"Do you have visual, Hawkeye?" Captain America's voice came through the com.
"Yes, he is here." Hawkeye answered. From his position on the inside a higher house he could see Hammer perfectly. The man who had kidnapped Pepper was sitting in a small restaurant, obviously waiting for somebody. He wore a slightly dirty dark suit and was sweating. Also he constantly checked his mobile. He's nervous, Clint thought with a smirk.
"He's waiting for someone, maybe a contact to AIM." He told the others over the com.
"Well, isn't that interesting?" Darcy's voice chirped into his ear. "I was able to get his communication details. The cell he is using was bought five days ago in a shop a few streets from your position, Hawkeye. Only three incoming calls, one this morning, all from unknown numbers. I don't know about you, but to me this does not seem very much like our guy is the big boss."
"No, probably not. But he's still our target number one." Natasha said. Even though she was comfortable in the tower in New York, she was on the coms. Pepper was there, too. She had looked very much like her old self again when they had left, what had relived Clint incredibly.
"Do we wait until the guy he's waiting for is there or do we snatch him now?" Clint asked.
"If we want to get AIM too, it would be interesting what this contact has to say." Darcy stated.
"We wait." Steve decided. Clint was able see him, but only because he knew he was there. Steve was dressed like a normal tourist and sat in a restaurant on the opposite side of the street. With the other tourists in there nobody spared him a second glance.
It took the contact another ten minutes to arrive. Hammer started to look more and more as if he was absolutely terrified, and if Hammer hadn't been the man who attacked Natasha and kidnapped Pepper Clint would have pitied him. As it was, he just grinned darkly as he watched Hammer sweat more and searching the restaurant every few minutes nervously.
The contact himself was a disappointment. It was a young man, dressed carelessly, clearly not high in the food chain. Still, they captured him too. He could possess important information.
Steve and Clint make it quick, bringing the two men to their plane without anybody noticing something strange. Bruce sits there, calmly waiting for them, while Tony seems to be barely restraining himself from just killing Hammer and the AIM guy right there. Darcy however just sneaks up behind them when they regain conscious and then tazing them. Steve shoots her an unapproving look, but she just shrugs. They did give her the permission to do this, after all.
They made sure that when Hammer woke up again, he was in the very same spot Pepper had been in. At first he did not realize what was happening, then he seemed to think it was a dream. Only when the water starts rising he started to get it. He screamed at them, yelled that he was going to tell them everything, that they shouldn't do that because AIM would be coming for him, but they just shrugged. AIM wouldn't come for him, and even Steve, who was fully against any sort of torture, admitted that Hammer deserved it. Pepper didn't know. She was in the tower with Natasha (who would have liked to be there two watch Hammer squirm as well, but the men had strictly denied it), Jane, Thor (he hadn't really understood the situation and in the and the rest of the team had decided to ask him to stay there to protect Pepper and Natasha) and Darcy (who thought her part in this done). Pepper thought they gave him straight to Fury like they did with the AIM guy.
Natasha smiled darkly at that. Pepper was such a kind person, still, after all she had faced, she would never had allowed 'her' boys to do something like this. But there was no denying that Hammer deserved it, and it wasn't as if there were killing him. Waterboarding was no fun, but Natasha could easily point out five methods of torture that were worse.
Right now they were sitting in front of the TV. On screen there was a really cheesy romance that still managed to get Natasha. She blamed the hormones.
Pepper sat next to her and stroked her belly absentminded. Both hers and Pepper's due date were in about two weeks and Natasha was feeling huge. Really huge. But when she looked over to Pepper the other woman was even bigger, unsurprisingly, actually, considering she was having twins, but still.
"When are the boys coming back?" Pepper asked.
"Soon, I think." Darcy answered.
Hammer was a crying mess when Tony walked into the room. They had let the water rise high enough so Hammer really thought he was going to die, but then let it out. They hadn't even really done torturing like he had been tempted to. They were the good guys, after all.
"You know, I really just wanted to kill you and get over it." Tony said. "But then I thought over it again and decided that death would be to good for you."
Hammer was silent. He looked at Tony with a begging in his eyes that disgusted Tony. Who did this man think he was, attempting to drown a helpless pregnant woman and getting away with it?
"Even though you really don't deserve to live and I've actually got an equally enraged Hawkeye out there, who knows even more dirty tricks than I do, I think that the next step in this is good. I'm not going to kill you, but I bet you're going to wish I did. SHIELD considers you an enemy, you know, and I've got the feeling that you won't like it there."
Then, Tony punched Hammer right into the face, satisfied by the crack that indicated that he had broken the other man's nose.
"How is he?" Maria asked. Fury had send her to pick up Hammer.
"Alive." Steve answered. He wasn't exactly fine with what Tony and Clint were doing, but he got it. They didn't actually hurt him, just scared the crap out of him. This man deserved nothing else.
"Injured?" Maria had to ask. Fury had told her not to fuss over the state Hammer was in when she got him, and personally she just wanted to grab a gun and shoot him, but protocol was protocol and she had at least to attempt to be professional and not personally involved (what she totally was. Pepper was a nice woman and what Hammer had done was just wrong).
"Not really. He's scared shitless but other than a tazer mark there's nothing, I think." Steve replied steadily.
"Good." Maria hesitated. "How are you?"
"Angry. Really really angry. But we've got him, and we will get AIM, even if it's going to take us a while. We're going to teach them a lesson about what we do when someone attacks one of our own." Steve said it with a coldness in his voice that Maria had never ever heard from him. Well, this was taking it's toll on everyone, she supposed.
Then the look on his face changed, got softer, warmer.
"You know, there is an art exhibition at the Met in two days. What do you think? Want to come with me?"
Maria smiled. "Why not?"
AN: So, that's it for now. I hope you liked it. Don't forget to tell me what you think!