Hark! I don't think it's been even a month since my last update and look! It's like a double chapter. I made it nice and long for you guys because I love you guys so much! :D
A few notes before we get into it. I'm kind of ignoring the events of Iron Man 3. You'll find out eventually, so I won't spoil it. But pretend that it never happened. I'll have more at the end of the story, explaining myself.
But for now, I hope that you will all read, review, and enjoy!
"What the hell are you doing here?" Natasha said, striding forward to slap him upside the head. "You came alone?"
"Ow, Jesus! Can we remember that I just died and came back to life again?"
"It's good to see you Tony," Clint responded drily. "Now what the hell are you doing here? And can we talk about how you're not dead?"
"I'm guessing you realize that you walked into a trap?"
"No Tony. I'm pretty sure we're free to go whenever we want," Clint said.
"Wow, sarcasm. Real original Barton," Tony said. "Anyway the drug was never designed to permanently kill me, just to make it look like it was going to kill me so you would leave and walk into this trap. And now, I imagine that we'll get to the whole 'build me weapons' thing soon."
"And so you came here alone?" Natasha asked.
"What, I was just supposed to leave you guys here by yourself?" Tony joked, but his eyes warned her not to ask anything else. She watched him for a few more seconds, trying to see what his plan was before she nodded. "What's wrong with spangles over there? And why is Thor so quiet?"
"They knocked Steve out and gave him some drug. Thor thinks that if he moves, they'll kill us. They just threatened violence against Clint and I unless he behaved."
Tony looked back at Thor and the bigger man nodded. His hammer was nowhere in sight, not that it really mattered; it would come when he called. Steve though, was definitely a damper on his plans. Footsteps echoed down the hall and Natasha moved back in front of Steve. The door opened and a bright light flipped overhead. All of them blinked rapidly to clear their vision.
"Ah, so you have joined us Mr. Stark!" the older man said as he walked in. Two guards moved into the doorway, guns held ready. "One of my agents came to me and reported that Mr. Stark, and I quote, 'arrived at the door, very politely knocked, and then demanded to be taken to his team.'"
"Well, you didn't really give me a choice. And before we even star the whole 'build this for me,' to which I'll respond, mostly out of principle, 'you can't make me' and then we'll spend a few minutes debating before I'll ultimately agree to do it, we should get some things clear," Tony said. He pointed to Steve. "No more drugs for him. He'll behave with everybody else's lives on the line. Plus, I'll need him coherent to help."
The other man regarded him, then nodded. "If he does anything I'll kill him and Agent Romanoff. You have other requests?"
"I'm just going to assume that you don't mean me to work in here, but I expect wherever I'm working will have sleeping accommodations."
"We'll move cots in. Is that all of your requests?"
"They weren't really requests. More of demands. And for now, sure. Shall we start on the predicted dialogue?"
The man gave him a patronizing smile. "You'll find the plans in the workshop, a place which I will lead you all to shortly. However, first I must issue my warnings. I have already stated what will happen if the good Captain should try to escape or shows any violence towards my agents. I have also informed them of what will happen should Thor try the same thing. Should you prove obstinate or show any sign of doing anything except building weapons, Mr. Stark, we will remove your arc reactor." Tony barely stopped himself from making any sign of reaction. He'd like to see them try to take it. "And should Dr. Banner, who you kindly left at home, decide to join you or cause any violence, Mr. Rogers will return to his drugged state, Agent Romanoff will be killed, and the arc reactor will be removed. We will also have no choice but to turn over Dr. Banner to the labs."
Tony tried to swallow past a dry throat. This was getting a lot more serious than he had anticipated. He was starting to rethink their plan, but he didn't exactly have a better one to replace it.
"I'm going to assume that you understand."
"I understand. No funny stuff."
The man nodded. "Good. With that in mind, if you would all follow me."
Tony dropped back to help Thor haul Steve to his feet. Thor was still deadly silent "Tony?" Steve slurred.
"Don't worry, I'm just a hallucination. Go back to sleep," Tony instructed. Steve "hmmed" in response and his head rolled to rest on Tony's shoulder.
They took a different path through the hallways then they had led Tony down. He was beginning to realize that he had no idea how big this compound was. The only thing on the floors visible from the ground was a mainstream office building. Which would have been unsuspicious except for the fact that it was in the middle of nowhere. The rest of the compound was underground. He had the idea that they had walked down at least another two floors, but he couldn't be certain. He did, however, trust that Clint and Natasha knew the general direction they were walking. The man stopped outside of a steel set of doors and led them through another room, clearly meant to be a monitor room. There weren't any windows into the next room, but Tony was able to get enough of a look at the monitors to get a gauge of the caliber of security. It was not looking good. The man stepped in front of keypad and entered a code before the other set of steel doors opened. Tony recognized the keypad as he walked by—nearly un-hackable, the keypad was silent, giving no indication to what buttons had been pushed. The keypad itself emitted a heat signature that would throw off any heat seeking device or any device that scanned for genetic material left behind. The buttons held no printing on them, so it was impossible to tell which buttons faced the most wear. Plus, the program that ran it was set to require a new code entered in every day.
The workshop that he let them into was large, though clearly thrown together for this exact situation. It was not meant for comfort—the walls and the floor were the unworked stone of the ground they had buried the compound in. The machinery spread throughout the metal tables was not low-budget. It was like being back in his lab, just without Jarvis or his holograms. Or his 'bots. Or the scenery. Or his-damn it he couldn't do this right now.
"The cots will be moved in before the end of the night. Food will also be provided. Should you need anything else, Mr. Stark, feel free to let us know. I'm sure you'll find some way to do it." The man was positively smirking now. He turned and left the room, his guards following behind him. The clang of the metal doors shutting echoed through the room.
"So…we should probably try this again," Tony said, kneeling down like he was fixing his shoelaces. With the hand that faced away from the cameras, he dipped his fingers into his shoe to pull out five tiny devices and then shoved his hands in his pockets, leaning against the table in what he hoped was nonchalance. If he didn't pull this off, they were all dead. "Hi. I'm Tony Stark, in the flesh," he said, trying to put on his blinding smile as he stepped forward, hand outstretched to Natasha. She hesitated, unsure of his move, but stepped forward and shook his hand. She was far better at this than Tony was, because she didn't make any indication as she took the ear piece from his hand. A causal brush of hair by her ear had it in place. Tony stepped over to Clint next, who also pulled it off easily. Thor would be more difficult. He didn't like using the ear pieces when they went out on missions, and Tony and Bruce had been forced to put their heads together to make sure it wouldn't blow out when Thor called lightning. It was likely he wouldn't even know what Tony was handing him. So Tony took one for the team.
"You look like a giant puppy that got kicked in the face," Tony said, stepping towards Thor. He put his arms around Thor, pulling him in for the hug. Thor, confused, leaned down to make it easier, and Tony patted his head as he pulled away, slipping the ear piece in quickly and, hopefully, securely. Good thing he had learned all those slights of hands in college. They had been incredibly helpful when cheating at poker, and now they were literally life-savers. Well. Hopefully. They weren't out of here yet.
Steve's, Tony decided, would have to wait until the drugs stopped cycling through his system. It would be too easy for him, in his drugged state, to reach up and pull it out. "Glad we could all meet again," Tony said, which was the phrase that would trigger Jarvis and, therefore, Bruce.
"Good evening Avengers," Jarvis spoke in their ears. Thor stiffened slightly, but Tony hoped it wasn't enough to alarm any of their watchers.
"Hey guys," Bruce's tired voice followed. Silence fell in the room.
"So….awkward, right?" Barton asked, leaning back against a wall.
"Hey, I've never died before!" Tony claimed, even though he knew he was talking to Bruce. "I'm not sure how one comes back to life again!"
"Tony threw together some…plan," Bruce said as Tony talked. Bruce's skepticism just added to Tony's mock-hurt expression. "Natasha, Tony needs to hand you another device. It will need to be installed on one of the cameras. Nothing fancy, just somewhere on the outside of it where A.I.M. won't notice it."
Natasha sighed and moved towards Tony. He slid over to make room for her on his right, where the device was hidden. "Can I at least check you over for injuries?" she said, her tone holding the exasperated note that she adopted when she had to hunt him down to force him to eat or sleep.
"Injury free," he said with a grin, but he spread his arms for her as an invitation. She gave him a methodical pat down, one that, should she hit an injury, would cause him to at least grimace. She had done it to him a few times, but usually with a little more success, since Tony always hid his injuries. When she landed on his jean pockets, he felt a flash of her fingers in the pocket and out again, never even delaying in her inspection.
"Hm. Fine. I'll accept it this time," Natasha said. "Tell me about surveillance here."
"I need you climb up there and tell me any identifying features on the cameras. It looks high grade but, who knows maybe the black-weapons dealers are slipping."
"Won't that make them suspicious?" Bruce's voice came through again.
"Unlikely Dr. Banner," Jarvis supplied for Bruce. "They will expect Mr. Stark to scope out the security. If he didn't, it would look like he was complying with their demands too easily and, therefore, up to something."
Natasha was used to doing undercover operations, but this was on a different level for her. Her and Barton lived by two rules—rule number one: Don't get caught. Rule number two: When retrieving someone who has been caught, don't get caught. She's never had someone hold her before that wanted her to do something for them. Her captors have only ever wanted her to tell them something, and leaving her alone in a room didn't really accomplish that. So for right now, she played by Tony's rules. Surprisingly, he wasn't doing terrible so far. She climbed up on a table closest to the wall, then lunged forward, her fingers dragging along the rock until they finally caught a hold. She could tell they were probably bleeding now, but she ignored it and climbed the rest of the way to the top, until she had positioned herself right next to the camera. She could practically feel the guards' eyes on her, so she gave her blood-thirsty grin into the camera, even as she slipped the little device underneath plating. She was sure they would come in and check the camera at some point, but unless they took the camera down, they would never find it here. She just hoped that whatever this was supposed to do would be quiet.
"I don't see anything!" she called back down.
"Damn it," Tony said, and Natasha took that as her cue to slide down the wall. "Taking an educated guess? These things are high quality video, none of that blurry crap like the low grade surveillance systems. Think HD to the max. Audio on these things is sharp, probably could pick up whispers."
"The device is activated," Bruce said. "Jarvis is working at uploading."
"What does this strange man want?" Thor said, finally speaking up. Tony felt a release of air go out of him, but he refused to believe it was in relief.
"No idea big guy. Let's find out." Tony turned back to look at the room and a tablet sitting on a table. Tony moved over and picked it up.
"Once Jarvis is uploaded, we'll hopefully be able to piggy-back the systems," Bruce explained to the others as Tony looked through the tablet with a growing sense of dread. "Which means that every so often, we'll be able to override the audio with pre-recorded clips; mostly clips of us talking about meaningless things while we were at the tower. During those moments, you'll be free to talk about anything, though I would still be careful to keep away from the cameras. It's possible they could get a lip reader, or your timing will be off on who talks when. It's going to take some time for Jarvis to upload though."
Clint moved forward, noticing the tension in Tony's shoulders. He looked over Tony's shoulder at the information displayed. "What are they asking you to do?"
"The impossible," Tony muttered. "I don't have any experience in this field."
"What field?" Natasha asked. Clint turned to her with a raised eyebrow.
"Human biology," Clint answered. "They want him working on a project to build a human weapon. They call it," he looked back to consult the tablet. "They call it Extremis."
Yesssss my Iron Man/Avengers/Marvel/Extremis fans. I couldn't resist. I wasn't a big fan of the plot line they used in Iron Man 3 with Extremis because the program is so much cooler than that! And so is A.I.M. So, like I said before, I'm going to pretend like Iron Man 3 didn't happen for the sake of this story. And I apologize for the cliff hanger, especially because I probably won't be able to do more work on the story again for awhile! I promise I love all of you!