The Hydra Games

PenPatronus

Chapter 21

Round Three

Seven Hours Ago

Five feet away, a red-faced Stark was writhing on the ground with one hand plastered to his black t-shirt and the other gripping Bruce's arm. "What's wrong with him?" Steve asked with a slur in his words. He crawled over and knelt beside Stark. "Doc?"

"Must be a localized EMP," Banner reported. "An electromagnetic pulse. It disables any technology in the blast radius." Steve couldn't understand the scientist's technobabble even when he didn't have a headache, but he knew one thing for sure: Tony's chest was supposed to be glowing, and it was dark. "It deactivated the arc reactor." Bruce's face turned red as Tony's started to go white. "The magnet isn't holding back the shrapnel in his chest anymore."

Clint leapt from net to net, unraveling them as he went. He tied ropes to rope ladders, and ladders to nets until he had knotted together an enormous lasso. On the opposite side of the room, Rhodes' attention was on Stark, so Clint waved at Wilson. Sam soared within range and grabbed one end of the rope. The Falcon chose a recently birthed, fuchsia-eyed snake head to attack. Dodging teeth and fire, he flew loop-de-loops around the machine's jaws, tightening them as he went, until the mouth was almost completely shut. "This is going to hurt," Barton said to himself a moment before he jumped out of the last net. Clint swung past the roaring Hulk and over Natasha who was diving into the water. His weight and momentum yanked the fuchsia-eyed head forward. It crumpled, and toppled forward into the water, taking Clint with it. Barton almost belly flapped into the pool, but Sam caught him under the armpits and tossed him. Clint still landed in the water, but at least he was close to Natasha, who surfaced and helped him swim.

"Tony?" Barton grunted with a mouthful of water. Natasha shook her head.

"Did you – get the – third key?" Clint gasped as they climbed out of the pool.

"Can't find it," Natasha said. "There's so much debris down there now I can't see a damn thing."

Rhodey had just backed away from the hydra to regroup when he spotted and joined Stark. "Told you that you should be an Avenger," Stark said with a wry smile. He pointed at the fire-breathing hydra like a chef showing off a buffet. "As you can see, we have all the fun."

Rhodes was all business. "I have to fly you out of here, Tony."

Stark held his palms up. "Incorrect. See this jewelry that Hydra gave me? It's going to explode in about eight minutes – four, actually," he said when he double checked the red number.

Rhodes' jaw dropped. His fingers fluttered over his armor. "Tony, you built this machine, there's got to be something in it that can help!"

"Are you kidding? I need a laser scalpel and all you have is cannons and-" Stark froze, mouth ajar, staring at the War Machine suit. Rhodey recognized the metaphorical light bulb of an idea when he saw it. Tony clapped his hands together once. "Open a gauntlet."

Rhodes knelt in front of his friend and opened up every casing in his left arm. "How can I help?"

"Shut up." Tony started yanking copper wires, electrolytic capacitors, and printed circuit boards out of the machine and reconnecting sockets in no discernable order that Rhodes could divine. "Give me the finger."

Rhodes started. "What?"

Tony tapped the tip of Rhodes' left middle finger. "Take it off, stud." Rhodes yanked the three inch armored finger off of the hand and tossed it over. "Stark, that red number just jumped to two."

"Stand back."

"Tony-"

"Rhodey, I'm making an electromagnetic pulse generator. If I did the math right it should have a range of about six inches. If I did the math wrong and the range is too far, the pulse could shut down your suit."

Rhodes did the math, too. "Wouldn't it also shut down your arc reactor? Tony. Tony-!"

Stark ignored him. He lay flat on his stomach and stretched as far as he could to keep the black cuff away from his chest piece. He wrapped the MacGyver-ed device around his wrist, shut his eyes and used that same hand to cross two wires. From Rhodes' point of view, nothing happened. There was no sound, no flash of light, nothing. But then Tony sat up. He flipped his wrist into view. The red number disappeared. The cuff had shut down completely. "I am a genius!" Stark declared, pumping his fists. He suddenly froze and stared at something over Rhodes' shoulder. "A genius who doesn't like people playing with his toys."

The Iron Man suit descended from the hole in the ceiling with Captain America hanging from one wrist. Coulson dropped Steve - shield in hand - onto the platform where Natasha and Clint just emerged from the water. Cap handed her a pair of semiautomatics and Barton his bow and arrows. Rhodey saw what was happening and took to the sky. Ten seconds later he, Falcon, Romanoff, Coulson, and Barton all took aim at the hydra, and let loose. The gold-eyed head took an acid arrow in one eye and a bullet in the other. It unleashed its fire at Barton and Romanoff, but Steve pushed them down and used his shield to block the flames.

For one precious second, Tony thought that they all had a chance to get out of this alive.

And then the hydra swallowed the Hulk whole.

Tony saw the Hulk's fists making dimples in the snake's throat as he slid down the hollow tube, trying to fight his way back out. The Hulk could supposedly survive anything… but did that include a thousand degree furnace?

Rhodey dove in to help but another snake caught him between its jaws and forced him underwater all the way to the bottom of the pool. With his left gauntlet gone, there was nothing to save the colonel from drowning. Coulson and Falcon got smacked by a neck like flies by a flyswatter. Sam crashed against the wall, tumbled down two platforms and lay unconscious. The proverbial shit really hit the fan when a snake bloomed from the hydra that was so long it could stretch around the room. It wrapped around Steve, Clint, and Natasha half a dozen times and squeezed them so tight that Steve could barely shuffle his shield far enough to protect them from its flames.

And just like that, Tony was alone.

He looked at the ceiling. The sassy demigod was late. Not that shooting lightning into a room full of water was a good idea, but Tony needed Thor's strength in more ways than one. He had an EMP generator in his hand and there were enough bits of iron scattered between him and the hydra to boost the pulse's range as far as he wanted. Tony had to shut down the hydra now or all of his friends would die.

He didn't hesitate half a second more.

The quickest way from point A to point B was through the water. Tony grabbed an iron rod and jumped in feet-first. He swam using a doggie paddle while keeping the contraptions safe and dry above his head. When Tony climbed up onto the hydra's torso he wanted to say something – something significant - but there was no one to hear him. So, he adjusted the amount of iron connected to his generator and calculated that the range would be between twenty and thirty feet. And then, for no reason other than that it felt like the right thing to do, Tony held the machine against his heart and activated it.

To Be Continued