Little Bird's Vengeance Chapter 25 Infiltrate

Captain America crouched, waited for the spotlight to pass, then ran forward. He pulled up a length of electrified wire fence, gloves insulating his hands, and ducked back as the spotlight came back. "Remind me why I'm doing this solo," he hissed into his comm.

"'Cause Thor and I are too noticeable, Barton, Romanov and Red are still on the Helicarrier, and do you really want to send Bruce into the lair of the people hunting him?" Stark replied over the headset.

"Fine, fine, just checking," Cap said. He really wanted slightly more active back-up, but Stark in the wings would have to do. He ran forward, sliding under the gap he'd made earlier, and shooting across the compound, slamming into the warehouse wall before the spotlight could sweep past once more. His darker stealth uniform helped hide his form in the night-time gloom, increasing the odds that he'd go undetected. One advantage to Stark and SHIELD actually working together.

When it was clear, he twisted around, turning to the door next to him. He picked the lock, remembering what Stark had said about overriding the alarms. He went through, closing the door behind him, and tapped the earpiece. "Which way?" he asked.

"Depends. Left, it's a shorter route, but you'll be going the oppositeto the patrol pathway. It'll make it a lot more difficult to loop the cameras without being noticed. If you go right, you can stay between the two patrols. It'll go all around the warehouse, but you'll be less likely to be spotted."

"Right," Cap said.

Stark paused. "Which way?" he asked.

"I just told you, right!"

"Oh, I thought you meant 'right' as in 'okay'."

"No. I will go to the right, and if I meant 'okay', I will say 'okay'," Cap decided, and hurried to the end of the corridor. "Tell me when I'm clear to turn the corner."

"Uh…now. Go."

In that fashion, Cap moved through the building, until he reached the right location. "Third door on the left. You'll have to pick the lock, but I've got the alarm."

"Got it," the supersoldier replied. The door was open in a matter of seconds. The room beyond was full and cluttered. There were bits of machines everywhere, a row of filing cabinets against one wall. It looked like someone had taken the entire contents of Stark's three workshops and dumped it all in one storage closet. He pulled out the special camera he'd been given. "How does the camera work?" he asked.

"Turn it on," Stark instructed. "That's the button at the top right. Then hold down the largest button on the side with the screen.Pan it around, three-sixty degrees."

He did so, watching the 3D scanner take in the entire contents of the room. "Is that it?"

Stark cursed. "No, it didn't get the contents of the cabinets. You'll have to do those separately."

Cap opened the first drawer. "Hold down the button? Does it need to scan each sheet separately?"

"No, it can do them all at once. Just get a good angle and tap it."

There was a brief flash with each tap. It took about ten minutes to get through all the drawers. When he finished the last one, he closed the drawer just a little harder than he intended to. The thud echoed, just as two sets of footsteps paused.

"What did you- Dammit, hide!" Stark hissed. Cap dived for cover in the scrap heap, as the patrol tried the previously locked door and found it open.

A beam of light raked the room, as an alarm started blaring.

"Let me get this straight, you broke into an army warehouse because you thought it was going to happen anyway?" Fury yelled. It looked to Tony as though he was about to pop a blood vessel or twenty.

"Yes, sir," Steve mumbled, and how could the Capsicle be so much like a scolded schoolboy? It really didn't fit with the scourge of the Third Reich Daddy Howard had made him out to be.

"I think it's sweet," Red said, slightly wistfully. The teen had apparently been in Medical; he'd blown off their concern, mumbling about fighting on bullet wounds. "No-one's ever broken into an army warehouse for me before."

"Are you serious?" Bruce asked. He and Thor had been dragged up to the Helicarrier when Fury sent Tasha to retrieve Tony and Steve. "Sweet?! That's what you think of it?"

Red shrugged. "Well, they're right. I would have gone and done it myself, if they hadn't beaten me to it. Having someone else do an infiltrate for me is a completely new experience. I'm quite touched."

"Well, quite apart from you being touched-" Fury started.

"Friend Robin, they were detected," Thor interrupted. "Does that not mean they failed?"

Red shrugged again, except he was only shrugging one shoulder, wasn't he? Must be the hole in the other one. Hmm, now, would it be possible to get Jarvis to do a deep body scan of all of them whenever they came back from a skirmish? Nah, they'd complain about the lack of privacy; even Jarvis. Perhaps a specialised scanner on the door. Then he'd know if people were injured, or hurting, like poor li'l Red. "I assume you got what you went in for?" he asked Steve.

"Uh, yes," Capsicle confirmed, somewhat nervous about the implication of his failure.

"We got raw data to rebuild a complete three dimensional interactive representation of the room they had all their stuff in," Tony clarified. "Including the files."

"Excellent," Red said. "And then you had a spot of bad luck. It happens. I remember there was this one raid B organized that got disrupted when it turned out the plant was hatching an OMAC."

"What is an 'OMAC'?" Thor asked.

"Omni Mind and Community," Red said. "A parasitic virus that turns civilians into armoured killing machines specifically designed to take us guys out."

"How did you get out of that?" Clint asked.

"Not my op," Red answered. "B brooded for a week. I only got that much from Catwoman."

"If you don't mind," Fury interjected. "While I agree that much better planned operations with more competent operatives have gone wrong due to nothing more than dumb luck, you two still forced the attentions of General Ross on you, and us. What do you propose do to about that?"

Tony shrugged. Fury hadn't really been asking them for suggestions, but that wasn't going to stop him. "Just tell him that if he's that fussed, he can come and see me personally. If he's not too much a coward. And quote me on that."

"Are you sure that's wise?" Bruce asked.

"Of course. He can't touch you," Tony waved off the concern. "I mean, there's me, Capsicle, the ninja assassins, Thunder boy, the little birdie, the Other Guy…"

"Sounds like a recipe for disaster," Red said nonchalantly. "I like it."

AN: This...went slightly worse than I thought it would. Ah, well. The op Tim refers to is in Batman and the Outsiders Vol 2 #1, except that's the only issue I've seen and it ended with the OMAC hatching...

Anyway, next week it's back to Black and Red. Tim is out of the Tower, and so can finally get back to work. Week after, more LBV.

Also this week: Family Ties, where a meeting is taking place to distribute information, and Daleks are invading the manga/anime Black Butler/Kuroshitsuji.

Next week, Black and Red, little Bats arguing in Family Ties, and Daleks starting a massive invasion of the Federation of Star Trek...

By the way, I have a list of stories I hope to be writing on my profile. I'm hoping to start tag-teaming two new ones, the same way I'm doing with LBV and B&R. I'd quite like some feedback.

Final note: please leave a review on the way out.

Katara