Yay! Another chapter, and it hasn't been two months! Also, we only have two or three chapters left. I haven't decided yet, and probably won't know until I write them. A couple of notes:
Hopefully, everything towards the end of this chapter makes sense. If there's any vagueness, let me know and I'll see if I can fix it or answer your questions with the next chapter. Also, understand that I have only taken an intro computer programming class, so my technology vocabulary and understanding? Not up to par.
Next, just to make sure it's clear, the translations are at the end of each paragraph in bold. I used Russian, German, Irish, and Turkish and I used Google translate for everything, so it's probably not accurate. Sorry.
Also...Coulson! An actual appearance by him. And I apologize, because I feel like I've kind of shoved Thor to the back. So for all the Thor lovers, sorry.
Ooooh, and language. There's some strong language. Consider yourself warned.
Lastly, read, review, and enjoy!
"We have a problem guys," Bruce said as they waited tensely for their captors to show up.
"What could possibly go wrong?" Tony asked, his tone bored as he watched the doors.
"Seven well staged attacks," a new voice said over the coms and Tony was pretty sure that there was no way to disguise the shock they all felt.
"And Coulson found out," Bruce supplied unhelpfully.
"After going on a scavenger hunt for Mr. Stark," Coulson said, and they all heard the unamused tone in his voice. "It was a well-played stall for time, but you're on your own. A.I.M. has just launched several attacks across the world that require our attention. Dr. Banner and I will try to get there as soon as possible but the innocents come first."
"Everything, apparently," Clint said in response to Tony's question. Silence fell in the room as they tried to think of ways to make a new plan without giving it away.
"говорить на другом языке?" Tony asked. Natasha raised an eyebrow at him. (Speak another language?)
"Your accent is terrible," she commented. "Steve, do you know any foreign languages?"
Steve shrugged. "Ein wenig Deutsch. roinnt na hÉireann." (a bit of German. Some Irish)
"Aon smaointe?" Clint asked, while Natasha and Tony stared at him. Natasha, at least, knew what language they were speaking. (Any ideas?)
"Mar a bhí cheana. Tobchumadh. Fan le haghaidh an chéad aistriú." (As before. Improvisation. Wait for the first move.)
"Подождите, пока они атаку, после чего импровизировать," Clint translated from Irish to Russian. (Wait for them to attack, then improvise.)
"Becermek," Tony said. (Fuck.)
"Turkish? Seriously? Where did you even pick that up?" Clint asked.
Tony shrugged. "I got bored in grade school."
Before Clint could make any retort, the doors were pushed open and the usual armed guards surrounding the grey haired man-Bracker, Tony could finally put a name to a face-entered the room.
"So Mr. Stark, the guards tell me that you say it's done."
"Well, it's as done as I'm going to be able to get it for you. We've already had this discussion about how I don't do human biology. You should probably have a, I don't know, biologist look over the details," Tony said, shoving the program forward. Hopefully Jarvis would get the message and begin deleting all of the information they had backed up.
"We thank you for your cooperation Mr. Stark," Bracker said pleasantly, handing the tablet to a man behind him who wore a lab coat. Tony wondered if he had administered any of the doses of Extremis to all of those test subjects.
"So now we can just all go on our merry ways, right?" Tony asked, just for the sake of asking it, as he tapped his fingers on the table. He hated these situations, waiting for the other side to attack. He wanted his damn suit back.
Bracker gave him a condescending smile. "I think you already know the answer-"
"Sir! The program's been wiped!" the man who had accepted the tablet said. "A virus got through the firewall!"
Steve was beside him before he could blink. He caught a flash of Bracker reaching for him before the table he had been leaning on was flipped and shoved forward with a kick. Bracker and the first line of guards went down as Steve hauled Tony up, flipped another table over and pulled Tony down with him into cover.
"Shit, shit, shit," Bruce's voice came through the ear com.
"They discovered that faster than I thought they would," Tony said.
"Leave Stark alive!" Bracker's voice called out through the chaos that was flipping tables, shouting voices, and bullets. "Kill the others."
"Guys we're really try-"
Bruce's voice cut off abruptly, at the same time the lights went off. There was no flickering, no static.
And it was dark. Far too dark.
"I am going to find whoever made that EMP and kill them," Tony growled. He didn't need to look down to know that the arc reactor was out.
"Hell," Steve cursed. Everything had gotten eerily quiet. "How long?"
"A couple minutes. Five at most."
The sound of shifting cloth next to them and Steve didn't hesitate—he reached out for something that Tony couldn't see as his eyes hastened to adjust to darkness. There was a thud as whomever he grabbed dropped, a clatter as his gun dropped beside him, and then a grunt as Steve knocked the man unconscious.
"We should regroup," Steve said quietly and Tony could hear his hands shifting over the gun, trying to figure out everything about the gun in the dark.
"Give it to me," Tony said. He could tell right away it was a mix between one of his old designs and what the Chitauri had used when they had attacked Manhattan, which meant Fury had a spy because they had tracked down and collected every bit of technology left behind. "Regrouping isn't going to do anything. We can hear Thor," and they could, because he wasn't exactly a quiet fighter and no one could sneak up on him. He had surprisingly good hearing, "and Clint and Natasha are in their element here. Knocking out the lights may have been their best idea yet."
Even in the dark, Tony could feel Steve's "are you kidding me?" look. "They did it in hopes of weakening you Tony," Steve protested.
"If they were smart, they would have used a lower grade EMP. Knock out the lights and any form of communication, because they have to know we have contact with the outside by now, and leave the arc reactor running." He tapped the shielding on the reactor lightly. "It's pretty hard to hide in the dark."
Steve was definitely still giving him that look. "Tony, you can barely breathe."
"Not for long. It should come back on in a couple minutes."
"And then you're easy to spot and catching your breath," Steve explained. There were very few times that Steve got to adopt the tone of talking down to Tony. This was one of them. There was a telling silence, before Tony responded.
"I'm claiming lack of oxygen."
"Don't move," a voice in front of them said. Both of them froze. Steve could probably see the figure, but Tony could only get a distant outline of the body. It was going to make hitting him so much harder. His hands inched their way back down the weapon. He had no idea how they had redesigned this weapon, but he was pretty sure he could make it fire. His finger found the trigger and he pulled. There was a flash of light from his gun, followed by a flash of light from the other gun. Tony felt something rip through his chest, felt the heat and pain, smelt the blood.
The arc reactor flickered on.
"Tony?" Steve asked quietly. Tony opened his mouth to respond, but nothing came out. Well, that wasn't true. Blood trickled out of his mouth. "Tony!"
Steve's voice wasn't even quiet now, nor was his movements. He easily found Tony's shoulders and helped lower him to the ground, even though it didn't help. Tony choked on blood as it filled his lungs and mouth. Steve turned him to the side and the blood stopped pooling in the back of his throat.
The radios of the two guards, and the guards all over the room, crackled to life.
"I need emergency power now."
"Sir, there is still one minute and fifteen seconds until the lights turn back on."
There was a thud as someone dropped down beside the two. "What happened?" Natasha's voice. It was urgent and worried, something Tony wasn't used to hearing.
Steve shook his head as he pushed down on Tony's chest. Tony's back arched against the pain, trying to push away from the pain. "Shot I think. They aren't using guns though."
"Chitauri weapons mixed with guns," Tony ground out. "'Least the wound is cauterized."
"Where did it hit?"
Steve had a terrible game face. It couldn't disguise a lie to save his life. Tony idly noticed that the lights were back on. "Lungs," Steve said quietly. In a second, Natasha was up with a stolen gun in her arms and pointed at Bracker and the approaching guards.
"Don't move any closer," Natasha ordered. Tony watched in a distant fascination. Sure, he knew he'd do anything for his team. It was interesting to see them do the same.
"Really Agent Romanoff? You know wounds. There's no way he's surviving that."
"Rude," Tony muttered. Only Steve heard him, his mouth tightening in anger, yet tilting up on one side in a slight smile. Steve was unique in his ability to love and hate Tony at the same time.
"And you can save him with your formula that hasn't had a single survivor?" Clint demanded. Tony tried to move his head to see where the man was, but pain rocketed through his body and he forced his mouth to stay shut and not give into the pain. He must have failed, because Steve's hand tightened briefly around Tony's in sympathy.
"He can fix it again," Bracker said, holding the tablet out to Natasha. "We needed to test it anyway with his changes."
"Take it," Tony said, but it was still so quiet that again, only Steve heard him.
"Natasha," Steve said. The woman moved forward in a flash to grab the tablet from Bracker's hands. She handed it back to Steve without ever taking her eyes off of the armed men.
"Guys?" a voice tentatively asked through the mics. Thank god Tony had made Bruce stick around. That man deserved every metal that any one had ever given Tony.
"Upload the old data," Tony said.
There was a pause as Bruce watched the feeds come back on from the surveillance cameras. "Are you sure?" Bruce asked. Steve repeated the question to him out loud.
"Very sure," Tony's mouth said, but his mind wasn't so sure. Either a painful death of suffocating as his lungs stopped working or a painful death and possibly madness as his body downloaded a virus? He wasn't so sure which one was better.
"Upload is complete. Jarvis is having a hard time uploading himself back into the system, but he said that it's a one use thing. They open it and he'll destroy it as soon as I give him the command, and I'll be watching."
Steve handed it back to Natasha who, in turn, returned it to Bracker. "Make the changes and load a syringe," Bracker instructed. Tony had to give it to them—they worked fast. Which was good, because breathing was definitely getting harder.
Steve must have heard the wheezing breaths he was trying to hide. "Hold on Tony," he muttered.
"You'll have to allow my scientist to inject it, Agent," Bracker said, his easy, cocky tone back. "Unless you suddenly became an expert in Extremis?"
"It's fine," Tony whispered to Steve. Natasha was waiting for his signal, and moved aside stiffly when Steve nodded. The scientist flinched away from her when she twitched towards him as he passed. Tony wanted to laugh, but he wasn't sure he had the oxygen for it.
"Straight to the heart, right?" Steve asked the scientist as he knelt down beside the two. Both Tony and the scientist nodded. Steve moved Tony's shirt aside. "Right here," Steve told him. Tony was actually thankful that he had given into Steve's demand that he know how to work with the arc reactor, because the kid with the needle was looking at his chest with the wide eyes of being overwhelmed.
"Good luck," the kid said quietly, then plunged the needle into Tony's chest. Tony's back arched as pain pushed its way through his body, even though he hadn't thought it was possible to be in anymore pain.
"Leave him," he heard Braker say, but he sounded far away, like Tony was listening to everyone through a tunnel. He barely heard everyone leave, but he felt the presence of the kid disappear. "Even with the additions he made, the survival rate will be low. If he does survive…shoot him and inject the rest; see if any of them survive."
He felt more than saw someone at his side as the metal doors shut behind Braker and his men. Tony forced his eyes to focus. "You guys…should-should go. Defenses will be-will be lowered. Think you'll st-stick around for me," Tony forced out. He recognized Thor stationed behind him, eyes intent for any further foul play made by A.I.M. Natasha was probably wherever Clint disappeared to.
"We're not leaving you Tony," Steve said. His fingers brushed Tony's sweat plastered hair out off of his forehead. Steve's fingers trembled as they brushed his forehead.
"If..if I don't come out of this-this cocoon thing in exactly 24 h-hours, you better leav-leave me." Natasha had moved over to them, Clint's arm wrapped over her shoulders. Clint blinked at him, eyes dazed. He must have taken a hit during the lights-out fight. Tony pinned Natasha's eyes with his. "Pr-promise," he demanded, but he felt more like he was saying please? Natasha hesitated, but when Clint groaned beside her, she nodded, resolve in her eyes. A flash of pain that rocketed above the rest of it had him arching his back again and clenching his teeth, but the whimper snuck past the cage his teeth made anyway. "God…damn it," he said weakly. "If I die…twice in-in one day…imma be p-pissed."
Steve laughed feebly and Natasha lowered Clint against a table before sitting behind Tony. He would have tensed when she touched his head, had he had any control over his muscles. She lifted his head, setting it gently in her lap and began carding her fingers through his hair. It set him completely on edge-her acting like a normal human being-but the motions made him feel oddly comforted. Thor took a guard stance in front of them, eyes never leaving the doors. Natasha began to hum something softly, and after a few seconds Clint joined in. Finally, Tony submitted to the pain and his eyes fluttered closed and, even though he was fighting for his life once again, he felt completely safe. He fell into unconsciousness to Steve's reassuring grip on his hand, Natasha's hands in his hair, Clint and Natasha's hum, and Thor's looming presence.
But Bruce and Coulson were silent
҉
He woke at one point and thought he heard people arguing softly, but their voices sounded dulled. Something was pressing at him from every side and he tried to draw in a gasping breath, but nothing came. Pain rebounded through every joint, muscle, nerve, bone and Tony slipped back into darkness.
҉
"We should cut him out of there," a man's voice was saying the next time Tony woke. It sounded familiar, but he couldn't place it. Where was he? Who was talking near him? And who were they cutting out of what?
"You heard what Tony said. It's a protective shell. If we cut it, we risk the chance of killing him," a female voice said in response. Tony tried to push into his memories, to place the so-familiar voices, but his head flared in pain as what sounded like the hum of a million bees pressed on his mind and he passed out again.
҉
In later news, three men are dead after-
-move troops to-
Clearance code alpha beta-
Stock prices have been plummeting for the last three-
The next time Tony woke, he knew it was for good. At least, he thought it was for good. His thoughts were still jumbled, plagued by random lines of speech that he was pretty sure weren't his thoughts, and his head still pulsed in pain with every breath. His whole body felt sore. There was a thick darkness around him, and his mind finally caught up.
Extremis. He'd been injected with it and had-somehow-survived. The darkness was from the shell the program created to protect its host while it initiated the transformation. First step, he would need to get rid of that.
No sooner did he think of it then it began to drop away, cracking open down the middle and falling away. Blinding light hit his face and pierced his eyes, seeming to go straight to his aching head. His mind flared in pain and he acted on instinct, ordering the lights to turn off, only for his thought-words to turn to numbers—0's and 1's in a detailed sequence. The lights shut off and he practically sobbed in relief.
There was a buzzing that, at first, he thought was coming from something around him. Then he realized he was hearing it…in his head. It was the buzz of the machines all around him. If he focused enough on one frequency of buzzing, he could connect himself with the machine, could translate the computer coding in it to actual words. He discovered this, of course, when he connected with one of the cameras around the cave. It was offline because when he had turned off the lights, he actually cut power to the whole place. Because apparently he could do things like that now.
"Tony!" a voice yelled in his ear. Tony jerked to the side and immediately regretted it as pain shot through his body. He tried to roll over onto his side and push himself up, but his arm collapsed under him. Somebody caught him and lowered him onto his back again slowly. "Tony?"
"Ugh-I can't-can't-" He couldn't do a lot of things. He couldn't disconnect his mind from the machines. He couldn't stand up. He couldn't focus. He couldn't stop the pain in his body. He couldn't form words with his mouth. Why wouldn't everything just be quiet?
"It's okay Tony, we've got you," another voice said. Masculine. Deeper. Clint. His face lit blue in the arc reactor's light. "You turned off the lights, right?"
"Cut the-cut the power to the whole building. If you're leaving, it's-it's gotta be now," Tony managed to get out. Thoughts. Plans. Safety. He needed all of them.
"Try for the hammer again," Steve muttered to Thor.
"Tony, we need to get you up, but you're going to have to help us," Natasha's voice was in his ear.
"Can't…really move," Tony said, even as he tried to shift. Pain screamed through him again. There was the sound of stone crumbling to the ground, and Tony caught a flash of metal in the blue light as Thor's hammer returned to his hand.
"Damn it," Clint said next to him. "Cap, you're going to have to carry him."
"Just-just go," Tony said. Maybe the guards would follow through on Braker's orders and shoot him. Then he would be out of pain finally. The different voices of the machines flared back up in his mind, fighting for his attention and he cringed back again. Beside him, Clint snorted.
"Right, we'll just leave you here. We're gonna need some light here Tony. Think you can manage it?"
That he could do. Probably. If he could keep control long enough. He dove back into the grid system of the bunker, allowing power to flood through one central line, though he funneled it into a single overhead light. The light flickered brightly and he quickly cut the back some of the power, allowing the light to dull down.
"Good job Tony," Steve said as he moved closer.
"Not a…fucking dog," Tony ground out, trying to pull his mind from the power grid. Clint snorted and even Natasha was smiling slightly. Steve grinned down at him.
"Good to see your personality is still the same. I'm going to pick you up, okay?" Tony grimaced, but nodded. Steve's arms slid underneath him and Tony felt as he became airborne. His control on the light slipped and the light flared into brightness before dimming back down again as Tony grabbed onto the power.
"We need to call for back up," Clint said as he forced a pipe off of a million dollar machine. Tony winced, but it could have been because of pain, rather than the heartsick at seeing such a precious machine destroyed. "We've given them enough time to set up defenses and both Nat and I are slightly under-armed, even with the amazing Mr. Stark to help back us up."
He could probably do that too. "Give me a second." His mind was finally starting to wake up, to compartmentalize things. Push the voices to the back of his head. Keep his eyes open. Reach out and….
There. Surprisingly, or maybe not so surprising, the computer he was looking to connect with was easy to find.
"Jarvis?" Tony spoke, but again, the voice he used turned to bit numbers as the connection was made between him and the A.I.
"Am I to assume that you have survived the Extremis injection sir?" Jarvis asked in his dry voice. Tony would have insulted him-probably-except he was too busy looking at the complexity of Jarvis' programming in a whole new light.
"You're amazing Jarvis," Tony said.
"Thank you sir. However, I believe that there are more important things to focus on now."
"Right. Where's Bruce and Coulson?"
"Currently on a quinjet to your location. They left as soon as I uploaded the Extremis information. I have, as well, run the virus through their mainframe again and deleted the changes you made to the program."
"Connect me to their quinjet?"
"Right away sir," Jarvis said. "Follow me."
This was a whole different world. Tony thought he could learn to love it, when he wasn't trying to save his life and the life of his teammates. He followed Jarvis through a virtual world constructed of numbers. The best way he could describe it was by comparing the streams of data as veins in a body. If he stopped to focus on any of the clusters of data, he could discover what the data was, who had created it, where it was being sent, and when it had been created.
"Doctor Banner, Agent Coulson," Jarvis said, stopping at a cluster. Tony touched it and discovered that touching the data was also like stepping through a portal. He spread through the quinjet's system.
"Whoa," he said, as he learned every little detail possible about the quinjet in seconds.
"Tony?" Bruce's voice was choked with surprise.
"That's me," Tony said. "For the record, this is really weird."
"Not just for you Tony." Now Bruce's voice was dry.
"It's good to know you're still alive Mr. Stark," Coulson said. Tony wished he could see what was happening but there weren't any cameras he could work his way into.
"Well, alive for now. I've knocked out the power here, but we're going to need more back up. How far out are you?"
"Minutes, lucky for you," Coulson said. "Is there a way I can let you know when we land?"
"I'll leave Jarvis here to monitor. He'll let me know when you let him know," Tony said.
"Will you be able to find your way back sir?" Jarvis asked.
"I think I can manage. Genius here," Tony defended, but he wasn't really sure. Couldn't he just open his eyes back? Or was his body a machine now, and he had to find that specific cluster of data that was him?
Was he even human now?
Tony forced his mind to feel his connection with his body and then demanded that his eyes open. His mind rushed back to focus on his body.
"They're coming," Tony said. "Just Bruce and Coulson, but it should be enough of a distraction. And you can set me down now."
His legs were still weak, but he locked his knees and told his body firmly that it would stay up. It appeared that the mind was the first thing to reboot when Extremis finished its job, and then the body. He could move without being in agony now.
"How long until they land?" Steve asked, hovering nearby like he expected Tony to fall at any second. Which was probably legit.
In his mind, Tony felt Jarvis make the connection and relay Coulson's message. Tony grinned. This was going to be fun.
"Right now. Let's get the hell out of here."