Chapter 16.
Falling.
Steve had been thrown off of buildings before – more times than was probably healthy – but it had been a little while. His missions had been on the ground lately.
Usually he had some way to catch himself.
A building. A wire. An aircraft.
Or it was a short enough distance that his shield could absorb the impact, like when he jumped from the elevator at the old SHIELD headquarters.
It was different this time. Tony had thrown him by his leg, sending him spinning into the open air. He was completely without recourse, no shield, no grappling hook. Falling, falling, falling. He was strong, durable, but not invincible. If he hit the ground from that height, it was over.
If Rhodey had not caught him, Tony would have killed him.
It was hard to grasp. He and Tony butted heads a lot, but nothing like this. He had spent this whole week trying to defend him, trying to talk him down – and somehow, this incident had cemented his resolve. Something was wrong.
Pepper was silent, sitting on the couch.
Rhodey was pacing by the window. "I need to go after him."
"I know, but we need to wait for the others. He might turn on you," Steve said.
"He would never do that," Rhodes snapped, though when he turned to Steve, his resolved faltered.
Steve kept the words to himself. I thought the same thing.
Bruce arrived first, having already been on the way. He took in the scene – the massive windows, now shattered, the dents in the floor, the somber expressions on Steve and Rhodes, and the devastation in Pepper.
Clint was next, wiping glitter off of his cheek.
"Did we interrupt something?" Bruce wondered.
Clint grunted, "No I was just… yes."
Steve paced, eventually swapping places with Rhodes, who went to sit with Pepper. He looked out at the city, tennis shoes crunching on glass. He had been in bed less than an hour ago – and now he was in the midst of a crisis.
"You look… casual," Natasha commented, coming to stand with him at the window.
Her words were soft, probing.
He glanced down, wishing he had picked any other shirt. It had SHIELD written across the chest. His voice came out sadder than he expected. "I like to dress for the occasion."
Natasha surveyed the team, processing, finding details with those sharp eyes.
Steve tracked a plane passing in the distance.
Nat put her hand on his arm, "What happened?"
Steve put his hand over hers, "Nothing good." He turned, assembling the team near the couch. "Bruce, you should start."
Bruce looked startled to hear his own name. He met the eyes of the team, hesitating, and then gave his side of the story. He told them about the video, the code, the argument he had with Tony.
Jarvis pulled up the video.
Pepper gave a weak defense.
Steve was quiet for a long time, contemplating the consequences of his words. Everyone was watching him, waiting, wondering what the tipping point was. They were standing on broken panels of glass, after all.
"He threw me off the tower."
He took stock of his team, reading their reactions.
Bruce seemed the least surprised. He looked gravely at the window, arms crossed, his mouth moving without making words.
Clint was stoic, unreadable.
Rhodes was pacing by the window, resisting the urge to go after his friend.
Natasha was staring at Steve – emotions ranging from shocked to resolved. And then nothing.
Pepper spoke first, "Something is wrong with him."
"Yeah, I would say so," Nat responded dryly.
Steve said, "We need to bring him in – alive."
Nat spoke in monotone, shrouding what she felt, "You're not being objective."
Steve said, "We owe him a chance."
"You don't owe him anything. He threw you off a building."
"He didn't mean it," Pepper said. "He looked like… like he was confused…"
Nat let her tone sharpen. "So if I stabbed someone and then said I didn't mean it, I could escape the consequences?"
"He's your friend," Pepper said, becoming defiant. She was finding her stride after taking a lot of blows. Steve had always admired her strength – she had to be solid, to deal with Tony all day.
"I know," Natasha said. "But you saw the video. He sent us into that base blind." Nat looked toward Clint, who was nodding along. "Don't you think it's a little suspicious that Tony almost killed me when I started asking too many questions?"
Bruce said, "Let's not jump to conclusions." He was holding himself together remarkably well. "It's Tony. Come on. He's not trying to kill you – or any of us!"
"I guess you would defend him," Nat said, not using the same restraint she displayed for Pepper. "You're helping him with this project. Did you want to throw Cap off the tower next?"
"Of course not!"
Steve watched the video, playing on a loop, showing Tony sabotaging his own program. Bruce said he was disabling thermal scanning, sending Clint and Natasha into a base with a massive bomb in it. Even with the evidence staring him in the face, Steve was with Pepper on this.
Something else was going on.
He cut into the conversation, "Romanoff, you're letting your emotions cloud your judgement."
Natasha's tone leveled out. "If you thought rationally for a minute, you would see how dangerous this is. Tony has access to enough tech to destroy this city."
Bruce spoke sullenly, losing the fire in his argument, "He just wants to protect the planet."
"He wants to control it," Nat countered.
Steve wished fights like this were easy.
His team devolved into arguing again. Clint weighed in, supporting Natasha, who advocated for violence. Bruce was a quieter, calmer voice of dissent, insisting they needed to talk Tony down and try not to hurt him. Rhodes finally joined the debate, a booming, frustrated voice. Tony was his best friend and Rhodes was loyal to a fault.
Steve could see all of their perspectives, understand their concerns.
"We're all trying to do the same thing," Steve said, shutting the conversation down. He tapped one of the metal balls, turning the video off. "We can fight about his motives later. What matters right now is finding him and bringing him in."
XxX
Pepper scoured the workshop.
Upstairs, the other Avengers were arguing about what they were going to do about Tony. His fate was in their hands, and right now they thought he was a traitor, a monster. She had seen him grab Steve, seen him throw his friend off the tower, but there was nothing that could make her believe he meant it.
Mind control. Mystic powers. Poisoning.
Something had happened to him.
She just had to prove it before Natasha shot him out of the sky.
Tony had not been downstairs since she found the video, since things began to snowball. She wished he were here now. Not the angry, irrational one she had seen fight Steve, but the sweet, silly one who occasionally sent her little drones with flowers attached to them.
Maybe there would be clues in one of his other labs.
Pepper turned to leave but stopped on her heel.
A lever was sticking out of the wall in the corner. Had that always been there? Yes, but not that color. It was a freezer where Tony stored dangerous compounds. It was black now, instead of silver, so the edges were barely noticeable.
It smelled like fresh paint.
Pepper opened the door.
It was dark inside. She used the flashlight on her phone, walking down the aisle of the freezer, a knife twisting in her gut with every step.
He had racks of Iron Man suits in here, painted brilliant blue and gold. She counted a dozen, maybe more.
"Tony… what were you doing?"
In the back, against the wall, a pair of green eyes opened.
XxX
A new argument was interrupted by a deep rumbling.
Bruce held himself, "Rumbling is never good."
Something revved below them, getting louder.
It was the window. Something was out there.
Steve held his hand up, keeping his team at bay, and approached the sound.
He only had time to say, "Incoming!" before it struck him.
He skidded through the room, crashing into the elevator doors.
A ten-foot-tall robot, sparkling platinum, with nothing on its face but a pair of sinister green eyes, charged toward him. It shook the ground with every step.
"Steve!" Nat tossed his shield.
Steve threw it up as the thing struck out, the impact rolling through his shoulders.
Steve struggled against its onslaught, pinned down, barely matching its moves in time. If it got a direct hit it was going to break some bones. Even at its size, it was fast, not letting him get a hit in edgewise, sapping his strength with every blow.
His team flew into action.
Clint was sinking arrows into its joints. Nat hit it with a stun tag. Rhodey grabbed it by the arm and got flipped backward through the air.
"Get it off!" Steve said.
"We're trying," Rhodes grunted, surging toward them again. He was swatted by a surprise third arm. "Come on, really? It has extra arms!"
It finally got a hit in, punching Steve square in the face.
He saw stars.
Natasha appeared on its shoulders, wedging a machete in its neck, trying to decapitate it.
It reared, finally distracted from him.
Steve surged upward, tackling it around the center. It staggered back several feet, but righted itself and brought its arms down on Steve, flattening him.
Jarvis said, "I'm working to disable it, hold on."
"Work faster!" Steve shouted, rolling out of the way as the thing tried to stomp on him.
He leapt to his feet, outpacing it. It followed him across the room, deploying spikes on its back to shake Natasha off.
"It's like a tank with legs," Clint said. He shot an arrow that produced a metal cord, wrapping around its torso. Nat caught the other end and then tried to hold it back, only to be dragged across the floor in its wake.
Nat said, "I saw plans for something like this in Tony's files."
"Oh, great, so mostly indestructible, then," Rhodes said, firing blasters at the third arm, trying to disable it. It dislodged from the bot and surged toward him, detonating midair, knocking him onto the balcony.
A stream of flame erupted from the bot's lower back.
"It has a flamethrower?" Nat groaned. "We could really use the big guy right now!"
Bruce was hiding out behind the wet bar. "I don't think the big guy will leave the tower standing."
"I don't think this thing will leave me standing!" Steve rolled, avoiding a crushing blow from a metal mace – which had replaced its hand. "It has a mace!"
Clint armed a glowing red arrow, "Fire in the hole!"
Steve hit the deck.
An explosion rocked the tower, knocking Clint and Nat off their feet. Rhodey had just returned to the fight, and the impact threw him headlong into the back of the couch.
Clint held up his hands. "Never tested that one. That's my bad."
The bot staggered again.
Steve saw his opening. He charged, hitting it in the center with his shield, getting its feet off the ground. He forced it toward the open windows. "Barton, fire another one as soon as its off the ground!"
But his plan was interrupted.
The bot righted itself, deploying stabilizers on its legs and bringing Steve to a sudden stop. It got its arms around him and twisted, flinging him toward the window.
Rhodes intercepted him, "Nope, not again."
Steve hit the ground, coming face-to-face with the glowing interior of a cannon.
And then the bot stopped. Its eyes dimmed and it slouched.
"I've disabled it," Jarvis announced.
Steve panted, doubling over, aches emerging all over his body.
Clint slumped into the nearest chair, gasping, "Not one hundred percent yet. Phew. I'm gonna need a vacation after this."
Nat appeared beside Steve, "You okay?"
"Nothing life threatening." Steve pressed his fingers to his split lip, wincing. "That thing packs a hell of a punch."
"What did you expect? Stark designed it."
He met her eyes, registering concern behind the anger.
"I still want to bring him without hurting him."
Despite the gravity of the situation, her frustration, she managed to look at him with profound affection. "I know you do."
Jarvis said, "Ms. Potts is badly injured in the basement."
Steve jumped to his feet.
An ominous sound stopped him, stopped everyone.
A dozen unmanned Iron Man suits rose into view, hovering in the window.
"I'll get Pepper," Clint said, running for the elevator.
Steve grabbed his shield. "I guess we got this, then."