Chapter 9.

"I'm just saying, if you rely too much on superhuman abilities, you lose your skills."

Tony nodded along, shoving a donut in his mouth. He was on a chilly rooftop in the warehouse district, a rapidly cooling cup of coffee in one metal hand, half of a glazed donut in the other. His priorities were strictly in order – get some food on his stomach, and then hunt down the mercs who attacked his friends. It was important to stay balanced.

Rhodey was going on and on, talking through bites of a jelly donut. "I mean, if you want to be a badass, you have to work for it."

Tony said, "Right, right. And I'm agreeing with you, no need to be so defensive."

"I'm not being defensive." Rhodey grabbed the box, already picking out his next pastry victim. "I don't want it to be interpreted the wrong way. I like Steve and Thor, I really do, but come on – do you think Steve could do any damage without his special 'enhancement?'"

"Absolutely not. He looks like a used toothpick."

"Exactly. It's unnatural. It's the real brawlers – us – that make the difference."

"Well, it's my tech that makes the difference."

"Speak for yourself. I can hand-to-hand with the best of them."

"You know, your criticism could apply to you, as well." Tony gestured behind them, where Rhodey had left his suit open and waiting. "You spend so much time in your suit that you probably lost a lot of muscle mass. Come on, show me your bicep."

"I don't have to prove anything to you."

"If that's the case, show me your bicep."

Jarvis said, "Perimeter scan complete. No other combatants detected."

Tony dusted his hands, wincing at the sharp metallic sound it produced. Sometimes, his suit felt so natural that he forgot he was wearing it. "I guess these guys aren't big fans of the cold, either." He closed his helmet, surveying the building a few blocks away. A big, abandoned warehouse, suspiciously dark inside. "I think the windows are being obscured. Not sure how…"

Rhodey stepped into his suit.

Tony turned, "You sure you don't wanna go in there with your bare fists?"

"I'll show you bare fists in a second."

Tony was laughing as they stepped off the roof together, soaring quietly toward the warehouse. Tony landed on the left side of the building, and Rhodey on the right. A tense, careful half hour of preparation saw barricades on every exit. He met up with Rhodey around back, gesturing to a window directly above them. He saw now that a dark screen had been placed over it, giving the impression that the warehouse was empty – but he saw slivers of light creeping through.

It was subtle things like that – electric weapons, props on windows – that made Tony wonder who was behind this. His mind was carefully categorizing the puzzle pieces, impatiently waiting for the bigger picture to come into focus.

Tony and Rhodey took the warehouse together. Bullets flew, deflecting harmlessly off their suits. An electrified net came out of nowhere, clipped Rhodey on the arm, and brought him down hard on the concrete floor. Tony landed by his side, popping the last of his reserves and spraying the combatants down with foam. It allowed them a brief moment of movement, in which they all took on positions they were going to regret later, and then it solidified like concrete all over their bodies. Some of them toppled, whacking faces, outstretched limbs, and loaded weapons on the ground, and some of them were stuck there, posed like ice sculptures.

"Jesus," Rhodey said, getting one knee under him and swaying. "What the hell hit me?"

"Same thing they tried to take Thor with," Tony said, double checking that all the baddies were stuck in Jell-o, and then getting an arm under Rhodey to help him up. "I haven't had one of those hit my suit yet – how'd it feel?"

Rhodey leaned heavily on him, blinking, "Uh, like a train."

"Jarvis, run a systems check on Rhodey's suit." Tony steadied his friend, a little worried about his dilated pupils, his incessant blinking. "What's going on with you? Why are you doing that? Stop it. Stop blinking."

"Sorry, I just…" Rhodey kept blinking. "I can't see that well. It's blurry."

"Don't say that." Tony groaned, waving a hand in front of Rhodey's face. His eyes barely reacted to the stimulation. "Crap. Jarvis, thoughts?"

"Retinal scans show residual electricity causing muscle spasms, sir." Jarvis always sounded confident, peaceful, regardless of the circumstances. "It is fading as we speak."

"Okay, no time for another benched Avenger." Tony walked Rhodey to the nearest bench and pressed him onto it. "Sit. Stay. Don't go blind. Please."

And then Tony stepped up to the mass of foamed mercenaries, grinning. They looked ridiculous. "I bet you're wondering why I gathered you all here today." He strode forward, walking between them, counting fourteen guys total – and four pizza boxes. "What? You tried to kill my friends and then went out for pizza? And this isn't even good pizza! A thousand great pizza places in New York City, and you come back with this garbage?"

Silence.

Tony sighed. So far, there were a lot of buttoned lips.

"Uh, Tony," Rhodey said.

Tony turned, finding Rhodey standing up, the right glove of his suit arching with blue lines of electricity. "Oh, shit!" Tony lunged, stopping himself from grabbing it at the last moment. Bad idea. "Jarvis, amputate the right arm."

Rhodey had time to say, "What? No!"

And then the right arm of his suit popped off and clanged to the ground.

"I was working on something," Tony said, nudging it with his foot. "I figured we should start mimicking the Hydra weapons that keep bringing us down – I almost killed Steve with that one."

Rhodey was breathing hard, sweating despite the cold. "Oh, right. Well, it works great. 'A' for effort, 'D' for intentions."

"I call that a solid 'B' minus."

"Why was it on my suit?"

"I tinker with it when you're not looking."

Rhodey sighed.

"Wow that… came out wrong," Tony admitted. He pulled out his phone, giving Rhodey the 'one minute' gesture, and then remembering that his friend was currently having some vision problems. "Hold on, calling my work wife."

"Did you just call me your work wife?" Maria Hill sounded a little tense, but there was an easy laugh in her voice. "Is that you, Tony?"

"The one and only." Tony smiled, winking at one of the mercenaries as he trailed through their ranks. "You like my bike? I shined it up special for you."

"I do. It's just what I needed."

"Glad I could help. Listen, I got like a dozen, spare a few, unmarked mercs hanging out in a warehouse on the docks. They tried to kill Romanoff and Banner a few hours ago. Any chance you got some spare muscle – and maybe a few dog crates – to shake some answers out of them? I packaged them up already."

She took a moment to respond, "I can try and figure something out. SHIELD will collect them."

"I always love our chats."

"Be careful. It sounds like you guys have your hands full."

"Oh, boy, you don't even know the half of it."

Tony mulled around for a little longer, had a slice of pizza, threw a few small objects at Rhodey. When he finally moved out of the way of a pebble, it was time to go.

"Just stay on me," Tony said.

"I know how to fly, Tony."

Tony veered toward him, forcing him to correct his course. "Don't make me turn this formation around."

"You can't have a formation with two crafts."

"You definitely can. I'm the lead craft."

"No, you can't. And I would be the lead craft. I'm the more experienced pilot."

"We gonna rehash this right now? You can't even see."

Rhodey snorted, and a moment later, rammed his face into Tony's boot. He hung back about ten feet, groaning. "You better hope that doesn't leave a bruise."

"I don't understand how that's my fault."

"You put the glove on my suit!"

"It wasn't an extra glove, it was just… a few modifications to the hand. But I see your point. Fair enough. That's my bad."

XxXxX

Clint gnawed on a piece of beef jerky, tracing shapes in the rocks above his head. It was just after sunset, frigid, but not freezing, and the canyon had quieted. Now that there was nothing to look at up there, only a few tourists were trickling through. Clint could see them if he donned his night vision goggles – little shapes way, way up high, looking out into the growing darkness.

He was lying on his back, on a slanted rock face that gave him the perfect, hidden vantage point to view their target – the alien boulder. Maria was a few feet away, sitting up against the canyon wall, eating an apple by cutting slivers with a knife.

"So, if nothing had happened out here last night, where would you be right now?" Clint asked, sliding down his perch and sitting beside her. He took an apple slice, gave her a piece of jerky.

She laid her head against the rock, staring across to where two dark stains marked the demise of her people – they were invisible in the shadows. "Fishing, probably."

"Hmm."

"Why is that 'hmm'?"

He shrugged. "Are you the outdoorsy type?"

"You know I am. We've climbed a mountain together."

"Well, yeah, for a mission. But in your free time?"

"Yes. Why, are you someone completely different in your free time?"

"This is my free time," he exchanged another piece of jerky for an apple slice.

"We have got to get you a life."

"It's what I like to do. Nothing wrong with that." He thought about his mission in Vancouver, how close he had been to finishing a chapter in his life. "Some people collect stamps."

Clint pulled the comic book from his bag, examining the cover again.

Everyone looked so excited to be there.

He flipped through the pages, reading their adventure, snorting at the corny dialogue and cookie cutter villain. It was some businessman who wanted to take over the world by changing the weather, or something along those lines. Clint was only skimming it.

Maria stopped him on a page where Cap was slamming his shield into a bank robber, "Oh, wow, that looks familiar."

"I heard it was inspired by real life events," Clint said.

"If you destroy that precious little man's comic book, I'm gonna cry," Maria said.

He laughed.

When he got to the end, a few panels caught his attention. The action had shifted briefly from fun, action-packed punches and kicks to the fog of war. Shapes and blurs. Sounds with no source. Cap, who was the perspective character, got lost in it. And while he was staggering around, looking, but seeing something apart from reality, the villain was monologuing,

"People die every day. You go out there and fight a losing battle, and for what? For the people you save to be grateful, happy, and then go home to their dilapidated homes, their empty dinner tables, their miserable, empty lives? I'm sure you never think about that part. Save them, move on. Your little routine. I'm not saying you don't care, Captain – I'm saying that it goes deeper than that. You're apathetic. We're not even on your radar. We're not even worth a spare thought. I'm trying to fix that. I'm trying to help them – something you and your friends never managed."

When the fog faded, the Avengers inevitably prevailed, and locked the villain away in prison. Clint rolled his eyes at the heartwarming speech Captain America gave to a crowd of civilians outside of town hall, while the Avengers accepted their awards.

But in the next scene, Captain America was in the prison, talking to the villain through the bars.

And he said something unexpected.

"How can I help them?"

And the villain seemed surprised. He was full of venom, spite. "You can't."

"Then what can I do?"

"You can keep doing what you do, and we can keep doing what we do. You're so obsessed with fixing everything – but there will always be people like me, and there will always be people like you."

And Cap leaned his head on the bars, now looking seriously through them, "You keep saying 'we.' You were out there trying to kill your own people. Why? You accuse me of apathy, of not sparing a thought, but you're the one actively trying to hurt them."

And the final line, which, surprisingly, ended the entire comic, came from the villain. "You can't help them Captain. Sometimes the only respite is release."

It was a startling step into reality. A jarring end, a depressing conclusion.

"Is it getting good?" Maria asked, noticing his increased focus.

Clint said, "I can't figure out who the intended audience is. And I'm not sure how I feel about someone making up stories about us."

"I think it's cute." She took the comic, starting at the beginning.

She was interrupted halfway through by a phone call. Clint took the comic back, tucking it into his backpack. He was going to make a point to return it.

"You get cell signal down here?" Clint asked.

She nodded, hopping up, "It's Stark. Be right back."

Clint perked up.

Maria wandered off, murmuring too low for him to hear.

When she got back, Clint said, "Well?"

"It sounds like they have their own problems."

He decided not to ask. It wasn't like he could do anything about it right now, and Maria would tell him if something catastrophic had happened.

Wouldn't she?