A/N Thank you so much for all of the reviews guys! I'm glad you are all liking it. As requested by many of you, here is an update. Enjoy! :)
Thanks to Maralexa for the Beta!
Chapter 2
"Iron Man? Stark, come in!" Phil yelled into the comm.
"Mr. Stark has removed the suit, Agent Coulson," Jarvis informed him. "But he has instructed me to keep the comm lines open for you."
"Put it through, Jarvis," Phil said.
"What do you want?" Phil recognized Tony's voice.
"Oh, it's very simple, Mr. Stark. I want you. You belong to me now."
Phil didn't like the sound of that. "What's our ETA?" he asked no one in particular.
"Two minutes, sir," one of the pilots replied.
"That's going to be too late," Phil murmured. Come on, Tony, stall, he thought.
"And if you're planning on fighting back, then think again. Your friend here will be coming with us. One wrong move and he will be killed. If you cooperate, however, then he will live. Do you understand?"
Phil assumed Tony must have nodded or something because there was only silence for a moment before the unknown man spoke again.
"Good, now if you'll follow my men."
Phil heard some scuffling and the sound of footsteps retreating, followed minutes later by the distant sound of a helicopter taking off. Phil cursed before turning to the SHIELD pilot again.
"Get Director Fury on the line. Tell him we have a situation."
)()()(
When the backup teams landed, they stepped off the planes into what could only be referred to as a war zone. There were dead bodies littering the ground, large craters that had been blasted into the rocks and sand, and small fires still burning in several areas.
"Fan out!" Phil ordered. "And be careful. We don't know how many hostiles may still be out there."
The agents moved about, weapons at the ready while Coulson stayed back and surveyed the scene. From what he could tell, the weapons were all destroyed. That part seemed easy—too easy. All of them were just sitting out in the open. It was almost as if they wanted the weapons to be found on purpose. But why? What sense could that possibly make?
After several minutes of searching, it was clear that the only sign of Clint or Tony was Clint's bow and Tony's suit, which had been left lying where they had fallen. Phil walked over to the disassembled Iron Man suit and knelt beside it.
"If only you had waited a few more minutes Tony," Phil whispered, but he knew Tony couldn't have done anything differently or Clint would be dead.
His thoughts were interrupted by his earpiece beeping.
"Agent Coulson, any sign of them?" Fury asked.
"Negative, sir," he responded. "We were too late. Barton and Stark are gone."
Phil could practically hear Fury scowling as he considered their options. As it stood at the moment, a former high-grade, military weapons designer and a level nine SHIELD agent were missing, taken by an unknown assailant. The kind of information that Tony and Clint possessed was far more than just valuable, and if the men who took them wanted that information, there was no telling what would be done to them to get it.
"Keep me posted," Fury said at length.
"Will do sir," Phil promised.
After disconnecting with Fury, Coulson glanced around, wiping sweat off his brow. He remembered touring in Afghanistan and also remembered how he never wanted to return to the place. At least he wasn't getting shot at this time; that helped a little.
"Sir, over here!" An agent called out to him. "I think you'll be interested in this."
Phil jogged up to the agent who was scanning what was left of the pile of weapons.
"What is it, Pierce?"
"Sir, from what I can tell from the remaining debris, these aren't Stark weapons," Pierce replied, studying the readings on his scanner.
"What do you mean they aren't Stark weapons? Are you sure?" Phil asked.
"Yes, sir, I'm positive," Pierce assured. "They may be similar to Stark weapons and they may even have been inspired by them, but they were not made by SI. It may have said 'Stark Industries' on the crates, but these weapons were poor imitations at best.
Coulson was silent a moment, thinking about what all of it could mean. The weapons were too easy to find, and not really made by Stark...
"Sir, it was a set up!" Coulson barked into his comm.
"What?" Fury asked, confused.
"The weapons were too easy to find. They knew we would send for Stark since he's been here before and they were supposedly his weapons. They were also too easy to destroy, just sitting out in the open like that. Plus, they weren't even really Stark weapons; they were just made to look that way. They just needed to draw him out into the open. It was all a trap from the beginning," Phil explained.
"It all makes since now," Fury said. "I thought we found those stockpiles a little too easily."
"How did we even find out about them, anyway?" Phil asked.
"The location was sent to us by an anonymous source," Fury growled. "We played right into their hands." He paused for a moment. "The helicarrier is en route to your location. I'm calling in Romonoff and sending reinforcements your way. We need to find them, and the sooner the better."
"Yes, sir, and I'll go ahead and start organizing a search on my end."
"Once you're finished with that, get back to the helicarrier."
"Yes, sir." He disconnected with Fury and turned back to the handful of agents with him. "All right, listen up. As of now, two high-level assets have been abducted by unknown hostiles. They went through a lot of trouble to capture them, and now it's up to us to get them back. Reinforcements are on the way to help us begin searching for them. I want all of you to get ready for their arrival. Gather up whatever you will need. These are two of our own; we have to do whatever it takes to get them back. Understood?"
"Yes, sir!" the group chorused.
"Let's bring them home."
)()()(
Tony couldn't be sure how long the ride was, but he guessed it was somewhere around an hour later that the chopper landed. He was pulled out and pushed and dragged forward for several minutes before they stopped and the hood was jerked off his head by the first guard who he had decided to dub Tweedledee. Tweedledee untied his hands and stepped back to stand in the doorway. Tony looked around to see he was in a ten-by-ten foot room.
Scratch that. A ten-by-ten foot cell, Tony thought as he caught sight of the door.
The door was open, allowing Tony to see the outside of it. It had only one handle which, of course, was on the outside. It was also equipped with bolt locks and a small slot with a sliding plate over it, which was also on the outside. All in all, it looked far too similar to the doors that had been at the entrance to a certain cave that Tony really didn't want to think about.
Tony turned away from the door to survey the rest of the room. There wasn't much to see. Just four stone walls. Thankfully, these were man-made, entirely constructed of concrete bricks and mortar. Other than that the room's only feature was a lonely light bulb dangling from a single wire hanging from the ceiling. He had been in worse, but he had also definitely been in better.
His criticism of the room was interrupted as Tweedledum joined his buddy in the doorway, Clint once again slung over his shoulders. He walked inside and unceremoniously dropped the archer onto the hard dirt floor. Next, the leader entered.
"Welcome to your new home. I hope you find it to your liking," the leader said with a leer.
All right, I've got to come up with a better name than 'the leader.' The boss? No that's just as boring as 'the leader.' El Jefe? Better, but still too overused. Let's see, the guy is obviously the head-honcho—That's it! Head-honcho. Perfect.
"What do you want with us?" Tony asked once he finished his internal monologue.
"With him?" He motioned to Clint. "Nothing. He's just insurance. You're the one I want."
Tony rolled his eyes. "Okay, what do you want with me?"
"That is simple. I want revenge," Head-honcho replied.
"Revenge? Why? I've never even met you before," Tony said. I think, he added mentally.
"No, but you've met my brother," he replied.
Tony stiffened as the pieces clicked into place. He suddenly realized why the man had seemed so familiar. The voice, the facial features—they were so similar to another man's, a man who had haunted his nightmares.
"Raza," Tony whispered.
"I'm pleased to see you remember. Now you know why you are here." The man's smirk suddenly turned deadly. "You are going to pay for what you did to him."
Tony swallowed thickly. This man was the brother of the person who had held him captive for three months, the man who had tortured him, the man who had killed Yin—many innocent people. If this man was anything like Raza, then Tony was sure this guy was not someone he wanted to meet, let alone be taken captive by.
"And in case you were wondering, your friend is here to keep you in line. As long as we have him, you will be far less likely to try to escape. You may be willing to risk your own life, but I am fairly certain you will not gamble with the life of your friend. We have gone through far too much trouble capturing you to let you escape."
"Far too much trouble," Tony mumbled to himself, the pieces clicking into place. "You set up the weapons. It was a trap!"
"Very good, Mr. Stark. Yes, we set up the weapons and made sure you heard about it. We knew your own weapons would bring you, and we also hired the men you encountered. You were expecting an attack, so you were on your guard. After the initial attack, you relaxed, thinking you had finished everyone off, which allowed us to catch you off guard. Really, you made it far too easy," Head-honcho explained.
"Were they even my weapons?" Tony asked, already pretty sure of the answer.
"No," the man said with a smirk. "They were just of a similar type to yours. We put your name on them ourselves."
Tony silently seethed. It had been a trap and he had walked right into it. Now he and Clint were in danger because he had been stupid and short-sighted.
"Now then, I will leave you to get settled in," the man said with another smirk as he and his men left, the door slamming behind them.
Tony was really starting to wish he could wipe that look off the guy's face, but he knew it would only cause trouble. And Head-honcho had been right when he said that Tony wouldn't risk Clint. He wouldn't—couldn't—lose another friend.
"Not again," he whispered.
He moved over and crouched down beside the archer and began looking him over. He checked Clint's pulse and breathing, finding them both to be strong and steady. He also took stock of the wound on Clint's forehead, obviously the cause of the archer's unconscious state. He gently pressed around the wound, glad when the skull underneath seemed to still be intact. For as hard as Clint had been hit, the gash wasn't as big as Tony had expected, and the bleeding had mostly stopped. It was swollen and ugly but it could have been worse.
"Clint. Clint. Come on, Bird Brain, wake up," Tony said, tapping his friend's cheek in an attempt to wake the man. Clint didn't so much as twitch, though, so Tony removed his long sleeved shirt, balled it up, and put it under the archer's head, leaving himself wearing just his white undershirt. Then he ripped a few strips of fabric off of his cargo pants and used them to bandage Clint's wound. Tony may have been a genius but he wasn't a doctor so there wasn't much more he could do for his friend. So he sat down next to Clint, leaned back against the wall, and resigned himself to wait (it was either that or sleep, and there was no way he was going to be willing or able to do that) for either Clint to wake up, for SHIELD to find them, or for Head-honcho and the Tweedle Twins to return. Tony really hoped the first two happened before the last one.