Project 2512125: The Crusade of a Team of Heroes

Chapter 8: Dear Tony Stark, Your An Ass (With Quicksilver and Iron Man)

You asked me what was wrong; I said nothing and smiled. And then I turned around and whispered 'everything'

When he got back, the team plus Belle and Pietro were sitting at the meeting table, discussing something very thoroughly. It looked important. As he shut the door behind him, everyone looked his way, then back to their discussion. He tried to get Belle's attention, but it was clear that she was ignoring him.

"But I want to go." Billy whined. "It's not fair."

"Um..." Tommy said, standing in the doorway. "Am I missing out on something?"

Pietro looked up and the sound of his voice. "We're going to Avengers Tower to get the remaining genetic material. You, me and Belle-"

"And me." Billy added. "It's the frickin Avengers Tower. The Avengers Tower." he squealed.

"We've already been there, remember?" Eli said.

"We had to break out Belle. And the time before that Cap and Tony wanted to shut us down."

"And the difference from breaking out Belle and stealing genetic material is?"

Billy poked out his tongue and took out a big black book from his bag. From what Tommy could make out, it was labeled 'Avengers History.'

He flipped through the pages happily. he stopped. "Avengers Tower." he read, "Also known as Stark Tower, was created in-"

"Billy, have we ever told you that we don't care?" Tommy yawned. He sat down next to Belle, putting a hand on her leg, trying to get her attention. She looked at him cause of the sudden contact, but hastily looked away.

"Fine," Eli said. He was so sick of this leading stuff. "Billy, Pietro, Belle and Tommy will go then. Geez, stop being so difficult Billy."

Kate had a sulky look on her face. "But if Billy can go-"

"No."

"But-"

"Can I go too?" Cassie piped in.

"No." Eli folded his arms.

Teddy looked worried. "I can't leave Billy, who knows what will happen?"

"I'll be fine." Billy said, reassuring his boyfriend. "I'll make myself invisible."

Belle spoke up; "Um, why don't we all just go? From memory, Tony leaves the building at 6, comes back at 6:45, we could do it."

"Do you know where the lab is though? I've been there heaps of times, but there's about 10 labs." Pietro said.

Belle grinned. "Level 83, 3rd corridor to the right, room 48. I know exactly where it is." she smiled. "You guys ready?"

The team all stood outside Avengers tower, looking up and the overlooming building.

"No-ones here." Billy whispered, his black hair blowing in the wind. "They must of gone out to dinner or something."

"Wiccan," said Tommy shaking his head. "Iron Man isn't going to waltz down to the pizza shop and order a pepperoni supreme." he paused as Billy scowled at him. "What do you think Cascade?"

Belle muttered something inaudible to the team. She felt like her feelings needed to be blamed on someone. But, she couldn't blame Teddy or Billy. They were just too cute to break apart over this. She could blame Eli, but he didn't do anything wrong. Cassie? No, she wasn't here for a while, so that ruled her and Vision out of the problem. So it all sort of rested on Kate. What- why was she thinking about her team like this? What was wrong with her? It was Tommy's fault. All his.

"Um, Cascade?" Teddy said, shaking his hand in front of her face.

She snapped out of her daze. "Oh, sorry. Just daydreaming." she mumbled.

"Security override complete." Jonas said, "Are you all ready for this. We only have 25 minutes at the most before the system restarts and figures out that it's been breached."

Holding his breath, Pietro slowly pulled the door open. He sighed in relief as it made no alarm sound. He really couldn't afford to get caught; especially when his father was lurking around somewhere instead of his island for mutants that right now were mostly de-powered, Genosha.

"Come on," Eli said as he stepped through the doors Pietro had pulled apart. "We don't have much time before they come back from..." he looked at Billy who was still in awe at the building. "From Pizza."

Billy still didn't say anything. He stood in front of the tower. He couldn't believe it. Everyone he had ever admired had stepped through these doors that his uncle, Quicksilver, had opened before them. Even being in his presence made him giddy. But The Avengers had breathed the same air, stepped on the same ground...he was in absolute Avengers nerd heaven.

"Wait-" Eli said, half in the building. "We need a plan." the team nodded in agreement. Belle knew exactly what the plan would be. "So, Quicksilver, Speed and Cascade. You guys are going to get the gene material, nothing else. But I don't think you going to be able to get through the doors since Vision couldn't get them open. So maybe Hulkling or I-"

"No-" Tommy interrupted. "I could just destabilize our atomic matter and super-speed us through the walls if needed."

"Or," suggested Belle, who was not sure that Tommy's plan was the safest way. It didn't sound very appealing. "I could phase us through. I haven't really done it before, but I don't think it should be that hard."

Eli nodded. "Good. Okay, the rest of us will meet you back in the main meeting room."

Billy was dizzy. "The meeting room? The room where-"

"WE DON'T CARE!" Tommy, Kate and Cassie yelled in unison.

"Fine." he mumbled.

Tommy headed for the door, followed by a sulky looking Belle, and Pietro, who was wondering why Eli was in charge of him. He did a pretty good job. But maybe Kate could do better?

"Meeting room!" Eli yelled out, as in a gust of wind, the 3 speedsters sped off. "But like you gonna listen." he mumbled, "Speedsters, they're all the same. Like when has Tommy ever listened to me?" and the rest of them followed in after them.

Belle stood outside the wall that would lead them to the lab. She grabbed Pietro's hand, and reluctantly grabbed Tommy's. He squeezed hers and gave her a quizzical look.

She closed her eyes. This whole phasing thing was new to her. It took quite a while for her to get used to a new power. That's why, back then, Tony's amour nearly got burnt to crisp by her newly acquired Johnny Storm, supernova flames. She stepped forward.

"...Cool. This so beats destabilizing atomic matter." said Tommy as they ended up on the other side of the wall. "I don't feel sick or anything."

Pietro let go of Belle's hand as soon as he saw what was in front of them. In all his time that he had been here, he had never seen this room before. Tony must be good at hiding things. Cause if anyone saw this, this room wouldn't be here anymore.

It was like an ordinary lab, a blue light pulsing through the whole room. In the centre of the room was a examination table, and rows and tables of chemicals and experiments surrounded them

"How did you know that this room was here? There's like 100 levels in this building." he asked as he picked up a beaker full of a green bubbling liquid. He put it down.

"93." Belle corrected as she walked towards some chemical fridge, letting go of Tommy's hand. It was a good 4 meters high by about 6 meters long. A blue light pulsed out of it (probably radioactive). She shrugged as she typed some codes into the panel. "I used to spend nearly everyday here, remember?" As she punched the last code in, the door hissed, and a misty haze escaped as it opened.

"Oh my god," Tommy said in awe as he saw what was inside. "Are they what I think they are?"

Inside the cupboards were rows and rows os small little black canisters, all neatly labeled. By the looks of it, it was in alphabetical order. You could see there were some empty places, a good 20 of them. These were probably the genes they didn't have yet, but were planning too.

"Yep," Belle replied, reaching for a canister. "Magneto in a bottle." she shook a canister labeled 'Lehnsherr, Erik.'

Pietro took the bottle, and was about to smash it when a tv screen swung out of the wall, a complicated looking program was displayed. Belle, Tommy and Pietro looked up and listened.

Erik Lehnsherr...current location...searching. A voice said as Belle touched the screen where it said 'Location Finder'.

Tony used a system quite like the X-Men's Cerebro. But this didn't need a mutant telepath, it used one of the many satellites that Stark Industries had located all round the world. It used a program which searched for Mutants, also species like Inhuman, Kree, Skrull and any other race that wasn't human or animal. And of course looked for human mutates, and if the intended person wasn't any of them, he then resorted to a genetic tracker. But in the end, powers or no powers, Tony Stark knew exactly were you were in the world. Kinda creepy isn't it?

On the current screen it had a picture of Magneto, without and with costume and everything you needed to know about him. Date of birth, race, parents, family, siblings, children, age, weight, blood type, hair and eye colour, powers, history of team alliances, code name, alias etc.

Erik Lehnsherr, Current Location...Genosha, Africa.

Pietro sighed in relief. He was glad he wasn't here. Tommy looked at the first ones in order, first was Allerdyce, John which was the brotherhood boy Pyro, and then next was...Altman, Theodore/Dorrek VIII

"Why is Teddy here?" Tommy managed to say as he picked Teddy's canister up. "Where did they even get it from?"

Pietro scanned the bottles, "Talk in code names Speed, Iron Man's probably got this on camera." he said while he was looking at the screen which was displaying Teddy's details, his life spread before him. His nephew was dating the son of Kree Captian Mar Vell and Skrull princess Annelle?

Geez, he thought, most of these Young Avengers have complicated family and self histories. Like Tommy and Billy were the reincarnated sons of the Scarlet Witch and an android, Teddy's half-kree, half-skrull, Belle was a genetic project created by Iron Man and Mister Fantastic, Cassie's dad was killed by his sister and she has a heart condition which makes her pym size changing abilities put more strain on her health and Vision has the same brain patterns as Iron Lad, which turns out he was to be Kang the Conqueror in the future.

Belle made some coughing sound. "Oh, god we're screwed."

Tommy perked up, alert. "What?" he said.

"Why are your genes here?" she asked, biting her lip. She pointed to the cabinet.

Tommy shrugged and went to S, for Shepherd. But his name wasn't there, only Stark, Anthony; Smith, Tabitha; Storm, Johnny; Summers, Scott and Alexander. No Tommy Shepherd. "It's not here." he eventually said, looking at Belle for an explanation.

"Yeah it is." Belle said, "What do you think it's under? Shepherd? No, think about it Speed. This is Tony Stark we're talking about."

Pietro smiled as Tommy went immediately to Maximoff.

There were 6 canisters labeled under that surname, Crystal, Luna, Pietro, Wanda, and himself and Billy. Why was Crystal's here under the name of Maximoff? Her last name was Amaquelin. She had gotten a divorce- but then again, it was an Inhuman annulment and their marriage had been on Earth in the first place. He wasn't even allowed to see Luna- his own daughter. He wondered how she was coping, knowing that she wasn't allowed to Earth again after what he had did to get his powers back. He quickly stopped reliving his past and turned to the job at hand; making sure they got the material.

"Maximoff? Seriously?" Tommy laughed as he took his out and looked at the label. It was labeled; Maximoff/Shepherd, Thomas. "They managed to put Shepherd in too."

On the screen, now was Tommy's life. Maximoff and Shepherd. The son of the Avenger, and the son of Frank and Mary Shepherd. "How did they manage to get yours?" said Belle, "Weren't you in Juvie?"

"Yeah, and?"

"They must of taken a blood sample heaps of times. I wouldn't be surprised if the just handed it over to Stark Industries." she said, touching the screen for a verbal guide of his life. "Watch this Tommy, it's really cool."

Tommy lounged on one of the chairs, "This ought to be good." he said. "Backstabbing scientists." he grumbled as his life played before his eyes.

Thomas Maximoff, born to Wanda Maximoff, and the Vision, code name, Speed. Tommy raised an eyebrow, "Billy's gonna love this."

The next minute was about souls and how he ended up with the Shepherds in New Jersey. Thomas's abilities mirror his uncle Pietro's. Being a speedster, Thomas is granted with superhuman speed, reflexes, thinking speed, and the ability to destabilize atomic matter from a distance. He lives currently with his twin, the witch William Maximoff or also known as William Kaplan, who is a candidate for the sorcerer supreme, at this address...the screen showed his and Billy's address.

"Okay, I'm a little weirded out." he eventually said, standing up. "What ya doing Quicksilver?"

Pietro had his arms full of gene materials, ranging from Allerdyce, John, to Von Doom, Victor. "Taking them, what we're meant to be doing."

"Wait a second," Belle said as she picked up the canister labeled Project 2512125, "This is mine." she said softly, looking at the screen.

"Your names not actually Belle?" Tommy remarked.

"Seriously, If my name was Belle, what would my last name be?" she asked him.

"If it as by your creators," Pietro said, "Richards Stark? or Stark Richards. Or if you were to go by adopted guardians it'd be Richards Stark Storm?"

"Yeah, something like that." Belle said. "But I don't have a name, according to Tony and Reed, I don't need one. But I got Belle from the numbers 2-5-12-12-5, which incidentally spell B-e-l-l-e. but If I actually use every surname from all my genetic counterparts, I'd be something like-" she looked at the cabinet, "Allerdyce, Altman, Alvers, Astrovik, Banner, Barnes, Barton, Beaubier, Bishop, Blaire ,Braddock, Bradley, Cage, Celestine, Creed, Dane, Darkholme..."

"We get it." Pietro laughed.

Belle shrugged and looked at her statistic screen. Instead of family history, it was full of log and journals, showing Tony and Reeds progress on her. "As I thought." she mumbled. Current Location...it said Avengers Tower.

"Shit." she swore, picking up canisters quickly with Pietro and Tommy. "It actually knows we're here." she said, picking up Lang, Cassandra. "Wait- This is Cassie's. What is it doing here?" she said.

"She joined the Initiative Belle, she'll do anything for Tony Stark, even if it means giving up her genetics." answered Tommy, taking LeBeau, Remy's canister. "Why are the X-Men's genes here? I've got Gambits, and I've seen X-23's, Wolverine's, Emma Frost's, Ice-Man's-" he said, showing them a canister in turn.

"And my half-sister's Polaris." added in Pietro, showing them the canister labelled Dane, Lorna.

Belle was holding up her X-Men canisters that she was holding, "Yeah and I've got Northstar and his sister Aurora. Remember, that Tony has an arrangement with Sinister? This is it. But this is no use, all these won't work; the Mutant Decimation made sure of this. Unless he got these before it, which his highly probable."

Pietro looked at his collection in his arms. "Not all of us lost our powers, I did. And I did some pretty terrible things to get them back, But I know for a fact that Shadowcat and X-23 didn't lose theirs. Only around 200 maybe 300 mutants remain. But there are so many genes here. Even the Brotherhood."

Belle left Wanda Maximoff's canister till last. This was one thing she could do for Billy, Pietro and Tommy; finding the Scarlet Witch. But if Tony had this equipment, couldn't he of done this before? Maybe Wanda was cloaking her Mutant background to be more human, to escape the disaster she has caused? Belle didn't know, but as she watched Wanda's life on the screen, she had to find out.

She tapped Location Finder and waited. Pietro saw what she was doing, "Belle-" he said.

Wanda Maximoff...Location...Searching...-and then then the screen cut black.

"What-" Pietro hissed. He saw Tommy with a bundle of cables in his arms, along with the canisters he had picked up.

"Dude, It knows where we live."

Pietro clenched his fists, "We were this close Tommy, to finding her. And you just ripped it out of the wall?"

Belle put her head on Pietro's shoulder, since her arms were full. "Hey, judging by the cable connections, I can just hook it up to my laptop when we get back from this. Then we can go and find her. We just have to focus on getting out of here alive first, okay?"

He nodded. "Let's go-" he took one last glance at the cabinet. "We forgot Angel's, Belle could you-"

Belle reached out and grabbed Worthington III, Warren. "Got him." she said as they left the room with a case of genetic samples of over 50 superheroes, and a hard drive telling them were they all live.

Eli groaned, the others better hurry up, the team couldn't take this any more. Billy was driving them mad.

"Iron Man's a dick," he chanted as he jumped up and down on a chair, which they presumed was Iron Man's. "A backstabbing, tin wearing asshole." he said, stomping on the chair one last time. He sighed, and jumped off. "Okay, I'm all good."

Teddy sighed in relief. "And no jumping on anyone else's chair." he warned, motioning for him to sit on his lap.

Billy smiled and snuggled into Teddy's arms. Kate and Cassie rolled their eyes, and Eli just raised an eyebrow. He just hoped that they didn't go any further, he made a strict 'No Making Out While On A Mission' rule.

"Where are they?" Cassie asked.

Then Belle, Pietro and Tommy phased through the wall. "Good, we made it." Belle said, dropping a case of canisters on the floor. "Tommy, don't drop that hard drive, or I'll kill you."

Tommy adjusted the weight of the hard drive in his arms. "Don't worry, I'm not going to lose it. I hope." he added winking.

"What is that?" Eli asked, looking at the tangle of wires in Tommy's arms wondering if it was always like that, or Tommy screwed with it.

Belle picked up her box again, "It's a computer data-base of all superheroes and a tracker telling you were they are in the world. We're going to use it to find the Scarlet Witch."

Billy looked at Belle, Tommy and Pietro. "Really? You're going to find her?"

"We're going to find her." Tommy corrected, quickly walking out of the room, heading for the door.

"Find who-" someone said on the other side of the room.

The team all raised an eyebrow. And Kate tried to hold back a laugh.

"Spiderman? Seriously?" Tommy scoffed, trying to hold back a laugh.

Peter Parker stood in front of them, looking slightly suspicious, mask half pulled up, eating a piece of pizza. And he was in costume, his spider eyes staring right at them. "oh, I shouldn't be here-" he turned away, a web hanging from the roof.

"Neither are we." Billy pointed out. "What are you doing here? Your on the New Avengers roster."

Spiderman took his mask off, shaking his dark hair. "I'm sneaking around, trying to figure out what Tony's next move is. And shouldn't I be asking, you Young Avenger, what are you doing here?" he asked. "And wait- is that-" he pointed at Quicksilver, who was standing behind them, arms crossed. "Pietro?"

"Peter." Pietro nodded curtly. "Fancy seeing you here. Last time I saw you was on tv were you were fucking your life up."

"Yeah, I'm considering putting it up for an emmy nomination. But last time saw you, you were about to commit suicide. And then your wife...I mean ex-wife took you to those Inhuman dudes. So now I meet you again, sneaking around Tony's place, with the mini- Avengers."

Billy magicked a camera. "Can I take a photo? And its the Young Avengers." he said, preparing.

"Now, brother, is really not the time for photos." Tommy said, shaking his head. Did his uncle really commit suicide? Why?

Belle kept her head down, then she perked up. "Crap." she muttered, looking around. "Tony's just entered the building.

"How would you know that?" Peter butted in, looking at Belle. "Wait- is that…"

Belle smiled, "Hey Peter, we'll explain, we have to get out of here."

"I agree." Eli announced, "Now Spiderman, if you want to stay, fine, but please don't mention that we were here."

Peter shrugged, "I'll come with you, I haven't had any fun in ages. This should be fun though, running away from Iron Man with a team of mini Avengers who killed Kang The Conqueror."

"We didn't kill him," Cassie said, "Iron Lad did."

Vision put an arm around her shoulders, "Stature."

"But wasn't Iron Lad-"

"Yep." Kate said, popping her 'p' "Iron Lad was Kang The Conqueror."

"So he killed himself, for you guys."

"Pretty much." Teddy said.

"You must be pretty important. He must of really cared about you."

"He was the one who brought Me, Wiccan and Patriot together to form the Young Avengers in the first place. Stature came to us-"

"And Hawkeye," Eli said, grinning at his girlfriend, "Saved our lives in the cathedral."

"Great, now you admit it." Kate drawled, punching Eli playfully in the arm.

"And I," Tommy announced, "Was recruited to save Hulkling. I'm pretty pissed that no-one chose me for the original team but-"

Belle raised her hand, forcing them to stop talking. "Okay, I get all the socializing, but didn't I just mention that Iron Man just entered the building? You know, the one we're trying to hide from?"

"Right." Pietro said, "Peter, you know this building well, where are we gonna go?"

"There's a lab downstairs-" he said but he was cut off as Eli, Belle and him gasped; their superhuman hearing giving them a pre-warning.

They heard a clatter of footsteps. Billy pulled a pen and paper and started to write something. He scribbled something and placed in on Iron Man's chair. "Done."

"Did you just-"

The door creaked open.

Belle, Pietro and Tommy used their reflexes, without speaking, each of the grabbing a team mate and speeding down stairs. Vision floated through the wall., his matter.

Belle sighed and dropped Billy and Kate on the floor. "That was close." she sighed.

Billy fell on top of Kate, he quickly rolled off, groaning, rubbing his arm. "Ow,"

Pietro gently placed a confused Spiderman and Cassie. "Very close, Peter next time could you stop wriggling?"

Teddy jumped out of Tommy's arms. "Never, again." he said, looking Tommy in the eye.

"Fine, I won't save your ass again, cause we all know it belongs to someone else." Tommy replied, winking.

Billy shook his head. "Tommy, shut up."

Back In Meeting Room…

Tony trudged through the room, he felt like crap. After losing 10 years of genetic work and Pietro to the Young Avengers, he and Reed just decided to give up. Her personality would drive the team mad, and they'll be coming back to him sooner or later.

As he walked, his armor restarting downstairs after a run in with some people who were against the Fifty State Initiative, he noticed a note on his chair. Curious, he walked over and opened it…

Dear Tony Stark, also known as Iron Man to pretty much the whole world (Seriously, I thought the point of being a superhero was to have a secret identity)

Your an ass.

A backstabbing, tin wearing asshole.

Sincerely,

Wiccan of the seriously awesome Young Avengers (which never happened to be in your meeting room stealing your cabinet of genetics and hard drive, stole Belle back from you and really, kicked your ass.)

"Shit."

Please review and tell me what you think of this so far.