Notes: No, O, they really, really can't. So rude. All these different factions wanting a piece of their action. Ugh.
And griezz, we decided to leave Rogue gone in this universe, though that doesn't mean we don't have plans for the Ragin' Cajun. ;) But you can bet your boots Remy knows exactly what's going on - not that Jubes will be able to hide it very long, all things considered.
And yes, Chance's baby crush is the cutest. Thing. In. the. World.
Chapter Two: Shut Up And Let Us Conquer You
When Tony arrived, it was with Steve and Clint, who didn't leave the Quinjet but waited for Scott and K to join them so they could get moving.
"Why not Logan on this run?" Steve asked as the two mutants climbed on board.
"She's … amazingly good at working around Ronan," Scott replied. "And she can tell us if he's lying without knowing the laws. It's like some kind of hidden talent."
Clint grinned at her sideways. "Could've used you about ten years ago when I was making really stupid dating decisions," he teased. His body language was open, but it was obvious from the fact that he had an arrow in one hand that he was itching for a fight with some Kree. In fact, the whole Quinjet was filled with the scents of anticipation.
"You wouldn't have listened to me," K replied with a smirk.
"Yeah, that's probably true," Clint said with a little shrug.
"So, they get to do all the solidarity, and we get to do the hard work and look pretty?" K asked, gesturing to Scott and Steve.
Clint laughed. "That's the idea," he said. "We let Cap and Cyclops play nice, and then you and I shoot 'em when they very predictably don't play nice back."
"If it comes down to it, I want Ronan. He pissed me off the last time we crossed paths, and … I'm kinda in the mood to fight." K said with a smirk. "You know. If he's around. And overly stupid."
"We'll see what happens," Steve said, his tone more conciliatory than the rest of the group at the moment. "Right now, all we know is we're meeting with one of the Accusers. The fact that they agreed to meet with us at all might be a good sign."
"Unless they're expecting a surrender," she pointed out.
"Well that ain't gonna happen," Clint said easily. "You think they'd have figured that out by now, seeing as it's not like this is their first rodeo on Earth."
"Well, some aliens never learn their lessons." K leaned forward so she was speaking over Steve's shoulder. "If he declares war, are you going to weep if I stab him in the face?"
"K, I don't make it a point to weep over enemy soldiers that have it coming in a war," Steve pointed out.
"Oh good," K said brightly. "I promise I won't give away my intentions with needless growls and claws out. You know. Until there's already trouble."
"Let's just see how this goes," Scott suggested, shaking his head at her.
"I already touched up my makeup," K said his way. "If they declare war, it's not going to be because I didn't look my best and smile before I stab."
"Well at least someone looks nice," Clint teased. "I just ran a brush through my hair and grabbed a breath mint."
"Thank God for the small details," K shot back. "It's okay if you look slightly rogueish."
"Slightly?" Clint looked offended. "I'll have you know I work hard on my ruggedly good looks."
"Well, you did run a brush through your hair," she teased.
He grinned at her as he settled back into co-piloting them up to the Accuser's ship. "Well, I guess that was my mistake, wasn't it?"
"It suits you," she said as she leaned back in her chair.
"Nat likes it," he said shamelessly. "Just so she can mess it up again."
"That's half the fun," K agreed.
"Didn't realize you two were admitting you were onto the messing-up-hair stage," Scott said with a small smirk. "I thought there were still official denials being put out at every turn."
"Me? Nah. Her? Well. We're working on that," Clint said, chuckling. "She's private. And doesn't want to admit Logan was right. Yet."
K flashed him a wicked smile. "Well God forbid that you end up like we did. You'll have Kurt crawling up your back with a flashlight and guilt tripping you into next week."
"Maybe that's why Jess didn't tell anyone Gerry was mine," Clint said with a passing frown before he returned to his usual smirk. "No one wants to get stuck with me."
"That's not it," K said, shaking her head. "No way." But she refused to elaborate for him, and Clint wasn't exactly in the mood to discuss his ex and his baby boy at the moment — even if they were clearly trying to keep up the relaxed mood headed up to the rendezvous point.
The light teasing continued all the way up until they reached the Kree fleet, when the mood got a little more official and serious — at least outwardly. The two Accusers that arrived on the Quinjet a few moments later looked as ramrod straight-backed and serious as Steve and Scott both did, though K and Scott both recognized Sinta as one of their guests. Apparently, the Kree had decided to try and send a relatively friendly face to soften them up, and they were hoping that someone they'd fought alongside in pushing back the Shi'ar would fit the bill.
"It's an honor to see you again," Sinta said in greeting when he clasped hands with Scott, though the Accuser who shook Steve's hand didn't offer any such niceties.
K had elected to stand to the side of Steve and back a bit, and Clint had taken up a similar position near Scott as the two of them watched the Accusers carefully. They weren't the ones doing the negotiating, but even their positions spoke volumes — each of the seconds looking out for the leaders of the other teams. It was a silent show of unity and force, and one that the Kree had surely picked up on, if they were paying any attention, that is.
"Why did you come here with a whole invasion fleet?" Scott asked Sinta, since he seemed to be a bit more willing to talk. "I thought after we helped out on Hala—"
"No, you misunderstand," Sinta said, shaking his head and holding up one hand before Scott could get any further. "We are returning the favor. Helping to keep the Shi'ar from your planet as well."
"When do they plan to attack?" Steve asked with a serious frown. "We had no intel that said they were preparing for conquest. At least, SWORD said nothing of the sort."
"Our fleet should have arrived weeks ahead of them," Sinta said, turning toward Steve. "And we have agents slowing their plans — but I assure you, they are coming."
"Then again — why the invasion fleet and not a fleet of defenses?" Scott said though he'd already gotten a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He knew he had to hear it confirmed. He glanced toward Steve, who seemed to have come to the same conclusion, and Clint's arm flexed the slightest, though K kept that same relaxed, open expression she'd had from the get-go.
The second Accuser finally turned his gaze on Scott to answer. "The fleet of defenses will come after we have established this planet as a base for our operations. You are woefully unprepared for the coming Shi'ar invasion, and as the Kree Empire has vested interests on this rock, we are here to ensure the planet stays untouched by the enemies of the Empire."
"You expect us to surrender," Steve said through gritted teeth.
"We expect you to accept our help and defenses," the Accuser replied easily.
"You expect us to roll over and be conquered," K said softly, with an almost sing-song tone. "That's not very gentlemanly. For allies."
"This strategically important defense cannot be left to you Terrans," the Accuser said, waving his hand at her, which only had K bristling, though she kept her reaction in check, as promised.
She delicately stepped around Steve with a horrified look on her face and managed a shocked tone. "I'm not sure I understand … you're telling me we need you to protect us?" She was holding one hand over her heart, and Scott could see where it was headed, even if the two Accusers clearly didn't know that she was just gearing up to tear into them. "What happens once the Shi'ar leave with their tails between their legs? What happens to Earth then? Will you leave us in peace or scuff up the furniture?"
The accuser smirked at her for a second, doing his best to look magnanimous. "There will be other attempts to conquer Earth. The Shi'ar, the Skrulls — with the planet under the protection of the Empire, you needn't concern yourself with them."
"So you are looking for more than an embassy," K said with her shoulders drawn up as she very slowly approached him, looking tiny and non-threatening, which certainly seemed to be doing the job, since the Accuser that had laid out how he expected it to go certainly saw no danger in her approach. "If we refuse, then what?"
"We only mean to help," Sinta spoke up.
K turned his way, that same open, approachable expression on her face. "And I'm trying to understand. Please. We're not trying to escalate any conflict. We're here as representatives, and we feel as if we deserve to know your intentions with our planet. In any outcome."
"You'll be allowed to continue on as you ever had under the Empire," the second Accuser said, as if this was entirely reasonable.
K stopped all motion to the point that she didn't look like she was even breathing before she frowned deeply and turned her head slowly toward him. "You're lying to me." She looked him up and down slowly. "We've done nothing to earn lies if your intentions are honorable."
"There will only be problems should you resist our establishing the new Kree capitol," the Accuser said with his eyes flashing.
"Are you threatening war?" Steve asked flatly, knowing now without a doubt that he was setting the guy up for a hard fall.
"It's no threat," the Accuser returned. "If you resist, it will be war. You are just too blind to see it."
"Hawkeye … did he... " K turned to him, now moving much more like she did when she was ready to strike. "Pompous alien jackass," she muttered before she darted forward and popped her claws as her arm sliced through the air — blinding the Accuser as she gouged both eyes out and left three deep slashes across the bridge of his nose. "We came here hoping you weren't going to be stupid."
The blinded Accuser tried to strike back as Sinta also drew his weapon, though that was quickly shot out of his hand by the resident Hawkeye. "Yeah, don't piss her off more," he said. "Friendly advice."
"We only need one to interrogate," K growled out. "Which one of you two blue idiots is higher ranking?" But when the first sign of incoming enemy birds showed up in the distance, K cut the more arrogant guy down in a few slashes before she crossed over to Sinta. "You'll have to do — unless you want to end up like him?"
Despite looking definitely a bit disturbed at what had happened, Sinta settled into a bit of a glare. "We are trying to protect you. There's no need for this reaction," he half shouted, sounding nearly insulted.
"We can protect ourselves," K snarled out inches from his face. "You know that, since we saved your sorry blue asses on your own frikkin' planet. Now march. If we have to carry you, it's going to be because you have no legs."
.
"This is her being nice," Clint said over the guy's shoulder, clearly enjoying being her sidekick in this regard. He had a hand on each of Sinta's arms to keep him from doing anything stupid — and in his own way, he was actually trying to keep the peace by keeping Sinta from making this any worse for himself. "So play nice. I'm full of friendly advice today, apparently."
"You'll want to relieve him of this," Scott said with a small smirk as he plucked some of Sinta's Accuser weapons. "Noh showed me how to disable these. Shouldn't be too hard."
K looked at the Accuser with a clear snarl on her lips. "Ground rules then," K said. "If you reach for anything without my expressed, written permission, I'm going to cut your hands off."
"You are making a mistake," Sinta said with narrowed eyes — though K noted that he didn't reach for anything all the same.
"Our only mistake that I've seen so far was not letting the Shi'ar overrun you on Hala," K growled out low.
Despite the situation, Sinta let out a bark of a laugh at that. "Then you would only be dealing with the Shi'ar invasion sooner."
"Pretty sure I'm getting well-versed in killing aliens," she replied. "But you — you're going to be the one to show me how to make them hurt the most."
"I'll not betray the Empire," he replied, meeting her gaze.
"Please don't," she said. "If you did, I'd have to stop and I'm all about learning today." She turned to look at Clint for a moment. "Been a while since I've had a challenge. But I'm getting ideas already."
"Well, let's get you home so you can share with the class," Clint suggested, purely to get Sinta squirming. He was playing a strange sort of good cop routine, dropping hints to the Accuser on how much trouble he was in to give him plenty of opportunities to backpedal, but the guy clearly wasn't taking any of those hints.
Scott looked like he wanted to try and… stop this somehow, but at that point, the Kree ships seemed to have decided the two Accusers were taking too long to report back in and started to head for the Quinjet. And with Clint occupied helping K with Sinta — Scott had to quickly turn his attention elsewhere. He slid in to pilot them away from the now very annoyed invasion fleet before the first shots were fired over their bow, barely missing them.
"I guess that ends negotiations," Steve muttered out as he settled in next to Scott.
"They never planned to negotiate," Scott said with a frown. "They actually expected us to just ... go along with them."
"You'd think they'd have learned better by now," Steve said with a clear tone of disapproval. He let out a sigh. "We'd better let the others know — as of right now, the Kree have declared war."
"You handle Fury; I'll tell Logan," Scott said.
"Nice of you to take the hard job for yourself," Steve said with a smirk.
"He's going to want to hear from me that his wife didn't start it," Scott chuckled. "She's been a little bit … mean."
"And here I thought we were taking the nicer one with us," Steve muttered.
Scott just laughed at that. "Yeah, even not in the mood she's in, I could have told you that was still wrong. K was only hoping for a different Accuser. This guy — he's actually been decent. As far as Accusers go."
"I wouldn't have guessed as much, except that she didn't kill this one," Steve replied dryly.
"I would have kept the other one, but he pushed my buttons," K said as she tossed her hair over her shoulder from where she was finishing up tying Sinta up so that he wouldn't be able to escape. "Blind. Pfft."
"He did ask for that one," Clint pointed out. "It was like an invitation." K grinned at him outright, and Scott and Steve shared a look between them of resignation. And a little amusement.
On landing, K wasted no time in directing Clint to take their prisoner down to the Danger Room, where K insisted it would be easiest to clean up later. She was clearly running a list through her head when a few of the gathered Avengers and X-Men came to ask what was going on.
"They declared war, I'm looking for answers," K replied as she gave Logan a little kiss. "Don't know how long this guy will last, but he seems to think he can hack it." She looked to where Clint had disappeared to make sure Sinta was secure and gave Logan a smile. "Make the plan a good one. I don't think we're going to be able to have too much in the line of second shots here."
"I'll help you," he replied, turning to follow her, but K stopped and put both hands on his chest.
"No you won't," she replied. "I'm taking Natasha with me, and Clint's already there. That's more than enough. Besides," she said before she gave him a bit more involved kiss. "You don't need to see this." She gave him a wicked smirk that he halfway returned, and then she all but skipped down the hall to get down to work.
Steve had his arms crossed over his chest as he raised his eyebrows and leaned over to Scott. "Did she just… try to protect Wolverine's innocence?"
Scott shook his head with a barely suppressed expression of amusement. "Yes, she did," he said simply.
Steve looked all that more disbelieving before he broke into a bit of a laugh and shook his head. "Alright then," he said before he took a breath, straightened his shoulders, and turned back to Scott, outright ignoring the rest of what had happened in favor of focusing on the much bigger and more important problem at hand. "Come on — we've got an invasion to prep for."
While the small little "diplomatic" mission had been going on, Tony and Rachel slid into Hank's lab to help Noh with his Supreme Intelligence problem.
Tony had brought plenty of his own tech with him and looked a little put-out over the setting. "If we were back in my labs, this would go so much faster and easier," Tony said with something that definitely seemed like a pout.
Noh tipped his head at Tony with a raised-eyebrow look. "And you would likely have all the secrets of my homeworld in a moment," he pointed out, though his voice sounded slightly strained. "I'm afraid you will have to make due with the assortment of Kree, Shi'ar, and human technology you see before you — and whatever else it is you have decided to bring."
Tony smirked a bit wider at that as he started to unload various instruments. "Nanotech is always fun to play with," he said, mostly to Rachel as Noh simply closed his eyes and steeled himself for the upcoming rewriting of his internal code. "It's always unique to the individual creator, too — everybody puts their own spin on it."
Rachel sat down on a chair nearby and watched Tony for a second with her head tipped to one side. "You're not here to study the differences in approaches," she reminded him. "You're here to make sure the Kree don't overrun our friend's mind."
Tony shot her a little grin and a shrug with his palms turned out and opened up. "Hey, I know how to prioritize. But cut me a little slack — this is the first time he's let me play with any of his extradimensional toys."
"Please do try to contain yourself," Noh said dryly, his eyes still closed and one hand pressed to his forehead.
Tony looked over at the former Marvel Boy and lost a bit of the grin when he saw the obvious body language signals that Noh was struggling before he pulled out some of his scanning devices. "Don't you worry, Marvel Boy, we'll have you up and running in no time."
"Preferably for the correct team, if you can," Noh tried to joke lightly, totally unable to hide his little smirk. Rachel had to roll her eyes at him when he looked so obviously proud of his own joke, moreso when Stark stopped and stared at him with a growing smile.
Finally, Tony shrugged and grinned at him. "Hey, give me enough time, and I'll even upgrade your performance in other areas if you want," he said, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively, though he was looking past Noh at Rachel, who was rolling her eyes so hard.
"Just… please get them out of my head," Noh said, sounding a bit weary.
Tony got down to work after that, scanning the nanites in Noh's bloodstream as he leaned over the readouts that his instruments were showing him, occasionally pulling at his goatee with little "hmm"s, though the more he read, the more he seemed to hem and haw and look a little disappointed.
"Something wrong?" Rachel asked mildly, though she was definitely smirking his way.
"Hard to replicate this kind of thing," Tony explained, tapping the readout with clear disappointment in his voice.
"Come on, Tony. I've heard rumors about performance issues," K muttered as she came in, drying her hands off on a towel. "Don't let me down now."
Tony spun slightly on the heel of his foot when he heard her come in and then broke into a wide grin. "Oh, nothing like that," he assured her with a playful wink. "It's just that — well, I'm not sure anybody wants to replicate this kind of stuff," he admitted, gesturing at his readouts. "It's pretty well ingratiated in his biology."
"So? Don't try to replicate it," K said as she came to a stop next to him. "Just fix it."
"That's the plan, sweetheart," he said, waving one hand at her as he turned back to his instruments. "The plan is also to keep him alive, though, so, you know, I have to navigate this incredibly symbiotic relationship here." He let out a bit of a chuckle. "No wonder half his tech is so emotional."
"I'll leave my commentaries on your tech just hanging in the wind for a moment," K told him with a smirk. "But I should let you know — I'm here to keep you honest. And I'm all warmed up."
"Lucky whoever it was," Tony replied. "Got you all hot and bothered."
"Not really," K laughed. "I got Natasha to step back from the interrogation for a few minutes."
"You got Widow backing off?" Tony turned his full attention from his tech for a second as he looked entirely flabbergasted, moving with his whole body to show how absolutely floored he was.
She tipped her chin back toward his work. "Don't lose your place now," she warned before she shot Noh a wink.
"Then maybe don't be so distracting," he teased, though he had his attention back on the job as he started to pull out a few other toys, muttering to himself a bit as he did so.
"Who were you interrogating?" Noh asked curiously. "That seems to imply there was a fight — and prisoners to be interrogated in the first place."
She smiled sweetly at him. "Don't worry your sparkly little head about it right now," she told him. "He did most of the touching himself."
"Then I take it there were no real negotiations," Noh surmised, sounding a bit disappointed.
K sighed. "You honestly didn't think there would be, did you?"
"I had hoped," he admitted. "I don't like fighting my own people, arrogant and ignorant as they are."
"My darling boy, they're not strictly your people anymore," K told him. "You chose your people — and they try to use this against you every time they turn around." She gave Stark a significant look, then glanced toward Rachel to be sure the message was relayed properly back to the Kree who were so obviously listening in on Noh's conversation.
"I am trying to remedy their ability to use it against me," Noh pointed out, gesturing to the readouts and tech Tony was sifting through.
"Just relax and let Big Bad Tony have his wicked way with you," K said. "It shouldn't take too long."
"When you put it like that, I don't know that I feel particularly inclined to relax," Noh said with a small frown that had Tony chuckling K's way.
"Rumor on the street is that he's very good with his hands," K said with a laugh.
"And after this is over, maybe I'll prove the rumors right," Tony said, grinning.
"Only if you want to lose them," Rachel muttered.
Tony gave her an even wider, more brilliant smile. "Say that now — but I haven't even started to be amazing yet."
"Maybe you should quit talking and get down to business then," K told him. "If you're busy talking, you're wasting energy best spent on other things."
"I think you'll find nothing I do is wasteful," Tony said out of the corner of his mouth as he was all but gliding through his work now, clearly enjoying the chance to show off and perform.
"So many promises," K tutted.
"Well if I tried anything else, I'd lose my hands, I've been reliably informed," Tony said with a little laugh.
"That ... is highly likely," K admitted. "But I like to see you try all the same."
"Now who's making promises?" Tony teased over his shoulder as he took a second to motion for Noh to sit back and he got the program started for rewriting the underlying systems.
"I said I like to see you try. You're really not ready for me."
"I've been told I'm pretty advanced," Tony said with a shrug.
"I like to break healing factors for fun and sport."
"Good thing I don't have one of those for you to break — we'll have to find something else to play with."
"I'm always up to listen to offers, but … hard to beat what I've got to play with now."
Noh leaned back and closed his eyes with a sigh. "If you could please hurry through and begin the rebooting so I can be blissfully unaware for a few moments of this… travesty," Noh requested of Tony, who was outright chuckling at him now.
"I think he's jealous," K whispered to Tony. "You should give him all of your attention so he doesn't feel so lonely. And exposed. You know how the young ones are."
"Got a bit of a right to feel exposed, actually," Tony said with a little grin as he stepped slightly to one side so he could gesture at his readouts. "Technically, I have his every thought right in front of me, if I wanted to decode it."
"Just stick to the list, Hot Lips, and we'll be just fine."
"Well at least you gave me a competent nickname. I'd hate to be Burns," Tony joked, as Noh looked very grateful to be slipping into unconsciousness with the reboot.
"I'm partial to Colonel Potter myself," she said with a smirk.
"Not Radar? Hawkeye told me about that one," Tony laughed, not even looking her way. He was in full repair mode, sifting through the code in front of him — but the joking was almost operating on automatic pilot at that point.
"That's her take on it," K replied, the atmosphere much more jovial and less flirty now that Tony was on a roll. "Trying desperately to call him a teddy bear somehow turned into teasing him about needing one."
"Yeah, I still don't understand that joke," Tony replied over his shoulder. "What's the draw? He's not exactly stuffed and cuddly."
"My sweet sweet Tony, you are in the zone, and I'm not going to answer that question and wreck it," she told him frankly before she gave his arm a little squeeze.
"I'm insulted you think my ego is that frail," he joked before he got distracted halfway through his teasing grin and started to mutter at a few lines of code before he got whatever it was sorted out and picked the grin right back up where he'd left it.
"Music?" K asked, watching him carefully.
"Not too far off," he said. "Same principle for some of this… Pretty advanced interconnected neural receivers being mimicked by nanite transmitters…" He was clearly grinning at the readouts. "You know, I could use some of this. It'd have to be divorced from the microbiological components, but the rerouting structure itself is sound…" He looked back at K for a second. "And if you've got anything here that isn't whatever Hank plays in this lab, go for it."
"I know what you like, Tony," she replied easily before she turned to set him up with his preferred tunes and put on a pot of coffee.
"Hope you don't just mean music-wise," he called back to her with a widening smirk, which only got wider as the music started up in the lab and he seemed to really get in the zone.
Now music and caffeine-fueled and showing off for two women, it was really more of a miracle that Tony wasn't trying to 'upgrade' Noh than it was a miracle how fast he was done, and when the former Marvel Boy woke up from his rebooting system, he took a deep breath and stretched out his limbs before settling into a bit of a cross-legged position to quickly look through his mental pathways for what Tony had done — just to be sure.
But when he didn't find anything too incredibly different, just several strengthened neural pathways that would help him keep his system from getting compromised again, he peeked one eye open and looked toward K. "Well ... it seems I can in fact trust you not to go overboard like a kid in a store full of candy," he said, addressing Tony but grinning at K.
"Sparkle pants, you know I won't let him go crazy with his fingers in your sweets," K told him before she raised her mug toward him. "But if you get stupid on me, I'm going to force Tony to fix a few more things in that pretty little head of yours. And he'll let me force him — won't you Tony?"
"Well, you can always try," Tony teased. "I try not to be too easy."
"Didn't say I'd make it easy on you," she countered.
"Oh for Plex's sake, I'm glad I was unconscious. Has this been going on the whole time?" Noh asked.
"No, they waited for you to pass out before they stopped," Rachel said with a little laugh. "I guess they like an audience for their flirting too."
"I'm not shy," K said with a grin before she gave Tony a quick peck on the cheek and set her mug down. "Come on, Noh — do you think we can trust you again?"
"I'd like to think you can always trust me, just not my systems, on occasion," Noh said with a light shrug. "But thankfully, we seem to be in sync again, so the answer is yes on both accounts." He looked around the room and blinked twice before he asked, "Are we going to meet up with the others? I really should apologize to Jubilee."
"Jubes is in a safe place helping to take care of Elin, Kate, Annie, and the kids," K replied. "They have Gambit and Tyler joining them."
Noh looked disappointed for all of a second before he slid to his feet. "Then let's join the others in making sure this invasion is short-lived. You and I have loved ones to get back to."
"About that…. You weren't particularly close to Sinta, were you?" K asked. "He's not dead, but I'm reasonably sure he wishes he was."
Noh looked honestly surprised for a moment before he let out a breath. "I wish there were more Accusers like him, but ... I don't make it a point to become too close to those who once wished my execution."
"And ... what are the chances that the big guy in charge is going to come out to play now? YOu know, since we took one of his buddies prisoner and killed another — left him to be found."
Noh raised an eyebrow at her and shook his head. "You do like to provoke people, don't you?" he asked with a teasing grin before he shrugged. "If Ronan feels he has an advantage, believe me — he will be here."
"Well. I can only assume he'll lead from behind," K muttered.
"We'll just have to show him differently," Noh said as he, K, Tony, and Rachel left the lab and headed up to join the others, who were already prepping for the invasion.