Chapter 54

Team Us

"Is he awake yet?" A voice asked, pulling Tony out of the weird slumber he was in.

I'm awake…

He could think the words but couldn't force his mouth to make the sounds.

I'm awake!

"It is no matter, when she is returned to the room he will understand."

"Indeed."

Footsteps and a loud metallic noise told him that the people were moving away, so he forced his eyes open, to reveal total darkness. He felt around and found that the floor he was laying on was made of dirt, while the walls were metal. He heard something metallic creak and quickly laid back down, pretending to be out of it still, just before the door flew open and let a beam of light into the room. Tony kept his eyes shut but he could hear scuffling, then a groan, then something hitting the dirt floor. The door closed again, leaving him in darkness for a second time.

He reached out and realized the dirt was…wet, in patches. It hadn't been wet moments ago. Tony opened his eyes but it took a few minutes for them to adjust, so that he could see the person laying on their side in the dirt, water soaking into the ground from their clothes. Some time passed, with Tony just staring at the person, unsure what to do; he was dragged from his thoughts when the door swung open again. Two men stepped inside; one grabbed Tony and yanked him to his feet and pulled him out of the room, while the other man grabbed the person who was on the floor.

They were dragged in opposite directions down a long white hallway, where Tony was half dragged half pushed into another room, where a man was waiting at a table, a seat opposite him, which Tony was pushed into.

"Welcome, Mister Stark." The man said.

"…Not feeling the warmth in the welcome, but sure."

"I will be straight forward with you, Mister Stark. We need you to build something for us. If you refuse, you will be killed. It will not be quick, we will have our fun but you will die, eventually."

"I look forward to it."

"Ah, so you refuse to build?"

"…Yeah, I usually do that."

The man frowned for a moment then let his face relax again.

"I was hoping one of you would be reasonable. Very well. You will be given a second, final chance to accept later." The man said and waved his hand, signaling the man from earlier to grab Tony again and drag him out to the hallway, to another room which was a lot larger. It was a long, strange rectangular room which was empty, the only noticeable thing was the oval painted on the ground, stretching from end to end.

"Laps." The man gruffed and shoved Tony ahead a step.

"…I'm running laps?"

"Yes."

"How many?"

"Until you are told to stop."

Tony shrugged and began to…run laps. It was strange but a little relaxing; it let him think. Where the hell was he? Who were these guys? They weren't wearing HYDRA uniforms, at least he didn't recognize them as such. Time crept by and he kept running. He didn't know how much time had passed, and he'd lost count of how many laps he'd run. Eventually someone entered the room and shouted for him to stop.

Thank god.

He was taken back to the same room as earlier; nobody else was in it. He sat in silence, trying to catch his breath, waiting for someone to come back to the room. He'd realized how hungry he was during his laps and now he was actually starving.

He fell asleep waiting, and woke up the next morning when he was yanked from the ground and taken back to the room he'd spoken to the guy in earlier. The man was there again, sitting at the table with the seat across from him. The guy who'd dragged him here returned and placed a plate in front of Tony; a ham and cheese sandwich with a small pile of crisps on the side.

"Eat, Mister Stark, then you will run more laps." The man across from him said. Tony was pretty convinced the food must have been poisoned but, his stomach was stronger than his brain so he ate all of it. "You will wait five minutes for the food to settle, then you will do your laps."

Five minutes wasn't very long and once again Tony was running laps in that empty rectangular room. That's how the next few days passed; he'd wake up, eat something then wait five minutes, then go run laps until his feet stung. On the fifth morning, he woke up without being yanked from his sleeping place in the corner.

"…No laps? Oh thank god." He said to himself, moaning as he stretched his legs out.

"You should've stretched afterwards; your legs wouldn't hurt so much." Someone said with a hoarse throat.

"Huh?" Tony opened his eyes, and after a moment, saw a figure sitting against the opposite wall. He blinked, taking in the short black hair and the deep cheekbones. "I think I'm going delusional from caffeine withdrawal but why am I hallucinating you?"

The woman didn't say anything, she just gave a weak laugh and stared at the ground in front of her; one of her arms was laying in her lap, limp and…sitting weirdly. She was also dripping wet.

"Wait…that was you? The other day?" Tony asked, staring at her. "On the ground…why are you wet- fuck."

"Stark-"

"Why are you wet?"

"You've probably got an idea why, just go with that."

"…Fuck. I'm sorry."

"What for? You didn't waterboard me."

"I should've known! I can't…I should've done something…have you even eaten? How long have we been here? I think it's been four days if they're making me eat the start of every day but I don't kno- what?"

"You done?"

"…I ramble when I'm nervous."

"Would me answering questions stop you rambling? It's annoying."

"Yes! Maybe, no promises."

She sighed and adjusted herself, groaning as she moved and wincing when she pushed her shoulder back into the wall by accident.

"Fuck…so, no I haven't eaten. I think you're right about the time frame but I'm not totally sure. Also, what the hell could you have done? You didn't know, so stop feeling guilty about it. It's also annoying."

"I'm generally an annoying person, so I've been told."

"I mean; I wasn't going to say anything but…they're not wrong."

"What-"

The door was opened again, and the two men grabbed the woman and hauled her to her feet, ignoring how her arm was hanging limp at her side.

"Come Doctor, you have work to do. At least one of you has seen sense." One of the men said, smirking at her.

"Your idiot mechanic has gone loopy from caffeine withdrawal. May as well get rid of him now, he's useless like this." She said as she was lead from the room and the door closed after them.

The man who had spoken to Tony came to see her in the lab they had set up.

"What do you mean 'caffeine withdrawals?'" He demanded; he was standing in the doorway, the door sliding shut behind him. His arms were folded behind his back. He was a short man with a heavyset figure and a bald head. If she was shorter, perhaps he would have been imposing.

"Tony Stark lives on coffee, it's known worldwide due to media reports. If he hasn't had any since he got here, he's definitely going through withdrawals. He'll be moody, maybe aggressive and generally tired. Useless."

"How long would it take before he is surpassed this stage?'

"Maybe a week? Some people take longer." She shrugged, using her good arm to carefully scoop powders into containers that were on scales.

"And yourself?"

"I don't drink coffee. Prefer sweets."

"Very well." The man said, leaving the room. Perhaps coffee would get Stark in a more agreeable mood.

"What's this?" Tony asked once he was back at the table, another day must have gone by. The day of rest had been nice. In front of him was a plate of toast, fried eggs with a side of beans and a cup of black coffee next to the plate.

"Your breakfast, Mister Stark. No laps today, we only need you to begin building. Work will commence tomorrow, if you agree."

"Do I have to give an answer now?"

"Of course not, eat now, it can be discussed at a later time." The man said, smiling as Tony ate the breakfast and emptied the cup of coffee. They were kinder, walking him back to his room rather than dragging him.

"Welcome back." She said, grinning at him in the beam of light the door let in. He stepped into the room and the door closed behind him, slamming into place. She seemed to have dried out a bit though he knew that didn't mean anything; it didn't mean that it didn't happen to begin with.

"Can't say I'm happy to be back."

"What's wrong? Would you rather be with them than me? That's harsh, Stark."

"That's not what I- no, never mind. Have you been here the whole time I was gone?"

"I was brought back shortly after you left, I think."

They sat in silence for what was possibly a few hours; it could've been a whole day, he had no idea anymore.

"…I had coffee this morning." He said, unsure if he should be so glad to have had coffee. He was mostly saying it to confirm to himself it had happened, that this morning was different to the others. He needed to know that time was actually passing. Maybe it wasn't this morning, maybe it had been yesterday.

"Good. It means they want you to be agreeable with them. I told them you were likely going through caffeine withdrawal, so you would be more irritable then usual."

"You…wanted me to have coffee? To make me be agreeable? I don't want to build-"

"I am not going to die here Stark. It might be in your Tower that I die, but it will be worth it. You will follow their blueprints and build exactly what the blueprints say, or I will get out of here and I will kill your intern."

"What?! You can't say that! He hasn't done anything to you!"

"Then build their fucking machine." She hissed, standing up as the door opened again. She left with one of the men, and the other one waited. Tony sighed and stood up, moving over to the machine.

"Alright, let's do this." He said and felt sick when the man simply grinned, and lead Tony down the hallway to a new room; a workshop. Tony spent a few hours reading over the blueprints he was given. They wanted him to build some kind of…aerating chamber. A liquid would be poured into the bottom and heated until it was steam, which would then be compressed and stored so that it could be used later, as an aerosol. The plans were messy and barely legible, Tony wasn't even sure if the contraption would work but he followed the plans and began construction the next day.

She was in the room already when he returned that night, which didn't surprise him. He was surprised by how quick she could move though, when the door slammed shut again. Something stabbed into his neck just as he shoved her back into the wall, which she crashed into and slid down to the ground again, dropping the small needle onto the dirt.

"What the hell are you doing?!" He shouted, rubbing at the skin on his neck.

"If they ask, I attacked you." She said, groaning.

"Well I wouldn't be lying!"

"They wouldn't believe you attacked me, so I pissed off a guard. Glad he didn't break my nose, that would've sucked."

"…What?"

"You'll be bruised to shit tomorrow, face and neck, it's fine."

"Why is it fine?!"

"…Just finish the machine. How much is left?"

"A few hours probably, it wasn't difficult once I managed to translate what gibberish they'd written down. It wasn't so much a set of blueprints as much as it was guideline for me to follow to make blueprints."

"How hot can it get?"

"They wanted it to be…around two hundred degrees at the most, in celcius, on the plans so…around three hundred and ninety Fahrenheit?"

"Perfect." She said, laying herself down on the dirt and closing her eyes. "How long does it take?"

"The test we did today took fifty-five seconds…on some...chemical, it wasn't water."

"No, it wasn't."

"Is that what you've been working on?"

"Sure is. End batch will be done in the morning."

Tony didn't really know what to ask. He didn't want to know what they had her creating. He didn't expect he'd like knowing, so he stayed quiet. Both of them eventually fell asleep, to drift off into strange fever dreams.

"If you really cared, you'd be here!"

Tony had never meant to to make Peter cry, he only…he was trying to be a good mentor. He hadn't meant to get attached. It was too late now, he thought, watching the news anchor read off the report about Spiderman being found at sea after the plane crash.

"The questions are endless. The primary one seems to be "Who encouraged this teenager to put himself in danger?"

"Wake up!" Someone shouted as the metal door slammed open. Tony scrambled from where he was laying and got to his feet, following the guards and the woman down to the work area. The men watched Tony finish the machine in silence. Once they were satisfied they shoved him to the side, into another room that was actually…a swimming room? There was a pool in the middle of the tiled room, which was strange. Tony suddenly felt very near death.

She watched, arm hanging limp at her side as they poured the green liquid into the lower chamber of the machine, then shoved her into the other room with Stark.

"Edge of the pool." Someone said, and she stepped forward so that her toes were almost hanging over the edge. Tony copied her and watched the clear water; there was no current so it simply sat there, staring back at him. The water was incredibly clear, which surprised him for some reason.

"The test begins in three, two, one." A voice came over a speaker. Tony heard her whispering, counting down seconds. "Symptoms should show labored breathing, rashes on the skin followed by convulsions. Symptoms will last for approximately two minutes until death occurs."

"What the fuck do we do now? Oh my god…I am not dying here…" Tony shouted, stepping back. She reached out to catch his wrist and held tight with her good hand.

"Fifty-three…fifty-four…" She whispered then jumped forward. Tony wasn't expecting the pull, so he was easily dragged along after her, down into the water when he felt the air shake, and suddenly the air around him was hot, then cold and wet. She held the two of them beneath the water's surface for what felt like forever until she finally let go, and Tony managed to push himself back above the surface of the water and breathe. The air was…green? It was green and it stung his eyes and nose.

"What the…fuck?" He asked himself as he looked around and noticed a huge rectangular hole in the wall, where a window must have been. He hadn't even noticed it. Of course they would have been watching! Water splashed the side of his face when she surfaced a moment later.

"It fucking worked!" She shouted, grinning as she slowly swam to the edge of the pool. Tony followed and pulled himself out onto the edge so he could help her out, being careful of what he suspected was a broken arm, or possibly even the shoulder itself.

"What worked?!"

"The…chemical, I might've been…a little naughty and made it slightly stronger than they wanted."

"…So that it would fucking EXPLODE?!"

"It worked, didn't it?!"

"Holy shit, we're screwed." Tony said as the two of them walked back into the workshop and found the guards on the ground, laying still. He was glad he didn't have to see the convulsions. He couldn't handle that.

"You're immune, Stark." She said from behind him, exasperated by his panic.

"…Huh?"

"Why do you think I stabbed you with a needle? It's not a forever immunization but it'll get us out of here. Hopefully the explosion was strong enough that it could be registered outside by someone."

"Okay…okay…alright we just need to…" Tony had to focus. He was meant to be ideas guy. The fix it guy. He could fix this. "We need a communications room or something. We could patch ourselves into the Avengers communication feed, or at least SHIELD's, if we're desperate enough."

"Can't say I'll ever be that desperate." She grumbled, stepping over a body as they walked along the hallway to find a room that looked right.

"Oh! That one looks good." Tony said, suddenly giddy at finding a room he could use to help them. He got to work on the equipment, trying to find the right signal. Thankfully it was all computerized so he didn't have to focus super hard and could just…work.

"Hellllooo…?" He said, more to himself, than anyone. He ignored the weird look she gave him from the swivel chair she'd sat herself in. He didn't need her judgment. "Come on…please…"

"-explosion registered south from your position. Report." A male voice said, and she let out a laugh.

"Is that Robertson?!" She asked, rolling her chair over to Tony. "Oh. Fuck. If that's…man I am so not being taken into custody by him."

"Hello?! Can you idiots hear me or-"

"Who is this?"

"Hi! This is Tony Stark."

"…"

"I'm near the big explosion. Mighty fine work, don't you think? Now can you come help me?"

"Hello?" A voice, female voice asked.

"Sorry, hello? Who is this? You're a new person, aren't you?"

"Yes sir, your radio feed was patched through to me. Are you in a location that's safe? I need you to stay on the line so we can follow your location."

"Oh um…are we safe?" He asked, glancing at the woman, who thought for a moment.

"We…hmm. We'll be fine for a few hours but I'm not sure if the SHIELD gear would be able to filter out the gas."

"Sir? Is there anyone else with you?"

"Yea- don't look at me like that. Yes, I'm with some scary lady called- wait, can Robertson hear me?"

There was a click then "Not anymore."

"Oh, I like you, you're good. The Doctor is with me; do you know who that is?"

A sigh.

"Yes, I am aware of who she is."

"She's…not in great shape. I might not be either soon judging by how she's looking at me but she needs medical. I think her shoulder or…something is broken. She can't raise one of her arms. She also really doesn't want to be, like, arrested. Also she hasn't eaten like at all since we got here...however long ago."

"Mister Stark, are you okay for me to talk?"

"Oh- sorry! Yeah um-"

"It's fine sir, I understand. I am able to contact Agent Coulson through the SHIELD network and if he approves, I can have a 'do not hold' in place for the Doctor. I imagine neither of you much like SHIELD medical so, have you got anyone you'd be okay with doing your check over?"

"Dr Banner."

"Of course, I will have Agent Coulson contact him directly. I will also send through orders that SHIELD personnel are not to interact with the Doctor, and that only members of your own team are to interact with her if she allows it."

"You're the best."

"A review would be appreciated, sir, the bonus money is always handy. Now, we've got your location.. Do you believe it safe for our Agents to enter?"

"Umm…hang on." Tony pushed the microphone across the bench top to her hand and gestured at it.

"Ugh, really Stark? Alright, then, no. They shouldn't enter. The gas hasn't been tested against any form of filtering system so we've got no way of knowing if SHIELD gear can handle it. The top of the facility is flat, we can get up there through some fire escape hatches, we'll wait on the roof for your team."

"Alright Ma'am, we'll be there shortly."

"Alrigh- no, Stark, I am not wearing an earpiece. Where did you even get that?" She turned the microphone off so she could focus on glaring at the man who was holding a small black ear piece out to her.

"Come oooooon, be part of the team!"

"What team?"

"Team us!" he said, grinning at her.

"…I need to get the fuck out of here before I go mad." She said, getting up from the swivel chair and leaving the room, with him following after her. The fire escapes weren't far, and Tony went up first so he could help pull her up, since the ladders weren't very long. They were shorter ladders, with a small landing after each one. There were about eight of them all together, with a metal hatch hatch in the ceiling above the last one.

"Any chance of us opening this?" Tony asked, looking at the number pad on the wall near them. "Got any ideas?"

"None from me, I'm afraid." She was leaning against the wall, clutching her injured arm close to her body. Tony realized just how…weak, she was looking. She had been pale, every time he'd seen her before this place but now it was simply the paleness from being sick.

"-ello?" A voice came from the ear piece Tony had been wearing; he'd found it on a bench in the room with a few others, and quickly connected them to the communication line he'd set up in the room. "No response yet, I'll try again when we're inside the building, we've just landed."

Tony knew that voice, so he laughed, loudly.

"Holy shit, Steve?!"

"Wait!" Steve called out to someone. "Tony, is that you?"

"Yes! Yes, yes, yes. Holy shit Steve, where the hell are you?"

"On the…roof, we think. Big flat area made of concrete. Where are you?"

"We're in the fire escape…ladder...tunnel thing. There's some sort of metal hatch we need a code to open, so we're a little stuck."

"Tony, who else is with you?"

"What?"

"You said 'we're a little stuck' not 'I'm a little stuck'. Is someone with you?"

"Did SHIELD not tell you?"

"We haven't heard from them. Friday discovered the readings, from what we guessed was an explosion. Looked pretty powerful."

"Yeah…can you get us out first, I'm fine but the other person needs medical."

"Right- oh, we can see a metal…plate looking thing in the ground."

"Okay- wait! You can't…come in, the place is full of gas."

"Are you okay? How long have you been exposed to it?"

"Long story but, I'm fine at the moment."

"Alright, give us a moment. Can you get yourselves a little lower?"

"We can try." Tony said, and looked at her. "Can you crouch?"

She nodded and lowered herself by sliding down the wall, till she was sitting.

"Wait, have you had any water since we've been here?" She raised an eyebrow at him, and he instantly felt like the biggest jerk ever. "I didn't mean- if they weren't feeding you I was just thinking-"

"Just food Stark, I had water." She said. The voice was weak and she had no energy left for there to be any venom to her words.

Something struck the metal hatch and screeched; something metallic had hit the little trap door. The shield. Holy shit, they had actually found them. They were actually getting out of here. The metal screeched again, as something pushed against it, then it was suddenly ripped away; the metal was torn away from it's concrete housing. Once the dust had stopped falling, Tony looked up to see Spiderman looking back down at him.

"Hey."

Tony closed his eyes, letting the back of his head rest against the wall. He'd kill them for letting the kid come but holy shit, it was good to hear that voice.