AU-2: Vengeance Tears Chapter 15: Game Time, an avengers fanfic

Chapter 15: Game Time

Belgrade

Pym trudged sullenly next to Janet along the street to the conference center, slashes of afternoon sun gashing his vision at every cross street. He squinted against the rays and plodded on. He was still trying to get used to the clomp of his boots – the only visible part of his uniform – sticky because of their expandable design. But their dull thuds against the concrete matched his mood. Underneath his street clothes, the rest of the uniform's fabric tugged, thick and clingy, against his skin. He shrugged a shoulder against the tension - it felt like wearing a straight jacket. Over one shoulder he carried a couple of hand-lettered political signs, written in Serbian – the crown jewels of their charade. But he was glad for them: they drew attention away from the bag slung close against his chest, in which he carried the helmet for his uniform.

As he walked, his thoughts oscillated between regret over his latest argument with Janet, disbelief that he was really about to take part in a mission like this, and ravenous fury for the chance to get his hands on The Executioner. He tried to focus on the latter, like Stark suggested. It helped his nerves.

Janet said nothing. Partly this was nerves for her, too, he figured. But it was also more than that, and he knew it. An invisible wall was rising between them, a new row of its unseen bricks mortared into permanence every time they talked. He couldn't understand Janet's single-minded needling over the subject of revenge. And Janet couldn't understand his heart's demand that his wife's killer pay for his crime.

Maybe no woman could understand that - the gnawing rage in the pit of a man's stomach when the woman he loves has been hurt . . . or murdered. Yet Pym wanted Janetto understand. In fact, he was surprised how much he wanted it. He realized that's all he'd been thinking about for the last two blocks. All of a sudden it seemed so absurdly, vitally important that she understand why he had to crush The Executioner, and that she see that he wasn't base or brutish. But why? But why, on the verge of the moment when he was at last about to get his revenge for the death of his wife. . . why was Janet so much on his mind?

He shook his head and wrenched his thoughts back onto the mission. I've got to stay focused on The Executioner. In the next instant, they reached the last cross street and saw the conference center sprawling across the next block.

"There it is." Janet shielded her eyes against the sun.

Pym looked at the building. A crowd of sign-carrying political activists was milling about, and a ring of stern-eyed security personnel circled the complex, facing outward, watching for any sign of trouble – already one of them was eying the two of them on their street corner.

"I guess it's time to act political." Pym handed her a sign. She took it without looking at him. He sighed. "Here we go."

Holding the signs upright, Pym and Janet walked across the street and merged into the growing throng. Pym didn't know what their signs said – Stark had lettered them based on something he got off the internet – but whatever it was, it must have been good. Periodically others in the crowd would look up, read the signs, then flash a smile or a thumbs up sign. The two got no trouble as they wandered through the open spaces outside the conference center.

Dignitaries whom Pym didn't know arrived - or at least he assumed that's what they were from the stretch limos they arrived in. But he didn't care about the dignitaries. He kept scanning the crowd for one face, with its telltale gold starred tooth.

"When do we go in?" Janet whispered. It wouldn't do for them to be overheard speaking English to each other.

Pym looked around. "I guess just wait until everybody else does."

He heard a gruff voice barking orders off his right shoulder. Instantly his mind was transported back to that night, the dark alley, the treacherous voice barking faux greetings to Maria, tapping a club menacingly into his palm. And Pym knew immediately whose voice this was. He turned . . . and there he was, not twenty feet away, stalking down the line of security guards.

He was shorter than Pym, but thick as a bull, broad-shouldered, rippled with muscles. His head was shaved save for two strips running from front to back, and he wore a thin goatee that curled around his mouth like a snake. He eschewed the black "special-ops"-style uniform of the other security personnel, opting instead for a simple blue t-shirt stretched thin against his mountainous muscles, overlayed with an odd brown vest that Pym guessed was probably bulletproof. The insignia of a two-headed axe blazed in red across the front.

"Not exactly hard to find," wasn't that what Stark said? Good God, this man was practically a walking billboard for murder. Pym felt his body quivering as his anger rose. This is the man who killed my wife! And the son of a bitch is probably proud of it!

He nudged Janet . . . harder than he meant to with adrenaline pouring into his bloodstream. "There he is."

"Yes, I see him Hank." Janet put a hand on his arm. "You need to stay calm. You nearly knocked me over."

Pym jerked his arm away. "Don't start with me now. I've got him, and I'm not letting him get away." Pym's hand seemed to move almost involuntarily toward the disc belt hidden beneath his clothes.

"Hank!" Janet's mouth was suddenly at his ear, seething in a strained whisper. "Of course you're not going to let him go. But you can't go after him this minute! You'll jeopardize the mission!"

Pym never took his eyes off The Executioner. "The mission is to make him pay. Which I can do right now." Pym started toward him.

"No, Hank!" Janet yelled - instantly drawing looks from everyone around them. Pym felt the weight of all those eyes on him, and hesitated. The Executioner started moving away.

"Hank, don't do this," Janet was whispering again. "Let's stick together, do it as a team, like we said we would."

Janet's voice felt soothing in his mind, like she reached in and grabbed his last shred of rational thought before it slipped away. He hesitated a moment more, and The Executioner moved out of sight through the crowd. Pym kept his eyes fixed on him as long as he could. But at last, he felt his breathing begin to calm, and he became aware that Janet was still whispering in his ear, soothing him, begging him not to go after The Executioner now, alone.

Finally he turned to her. "Alright." It felt odd for some reason, looking at her. Like he hadn't seen her in a long time. "Alright. We'll stick with the plan."

He took a deep breath and looked around. The crowd seemed to be flowing toward the entrances.

"Come on." He led Janet toward the doors.

The crowd packed tighter as it squeezed through the doorway, and Pym found himself cheek to cheek with scores of Serbian-speaking sign-bearers, shouting and getting rowdier now that the rally was about to begin. Then in another moment, they popped inside and the crowd spread out. Pym turned to Janet.

"This way."

Most of the crowd turned left through the doors. But Pym, still carrying his sign but trying to look as inconspicuous as possible, led them to the right along the wide passageway that ran around the perimeter of the building. Security guards monitored the corridor every few dozen meters. But Pym made sure he did nothing to attract their attention.

Calling to memory the schematics he'd seen of the building, he began a twisting course, turning first down this corridor, then that, at every turn the crowds growing thinner. Steadily, trying hard to look like he knew what he was doing, he weaved them deeper into the interior of the building. Still, no one challenged them. Finally he stopped in front a door bearing a sign in Serbian that he couldn't read, but also the telltale universal symbol he was looking for: a black, lightning-bolt type arrow on a yellow triangle. Electricity.

Pym pulled from his jacket pocket a handheld repulsor unit that Stark had given him, low powered and quiet, but perfect for this job. He pointed it at the door lock and pulled the trigger. A brief, muffled punch of energy blasted the lock apart. He and Janet quietly slipped inside and closed the door behind them.

They had stepped into a large concrete room filled with electrical equipment and conduits. Halfway down the left wall, a large control panel protruded from the wall. Pym turned to Janet.

"Okay, now you go to work."

Janet pulled what looked like might be a case of breath mints out of her pocket, walked over and stuck it onto the control panel. "Well, that was easy."

Pym was shedding his street clothes. "Yeah, well, the hard part comes later. You're sure you can push the button on that thing when you're small?"

"Don't worry about me, Hank. I'll be fine."

Pym looked at her. He was standing now in the middle of the floor in his blue stretchable uniform with yellow suspenders and belt. He suddenly felt very foolish.

"Why did Stark have to make this stuff yellow?"

"So we don't lose you in the crowd," Janet cracked.

"At sixteen feet tall?"

Janet smirked. "Come over here and zap me. I'm tired of talking about this mission. I want to get it over with."

Pym walked over and detached two particle discs from his belt. Janet shed her street clothes, and Pym got a look at her for the first time in her new black Wasp outfit, stretched to its tightest since she was at normal size. Even in the danger of the moment, Pym couldn't help but notice . . . she looked amazing.

"Alright here goes. You be careful, okay?"

Janet nodded. He held the discs on either side of her waist and pushed a button on each. For a second nothing happened. Then suddenly Janet shrank right before his eyes – impossibly fast – and was gone.

Pym quickly pulled his helmet from the bag and put it on so he could use its built-in communication device. It wobbled, too large for his head at this size. "Janet, can you hear me?"

Nothing.

"Janet?"

"I'm here," he heard Janet's voice come back in his ear. "Sorry. Just the wooziness from shrinking."

"You okay?"

"Yeah." He heard some rustling, and what sounded like Janet taking deep breaths. "Yeah, I'm good. It's passing. I'm going to test the wings now."

Pym stepped back. In the next instant, he heard the tiniest of swooshing sounds, like somebody was launching a microscopic model rocket, and he saw a miniscule spark soar up from the floor.

"Wow," he said into his communicator. "It's hard to believe that's you."

"It's me. The wings are working fine. And now that I'm practically invisible, you can leave me here. I know what to do."

Pym felt uncertain. Yes, she was virtually invisible. But she was also so vulnerable.

"You sure about this?"

"Hank, go!"

He turned to leave. He felt awkward, like he ought to give her a hug or something. But you can't hug a girl a quarter-inch. "Alright . . . wait for my signal. Once you press that button, you've only got fifteen seconds, so you've got to get out of here."

"Yes, dear."

He saw the spark of Janet arc over and light on the control panel. "Okay. Bye." He pulled his jacket back over his uniform, pulled his helmet off again, opened the door and slipped back into the hallway. He really didn't want to run into anyone now, but he hoped that with his low-hanging jacket on, he could at least keep some of his outfit covered. He moved off to take up his position, in a service corridor right behind where the podium would be situated in the main hall. As he got close, he could hear that the rally had begun – the silence in the corridors would periodically be punctuated by a roar from the crowd. Now that he was alone, the butterflies in his stomach multiplied.

"Alright, Pym, settle down," he whispered to himself. "Tony and Janet will do their parts. This will work." He squeezed up close to a concrete pillar, where he'd be hard to spot, and waited.

He could hear the speaker's voice, amplified, reverberating through the wall opposite him. The orator was really working the crowd, from the sound of it. His voice distorted as he yelled into the microphone. And the thunderous acclaim of the audience rose with him.

In fact, Pym thought, that had to be the loudest crowd he'd ever heard. There couldn't be more than a few thousand people in there, yet they sounded positively like a jet engine. It was only at a brief lull in the shouting that he realized . . . that's not the crowd! That is a jet engine! Or, rather—"

He crammed his helmet back onto his head. "Janet!" he called frantically into his mouthpiece. "Can you hear me?"

"Loud and clear."

"Push the button! He's here!"

Pym held his breath and started counting the seconds. He felt his heart pounding in his chest, in his ears, in his throat. Oh God, this is it! The whining jet sound grew louder. Pym knew they had to be hearing it in the rally room. Closer and louder it came – like someone had crammed a half-dozen commercial aircraft engines into a single piece of lead pipe - a scream so eerie it sounded like it came from another world.

Then everything happened at once. Pym heard a faint, muffled boom from deeper in the building. Then he felt, more than he saw, the power go out – the ever-present background hum of flowing electricity got suddenly sucked out of the building. Then the ceiling high over his head exploded, debris of sheet metal and gravel raining down all around him. And Iron Man descended in a blazing aurora of fire.

A split second later, the scream stopped abruptly as Iron Man cut power and dropped to the concrete floor with a metallic WHOMP!

Iron Man looked at Pym. "D'you miss me?"

Pym only pointed to the opposite wall. Iron Man brought his armored hand up, the lead pipe scream rose again, and an enormous blast of energy fired from his hand, exploding into the wall. Pym ducked and shielded his eyes.

When he looked up again, an eight-foot hole gaped where the wall had been. As the smoke cleared, the scene of pandemonium within the convention hall emerged before his eyes.

In the stark, dim emergency lighting, he could see hordes of people swarming like insects toward the back exits. On the front row where the audience had been, a table skirt was on fire, started by the repulsors blast, and already spreading. On the stage, closer to the blast hole, speakers and dignitaries scrambled to get back to their feet. And over the whole scene of black and white terror, a haze of smoke hung low. For the clamoring mass of activists, their political rally had turned into a garish scene from hell.

"Show time, big boy," he heard Stark's metallic voice in his ear piece. Then Iron Man strode fearlessly through the hole, arms raised, repulsors revving up again. The crack of a gunshot, then a second, rang out, only to be silenced by two repulsor blasts. Iron man disappeared into the hole, lost temporarily to view in the smoke and darkness.

Pym threw off his jacket, reached to his belt, and took a deep breath. Here goes!

He pressed the button. His head swam briefly as the world seemed to shrink around him. Then his head cleared, and he looked down at a floor now sixteen feet below his eyes. A feeling of immense power rushed through him, shooting fire through his veins and electricity through his muscles. He suddenly felt invincible, unstoppable. He pulled his helmet over his head and let out a battle roar. Then Goliath bent down, stepped through the hole into the assembly room onto the stage, and rose to his full, towering stature over the runts scattering before him.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a security guard raise his pistol and aim. With barely an effort, Pym swatted the man with the back of his left hand. Both man and pistol went flying. Pym reveled in his might and stomped down from the stage.

On his right, he could make out through the smoke and dark the repeated flashes of Iron Man's repulsor blasts. Every second, another flash flared, another jet pulse filled the air, and another scream gurgled from the throat of a security guard thrown a dozen feet in the air, an agony of searing heat in his chest making him feel like he was dying. He wasn't, Pym knew. But the guard wouldn't know that.

Two more guards appeared from the dark smoke in front of Pym, firearms raised. Pym launched both fists forward while dropping forward into a kneeling position. It was like sending two battering rams into the men's chests. He heard the air empty from their lungs in a hollow "ugh." Both flew out of sight back into the shrouded blackness.

More now. A whole line of them on his left flank. Pym dove into them like a lion mowing down gazelle. One man managed to fire off a shot. Pym felt it ricochet off his chest guard. He counted it a valuable reminder: I'm not bulletproof.

In the pale half-light, Pym could see that even some of the security guards now were running for the exits, caught completely unprepared for this kind of onslaught. But just as many were running in from outside to meet the new threat. He felt something whiz by his ear, then another bounce on his chest protector – then heard the rat-a-tat of gunfire, multiple shots, coming from everywhere. Some of the guards must have panicked. They were firing wild.

Pym dropped low to make himself less of a target. The brilliance of their plan struck home to him then like it hadn't before – even at his great size, he could hide in the dim smoke that filled the room from the blast, and surprise people, looming up at them out of the darkness and haze.

A cadre of guards ran toward him. He swept a massive leg out toward them, cutting them down like wheat. At his size, his leg alone weighed hundreds of pounds. To the unfortunate guards in its path, it'd be like getting hit by a raging bull. Fumbling around in the darkness, he found two fallen guards, one with each hand, then lifted them. As the next two groups of men approached, he tossed the guards into them. He heard the screams, the sick crack of bone on bone, and saw the attackers melt back into the gloom.

Just then, he heard a crackle of Janet's voice in his earpiece. "Hank, Tony, I've got the target!"

Janet was the team's eyes in the smoke-filled battle zone. After detonating the electrical grid, she was to fly in here. She'd no doubt been swooping high and low through the room this whole time, searching for The Executioner.

"Center of the room," her crackling voice returned. "He's rallying a whole bunch of guys to come at you. Be careful!"

Pym crouched low again to keep from making himself an easy target for the assembled guards. Suddenly, Janet's voice crackled to life again in his ear.

"Tony, look out! He's sending the whole mob to you!"

Suddenly, a roar of gunfire filled the cavernous room like nothing Pym had ever heard before. A volcanic eruption of ripping lead, like a scene from a World War I battlefield. Pym saw flashes of repulsor light from the darkness on the far side, and heard grunts coming over the earpiece from Stark. My God, there must be fifty men firing at him at once!

Pym rose to go to his aid, when he heard Janet's voice crackle through once more. "Hank, The Executioner!"

In an instant, Pym's mind pivoted back to the mission. "Where is he?" he replied to Janet. "I won't let him get away."

"He's not trying to get away!" Janet called back frantically. "He's coming right for you!"