13
It was the ringing in his ears that woke Peter up.
His lungs heaved and he coughed, making his chest ache. His whole body felt numb.
His eyes fluttered open. He tried to make sense of what his eyes were seeing, but it was too much. His brain was on fire – sensory overload. Everything was too much, too loud, too bright. Exhaustion tugged at his brain, urging him to fall back unconscious, but he fought it. He had to move.
Feeling weak and trembly, he tried to push himself up to a sitting position.
Pain streaked up one of his arms. "Gah!" he gasped, and the sound came muted in his ears.
This was reminding him way too much of the Vulture incident on Coney Island, and Peter was not liking the déja vu.
Blinking dust from his eyes, Peter looked around. He was surrounded by rubble, and it seemed like everything was on fire. There were three other shapes in the dust around him. Agent Hill. . . Nick Fury. . . Mister Stark.
His sore arms trembled, threatening to collapse underneath him, but he didn't move yet. He had just caught sight of something in the distance, and he squinted into the dark.
Lights. There were lights swarming toward them out of the dark. Good guys? He hoped so. If this was HEL, he was toast. They were all toast.
With that thought, Peter promptly passed out.
Tony woke up with a headache.
Not just a simple, run-of-the-mill, take-two-aspirin-and-it's-gone type of deal, either. This was a full-blown migraine. If this was a hangover, last night had better have been worth it.
It took him a minute to remember. The Toy Box – HEL – Fury – the explosion. . . . Peter.
Tony pried his eyes open.
There was a figure at his feet. Tony blinked, and the person standing at the end of the bed slowly came into focus.
Suit, tie, crossed arms. . . frown.
Happy.
"'The Tower will be fine' my ass," Happy said, slowly enunciating each word with meaning.
Tony closed his eyes and swallowed with effort. "Where's the – where's the kid?"
"Peter?" Happy sounded puzzled. "He's fine. They told me he was on his way here. Why?"
Tony visibly relaxed, letting out a relieved sigh as he leaned back up against the pillows. "'They?'" he repeated after a moment.
"Yeah, your new SHIELD buddies." Happy's voice regained its usual, somewhat annoyed tone. "You're in their facility. I had to go through seven different levels of security before they'd even let me into the lobby."
"Hap, I didn't know you cared," Tony grunted.
"Of course you knew," Happy snapped. "I could have had my contacts in the city there with you, in the Tower, and none of this mess would have happened. Now I'm here in some SHIELD facility, of all places, at three A.M. because someone shot my boss. I have better ways of spending my Fridays, you know."
"A.M., that's, that's. . . ." Tony closed his eyes again, trying to concentrate. "That's. . . morning, right?"
"Yes, Tony. Three o'clock A.M. I got out of bed for this." Despite his words, Happy's tone softened the slightest, taking pity on him. "How you holding up?"
Tony grunted and raised a hand to rub his eyes.
Something moved with his arm. Frowning, Tony pulled his hand away and turned it over. There was an IV line in the back of his hand, feeding a clear fluid into his veins.
Tony's eyes traced the line all the way to a dripping IV bag, suspended above his head beside his bed.
Right. Hospital.
He glanced down to himself. His blood-soaked graphic tee and dress pants had been swapped for a soft gray gown. There was a palm-sized lump on his abdomen beneath the gown – presumably a pad of gauze covering the hole King's bullet had left behind.
"You're looking better," came a familiar voice.
Tony looked up to see Nick Fury walking into the room. The Director was just as bruised and bandaged as Tony, but he wore a casual smile and walked with his usual swagger.
"There'd better be something protective under this gown," Tony said as greeting.
Fury chuckled as he walked in. "You were a bit of a mess, coming in here," he said. "They've fixed you up pretty good." He nodded at the gauze on Tony's abdomen. "They took X-rays. Bullet's still in there, but they wanted to hold off on the surgery until you were stabilized."
Tony nodded once. It wasn't as if he wasn't used to dealing with foreign metal hovering close to his major organs. He glanced over to Happy. "You sticking around?"
"No, I'm heading back. I have to go back to the Tower to start to try cleaning up the mess you made," Happy said. He gave a long, tired sigh, and for a moment, Tony actually felt a little bad.
"Thank you for coming, Mr. Hogan." Fury offered his hand to shake.
Happy took it, if somewhat reluctantly. "Yeah, well, maybe next time" – he looked pointedly at Tony and spoke with emphasis – "my boss will actually pay attention to his head of security and everyone can avoid a headache."
"Love you too, Hap," Tony called after him as he left.
"You owe me three hours of sleep," Happy said back. He left, pulling the frosted glass door shut behind him.
In the silence, Tony met Fury's eyes. "How's Peter?" was his first question.
"In one piece," Fury said quietly. "Actually, I think Mr. Parker fared the best out of all of us. We took a jet to get you here faster, but Peter had to take the longer trip home. Medical's with him on the Helicarrier as we speak."
Tony looked away, looking deep in thought. "All of us in the explosion, right, and yet – I'm the one in the hospital bed." It wasn't exactly a question, but it needed an answer nonetheless.
"Blunt head trauma," Fury said. He shrugged one shoulder. "You hit your head. Blood loss didn't help, either. You'll have a nasty bump, but. . . ." He looked down at his scorched clothes and bandaged hand. "Let's just say you got off no worse than the rest of us."
Gritting his teeth, Tony sat up in the bed.
Pain flashed across his eyes like a heartbeat. He stopped with a tight gasp, squeezing his eyes shut against the rhythmic pounding that went through his sore skull. When the pain subsided, Tony swung his legs off the edge of the bed.
"Whoa now, the doctors haven't cleared you to get out of bed yet," Fury said, raising one hand.
"Don't care." Tony reached for the PCA pump beside his bed and thumbed the controls, upping his dose of painkillers. He waited for a moment, then nodded as he felt the drugs kick in. "Yeah. That's better."
He hopped up from the bed and grabbed the pole holding his IV bag. Wincing slightly, he made his way over to the wall-sized window and looked out the half-closed blinds.
It was dark outside. The sky was inky-blue, the only light coming from traffic lights and nearby buildings. Surprisingly, it seemed that they were back in New York, though Tony wasn't exactly sure where SHIELD had stored this super-secret hospital. Typical SHIELD. Hiding in plain sight, and being smug about it.
"How did this happen?" Tony stared straight ahead, his gaze boring into nothing in particular. "The explosion, the bombs – how'd this sneak up on you?"
Fury heaved a sigh as he sat down in a chair. "The Circuit were SHIELD's top hackers, once. Best of the best."
"Yeah, skip the introductions. How'd you lose track of them after the fall of SHIELD?" Tony's arms were crossed, his back stiff.
Fury's head jerked up to look at him. "Stark, you got any idea how just how big SHIELD was?"
Tony's voice held a note of impatience. "It's been two years, Nick. You're losing that excuse."
"We ran underneath the whole planet. It's a little hard to reach these kinds of folks through e-mail," Fury said, a note of testiness coming into his voice.
Tony sighed and rubbed his temples. "Okay, whatever, doesn't matter now – point is, where are they now?"
"After they trashed your Toy Box, our scanners went dark." Fury propped his elbows on his knees. "Long enough for them to get away. We don't have a location, or even a direction. All our scanners are searching for a blip, but we haven't got anything so far."
"But you knew them," Tony said, jerking his chin up at Fury. "Word on the street is, they used to be your closest groupies. Where would they go after terrorizing a civilian?"
Fury gave him a look. "You're hardly a civilian."
"No, I'm an asset," Tony snapped suddenly. "I own weapons. I own programs – I own suits. Some of which are capable of lethal destruction."
Fury stood up from the chair. "And what weapon did the Circuit want?" he asked, his voice intensifying. He walked closer. "Tony, SHIELD hasn't been in contact with these people for a very long time. And that's why I would very much like to know why they decided to come out of the shadows only now and do what they did. What did the Circuit want?"
Tony's gaze didn't move from the window. "To take down an Avenger," he said in a mutter so low Fury almost missed it.
Something sparked in Fury's one good eye. "The Casket?"
Tony jerked his head upward in a nod.
"Oh, no," Fury said softly, realization coming over his face.
"Yeah." Tony ran a hand over his mouth, his movements quick, jerky. "And you know what, Nick? I found out the darnedest thing."
"Stark," Fury said, his voice like a warning.
"You, big guy," Tony said, angling his body toward the other man. His dark brown eyes blazed. "Turns out, the Casket has your thumbprint, on your lock, leaving one-fourth of the door wide open.
"And actually, you know what's weirder, Hill's print was there too. Right beside yours. How about that."
"It isn't what you think," Fury said, raising a hand.
"Not what I think?" Tony said back, louder. "Okay, tell me what it is, then."
Fury raised his voice. "It was because SHIELD fell that Maria and I made it a priority to get our portions of the Casket unlocked." He lowered his voice. "SHIELD fell to the ground like a house of cards. Loyalties were all over the place. Suddenly, HYDRA was more powerful than we ever anticipated, and your program was the only thing we knew could take down an Avenger if the need arose."
Tony worked his jaw. "If the need arose," he repeated.
"Mind control was in HYDRA's possession. We found that out quickly enough with Mr. Barnes. If they could get to any other Avenger?" Fury shook his head. "The world's best defenders could easily be turned into earth's greatest weapons."
Tony scoffed out a breath and shook his head, too wound up to listen to reason.
"D'you ever get the slightest little hint that maybe, just maybe, because I'd locked it away in the deepest levels of my storage, I wasn't planning on using it?"
"If you'd really wanted that thing out of commission, you would have destroyed it a long time ago," Fury said darkly.
"Oh, so this is my fault now?" Tony asked, pressing a hand to his chest.
"Stark, you're the one who made the damn thing," Fury said, impatience coming into his voice.
"And – I – scrapped – it," Tony said with emphasis. "Because that's not what the Avengers do. I dumped it down a hole, locked it away, and threw away the key. I guess I just forgot that someone else had a set of keys."
"That's my point, Stark," Fury said with a frustrated sigh. He met Tony's eyes. "You locked it away. You're just as bad as your dad was. Couldn't bring yourself to destroy any of your creations, no matter how dangerous, no matter how deadly, so instead you hoarded them away."
"Hate to break it to you, Nick, but I'm not the one who scanned my print first."
A text suddenly chirped from Fury's phone. He held Tony's eye contact for a moment before reaching for the phone and glancing at it.
Tony's eyes flicked from Fury's face to the phone. "HEL? You got a location?"
"It's your intern," Fury responded. "Helicarrier's touched down. Peter's on his way up." He lowered the phone and pocketed it. "Before I go, was there anything else you wanted to yell at me for?"
Tony looked away. Anger still pricked at his subconscious, but he brushed it off. "Good chat, Director," he said brusquely. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to talk to a teenager with a guilt complex."
.
A/N: Eh? Eh? See, I promised. No major cliffies here. X) Thank you for reading and I hope you liked it!
Good news! Our fellow reader KHARAKI TAKAN recommended the edits of Heroes' Fan Productions to me. (Sidenote: I don't think I ever told you, but I like your username. It's bold.) I don't think I had heard of HFP before, but their edits are amazing. My personal favorite is the Loki one, titled "God of Mischief", I believe. Go and give it a watch!
Okay, so. . . apparently. . . we're almost at one hundred reviews on this story. *jaw drops* Whhhhaaat? I can't thank all you readers and reviewers enough. This is the most attention I've ever received on a story, and it's all thanks to you guys.
Heaps of thanks to Shadow-wolf78, Guest (#1), Guest Bob, KHARAKI TAKAN, cargumentluv, AppleSpongeCake, Guest (#2), and Iron Man Spider Son for your reviews!