Because you've all been so patient with me, here's another update, and for once, an actual decent length chapter!
As usual, all things Marvel related belong to the MCU – I make no money from this story. No copyright infringement is intended.
Chapter Twenty-Six – HYDRA or not HYDRA? That Is the Question
Just a week had passed since Tony had set about confronting his teammates to work out their issues when the group they believed to possibly be the new HYDRA made their next move. FRIDAY's defences were activated, her Irish lilt sounding frantic as she yelled in his ear that someone was trying to get up to their floor of the building, and the security guards in the lobby had all been incapacitated.
Tony opened the comms and called for the Avengers to suit up- it was time to be heroes. He called for FRIDAY to release his newest suit and within seconds he felt the cool metal surround his skin, a cocoon of safety that calmed him and let him think rationally. As soon as the faceplate slid into place and the HUD displayed, Tony began to coordinate the team.
He knew FRIDAY's defences would hold for some time, but not forever. He got the live feed from the lobby to see there were at least ten HYDRA men trying to break into the lifts. He thanked Pepper silently for talking him out of putting in stairs, there would be no way to protect them. Also, she had said it would be sadistic to let people think the building had its main floors near the bottom and some poor soul decided to climb eighty odd floors.
The team soon assembled in the common room and he looked around them all. "Normally I'd say let's go give them a beat down, but I want information. Keep one behind, get the rest out fast. It's about time we found out what these assholes want. Above all else, we protect Barnes. We can only guess why they want him back, but we aren't going to let it happen. We've come too far to take that many steps backwards."
Bucky arrived wearing full tac gear and Tony almost sent him back. "Can I be of use?"
On second thought, Tony nodded. "Yes, I think you can. I want you to let them see you and see if they know the codes to trigger you. Now, we know they've been changed, they don't. So, if they manage to get them all out before we can stop them, I want you to pretend. Understood? You are in no way to break role to protect any of us."
Bucky gave a solemn nod and pulled out a gun. "Let's go give a beat down."
He had to laugh at that, and they all took off from the roof, Tony carrying Steve, much to his delight- not – even in the suit, the super soldier weight a hell of a lot. Clint abseiled down with Natasha on his back, Thor took Bruce and Wanda took Bucky, Vision flew alone. They all entered through the main doors and battle ensued.
Tony saw Bucky make sure he was seen last, and he did his best to keep an eye on the soldier as best he could. He blasted one of the HYDRA men out of the doors, Wanda threw one after him, and Vision phased two through the doors. Ten were down to six, with Bruce, or rather Hulk, smashing the crap out of everything he saw and sent two of the men running. That made it four, and the numbers dwindled fast. He saw Natasha grab one and subdue him in seconds, her lip bleeding but otherwise unscathed.
Amidst the racket he heard Bucky's trigger words being shouted and he flew over to help when something smashed him out of flight and into a lift, the suit blaring dangerously that he'd been injured. Judging by the pain in his ribs, FRIDAY wasn't wrong. He got up and found a tank of a man stood in his way of getting to Bucky.
"We only want the Asset, give us him and nobody need be hurt," a deep voice demanded.
Tony met eerie, cold blue eyes, a face that might as well have been chiselled from ice for all the expression it bore, and a mop of unruly black hair sat atop his head. If he didn't know better, he'd have sworn the man was being controlled by the sceptre, but the Mind Stone was in Vision's head so that was impossible.
"Sorry, you can't have him, he's with us now," Tony stated, wary of the beast in front of him. One good hit and Tony could be down for the count.
"Ah, but he is not. The Asset will be coming with us, and we are taking you along!"
Tony felt the suit fold away and a cold hand clamped over his neck, goose bumps rising on his flesh. He heard FRIDAY murmur in his ear that Bucky had told her to open the suit, that it would make them trust that the soldier was on their side again, having wormed his way into the Avengers.
Going along with it, he told the others to stop fighting, the hand tightening its grip and for a second, Tony felt genuinely afraid that maybe something had gone wrong. Warm breath stirred the short hairs on the back of his neck, Bucky's body heat soaking into his back. There was a time when being this close to the man would have repulsed him, but right now, facing a man that could kill him with one hit, Tony found it reassuring, safe, even.
"When I give the signal, duck and dive behind me, your suit is there. Leave this guy to me," Bucky's voice murmured into his ear, FRIDAY confirming the suit was indeed there in his other ear.
Tony gave a barely perceptible nod to show he understood. Warm fingers touched his hip the same time the grip on his neck loosened and he dropped to the floor, diving behind Bucky's legs as the soldier strode forward and jumped into his suit again.
He could hear grunting as Bucky and the unnamed soldier went at it, but he paid them no attention. He focused on getting rid of the other two conscious men that were still fighting with his teammates. They dispatched with them in no time, Natasha keeping her attention solely on the one she'd knocked unconscious for questioning.
Listening as intently as possible to the fighting going on at his back, Tony dispatched with the remaining men in moments, losing his temper and blasting them away with his repulsors, the strength of the blasts a tad higher than usual. Just as he was turning to see how Bucky was faring, he heard a yelp of pain and seconds later, when his eyes found Bucky on the ground holding his metal arm, the body of the tanked soldier slammed into him and blue eyes rolled in their sockets to the back of his head.
Tony shot forward and bellowed as he careened into the beast before him and took him through two or three walls before he finally slowed down, only coming a stop when he realised the man was unconscious. Deciding on a whim to keep him for questioning too, Tony quickly had him tied up and transported up to the main floor with his colleague.
He checked his teammates were okay, made sure there was no immediate need for medical attention, and had them all go and suit-down before having them meet him on the level where the cells were. Tony, however, remained in his armour, afraid that if they all went in seemingly relaxed, they might inadvertently tip the scales out of their favour.
When he found them on the containment floor, he received a few quizzical look over the suit but Bucky merely folded his arms over his chest and stared stonily at the two soldiers they had captured. Tony went over to Bucky first. "Is your arm alright?" He asked. "Was there any damage done?"
Surprised blue eyes met his, one brow raised. "No, thanks, the arm is fine."
Tony nodded and turned to the men in the containment cell. "Alright, I believe it's time for some answers. This isn't the first time you've seen fit to burst in on my day, and frankly, it's getting a little tiresome now. Why are you after Barnes?"
The one Tony had labelled Beast rose to his feet and moved as close to the glass as humanly possible. "The Asset is required to return to his homeland for reconditioning."
Now they weren't in the thick of battle, Tony could tell there was an accent there, it was thick, almost like it was Russian, but not quite. He couldn't place it, but it vaguely reminded him of Ivan Vanko.
"The Asset has a name, and it's Bucky. He isn't going anywhere with any of you. Send as many of your man as you wish, I will destroy each and every one of them," Tony's voice dropped to barely above a soft murmur.
A smirk twisted Beast's features. "And here we thought The Merchant of Death was long gone."
The look that graced Tony's face had the other man paling suddenly. "I put those days behind me, but believe me when I say that if you continue to threaten my friends, you'll see why I was feared when I was The Merchant of Death. It wasn't simply because I could produce weapons of mass destruction, but also for the ferocity at which I will defend those I care about."
A hand settled on his shoulder, and Tony inhaled slightly, smelling the spray that Bucky used. "Easy, Tony, your heart rate is through the roof."
He didn't even want to think how Bucky knew that but took a deep breath. He turned and faced the enhanced soldier. "Speak Russian," he muttered softly enough for only him to hear.
Blue eyes went from soft and warm, to hard and icy in a blink. Bucky approached the contained soldiers and barked a goodbye in Russian. If he'd blinked, he would have missed it, but he just caught the confused look before the Beast's face twisted into a sneer. No words were said but Bucky understood that he was trying to appear defiant without actually knowing what Bucky had said. If he was HYDRA, he'd know Russian, they're all taught it to be able to adequately converse with the Winter Soldier.
Returning to Tony's side, he allowed his fingers to brush the smooth metal of the suit and shook his head ever so slightly. Tony got the message loud and clear – they did not know Russian. He had already suspected they weren't actually HYDRA but this was all the proof he needed. What he did need now, was to know who they actually were and why they were masquerading as HYDRA.
"FRIDAY, do me a facial recognition scan, baby girl," he whispered to his AI.
The more he looked at the creepy eyes, the more Tony felt like he knew him from somewhere. The likeness to Vanko was eerie, but Tony knew Vanko was dead. He and Rhodey had seen to his demise several years ago after Hammer had tried to wow the Stark Expo with his droids. Tony had the suit open up and he stepped out, wanting to get a better look at the Beast, unhindered by the suit. Pacing up and down, Tony kept wracking his brain on why he thought he knew that face, and FRIDAY was taking quite a while running the scan.
The more he thought on it, the creepy eyes reminded him of Ulysses Klau, which further reminded him he hadn't seen hide nor hair of the Vibranium smuggler, at least not since just after their little skirmish during the whole Ultron debacle. He'd caught Klau trying to worm his way into his system to steal some plans for some device or another that Tony was creating. He'd gone to pay Klau a visit and been rather rudely introduced to his new business partner…
"Son of a bitch!" Tony bellowed, locking eyes with the man and listening to FRIDAY confirm it.
Now that he knew who it was, everything seemed to fall into place. Why he didn't speak Russian but had Russian family. He'd lived in Belarus for the vast majority of his life, and spoke Belarussian, which sounded similar to Russian but wasn't the same. He'd put on a lot of weight and beefed up since the last time Tony had seen him, and the fact that his face hadn't been pummelled there and then still didn't make sense, nor why he was after Bucky but he'd damn well find out.
As his brain ticked over, he became aware of someone trying to get his attention. He only came to his senses when cool metal touched his chin and tipped his head around a little. "Hey, Tony, you with us? What is it?" Bucky asked softly.
"That man is Nikolai Vanko, Ivan Vanko's younger brother. They were separated quite young, Ivan remained with his father, Nikolai was moved with his mother to Belarus. When his mother died, he took up with Ulysses Klau. I haven't seen him in several years, and he was smaller." He turned to Nikolai, "you've certainly gotten bigger, Nikolai."
"I knew trying to beat you in your suit of armour as I was would be futile, my brother would have destroyed you if not for your silly, little, army friend. I realised I would need to be bigger, stronger, and smarter than you."
Tony laughed without humour. "There is no one on Earth smarter than me, Vanko, except maybe Brucie-Bear."
Bruce grunted from behind him but said nothing.
"Ah, but the constant remains, Tony Stark, you need your friends around you to be able to win against a Vanko," Nikolai goaded.
"Enough, I'm not playing your little games, Nikolai. Why use HYDRA as a ruse?"
The man chuckled. "Your friend, Hammer, mentioned them, and that you'd recently added their missing Asset to your band of misfits. It seemed a fitting cover story."
Tony frowned. "Cover story for what?"
A smirk that sent shivers down Tony's spine twisted Nikolai's features. "To get close to you."
FRIDAY sounded an alarm but her voice never came from the speakers. Then it went dark, the red emergency lighting coming on. Tony barely had a second to register what had happened. The triggering of the emergency system caused the locks on the containment cells to open and both men were freed. Tony had gotten his team to go take off their suits before going up to the cell floor, most of them were completely defenceless.
With FRIDAY down, Tony wouldn't be able to use certain features of the suit, he just prayed that he would be able to use the weapons. Their comms were still open and as FRIDAY didn't control the channel he could still communicate with his team. Now, more than ever, he had to put all differences aside and work with them all to keep everyone safe.
"Anyone who is enhanced, protect the others, get them out of here then turn around and come back. Wanda, Vision, I need you to keep everyone in the building safe, get them out if you can. Bruce, I really need you not to Hulk out, buddy. There are too many innocent people in here, I know he's getting better at not going rage monster, but we can't take the chance. I need you to get to FRIDAY's server and try get her rebooted for me."
Bruce nodded and quickly removed himself from the room, Steve grabbed Sam and bodily dragged him away. Vision took Wanda's hand and phased through the floor, moments later there was shouting and running. Clint and Natasha looked at Tony, ready to fight despite no weapons, but Tony shook his head. "Just go, guys. I can't be worried about you two if I'm trying to keep them up here."
The two former SHIELD agents left, promising to keep everyone away from them. That left Tony, Bucky and Thor in the room. He was reluctant to let Thor at them given the two were only human and Thor was a god. An explosion rocked the building, and silently, the three of them agreed Thor would be best put to protecting everyone else.
"You think you and your little tin man stand a chance, Stark?" Nikolai said, smirking. "If you think those men I came with were all the backup I had, you're sorely mistaken. As we speak, my men are storming this tower, under orders to kill anyone that stands in their way."
"Bucky, you gotta go warn the others."
"No, Tony, I ain't gonna leave you to this guy. He knows without backup you won't be able to stop him, especially with FRIDAY out of commission."
Tony frowned and bit back a curse. "Listen, I can't have that many deaths on my hands, I need you to do this for me. You can send one of the others back if you need to."
"No, Tony!"
Tony growled. "Don't you get it? If they take you this team will fall apart!"
"The answer is no, Tony. Get one of them on the comms and tell them to come back."
Tony's eyes glinted like steel behind his faceplate and he faced Bucky. "Forgive me, Bucky. Teplo, Bruklinskiy, krasnyy, voskhod, v goroshek, kontrol', obeshchaniye, voyushchiy, nachalo, svetlo-korichnevyy."
Bucky stood strong, his posture easy, almost relaxed. He responded to his triggering, "Gotov k vypolneniyu'."
Tony told him to go protect the people still in the tower and slow down any of Nikolai's forces. The Soldier complied and left without a backward glance. Tony knew he would face the wrath of the team later, but he couldn't deal with knowing people would be killed if they were unsuspecting of the people raiding through Stark Tower.
It probably wasn't his brightest idea, leaving himself with a man that had gone to so much trouble to get to him, but if it meant that he'd be able to keep everyone safe then he was willing to take the risk. He really hoped that FRIDAY came back online soon. He could use the weapons, move around and take flight, but if he needed to use the targeting system he'd struggle, and he wouldn't be able to analyse any of this man's fighting pattern without Fry there to help.
Tony didn't even have a second more to think as Nikolai launched his attack and went hand to hand with him. Realistically, no one would have thought that fighting bare knuckle against a suit of armour would be a good idea, but Tony very quickly found out that punching the armour did nothing to hurt the beast of a man. Shit, Tony thought. He's enhanced!
He had no idea how Nikolai had managed to get the serum, but one thing he did know: he was in very serious trouble. Siberia flashed before his eyes and Tony had to fight the panic attack that threatened to consume him. He blocked everything that he could, fired every weapon that was in his arsenal, everything except the missile that was. Didn't really want to blow up the tower.
Too slow to dodge out of the way of a punch, Tony was knocked down to one knee, the suit whirring as it tried to absorb the attacks as much as possible. Metal whined as it started to cave in, Tony's arms hurting from the jarring of Nikolai slammed his hands down on him. He was blind-sided when those hands formed a club and smashed into the side of his helmet, sending him careening into the wall. His ears rang, his head throbbed painfully, and he suspected that the bones of his jaw were fractured.
Winning by fighting clean was impossible, and despite his desire to keep The Merchant of Death at bay, Tony accepted that he would have to give up on that for now, and allow that part of him to open up again. Taking a deep breath, Tony scanned to room to see what he could use to his advantage, but as it was a containment room, there was little that would of use to him.
"Your brother was as useless as you are, Vanko. His idiotic stunt with the droids earned him nothing more than a fireworks display," Tony goaded.
"A display that almost killed your precious Miss Potts. A second slower and she'd have been toast, Stark. My brother only failed because your army friend was able to steal one of your suits. Without the blast from your repulsors meeting, there would have been nothing but death waiting for you both."
Tony had to give him that one, the man wasn't wrong. "Maybe, I guess we'll never know on that one. It must be so hard coming from a family of failures. Your dad was too slow to get anything on the arc reactor, your brother tried to copy the tech of my suits and failed at that, and now, here we are, you trying to beat me in my own tower and so far all you've done is crush a little metal."
"Please, Stark, we both know that eventually your suit will fail and then, then I will crush your bones with my bare hands."
He snorted and twisted his wrist slightly, engaging the repulsors but not firing. "You'll never get the chance, Nikolai. If you'd only come after me, then it wouldn't have really mattered. But you threatened the people I employ, and you threatened my friends. You were dead the moment you walked through those doors."
Not giving the Belarussian time to act, Tony engaged the repulsors and shot forward, dodged the wild arm that Nikolai threw up, and dropped at his back. Vanko turned and drove a fist into the sternum of the suit, grabbed the arc reactor and tried to yank it out. Though Tony no longer had the same arc reactor in his chest to power the suit, it would still leave him desperately defenceless. Without its power source, Tony would be locked inside a dead piece of machinery that would become his coffin if he didn't put a stop to this right now.
He powered up the repulsors again and shoved them into the brute's chest, intent on blowing a hole through him. But the suit powered down and the arc reactor came clean away from the suit. Tony's heart hammered in his chest, he was a goner. There was no way he was going to be able to get himself out of this one. All his friends were off saving the people in the tower, and Tony had sent his only real defender off to help the others. It would be a miracle if the man even spoke to him anytime soon after he'd used his trigger words.
The faceplate of his suit was ripped off and Tony could see the murderous look in Nikolai's eyes. "Bucky," Tony whispered sadly, waiting for the blow that was coming.
But it never came. All he heard was a sickening crack and when Tony looked up, he could see Nikolai's head twisted in an unnatural way, and two hands framing it. A flesh one, and a metal one. "Are you hurt?" Bucky asked, voice cold.
Tony flinched at the chilly tone but shook his head. "Not majorly, my jaw needs looking at but other than that I think I'm alright." He rush of happiness he felt at seeing the soldier's face shocked Tony to his core.
Blue eyes dropped to his jaw and imagined there was some bruising forming but elected to remain quiet. He could see Bucky's own jaw working, he could almost hear the teeth grinding together. He knew that he had a long road to travel if he wanted the man to ever forgive him.
"The bodies of their men are being collected, everyone is safe. Not a single person was hurt."
Tony sighed in relief. "That's great…Bucky, I'm sorry, please-"
Bucky held his hand up. "Right now, I don't want to hear it, Tony. I'm furious, and hurt, but I'm…I just don't want to talk about it yet."
Wincing, Tony nodded and lowered his eyes, guilt eating at him. "Of course, Bucky, I understand." He blinked rapidly, forcing himself to keep his voice level.
Gentle fingers tipped his chin up, careful of the injury there. "That's not to say I'm not pleased you're safe. Go get seen, I'll finish up here."
Tony was not ashamed to admit that the leant into those warm fingers, gone in the next moment as Bucky broke open the suit for him, and FRIDAY came over his comms just as he was walking out. "Boss, are you okay?"
"Yeah, baby girl, but I don't think he is," he murmured sadly and walked off, making his way to medical and ignoring the extensive damage to the building like it wasn't even there.