbed their bags.

"Yeah, well, Avengers don't do anything halfway. You should know that about us."

"Wilson?" Hope barked.

He turned around. Security robots stood in front of each of the bathroom stalls. "How'd they get in here?" Sam was baffled. A pang of fear struck him as he realized they were all about to die.

Hope hit her shrink-thing on her belt first, transforming into a minuscule flying version of her previous self, and flew straight at the robots.

"Well, at least there's no question we're fighting for the good guys," Scott grunted, doing the same.

They took down the whole row of guards in a matter of seconds. Sam's jaw twitched with jealousy. "Wonder if Cap would let me get one of those," he muttered to himself. Another robot's leg appeared just outside the door, and he kicked at it with all his might. It tripped and fell and he grabbed its head, twisting it off like he'd done with the others.

With a sharp, 'WHIZ', Scott and Hope appeared, full sized, in front of him.

"I would've helped, but I was busy watching to make sure you two knew what you were doing," he folded his arms across his chest.

"Yeah, funny guy," Scott frowned. Hope mimicked Sam's posture, not impressed. "Just get us out of here alive so we can do what we really came here for, all right?"

… … … … …

"Surely we have a tracker for this kind of technology," Tony muttered under his breath. "Surely, somewhere in the lab, we have something that can track them so I don't have to do this?"

"I—I don't know what to tell you, Tony," Bruce left on his intercom so he could talk with Tony as he speeded toward the airport in his suit. "It's not only impossible, it's making us extremely vulnerable. They defeated the drones we sent to their rendezvous at the airport, so we have no eyes left. They could be anywhere."

Tony frowned. Their only chance was to have Excelsior all the way up before Cap and these crazy shrinking guys attacked and stole it. Since in the meantime they had no idea where they were, every millisecond counted. "Am I the only one who's gonna say anything about the fact that this guy's called 'Ant-Man'?"

"Love him or hate him, he could literally be inside your suit right now and you wouldn't know it," Bruce replied grimly.

Tony sniffed. "You know what, Bruce, I just decided to make a detour. I'm going back to Wakanda."

"What?" Bruce was confused.

"I'm serious. If I'm going to get that disk running, the only way is by using vibranium. I'm gonna try to sweet-talk that prince guy, see if I can get a couple ounces."

"You just destroyed his whole prison compound," Bruce reminded him.

"No, the creepy vibranium suit person did. We just escaped harmlessly. I'll offer to pay for the damage. That should get us on even footing, right?"

Bruce sighed. "That's insane. Cap and the others are literally in New York, right now."

"Then gather up everyone and leave, if you have to. Pepper knows what to do in emergencies like this. I'll be back as quick as I can, promise!"

"Right," Bruce groaned. "I'll talk to Pepper and Rhodes. Hopefully, Cap's not already here."

"Can't chat, gotta fly," Tony's voice took on a grim quality. "Take care of them, Bruce, you got me? This is the only way I can think of that might actually work."

"No, it's all right," Bruce sighed, noting his rare tone of seriousness. "I've got it covered. We'll be fine, Tony. Just hurry."

"Signing out."

Bruce turned off the intercom and turned to the young scientists in the room with him. "Still think you can get that security up and running?" he questioned Parker.

The college student nodded. Sweat poured down his face, but he was busy at work next to the control panels. "I think I've found the problem. I just need replacement parts, and Jarvis said Mr. Stark has them somewhere in the building."

Bruce's jaw tightened. "You've got five minutes or we're going to have to evacuate. You hear me?"

Peter nodded, turning back to his work.

"Come on, let's find these parts," Gogo gestured to Hiro, Wasabi staying behind to help Peter open up the panels.

Bruce, for his part, rushed into the hallway. He almost collided with Natasha, who he could barely see in the darkened building.

"Bruce, I gotta talk to you."

"Okay—you first."

"Maria Hill's dead," Natasha continued, breathless. "My old mentor killed her and left. Shot her through the heart."

"What?!" Bruce couldn't believe his ears. Maria had been such a steady ally. How could she just be dead? "That's horrible! Where is she? How did she break in?"

"She's with Clint," Natasha put a hand on his arm. "I don't know where he is, or even if he's here, but he could be on the loose in this very building, trying to destroy Excelsior."

"It's too late," Bruce muttered under his breath.

"Too late for what?"

"Evacuation. Tony was telling us we should get out, but they're already here."

"Cap isn't here yet."

"Is he?"

There was silence for a moment, the darkened room making it impossible for either of them to read each other's expressions. "I don't know," Natasha finally answered. "You think we would know if he was?"

"Natasha," Bruce said in a low voice.

Her own softened. "What is it?"

"If—I can't hurt them, then I can't protect you."

"Clint's already hurt."

"That doesn't mean he can't destroy the disk."

"Clint saved my life," she reminded him. "He saved everything about me, everything I am today. He also just named his son after me," she added dryly.

Bruce's frown deepened, and he took her gently around the waist.

"Bruce," Nat said softly, gazing up at him, "I've told you once and I'll tell you again that you're never a danger to me. But if YOU ever became that way—"

"You would kill me," Bruce answered firmly. "You would fight me or kill me or run away, whichever kept you and the baby safe—"

Natasha inhaled sharply, and Bruce gulped.

They had never even mentioned—that, save for the fact that they both knew.

Truth was, they were both shell-shocked that such a miracle had even occurred. They were waiting for something, anything, to go wrong, but so far it hadn't.

It was too good to be true. It was almost as if, by saying it out loud, they were jinxing it.

"Clint would agree with me," Bruce insisted, sighing. "Let me do this for you; I don't care what the consequences are. Because if there is one thing, Natasha Romanoff, that makes me angrier than anything else, it's when somebody puts you in danger."

A little smile tugged at her lips. "Not something that happens often, eh?" she quipped softly.

"Lucky for them," Bruce smiled as well. Their lips ghosted over each other's.

"I wouldn't say me not being threatened by them makes them lucky," Natasha smirked.

"I would agree with you," he laughed slightly. They kissed, long and deep. "I'll be back," he whispered.

"Watch your back," she took the words right out of his mouth.