This is a fan made story. I don't own the rights to Captain America, any of its characters or any characters within the MCU… Much to my disappointment. This will have some violent content and possible triggers. Steve/Bucky Established Relationship. Constructive criticism is welcome but if you don't like it simply because you don't like the line of thinking, please don't attack me for it.
AN: Yep, two updates for Christmas! Merry Christmas everyone. Plus, I'm not mean enough to leave you all hanging like that.
Chapter 26: Mess with the Bull
It took two hours to get to Florida and another hour after landing to get them to a location near where the Hydra base was undetected. Steve and Bucky were both just about ready to rip a few throats out by the time they reached the point where they had to take the rest of the trip on foot. Fortunately, between Elena and Pietro, they had a near undetectable method of reconnaissance without putting anyone at risk. They both reported back that as far as they could tell, the place was armed to the teeth, brisling with guards.
"Of course, that could mean anything. How many entrances?" Steve asked.
"Two, the size of the place from the outside matches the specs that Johnson gave us," Pietro responded. "Most of it should be underground though."
"Which means my uses are limited," Bruce stated in annoyance.
"You're not the only one," Daisy pointed out. "Of course, I have a little more precision than the Hulk and more uses than just my powers."
"So, Bruce stays as back-up, Peter, you're probably best with back-up as well. Sorry, but the place isn't really built in a way to make you useful. Who else?" Steve turned to Coulson.
"Alisha, you stay back as well. At least for now, Mack you too. Lincoln, I know you hate fighting but we're going to need you," Coulson was blunt. Lincoln, a blond man of average height just nodded without protest.
Steve scanned through the group there before continuing, "Sam, you're probably best as back-up too. No offence, your wings aren't really meant for confined spaces."
"None taken," Sam shrugged.
Steve gave Sam a weak smile before returning to the group as a whole, "We'll need two teams for entry. The two best hackers should be split up, so Stark and Johnson need to be on different teams. Heavy hitters need to be on different teams so that puts Wanda with Stark. Thor, you're with those two as well. Johnson will be with me. Clint, Pietro, Vision, May, and Lincoln as well. Coulson, you, Nat, Rodriguez, and Bucky are with Stark. That splits up the powers pretty evenly, I think. Any arguments?"
He gave a half a second to respond before nodding, "Good. Get in position."
Steve was surprised when Bucky snagged a quick kiss before breaking off to his group. Johnson shouldered a pack, though Steve didn't ask what was in it. Instead, he led the group to circle the base to the second entrance. There were four guards standing outside the door. Steve nodded to Pietro who flashed away before returning, all four guards were now down. They immediately closed in on the door. Johnson eyed the keypad before shaking her head, "The thing is welded to the wall, no hacking it through wires. Everyone stand back, please."
Once everyone was behind her, Johnson held up a hand and slammed the door with a vibrational blast, which forced it inwards. The alarms immediately went off, "Sorry, I'll turn them off when we find a computer terminal."
Steve didn't argue, they had no time for that. Instead, they entered, and began taking out the guards that were swarming out of the doors. Fortunately, with Pietro involved, the men were all disarmed and dead before they could get off any shots. A glance into the first room off the entry hall revealed a now empty guard room with a computer. Johnson immediately took a seat and after a few minutes of typing the alarms went silent.
"We need to move quickly. The alarm apparently sent out a signal to nearby bases for back-up," Johnson stated.
"Roger that," Coulson was heard over the comms.
"We'll be on the look-out and try to keep them off your backs," Sam stated after that.
Steve confirmed hearing the responses and waved for them to proceed. The group moved out, checking the few rooms they passed as they went. There were some groups of guards, but for the most part, it looked like they had been taken out in the first cluster. Then the intercom system switched on and random Russian words started sounding from them.
"What are they doing?" Lincoln asked in confusion.
"Trying to trigger Bucky. These were the command words that had been implanted in his mind that I removed. Do not worry. It won't work," Wanda answered.
The two groups met in the middle of the first floor a few minutes later. Steve eyed them and noted that none looked hurt, "Status report?"
"We cleared everyone who came at us from our side. Next floor?" Stark asked.
"Has anyone found a stairwell?" Coulson asked in concern.
"Not on our side," Steve shook his head. "You didn't find one either?"
"Nope," Stark responded. "Looks like we are going to have to recheck all the rooms."
They split back off and began scanning through the rooms. Tony used his suit while Johnson pulled a gadget out of her pack that when it was unrolled and held up provided an x-ray through the walls. Steve couldn't help but think that it was nifty. Partway through the search, Tony announced he had found a secret passage. Everyone left off the search and regrouped with Tony.
It took a few more minutes to locate the switch to open it, only it opened a panel revealing a handprint scanner. Johnson shook her head, "Well, we can waste time with that, or we can go the brute force method."
"I am starting to suspect you are taking too much pleasure from your powers being useful here," May remarked wryly. Still everyone else moved back.
Daisy held up a hand and focused on the vibrations of the entry, breaking down first the outer shell and then the concrete door behind it. All that remained when she was finished was a series of metal horizontal bars that Wanda twisted apart leaving a gaping hole.
"Well, remind me to never piss you two off," Tony remarked casually as they began making their way down the stairs. Unsurprisingly, they encountered more guards at the bottom of the stairs. Between Pietro and Elena, the men were disarmed and unconscious or dead in a matter of second.
"Remind me to never piss them off either," Tony stated in awe, though he was certain that Pietro was being a little vindictive in his Hydra murder spree at this point.
"You know, he's a lot less obnoxious than you said, AC. Stark is almost endearing," Daisy stated getting nods of agreement from the other SHIELD agents.
"I stopped drinking and became a father. That changes a person," Tony shrugged. Even he was willing to respect that he had been a complete asshole in the past.
They came to a three-way split in the hall quickly. After a few minutes of consideration, they split into three groups, one led by Tony, Steve and Coulson apiece. Daisy and Lincoln were the vanguard of their team in the narrow halls. Elena ended up with Tony and Natasha and happily chattered away about how she was a fan of the whole saving the world thing. For a short while it was mostly the three groups clearing clusters of guards.
"Heads up, we have incoming up here. We'll do our best to keep them off your backs, but you may want to keep an eye on behind you as well as in front. We're initiating a code green up top to keep them busy," Sam warned.
"Copy that," Steve heard Coulson's and Tony's teams respond. Seconds later his group got slammed with a wave of guards. Enough that even Pietro with his insane speed couldn't handle it all. Instead, they were forced to half the group fighting the guards while the other group ensuring that they didn't have any back-up coming up on the rear. It too his team a good five minutes to take down all the guards before they could get moving again. Steve looked at Vision when the next room they came across was a large computer lab.
Vision quickly connected to the mainframe and scanned it before downloading it's entire content and then returning to the group who were keeping watch, "They children and Mrs. Barton are present in the facility. They are currently located on the fifth sub-level. Dr. Jenkins's presence is also registered as current."
"Good to know. I call dibs on Jenkins!" Tony responded over the comms.
"Alright. Everyone locate the stairs down and expect this place to fortified and build like a maze," Steve stated as he and his group made their way out of the room and down the hall. The next half hour was spent locating the next set of stairs, all the way taking out wave after wave of guards both to the front and back as the occasional group that got past the Hulk, Spider-Man and the others.
"Did Hydra resort to stocking this entire base with all their low lever guards?" Johnson asked over the comms.
"It certainly feels like it," Agent May commented, she was with Steve's group again. Steve was a bit shocked at how well the unenhanced woman had been holding up during the fighting. Of course, a lot of that was well placed kicks and face shots. Steve had a feeling this woman had her own personal vendetta against Hydra.
Finally, once they found stairs, the last group to do so, Steve sighed in relief. There had been a lot of scientist that were being incapacitated only, as they weren't certain how many were willingly serving Hydra and how many were being forced to. That nightmare was for the government officials to determine.
The second sub-level was mostly guard barracks. By this point they had been emptied out, either having already fought the groups of Avengers and SHIELD or having gone to lower floors to secure labs and prisoners. The few that were still on that floor were quickly dealt with and they were moving onto the next floor. Of course, none of the stairwells went down more than one floor. He heard Stark making a comment about the building being extremely unsafe in the event of an emergency or fire.
"Stark, these guys regularly experiment on humans and kidnap kids, forcing their parents to commit atrocities in their name. I doubt they care about their buildings being up to code," Coulson responded. Steve couldn't help but agree with Coulson's point.
The third sub-level was mainly what looked to be empty classrooms with massive screens at the front and a few scattered labs. Tony got a sinking feeling as they moved onto the fourth sub-level on his group's section of the building. This was feeling like a lot more than the standard Hydra research facility.
"Has anyone else been finding classrooms?" Tony asked as they made their way down.
"Not on my section, what do you mean classrooms?" Steve's response was concerned.
"No classrooms but my portion of level three has a lot of what look like cells, like a dormitory with steel doors. We may be here a while. Daisy's working on opening them," Coulson answered.
"Understood, let us know what you find," Were Steve's orders.
The fourth sub-level on Tony's section opened into what looked like a large gym. Half a minute after they got there, the room blacked out and Tony's suit stopped working, "Damn. It's an EMP. The comms are useless now. Nat, mind hitting the manual releases on my suit?"
Natasha immediately got to work popping the tiny latches and watching as Tony's armor fell away in pieces. Once she got his torso and arms free, Tony assisted in removing the rest of the armor. He was intensely glad now for the precautions he had built into the latest model of suits. He was also glad that under his armor was clothing made of polycarbonate materials that were bullet proof. Once he was out of his suit, he popped a hatch in the back of it and extracted a hand gun and three magazines of bullets.
"Huh, you're a fan of being prepared. Not that I blame you, one really can't be too careful these days," Elena commented. "Especially when you are that reliant on technology."
"Yeah, well, EMPs have really become a popular piece of tech for Hydra of late, so I didn't want to take any risks," Tony responded. "We're on our own from here on out though. Our comms are down with that pulse, though thankfully it doesn't impact our weapons."
"Kind of wishing we had Daisy in our group now. She can sense vibrations as well as manipulate them," Elena remarked as they carefully navigated between the gym equipment to the door on the far side of the room.
"That would be useful. Wanda care to light things up a bit?" Natasha requested.
A second later there was a red glow around Wanda's hand that provided just enough light that they weren't tripping over the equipment and they were able to pick up the pace across the room. Once they reached the door, it was found to be locked with no way to open it from their side. Tony looked to Wanda again, "Think you can take this door down?"
"It will not be as easy as they other one was, but it will attempt it," With that, her powers flared brightly, engulfing the door for a few minutes before there was finally a sudden crunch as the door buckled and then crinkled into a ball of metal scrap.
The entire group had to immediately duck behind the wall as a group of guards immediately began firing on them. That was until Elena flashed away for a moment before returning and the gunfire stopped. Wanda smirked, "I will never get over the convenience of having someone who can do that around."
"I know, right? It's seriously drops the danger factor on some of these missions," Tony agreed. He made a point of picking up a few of the Hydra guns and some more spare magazines. "I'll take these."
"Just don't shoot any of us," Natasha teased.
Tony didn't even acknowledge it as they rounded the corner and encountered another large room. In the center, Dr. Jenkins smugly stood. She was dressed exactly like she would have as Pepper Potts, something that made Tony freeze for a second. Natasha didn't, she leveled her gun at Jenkins and fired off her entire clip. All that did, unfortunately, was reveal that there had been a forcefield in front of her.
"You didn't really think that I would expose myself in such a foolish manner, did you Natasha? You should know better by now. If you want to keep breathing, I suggest you leave now. Give up on the kids, they were always ours. Back-up is already here and fighting your meager forces outside," Jenkins was cold. "I'm giving you this chance for old-times sake. Leave now, or you will regret it."
"Wanda, can you bring down that forcefield?" Tony asked.
"Probably not, but they can," Wanda commented pointing out that Coulson's team had come through another entry in the large room.
Johnson was already raising her hands and blasting the ceiling, floor, and walls. Steve's team came through a third entry. Lincoln realized that Johnson was revealing the generators with her vibrational blasts. He and Thor apparently got the same idea because they immediately got to work blasting the generators with bolts of electricity. Jenkins had fled once she realized that they could get through the force field.
It was less than a minute between Johnson hitting the room with vibrations and the force field going down. The three teams merged and immediately headed for the double doors on the other side of the room. It was locked by the time they got there, but Daisy and Wanda had apparently liked working together because it was down in another thirty seconds.
Things devolved into chaos at that point. There were guards through out what appeared to be another gym. It was too many for the fast team members to deal with without causing risks to the others. Instead, Johnson sent a concussive blast across the room and then the rest of them either incapacitated or killed them, depending on their personalities and level of hate-boner for Hydra.
It took a few minutes to deal with the room of guards before they managed to get to the next door which was another stairwell, "This should be the last level." Vision announced as they got the fifth sub-level.
It was comprised of halls filled with a myriad of containment rooms, labs and guards. They got hit with another wave of Hydra at their backs as they started on getting locked doors open. Unfortunately, Daisy, Tony, and Vision were busy working on the doors. Fortunately, the remainder of those with and without powers were plenty happy to release some pent-up aggression on the Hydra thugs.
Bucky and May seemed to be taking a great deal of pleasure tearing into them. Daisy got distracted for a minute when she heard Coulson start shouting at someone named Ward, but refocused. A glance towards Coulson revealed a picture of anger that Tony hadn't realized Coulson was even capable of feeling. He, however, couldn't see the guy that invoked it because the SHIELD agents had apparently decided that he was a necessary kill. Tony focused back on his door and got it opened.
He felt his own rage spike as he found Jenkins in the room holding a screaming and struggling Natalia with a gun pressed to her head, "Don't think I won't Stark. I may want her and the rest of the kids alive but killing them is just a setback. I only need their DN…" Jenkins stopped talking and dropped like a rock when a shot was fired from over Tony's shoulder. It hit her right between the eyes. Tony glanced for as second behind him to see Clint looking just as pissed as he felt. Of course, that was reasonable, the woman did kidnap his wife and children. The rest of the fighting appeared to be over. The Hydra back-up dead on the ground.
Tony pushed that aside as he rushed to Natalia and checked to ensure she was okay. Her curls were a wild mess and she was trembling a bit, but she immediately lunged into her father's arms. Natasha was just behind Tony into the room and swiftly removed Natalia from his arms so that Tony could get to work on the remaining doors. The door that Vision had gotten opened revealed the twins and Nathan with a petrified Laura clutching them close. Daisy's door had revealed Sarah and she and Vision were working on two of the other doors. Tony got to an unopened door and set to work.
The door, once he got it open, revealed Lila. She streaked to him immediately and clung tight until she saw Clint, screeched 'Daddy' and slammed into her father. Cooper was already there, having been released by Daisy. Steve and Bucky were in a huddle with Sarah and Rebecca as well while Pietro and Wanda held the twins close.
The SHIELD agents withdrew a little, allowing the Avengers their reunion with their children and keeping an eye out for more Hydra scum. Once everyone had sorted through their emotions a little, they immediately began to work their way out of the base, only pausing briefly on the third level when Coulson and Johnson revealed that the 'cells' they had found contained teenaged Hydra recruits who were there for training in addition to a 'high school' education. Hill and the back-up group, minus Bruce who was still in Hulk form waiting for his 'lullaby', had met them at that point, concerned when they had lost comms with the infiltration teams.
"Not to worry, we have plenty of Hydra idiots to hand over to the government," Hill stated.
"We also cut off two heads," Coulson informed her. "Barton took out Jenkins and May was the one who go the pleasure of destroying Ward."
"Oh? You finally got Ward? I didn't know that he had rejoined Hydra," Hill responded.
At that point, the Avengers finished leaving the base while Johnson and the remainder of SHIELD began opening up the cells containing Hydra recruits and arresting them. Steve shuttered at the idea of that kind of recruitment process. He wondered who Ward was but was more focused on getting his children out of the base and back to safety. Tony and Vision had already begun discussing developing a new, more secure AI for running the various Avengers facilities. FRIDAY had clearly been hacked, though, to be fair, Jenkins had still been around at that point. It dawned on him that he was going to have to inform the FBI that Jenkins was dead, and they could stop looking for her. He shook that off though, focusing on soothing a still traumatized Natalia.
It was a bit strange for Tony, but Natalia hadn't been nearly this terrified the first time they had come to their rescue. Of course, that time she was expecting a rescue. It was all planned by her, Sarah, and Rebecca. This time, they had no way of a way out, no way to get word to their parents, and they had been taken under circumstances that would terrify any child. There was a swarm of more agents heading into the base as the Avengers exited with the children and Clint's wife. They headed directly to the ECHO jet which had arrived during their incursion into the base.
May Parker and Helen Cho immediately got to work checking the children over. Rebecca, Cooper, Lila, and Natalia had been clearly beaten, though Rebecca's inherited enhancements had allowed for faster healing. After they were examined, Cho gave the girls and Cooper a mild sedative to put them to sleep, tucking them in on the stretchers.
"So, what happened to your suit?" May asked as she and Helen got to work checking the adults over. Peter and Ned were sitting nearby, looking like puppies who had been scolded, which Steve and Tony released May may have just done exactly that.
"EMP knocked it out. I'm sure one of our people will collect all the pieces, though it's as good as scrap metal. The only problem with having to use the manual releases is that they cut the wiring to release that area of armor," Tony shrugged. "No worries. I wasn't hurt. Kept to the middle of the pack after that happened."
"And Jenkins?" May asked, eying him in a way that Tony was confused by. May had been difficult to get close to, for all that he had definitely tried to.
"Dead. Clint shot her while she was using Natalia as a hostage," Tony shrugged. He was well past the emotional attachment for the women he thought were Pepper Potts. He was actually surprised at how little emotion he had felt beyond that brief moment of shock in the room with the force field.
"And how do you feel now that she's dead?" May asked, pulling away once she was certain he was physically fine.
"Intensely relieved. A little foolish at having ever allowed her to fool me, but mostly just intensely relieved that she is gone and can't hurt anyone I love or care about again," Tony responded, looking May in the eye with another shrug.
"No urge to go into a rage or drink yourself into a stupor?" May asked, her tone carefully neutral.
"Nope. None what-so-ever. If anything, it feels like a massive weight has been lifted from my shoulders," Tony walked over to his sleeping daughter and gently combed his fingers through her hair.
May eyed him, as if assessing if he was telling the truth before nodding, closing in and kissing him full on the lips. Tony was too stunned to respond as she smirked after pulling away, "Good. I just wanted to be sure there weren't any lingering emotions." With that she turned to focus on the others who had been injured in the fight.
Once Tony regained his senses, he turned to look at Peter who looked completely unsurprised even as one of the doctors was forcing him to put his arm in a sling. Tony looked over to where May was now tending to Coulson who had a nasty gash on his face that Tony had missed before, "So… Dinner on Friday?" He managed to ask hopefully to May.
"It had better be damned good food, Stark," May responded before sanitizing Coulson's cut and beginning to put stitches in to close it.
"Only the very best for you," Tony felt his heart warm a bit more. His psycho ex was dead and out of the picture, his daughter and the rest of his team was safe, and he had a date with a beautiful, intelligent woman who would make him earn her trust and respect and not just toy with him. Life was suddenly a lot pleasanter.
Steve and Bucky had to resist the urge to burst into laughter at Tony's stunned expression after being kissed by May. They knew that Tony had been serious in his interest with her, but it was funny for them to see the notoriously arrogant and obnoxious man so shocked at simply receiving a simple kiss. The date request wasn't surprising in the slightest, as Peter had made it clear that his aunt was an obsessive foodie.
It took a while longer for SHIELD agents and Avengers security personnel to finish securing and bring up all the scientists and living guards. More than a few of the fanatical ones had broken the cyanide tablets imbedded in their teeth. After some discussion, it was agreed that they would do a debrief at the Upstate facility with both SHIELD and the Avengers. Mainly it was the Avengers that knew Coulson had an urge to ream out the new SHIELD director and fully intended to once they got the opportunity to.
AN: Only one more chapter left!