Sorry for the late update guys! Summer started for me and I was busy not updating... anyways, here's the chapter!
WARNING: huge twist at the end... inspired by one of my reviewers (you know who you are)
"The lady Widow and the Hawk man have crashed on the deck, when I retrieved them, they were turned solid like the rest of the agents of SHIELD!" Thor was clearly distraught, he waved his hammer in his hand as he gestured outside. Bruce quickly pulled Tony up and helped him hobble outside after Steve and Thor. They were greeted with a smoking pile of quinjet on the deck as they opened the door outside. The wind whipped at everyones face as they moved closer to the wreck. Thor showed them where he had placed the two solid bodies of Clint and Natasha. They were both in a look of panic.
Clint had his arms out and Natasha looked like she was frantically pressing a button while flying an invisible plane. Or quinjet.
"It must be airborne." Tony said, able to stand on his own, although he could barely feel anything through the numbing effect of the pain reliever.
"We need to find out what it is quick, we may have already ingested it." Bruce turned to Tony, they shared a nod, and both turned to run back to the lab.
The DNA sample was ready and the computer screens flashed with new information. For the sake of time Tony ordered JARVIS to remove all normal sequences and isolate the mutations. The list quickly shortened to only one line of genomes.
"That's it. It's a chemical virus that attacks your DNA." Tony ran his hands through his hair with the shock of realization. "It's probably already in our systems. Thor won't be affected, and you probably won't either Bruce."
"But that means-"
"Yeah, me and Cap will probably be down for the count any second now. You need to find a way to isolate the genome and create an antivirus. Let me just-" Tony was cut off by an overwhelming formation of bright colors. The room had turned into a dance floor with at least three laser lights and twelve disco balls. He turned around and the colors swirled with him, he tried to blink them away, but they only got brighter.
"Tony, is it another side-effect?" Bruce was there, but his face was a psychedelic twist of rainbows and Tony couldn't focus on anything. "I think he's having a hallucination, Steve, we need to get to another quinjet and- Oh god, Steve!"
Tony faintly realized that Steve must have frozen too. It seemed cruel to him, that the Captain be frozen more than once, but he was too busy spinning in his haze of color to give it much thought. Then, as if the brightness wasn't enough, Tony began to hear sounds at a hugely amplified level. His face contorted and he felt himself clinging to his ears as the noise threatened to explode in his head.
"SHH, shut up! Shut up! Be quiet, it's too loud!" Tony felt himself yelling, but each word sounded like an explosion and he felt himself collapse on the floor. Then there were arms around him and he blacked out.
Tony woke up to white light. His first thought was 'hospital' but as he came to his senses and looked around, he realized he was in the lab of the Helicarrier. He sat up and rubbed his head, memories finally flashing their way through. He sighed in relief that the lights and sounds were no longer amplified, although he still had a slight headache. As he stood up, he also realized that he could still move, which was odd, since he had probably been unconscious for at least a few minutes. The lab was empty, and the DNA samples had been cleared and the computers turned off. Tony wandered into the hall and began to head to the bridge. He had no way of contacting his teammates without his cellphone or ear radio, and after a few yells, he found that JARVIS had shut down as well. As he neared the bridge, the sound of pattering greeted him and he briefly wondered what was causing it. The bridge was the same as last time, all the agents remained frozen, but there were more of them than before. Tony thought that's what Steve and Bruce had been working on, gathering all of the agents and crew members together so they couldn't be isolated and killed. Tony turned towards the conference table and had to do a double take when he saw Steve, Natasha, and Clint sitting there. They were frozen as well, and Tony again wondered why he wasn't the same.
Tony heard the pattering noise growing closer and suddenly realized it was the sound of bullets pelting the outer hull of the Helicarrier. He ran to the weapons room and put on his spare Iron Man suit, ready to join the fray. The bay doors opened and he shot out, curving to hover over the ship and survey what exactly was going on. His sensors and targeting system was down, along with JARVIS, and Tony was worried a virus had infested his technology. As he circled the Helicarrier, he finally got to the source of the gunfire. Ten hovering vehicles carrying the humanoid aliens were busy shooting at Thor and the Hulk on the flight deck.
Tony swooped in and blasted two of the ships down using his repulsers. They turned their attention away from the Hulk and Thor and began shooting at Tony. Tony shot up and looped around them, firing his repulsers and avoiding the rapid spray of bullets. He caught the Hulk jumping on one of them out of the corner of his eye and Thor was busy shooting lightning everywhere. Tony dodged a - spear?- that was thrown at him and held his hand up to kill the attacker, when he felt a sharp pain from behind. The spear had turned around like a heat-seeking missile and embedded itself in Tony's side. It had stuck in the armor and was piercing Tony's lower abdomen. Tony lost his balance and fell, trying to slow himself with his reactors, but still landing hard on the deck of the Helicarrier. He felt woozy and slightly disoriented as his blood formed a small puddle around him. He reached over and pulled the spear out of his armor, releasing a torrent of agony and a spurt of blood. The spear clattered to the ground and Tony, still standing, leaned forward, clutching at his stomach with his metal hands. He heard two thumps nearby and realized the fight must have ended.
"Man of Iron, have you sustained an injury?" Thor approached from behind. Tony couldn't answer, his teeth were gritted and he was focusing on staying awake, he didn't want to spend any more time unconscious.
"Tony, oh no. Thor, we need to get him to the medical bay." Bruce was there, Tony felt comfort and doubt at the same time. He wanted so badly to trust Bruce, but his brain warned him of how many times Bruce had messed up in the past two days. "Tony, don't get out of the suit, it's probably keeping pressure on your wound, Thor will carry you."
Tony felt himself tipped backwards as Thor gently picked him up and carried him bridal style into the ship. He was seeing black spots on the edge of his vision, and he felt so lightheaded he could pass out at any moment. Even the slight motion of Thor's body was causing more pain to register in his brain, and he grunted with each footstep. Tony felt like an eternity had passed by the time they made it to the infirmary, Bruce had remained silent the entire time, although Tony wasn't sure he would have been able to have a conversation with the amount of blood he had lost.
"Here, set him on this bed. Now help me get the suit off." Bruce instructed Thor. They began to remove the suit, starting with his legs and arms and finishing with the torso. A puddle of blood had formed beneath the hospital bed by the time they were done. Tony had passed out, his face was deathly pale, and the only sign of life was the almost imperceptible movement of his chest with each breath.
"Will he be alright?" Thor asked.
"I hope so. He's lost a lot of blood, so we need to do a transfusion. Grab me some type O blood from the refrigerator over there." Bruce began to ready an IV in Tony's arm and pressed some clean towels to the gash in his side. Thor handed Bruce the bag of cold blood and Bruce hung it on the IV drip, allowing a steady transfusion of blood to enter Tony's system. Now all he had to do was stop the bleeding.
Bruce moved to take off the towels and clean the wound when Tony arched his back and screamed. The bloodcurdling sound echoed in the grey room, Tony's raw wailing sent shivers up Thor's spine. He continued to scream in his unconscious state for nearly thirty seconds, but finally his breath or strength ran out. Bruce made Thor hold Tony down and began to frantically clean the wound. He poured some liquid peroxide over it, wiping the blood away to reveal the nasty stab wound. The spear had penetrated Tony's side very close to his liver, and would need a lot of stitches. Bruce hurriedly began to suture the wound, thanking God that it hadn't punctured Tony's liver or other internal organs.
When the wound was closed and bandaged, Bruce finally sat down and wiped his brow with the back of his hand. He realized he was covered in blood and peroxide. Thor stood guard quietly at the door. Tony slept on the hospital bed, his face slowly gaining color as the blood continued to replenish in his system. His Iron Man suit lay scattered in broken pieces around the floor.
Nearly two hours after Tony had been stabbed in the side, he woke up. His head felt heavy and he didn't feel well enough to move. He tried to take a deep breath, but stopped halfway through when a flare of pain came from his side. He remembered the fight, and getting stabbed.
"Tony, are you awake?" Bruce was hovering over him, Tony opened his eyes and struggled to focus on the pale physicist.
"Yeah." He managed to croak.
"Good. I was worried you were going to go catatonic. Your wound is healing, I patched it up, there's no major damage. But it will hurt for awhile." Bruce helped Tony move into a sitting position. Tony's head pounded with the change in elevation, but the pain soon subsided.
"Why am I not frozen like the others?" Tony flinched when he remembered seeing half his team frozen solid. He understood why Bruce and Thor weren't frozen, but him, he had no idea.
"Well, that's what we were wondering as well."
"But…" Tony knew Bruce would have at least seven theories as to why he wasn't affected.
"But, I think it might have something to do with the antidote I gave you. I did a biological scan on you while you were asleep, and a small amount of the serum I created has attached itself to your arc reactor. That's why the side-effects are still happening." Bruce watched as Tony's face darkened with the news.
"You know I'm going to kill you for this. Just as soon as I get better, you're dead." Tony spoke in a lighthearted voice, but Bruce knew he wasn't completely joking.
"Okay, but right now we have a bigger problem. The alien things have been attacking the ship for a while now. We fought off the last wave, but it's only a matter of time before they return."
"What do you suggest?" Thor had walked into the conversation and had been listening intently for the past few moments.
"I've got nothing." Tony said.
"I only wish that the Tower hadn't been destroyed, we need a home base." Bruce said. "And the Helicarrier is too much of a target, we can't get anything done." Bruce added.
Bruce turned on one of the nearby computer monitors, similar to the ones in the lab. He was about to check the security feeds from the outside of the Helicarrier, when the entire screen fuzzed and was replaced by a live feed.
"Greetings Avengers. Or really, what is left of you. My hyper-tract gas has done it's job well." A dark silhouetted head was shown on screen now and the three remaining Avengers stared on in silence. "I am the leader of the 'aliens' that you have been fighting. I'm calling to tell you that you have nowhere to run, I will soon begin a lovely game for you to participate in. The pieces have already been set up, all you need to do is find the location."
The screen cut off with a beep.
"Wait-" Tony was too late.
"What do you think he meant by game?" Bruce contemplated, replaying the sentence in his head.
"I do not know, but I fear it is not going to be parcheesi." Thor had had enough patience to learn one board game during the team's time in Stark Tower. It was parcheesi. And he played it nearly nonstop with whoever would participate. Tony had even caught him playing by himself once (and had received quite the pounding when he blabbed to the rest of the team).
"Thor, I don't think an evil mastermind would go through all this trouble to make us play parcheesi." Tony said, mentally face palming and making a note to himself to teach Thor more board games when this was over. "He probably meant like chess or something."
"I agree, chess does seem more likely." Bruce was distracted by his thoughts though. He was mulling over the 'find the location' part of the villains monologue.
"- didn't even say his name. Now that's what I call bad marketing there."
"Tony stop talking." Bruce held up a hand and Tony cut short. "I think I know what he means by location. Remember how the tower was cut in half? Well, why didn't they just smash the whole thing?"
Tony's eyes widened in understanding. Thor looked confused.
"I do not understand what conclusion you could have drawn from such little information."
"Stark Tower is where he want's us to go, and the Helicarrier is going to be the playing board, it'll look like a giant, misshapen, upside-down pawn." Tony burst out, leaning forward he winced when his injury reasserted it's presence. "I need to get to the Bridge, I can reprogram the flight pattern and get us there."
Bruce and Thor grabbed a wheelchair near the door and helped Tony into it. They pushed him down the hall and were soon at the bridge. As they entered the bridge, Bruce was the first to notice something was off.
"Hey guys, do feel like, something happened?"
"You mean other than the entire population of the Helicarrier and three of the Avengers being frozen solid? Uh, no." Tony was typing on the main screen and there was currently a big red 'ACCESS DENIED' sign popping up everywhere.
"No seriously, I can't quite put my finger on it, but something is definitely different." Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose in thought.
"Were not these pilots in a sitting position upon our departure?" Thor pointed to two pilots, both standing straight up at military ease.
"That's it! Of course, Thor, how could I not have noticed. Everyone is standing up in the same position." Bruce prodded Tony to look around, and he was just as shocked, although he pushed it down and continued focusing on getting access to the Helicarrier.
"That's great and all, but what I'm really troubled with is why I'm having so much trouble hacking a system I designed." Tony pressed the keys harder and a loud beeping noise began to emit from the hidden speakers. "Great, I've tripped the security systems, someone has upgraded these servers. That, or I'm just having a really bad day."
Footsteps sounder from down the halls leading to the bridge and Thor and Bruce (now Hulked out) guarded the doors to give Tony time to access the Helicarrier. The beeping alarm pounded in their ears as Tony frantically typed and the footsteps got louder. Then they were rounding the corner, dozens of armed alien-man-soldiers. Thor and the Hulk fought hard, buying Tony as much time as they could. Relief flooded their minds when they heard the ping of access granted and felt the Helicarrier begin to move again.
With one final swing of Mjolnir, Thor finished off the last few enemies and quiet settled over the bridge. Bruce de-hulked and stole a belt from one of the frozen soldiers to loop around his distorted pants. He walked over to Tony, who was leaning back in his chair, half-conscious.
"Tony, great job, how long should it be before we get there?" Bruce asked, noticing the pasty paleness of Tony's face.
Tony didn't answer right away, instead he held up his hand with three fingers sticking up.
"Three hours?" Bruce said, and received a tiny nod from the sickly scientist.
Tony spent most of the ride in a coma-like state, half in and half out of consciousness, and constantly pale and sweaty. Bruce worried the symptoms were worsening, yet he couldn't quell the scientist inside that was deathly curious as to the outcome of his invention. Thor finished gathering the agents and crew members on the bridge and ended up pacing back in forth in a steady rhythm.
The Helicarrier managed to arrive in only two and a half hours and settled itself hovering over Stark Tower. Bruce knew SHIELD would be getting hundreds of calls from the air force, the government, and all the planes that were flying over New York for the violations they were committing. He shrugged it off and began wheeling Tony off the bridge and out to the deck of the Helicarrier.
They were met with a troop of the aliens from before, standing in perfect ranks. There was a total of sixteen opponents, Bruce noted. Tony had pulled himself awake as best he could, although his eyes continued to droop.
A man, tall and skinny, dressed in all black with a hint of green, stepped out of the crowd of aliens. He was wearing a mask that perfectly silhouetted his face. A sharp chin and perfectly cut cheekbones around a lean nose. Bruce felt a memory struggling to surface, but pushed it down to focus on the current event.
"I see you took the hint. Very well done, and with the smartest one nearly dead! It's a shame he wasn't frozen as well." The man stood still with his hands behind his back, although they couldn't see his eyes, they could feel his cold gaze, it felt almost, familiar.
"What do you want with us? Foul beasts." Thor boomed, hefting Mjolnir in his hand in case a fight broke out.
"I am simply taking control of your devices and using them to play a little game. Can't you see…." His voice faded and Tony's vision blurred for a second. He tried to blink and focus but his head hurt and he felt like he was emerging from a dream.
"Should wake up for-"
"Sometime soon if that-"
"What about-"
"Hey look-"
Tony heard different voices filtering through his mind, but he couldn't focus on one individual and they continued to cascade around him. The image of the unknown man in front of him was fading, and he felt like it was being replaced with something else. The wheelchair he was in suddenly felt like nothing, as though he were floating, but then it was just a wheelchair again as gravity reasserted itself. He turned in his seat, and reached out to Bruce, trying to form a word in his mouth, but Bruce and Thor faded and blew into the wind like dust, as though they were never there to begin with. Tony shook his head and the pain became a pounding that was so overwhelming to his body that he completely shut down. Descending into darkness and peace.
Tony felt calm, serene almost. Floating on an infinite cloud of nothing. A smile touched the corners of his mouth.
"Tony! Tony! Is he awake? Did you see that? Tony!" Muffled shouts and hopeful words pulled Tony out of his peace. He blinked and squinted as the light brightened, as though a shadow had moved away from the sun. He turned and found he was floating in a giant glass tube. When he tried to speak, he realized there were multiple tubes reaching there way down his throat and through his nose. Red lights flashed in the muffled noise of the blurry world around him. He pounded on the glass and choked on the tubes. His vision would not focus and his eyes stung from whatever was in the liquid supporting him.
The lights flashed green once and Tony felt the liquid begin to drain as he floated lower. When his feet touched the cold metal grate at the base of the tube he tried to remain standing, but found that his legs would not support him. The remaining water had turned a sickly red color as Tony realized he had pulled open a wound in his side. He crumpled to the base of the tube, leaning on the wall, eyes closed.
Tony faintly registered the cold air and loud hiss as the tube decompressed and opened. He barely remembered being hefted onto a bed and wheeled to another room. The only thing he was focusing on was Pepper. She was there. Along with the rest of his team. Moving again, not frozen. Tony received an IV in the crook of his elbow and things faded for a while. The tubes were removed and he felt the cold air in his lungs once more.
Then he drifted off once more.
What could have possibly happened?! Was this too crazy for you? Tell me in a review please!