Tony glanced over his shoulder at the sound of footsteps and flipped the faceplate of his suit up for a better view.
Cap had Agent Barton on one side and both Rain and Natasha on his other. The girls both wore skin tight uniforms, a cat suit for Romanoff while her other half wore a vest and pants. "Damn... why did they have to be lesbians?" he thought.
Agent Barton regarded him cooly before glancing at the girls. Rain rolled her eyes and Natasha shook her head.
"Decide to fight on the side that's gonna win?" Tony asked.
Clint's reaction was immediate and without a second's hesitation. He pulled an arrow from his quiver, took a split second to aim and then let the arrow fly.
"Son of a bitch!" Tony yelped, flitting a few feet away.
Rain laughed as Tony stared at the arrow that was stuck in a crate, at roughly the same height as his chest.
Steve glanced at Clint before gingerly setting a hand on the other man's shoulder.
Clint twitched away and went to retrieve his arrow from the crate.
"Okay... so don't piss off the archer." Tony muttered.
"Probably best you don't piss off any SHIELD agent." Natasha smirked.
"We'll meet you there." Steve told Tony.
"Any word on Thor? Or Banner?" Tony asked, dropping his faceplate.
"Not since Thor was dumped from the Helicarrier and Hulk bolted." Steve admitted.
Tony nodded, flinching when Clint walked by and said, "Right. Let's get to New York then."
"We'll meet you there." Clint said as he slid the arrow back in his quiver.
"Right." Tony muttered, still leery of the archer.
The SHIELD tech they startled a few minutes later in the Quinjet spun in his chair to face them. "Oh shit... am I in trouble?" he thought, staring at Captain America and three agents. "I'm sorry, you guys aren't supposed to.." he began.
"Son, just don't." Steve told him.
The tech nodded and got to his feet. He wasn't going to argue with Captain America and three of his superior agents.
"Go on." Natasha told the young tech who immediately obeyed.
"Is the maintence finished?" Clint asked, sliding into the pilot seat.
Rain stuck her head out and called, "Tech? Did you finish your maintence duties?"
The tech hesitated, glanced over his shoulder and called, "Yes ma'am."
Rain nodded and closed the ramp. "Maintence was finished. Probably just before we showed up." she told Clint.
"Good. I should be able to have us in the air... probably in five minutes. Give or take." Clint said as Natasha slid into the co-pilot seat beside him.
"See if you can do better?" Steve asked.
"Working on it." Natasha assured him.
Rain slid into one of the seats to wait & Steve settled in across from her. She raised an eyebrow as he watched Clint then glanced at her. "Something on your mind Captain?" she asked.
"Nothing that can't wait." he told her then added silently, "Even though I'm extremely curious about what's going on between you & him."
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Maria didn't always approve of the ways Fury did things, despite the results his methods got, but she didn't like being kept in the dark about operational planning. "Sir." she said, stepping up behind him.
"Agent Hill."
"Those cards... they were in Coulson's locker. Not his pocket." she said.
Fury nodded and said, "They needed the push." He had taken advantage of Coulson's death and used it to guilt trip Steve and Tony into doing what needed to be done. He regretted having to do so but he'd deal with the guilt later.
"We have an unauthorized departure from base."
Fury and Hill both watched a Quinjet launched and Iron Man followed it, staying near it briefly before accelerating away. They curved north, towards New York City.
"They found it. Get our communications back up, whatever you have to do. I want eyes on everything." Fury commanded.
"Yes sir." Maria said, nodding. Fury had given her all the explaination she was going to get.
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"Sir, I've turned off the Arc Reactor but the device is already self-sustaining." Jarvis said as Tony hovered near the tower. Selvig had built the machine housing the Tesseract on the top floor just outside his & Pepper's penthouse.
"Shut it down, Dr. Selvig." Tony snapped, hoping that Selvig didn't notice the way his thrusters hiccuped. The turbines had done more damage to his suit than he wanted to admit.
"It's too late. She can't be stopped now! She wants to show us something! A new universe!" Selvig cried.
"Okay." Tony muttered. "Somebody's cuckoo for cookie puffs." he added silently.
He blasted the machine with his repulsors but the force fields knocked him back. Selvig & his laptop also went flying across the rooftop. "The barrier is pure energy. It's unbreakable." Jarvis piped up.
"Yeah got that. Plan B." he muttered, catching sight of Loki on the walkway leading into the penthouse.
"Sir... the Mark Seven is not ready for deployment." Jarvis told him.
"Skip the bells and whistles. We're on a clock." Tony said. He couldn't fight Loki or the Chitauri, whatever the hell they were, in his current suit.
As he landed, the automated machinery he had installed in the walkway removed his suit as he watched Loki enter the penthouse. "Please tell me you're going to my humanity." Loki chuckled as Tony walked into the penthouse.
"Uh, actually I was planning to threaten you." Tony admitted.
"You should have left your armor on for that." Loki smirked.
Tony shrugged & said, "Yeah well.. it's seen a bit of mileage. And you've got the Glow Stick of Destiny. Would you like a drink?"
"Stalling me won't change anything." Loki said.
"No, no, no threatening! No drink? You sure? I'm having one." Tony chirped, pouring himself a glass. The sip burned a bit but seemed to help smooth over the rough edges of everything that had happened recently.
Loki watched Tony, cautious & intrigued, but unsure what the mortal was planning.
"The Chitauri are coming. Nothing will change that. What have I to fear?" Loki smirked.
"The Avengers. That's what we call ourselves... we're sort of like a team. 'Earth's Mightiest Heroes' type thing." Tony said casually, tracking Loki's movements. When he was sure Loki wasn't looking, he slipped a bracelet over his wrist. The bracelet was a remote activator for the Mark 7 armor Jarvis was worried about. With Loki, things could go wrong in a second but he hoped to get to use the new suit.
"The Avengers. Yes, I've met them." Loki said, not impressed.
Tony shrugged & said, "Yeah, takes us a while to get any traction, I'll give you that. But let's do a head count here. Your brother, the demigod. A Super-Soldier, a living legend who kind of lives up the legend. A man with breathtaking anger-management issues. A little hell-cat who absolutely hates men. A couple of master assassins... and you, big fella, you've managed to piss off every single one of them."
"That was the plan." Loki admitted with a grin.
"Not a great plan. When they come & they will..." Tony said.
"I have an army." Loki interrupted.
"We have a Hulk. And a hell-cat who wants to tear you apart." Tony argued.
Loki smirked & reconized the 'hell-cat' as the Hawk's daughter. "I thought the beast had waundered off. And the girl is a mere mortal." Loki smirked.
Tony was going on a hope & prayer that Bruce would show up when they needed him.
"You're missing the point! There's not throne, there is not version of this where you come out on top. Maybe your army comes & maybe it's too much for us.. but it's all on you. Because if we can't protect the Earth, you can be damn sure we'll avenge it." Tony snapped, closing the gap between them.
"How will your friends have time for me, when they're so busy fighting you?" Loki chuckled, tapping Tony on the chest with his scepter. Except unlike with Hawkeye & Selvig, nothing happened.
"Well then." Tony thought as the Arc Reactor counteracted the scepter.
"This usually works." Loki said, trying again.
"Well, performance issues. You know?" Tony quipped.
Loki snarled & grabbed Tony by the throat, throwing him across the room.
"Jarvis... anytime now." Tony whispered.
"You will all fall before me." Loki hissed, grabbing Tony by the throat again.
The glass shattered behind Tony & he went into a freefall. "This is much more fun in the suit." he thought, staring at the rapidly approaching street. The bracelet around his wrist chirped & he felt the familiar sensation of his armor wrapping itself around his body. Dangerously close to the ground, Tony engaged the thrusters & rocketed back up to the penthouse.
After all, nobody threw him off his own roof.
Loki blinked in shock as he hovered in the shattered window.
"And there's one other person you pissed off! He name was Phil." Tony snarled, firing a repulsor blast at Loki.
