AU-2: Vengeance Tears Chapter 14: The Cold Before the Storm, an avengers fanfic

Chapter 14: The Cold Before the Storm

Slavija Lux Hotel, Belgrade

Janet walked back into the hotel room intending to tell Pym and Stark everything – how they'd been wrong about Percy, about why he was really in New York, about why she was going to give him her research, and why he should become an Avenger. But she walked in to find Stark packing up.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm checking out." Stark was hunched over his suitcase. "It's game time."

Janet's train of thought immediately derailed. "What about our mission?"

Stark raised up. "That's what I'm talking about. I'm headed back to the jet to get my suit. You guys will leave from here. We'll rendezvous at the conference center day after tomorrow – I can't exactly make a quiet entrance in that thing."

Janet felt a hitch in her stomach. After three days of doing nothing but sitting in a hotel room listening to a little translator device, and coming off another date with Percy, the last thing on her mind had been the immediacy of their operation: battling their way into a room packed with security personnel and capturing a killer.

"So . . . this it. We're really going to do this." It wasn't a question, but it sounded far from certain, even to herself. Stark had bent back over his suitcase, but he raised up again and looked at Janet with a peculiar expression.

"This is why we came over here. What, you getting cold feet?"

"No . . . . it just seems hard to believe that it's really here."

Pym looked up from where he sat in a chair, absorbed in his laptop. Janet winced - she was sure he would have something scolding to say. But he surprised her.

"I know. I've been thinking the same thing." Pym held his hands up in front of his face and studied them, as if unsure they were up to the task. "It's not exactly the kind of thing I've ever done before . . . gearing up to go out and fight people. I'm more accustomed to gearing up for a big presentation." He sighed and dropped his hands. "Let's hope this goes better than those usually did."

Stark zipped up his suitcase. "You just stay focused on The Executioner, high pockets. That ought to get you over the butterflies."

"Don't encourage him," Janet scoffed. But neither Pym nor Stark responded.

"Alright, I'm outta here." Stark slapped Pym on the shoulder. "Break a leg . . . preferably someone else's." He crossed the room, opened the door and started out.

"Wait, what's the plan?" Janet called after him.

"Hank'll fill you in." Stark got a gleam in his eye and glanced at Pym in the chair. "A task I'm sure he'll relish. Remind me to tell you about the conversation we had. He's got the hots for-."

"Bye Tony!" Pym got up and shut the door. Janet eased over and sat on the bed. She was curious.

"What was that last bit he was saying?"

Pym shook his head, sat down and hunched back over his laptop screen. "You know Tony. It's all about the hormones."

"Yes, but . . . hormones for who?"

But Pym was already getting lost in his laptop screen – she wasn't sure he heard her.

She sighed. Same old Pym – all science, all business, no fun. She was pretty sure she knew who he had the hots for, and she was flattered of course. But especially given how he appeared to show it, she wasn't sure it was a good thing. "So different from Percy," she thought. Percy had no trouble going after what he wanted; it danced in his eyes and sent a chill down her spine. She thought back on his invitation - fly to his castle in Montenegro – and wondered if she'd made the right decision.

She got up from the bed and looked out the window. "So . . . tell me about the operation."

Pym looked up again and hesitated, as if weighing her request against whatever was on the laptop screen. But at last he sighed, set the laptop aside, and began - and for the next half hour, managed to make what should have come off like a scene from an Indiana Jones movie sound like the driest bore-fest Janet could remember since her college art theory class. "Another contrast to Percy," she thought. Percy could make even the most tedious topic interesting with his brilliant wit and disarming charm.

Pym told her that he and Stark had managed to secure the schematics of the conference center hosting the political rally they were going to hit. He talked on and on about power systems and load-bearing walls and construction materials and sight lines. Janet tried to suppress a yawn, but she felt it make its slow-motion escape anyway. Pym stopped.

"Janet, this is important. Are you paying attention?"

She shook off both the yawn and the thought of telling Pym just how boring he really was. "Yes, sorry. Please go on."

Mercifully, he was just getting to the good part. The goal being to capture The Executioner without killing a bunch of bystanders, the plan called for staging a ruse assassination attempt on the featured speaker. This would clear the hall of civilians, but not security personnel. The three of them would then take out the goons, capture The Executioner, and make their getaway before the police could respond. Stark had the Quinjet programmed to autopilot its way to their location at the touch of a button.

"You and I will put on our outfits here, then put street clothes over them and walk over to the conference center. Once 'Iron Man' gets there, things will start popping. We'll need to be ready."

Janet still couldn't believe she was even having this conversation. I'm in Belgrade, about to launch an attack on a political rally and capture an assassin. Yes, she was sure now her father wouldn't have approved.

"So once I shrink, I'm still stuck down there til we get back to the jet?"

Pym looked at her, and his face softened. He rummaged around, found his particle belt, and held it up. It had four extra discs mounted on either side.

"I decided I could bring along a couple of spares, to help you shrink and regrow."

Janet's flattery flared again. She was touched by Hank's quiet display of concern. She got up, walked over, and looked at the belt. Then she looked up at him. "Thank you, Hank."

Pym looked embarrassed. He tossed the belt back onto the bed like it was nothing. But Janet suddenly felt strangely comforted, standing so close to him. "You know, I guess if I was honest, I'd have to admit I'm a little scared right now."

Pym nodded. "I know. Me too."

Janet felt drawn again by Hank's honesty. This was the Hank she liked – honest, vulnerable. She decided to risk broaching once more the touchiest sore spot between them.

"Hank, be honest with me."

He looked at her.

"You don't really intend to kill this Grubervelt guy, do you?"

Poof! The warmth of Pym's vulnerability hardened into a wall of ice. "Will you leave me alone about that Janet? Please?" He turned his back on her.

"Hank, it's wrong!"

"Him murdering my wife was wrong, dammit! It's what he deserves!"

"That's not for you to decide!"

"Don't lecture me about this again, Janet! You don't understand!"

"How can you say that? All I've wanted for the last three months is to find my father's killer. I think that qualifies as 'understanding.'"

Pym turned toward her suddenly. "So you be honest with me!"

Janet blinked. "Alright."

"What would you do? If you found the man who killed your father, and there was no doubt – you knew this was the guy. And you had it in your power to carry out his sentence right there on the spot, avoid the corrupt courts, the cross-border paperwork, to do what those systems should do anyway if they worked right. But they don't, and you know it. You know he stands as good a chance as any of getting away scot free if he goes to court. What would you do?"

"I'd turn him over to the authorities, Hank, I already said—"

Pym cut her off. "I said be honest, Janet. Not give me your Yale answer." He walked over and took her by the arm. "Come on. The man who took away the one person you cared about more than anyone in the world. You either do something, or he gets away. What would you do?"

Janet shook her head. "Those are false options."

"But what if they're not?"

"They are, Hank! It's not as black and white as that. It's never as black and white as that."

Pym glared at her in disbelief. "The man who killed your father . . . you'd just let him go?"

"No, I wouldn't just let him go. Turning him over to the authorities is not the same thing as letting him go."

Pym turned his back on her again. He stared at the wall a long time before speaking again.

"Janet, I just need you to try to understand how I see this. I'm not some brute who's bent on revenge for the visceral satisfaction I think it'll give me. But I know how things work in this world." He turned toward her again. "Justice is just an idealistic notion we Americans carry around from our old western movies. For the right price, or for a guy with the right skills – like this Executioner . . . they never face justice. There's always a higher bidder, a higher power, out there willing to protect them. If we capture this guy and take him to face somebody's idea of justice, he'll just get away. Or get broken out of prison."

Pym walked over and looked her in the eye, deeply and passionately.

"Sometimes, Janet, you've got to take the chance you've got. Sometimes you've got to be justice, or justice never gets served at all."

Janet pulled out of Pym's grasp. If nothing else, she finally saw in his eyes the look of a man who knows what he wants. But she found it deplorable. She shook her head. "I was giving you my honest answer, Hank. Those are false options. It doesn't happen like that . . . it's never that simple."

She wrapped her arms around herself, realizing with dismay that the next day and a half with Pym figured to be as cold as her evenings with Percy were warm. She sighed.

"Life is never that simple."