"Stay here, Tony."
The words rolled around in his head like cold marbles as he stood up and picked his way across the café, or what was left of it at least. The smell of burnt bagels and ozone filled the air and glass crunched under foot. He could hear the distant screams and lower inhuman roars of his accidental creation through the contorted window frame. Tony blinked as his brain desperately tried to reboot. Frankly, he had no idea what had just happened, what was STILL HAPPENING,or why, but the aching claws of ice in his chest told him that this whole mess was maybe-possibly-definitely-perhaps-distinctly his fault. He had tried so hard, so very, very hard to do something right, to prove that he WASN'T useless, and it had blown up in his face.
Again.
He tried to remember why he had decided to even try not being useless anymore. Uselessness suited him. Uselessness was easy. Uselessness didn't make Steve look at him that way, like he was a child that needed to be cleaned up after all the time-
Wait. Yes it did. THAT was the reason he'd started in the first place. Because everyone thought that all he was capable of was making messes. Tony's father Howard had always said to him that "if you make a problem, you fix a problem". Once Tony had reached adulthood, he had always looked upon this particular saying of his fathers as being ironic in its hypocrisy. Howard was, after all, the root of most of his son's insecurities and problems in the first place. As a result, Tony had spitefully spent the most part of his existence attempting to make as many problems as he could, mind resolutely turned away from the people who would have to clean it up for him. That's what he paid them for anyway.
Until the entire Avengers initiative. He COULDN'T pay them to clean up his messes. No way. They had become his team. His family. His weird, messed up, entirely extraordinary family, and although it sounded ridiculous to a man who had tried for so long to prove that he had no heart, Tony had grown to care for each and every one of Steve.
Tony had made a problem. And now Steve was going to fix it. Because that's what Steve does.
"Well, screw that," Tony said. His phone was out of his pocket and at his ear by the time he had climbed out of the café window onto the rubble-strewn sidewalk, and he was already walking up the street when JARVIS answered.
"We appear to have a problem, sir."
"Indeed we do, JARVIS, and I'm going to need the suit."
"Of course, sir. Shall I send it to your current location?"
Tony paused. "Actually, send it to the source of this mess. I think it's time to try out program 7."
"But sir, the beta is purely in prototype mode, it is far from ready for field use-"
"You don't know until you try, JARVIS. I've made a problem and now it's time to fix it."
He flicked the phone shut and broke into a run, a smile cracking across his features. He could do good too. He would show them.
...
Steve was feeling good, the familiar zing of adrenalin lending more power to his considerable strength, masking the tiredness and tension that had been building for days. Everything was under control and for some strange reason it was all going to plan. The crowds had been evacuated. The streets emptied, and frankly that was always half the battle. Even the creature seemed to be slowing down in its insatiable rage. As the people were cleared by SHIELD agents, and the usually thriving midtown slowly stilled, so too did the creature, retracting its gelatinous, charred appendages and shutting its gaping black maw. After ten minutes of streets lacking targets, the creature seemed to have lost its violent temperament, settling down to the general demeanour of a lonely five-year-old. Steve watched from a safe distance as the sentient breakfast rolled (or squelched, more like) over the tops of abandoned cars and buses like they were nothing more than gravel on a driveway. It covered both lanes of stilled traffic and pressed its curious nodes against the windows of buildings. Shattered glass lay everywhere. The sucking and obscene popping noises that escaped from the breakfast-gone-bad filled the air, and along with the smell, it was enough to leave the captain feeling slightly woozy. His commlink crackled.
"I don't know about you guys, but I think we should name this thing." Hawkeye said down the radio. The captain rolled his eyes good-naturedly.
"We are not keeping Tony's breakfast as a pet, Hawkeye."
"I like the name Paul. Paul is a good name." He heard Bruce say. A cloud of canary-yellow vapour whooshed out of the sentient sludge's back. The commlink was filled with the sound of coughing. "Or maybe Stinky would be more appropriate."
Steve reviewed the data in his mind; giant, unknown sentient organism, with varying speed and reaction times, assumingly to stimuli, and a definite intent to consume living things. This was reinforced when the creature snatched a bird from the sky with a long blackened tentacle.
"Hawkeye, can you loose a flare past this thing? I don't want you to hit it. Let it pass Tony's monster at about twenty feet. I want to test a theory."
"Sure thing, Cap."
He watched the white light streak from on high; lightning fast, the creature snatched it mid-flight from the air and engulfed it in oozing black mass.
"Shoot! Did you see that, Cap?!"
Captain let out a breath.
"That I did. Definitely reacts according to movement, then. Its motor skills seem to be improving. Anyone got any ideas on how to neutralize our little friend here?" There is a pause, and then the commlink crackles again, the high-pitched whine of weather interference filling the background before Thor's voice overpowers it.
"I would verily unleash my bestowed powers if that would be desired, captain?"
"That wouldn't be such a good idea, cap," Bruce interjected before steve could reply. "We don't know what sort of bio or chemical threat this thing poses, and hitting it with a tonne of lightning isn't going to make the problem any simpler." Steve nodded to himself.
"Right. No lightning, Thor. Bruce, keep us updated on any biological observations you make. Any suggestions yourself?" There's another pause before Bruce replies again.
"It's going to sound far-fetched," he says, and even across the fuzzy intercom he can tell the doctor is hesitating.
"Doesn't matter, anything is better than nothing," Steve prompts down the line. His eyes were still tracking the creature.
"Well, this thing is essentially an overgrown omelette, right? As in, "Stinky" here is mostly just a ball of grease and burnt egg with a lot more emotions than it's used to. So, what do you use to get rid of the gross bits stuck at the bottom of the frying pan?"
Steve cocked an eyebrow.
"Are you suggesting we just cover this thing in dishwashing detergent?"
"It sounds stupid, but the science is sound, Captain. I tested the theory on a biological sample."
Steve thought it over, assessing the general dimensions of the creature and making calculations. They were going to need a heck of a lot of detergent...
"Agent Romanov, see if you can't get SHIELD to bring us two standard oil trucks filled with detergent, one from the south end of this brute and one from the north."
"Already on it, Captain. They should be here in about ten."
"Thanks everyone, Cap out."
His frame sagged slightly and he leant against the wall, numbers and figures buzzing like wasps through his mind. This crisis was pretty much in the "averted" status, and Steve could practically see the piles of paperwork Fury would give them following this little debacle.
Steve straightened as a middle-aged man burst from his car with a slight shriek, his overweight body carrying him up the street. The creature (now christened Stinky by a radio-vote) roared, air whistling from various pores and gloopy tunnels in its body. The sulphurous tendrils extended again as it steamrollered forward. Steve hefted his shield up in one hand and bolted out onto the street, mindless of his vulnerability. There was no way he was going to have any casualties today.
"Hey! Sir!" he shouted, vaulting his body over the bonnet of a cab.
"Stop! It isn't safe for you to be-" he never got to finish his sentence. Out of nowhere came the distinctive sound of repulsors, and an extremely welcome streak of red and gold swept the civilian down an alley and out of sight. Of course Tony had gotten the suit. Of course he'd come to help. Steve knew that Tony loathed being helpless. In fact, if truth be told, Steve was glad that Tony was safe inside his flying tin can. His stomach lurched at the thought of Tony, one of his team's most valuable assets and now a rather begrudging friend of his, being out there alone and unprotected. Tony was just so devastatingly human without his suit, so ridiculously breakable. Thinking about it caused a wave of nausea not quite related to Stinky-Paul-Whatsitsname's emissions. Steve couldn't quite understand why his reaction to this concept was so severe.
Brushing away these thoughts, Steve put his feelings down to team spirit. Co-dependency. Yes.
There weren't any other options possible.
"Cap!" Steve turned and his stomach dropped out through his ankles. His nightmare was running towards him down the street, distinctly lacking his metallic armour, a dopey smile on his face. Panic rose in Steve's chest as he quickly revised his stats on the situation. The pissed off breakfast roared again and he could see it surging forward.
"Shit! Is that Tony?!" Steve heard Clint shout down the radio.
"Tony! Get down!" Steve was bolting towards him, but there were too many cars blocking his way, and the hand clutching at his chest made time slow down. Steve felt as the shadow of the looming breakfast broke across him, the creature shrieking and whistling and swelling to titanic proportions in his wake.
"I've got this under control, Cap, don't worry!" the cocky smile was still planted firmly on his face. Steve wanted to wipe it off with his fists.
The next few seconds seemed to slow down and go blurry; a smoking limb snaked overhead, incredibly fast; the pounding of Steve's feet against the concrete; Tony standing up on the hood of a car, arms spread wide like a sacrifice as his suit flew towards him, opening in preparation for its master; and Steve feeling relieved, pissed but relieved.
Until the creature's charred probe wrapped around the suit in mid flight like no more than the bird from minutes ago, sucking it back into the black abyss in triumph. Twelve tenticles erupted from Stinky's surface and Steve saw Tony's eyes widen in a silent "oh shit" as they streaked towards him.
"TONY!"
Steve was almost there, almost to him, only a few cars away now and Tony seemed to be fixed in place, rendered mute for once and arms still outstretched. It was a race between the tentacles and Steve, his entire being focussed down to a single tunnel of thought; tonytonytonytonytonytonytony . His arm stretched out in front of him as he bounded across the last few feet, and he could hear his own voice shouting at Tony to move, almost there to pull him down and out of reach, hand wrapping around his comrades' wrist and Tony's eyes suddenly on his own-
"We have detergent inbound, 20 seconds out-" Steve jerked his head at the distraction and it was all it took. In an instant Tony's waist was encircled in black slime and the sound of tires almost drowned out the whispered "Steve!"as he was whipped into the air.
Nonononononononononotony, Steve's mind was whirring, gears churning statistics and strategy modifications behind the steady thrum of no no no please no.
His chest felt like it had been hit by a falling tree, and then he was running backwards, away from Tony, almost blindly. He smelt the sickly sweet pine scent of the truck before he saw it, saw the crews hooking up a fireman's gurney to the tanker and moving far, far too slow. He poured on the speed; there could only be about fifty feet between them. Steve looked back at the creature; the tentacle was still outstretched and dangling, working its way around Tony's body, wrapping across his mouth and almost covering him completely. It takes a human approximately three minutes to pass out from lack of oxygen, and then brain death occurs within 6 minutes of the initial suffocation. Steve was not going to be late. He heard the startled shouts of the tanker workers as he streaked between them. He took hold of the gurney nozzle in his gloved hands and looked up at the tanker crew. He shot them a 1000-watt smile that he didn't quite feel.
"Make sure that's turned on for me, folks." He said and then his feet were pounding the pavement again as he streaked towards the breakfast again. The whistling was building in a twisted crescendo as he weaved through the cars, and he felt the jolt as the hose ran out. It was close, so close, but not close enough. He needed height. He needed...
Steve vaulted onto the roof of a taxi and then the yellow school bus beside it in two smooth jumps. He held the hose up high.
"Hey Stinky!"
He felt the creature's attention latch onto him. Tony's hand fell limp.
"Get out of my fry pan."
The green detergent surged, and the sentient breakfast screamed.
...
***A.N. Sorry for the slow updates! Exams, man, they get me every time...
Anywho, tell me your thoughts, next chapter soon. :) hehehehehehe
Feel free to yell at me. :)