Notes: ALL the plot twists. No, seriously.

Warnings: mentions of past rape/non-con. Nothing graphic.

Chapter 18: Burn it to the Ground

"Okay, what the actual fuck was that?" Clint asked in disbelief as the last sparks of electricity fizzled out from where they danced along the ground near the barn.

"You mean the monkey woman who somehow perfectly imitated Hill's voice or, the light show that would make Thor jealous?" Natasha retorted acidly. "I have no idea. Stark?"

Tony didn't answer, he just stared in shock. It was brilliant, obviously. Hollie knew she couldn't catch the imposter, so she used her surroundings to her advantage and fried her. But she would have been in range of the -

"Sir, Ms. Steel is unconscious and the Mark 43's repulsor system is damaged."

"...Hollie!" Tony cried, shaking himself out of his thoughts and was at her side in an instant. She'd already began to come around when he forced open her faceplate. She blinked and gave him a thoroughly half-assed smile. Carefully, she sat up and took a few deep breaths.

"Strange..." She muttered and tapped her armored fingers lightly against the glass covering the arc reactor in her chest that powered the suit.

"What is?" Tony asked, shaken. How the fuck did she survive that? He tried not to look at the body of the woman who had impersonated Maria. It was a nasty sight, and mostly a reeking heap of charred black skin.

"I was having a heart attack. I guess the electrical surge caused it, but the arc reactor... stopped it?" Hollie explained, at a loss. She had some basic knowledge of how medical stuff worked, but she wasn't a doctor by any means.

"That makes no fucking sense." Clint panted as he and Natasha finally caught up with Tony. "Who the hell was she, anyway?"

"Someone I once called a friend." Hollie said and looked away. Tony caught the hint of sadness that crept into her eyes for a just a second before her expression hardened.

"She was four years younger than me. For many years I thought her dead. She was taken by Dante when she was a child, just like I was. While I was trained as a killer, she was made to be the perfect spy. I cannot say if she deserved this, but she never felt remorse for what she did. I... had a friend that I was very close to as a teenager. I killed her, I had to – but I did it too mercifully for Dante's tastes. He sent Mia to kill her entire family brutally to remind me of my place. Her hair, she told me once, had always grown in pure white after she'd been... broken. Dante had her tortured. Unlike me, she didn't do as she was told in order to survive. She fought, and learned to never disobey." Hollie explained, and glanced sadly at the burnt corpse. "I hope she will be at peace, at least. But know this – she never would have aided our cause. That much I can be certain of. There was nothing left of my sister in arms inside of that monster they created."

"That's..." Tony's voice just trailed off and his eyes met Hollie's. Sick? Inhuman? Immoral? He thought as their gaze held. He wasn't sure what to say, really. But Hollie was obviously fighting back tears, and he remembered something he'd said to her when she took her first steps during her recovery from the fiasco at the Macy's...

"Well, I could be wrong, but I think there's a sad, hurt little girl under all those thorns somewhere who just wants to be loved." Tony had said, seriously but with a light, joking tone. He'd meant every word, but damn he didn't really remember saying it until now. And what was it that Hollie said...? She wanted something she couldn't have, that Tony had mentioned once himself...

The realization hit him like a ton of bricks and he just stared at her like and felt like pretty much the world's biggest asshole. No wonder Pepper dumped him. His throat suddenly felt more than a little dry, as Hollie raised her eyebrows as if to silently ask why the fuck he was staring at her with a vacant look on his face like he'd just discovered the meaning of life. He'd have to give her some credit. One does not simply render Tony Stark speechless, but she sure as hell did it. ...Even if it took a little while for it to hit him.

"What?" She finally asked in exasperation, breaking the silence along with Natasha who burst into a fit of giggles. Of course she'd already figured it out. So did Hollie, probably. But Tony knew he'd have better luck surviving an attempt to blow up the pentagon than he would at trying to get her talk about that particular conversation. Well, at the moment anyway. He suspected she might open up once the chaos took a break. ...Maybe. What threw him for a loop, was why the hell he wanted her to let him in.

Was it such a bad thing? She wanted to be loved, and if Tony had to guess she probably didn't even know what that felt like. If she did, she was most likely too young to really even remember. ...Not that he claimed to know the first thing about love. To him, love was just sex that meant something with someone that might still be there in the morning. The thing was, he'd never really felt like this – only when it came to Pepper. Sure, he was the first one to run in and blow shit up, but this was personal. They'd hurt Hollie, and Tony was going to show them all what happens when someone fucks with him and his.

...And that was the scary part.

When did Hollie become 'his'? When did he even decide that she was part of his band of misfits, and that he would go to hell and back for her just like he would for Pepper, Rhodey or the Avengers? He didn't know, and honestly it freaked him out a little bit.

What he did know was that he was determined not to fuck it up, and Dante was a dead man walking.

So much for not sleeping with SHIELD agents.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding." Natasha chuckled and shook her head.

"Huh?" Clint muttered and frowned.

Tony just smiled and shrugged. "I'll tell you guys later, right now we have some terrorists blow to hell. Buttercup, do you think Porky will still be at the base?" The ex-assassin just shook her head, fully aware that he'd used her by far most hated nickname fully on purpose.

"No. These men came looking for Clint and Natasha, so they know they escaped. That means his safety was compromised. He's long gone. We should really make ourselves scarce, too." She replied, glancing in the direction of a crowd of locals streaming out of the bar to have a look at the carnage. "Unless you think Potts isn't going to kill herself trying to smooth this over with the media. Never mind SHIELD. They'll be all over this like flies on dog shit."

Tony groaned and rolled his eyes. Clint gave him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder, and they managed to escape the scene before anyone got a glimpse of Iron Man and Thor's new job competition. ...Not that Thor had been back to earth since Loki's rampage in New York.

Tony and Hollie could have flown, but they decided to lay low as they might be detected by the Tea Party's equipment or lookouts. Instead, they rode in the back of the Jeep. The four of them mostly stayed quiet, no one really talking except Tony. He swore to himself occasionally as he worked on temporarily repairing Hollie's broken repulsor/flight stabilizer with a paper clip, one of Natasha's throwing knives and some wires he yanked out of the Jeep's stereo. Hollie watched him in silence from where she sat beside him in the back seat. Watching him work was oddly soothing. Even in this situation, Tony managed to zone out everything around him as his steady hands more or less rebuilt her left gauntlet – with the distinct lack of proper tools.

"How's it going, MacGyver?" Hollie asked, smirking. Tony looked up at her and blinked in surprise.

"Hey guys? Did you hear that? I think Scarface here just made a legit pop culture reference." He said and gave Hollie a knowing smile. "It's going peachy by the way. You won't be able to active the force field, but you can blow shit up just fine. Just be careful flying, the movement system is going to be offline in your left hand, so you'll have to compensate for that. Your balance might be a little off, but it should be stable enough. I'll fix right it ASAP, though."

"Congratulations, it's like corrupting a virgin, but maybe worse." Clint said dryly as narrowly avoided a pothole that could have swallowed the Jeep. Natasha just rolled her eyes.

About two hours later, they found themselves on a cliff overlooking the compound. Clint and Natasha had silently disarmed and killed the two guards there and grabbed their access cards for the security systems. Hollie took out the guard on the opposite cliff with a single shot from her pistol, which was completely inaudible aside from a soft pop in the air near them.

"Seriously, I know I asked already, but what kind of silencer is that thing?" Tony asked.

"Made it myself." Hollie grumbled and stole an extra pistol and some ammo from one of the dead lookouts.

"So what's the plan?" Tony asked the spies. "Lightening Rod and I have enough fire power to level this place in about two minutes tops, and you two can pick off the survivors. There's also a plan B, as far as blowing the place up goes."

"Hollie, what was your father's name?" Natasha asked for the second time.

"Why?" She replied with a frown.

"Because a man named Michael Antonelli sprung us out of this joint." Clint replied. "Maybe we should save him."

"Grey hair, skinny, square glasses dark eyes? Probably in a tailored suit. Smells like too much musk cologne?" Hollie suggested. Clint and Natasha nodded.

"That is my uncle, but not by blood. My step-father, Leonardo Antonelli, was his brother. He dies. He sold my family out to Dante because he was jealous of his brother, and it was he who handed delivered me to Dante as a child. Michael is no better than he is, just because he suddenly decided to have a morality crisis. If he has any regrets, it's that he's in over his head with the terrorists. He will never leave the Mafia, his ties are too deep. Two years ago, before I joined SHIELD he... Natasha knows. He is Angelica's father." Hollie looked like she just wanted to crawl in a hole and shook her head.

"He dies." Natasha confirmed without the slightest trace of hesitation. Clint and Tony gave her identical questioning glances but she ignored them. It was the sort of threatening look that promised they'd get their asses kicked if they asked. Tony just managed not to ask who the hell Angelica was, because there was murder in Natasha's glare, and Hollie looked like she was a thousand miles away.

"So, according to the maps Hollie gave me when we started this mess, and a scan Jarvis just did... This place is housing a metric shitton of stolen Stark weapons, and it was originally a secret SHIELD facility. That must be why the military's left it alone." Tony explained, trying to change the subject for his own safety. "Jarvis already hacked their systems. I can remotely detonate the Stark Industries stuff, and they won't know what hit them. ...We're gonna want to clear out if I do that, though. We'll get caught up in it if we stay here."

"Do it." Hollie said, narrowing her eyes.

"Awesome. Let's get back to the Jeep. That should be far enough. If it can make it to the airport, I'll have Happy get us a flight back to New York."

So that was the plan.

The explosion was spectacular as they watched from a safe distance, not speaking a word between them. Whoever was still inside was as good as dead. It was beautiful in a sick, lethal way. Hollie felt no remorse at basically ordering Michael's death, regardless of him aiding Clint and Natasha. No. If anything, it felt like a lead weight had been lifted from her chest. She couldn't forgive him after what he'd done to her. ...Not when there was a nearly three year old little girl safely in the real Agent Hill's temporary care. ...Who would be no less hunted by the mafia than she was if they found out that she existed.

"Be safe, Mia figlia. (My daughter)" Hollie whispered to herself as she stared at the orange glow on the horizon with a new resolve. None of the others heard her, of course.

At least as far as she knew, Dante and the rest of the Mafiosi didn't know that she had been four months pregnant when Natasha recruited her to join SHIELD. ...After Michael had raped her, and she had been forced to just let it happen to avoid Dante finding about her refusal to murder a business rival's ten year old son.

She'd never escape the shame. She just wanted her daughter to be safe, nothing else mattered.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Tony asked, giving her a sideways glance.

"Bidding starts at ten million, cash only." She she said with a tight lipped smile.