Chapter 6: The Antithesis of Stealth
Tony waited, really. He waited long enough for Thor to grasp the route to the Santos' woman's high-rise hideout. He waited long enough for the SHIELD agents to reach the address. Then he blasted across town faster than Clint and Natasha could reach the top floor and blew a hole in the wall for his grand entry.
But the Santos siblings plus five did know that Pepper Potts was connected to Tony Stark. They were ready for Iron Man. When Stark blasted through the wall, the Santos' blasted back with a sonic weapon that reminded him of a concentrated MRI. His suit rang, as if he was trapped in a bell tower. He couldn't hear Jarvis. Hell, he couldn't hear himself think. Warning lights flashed red in front of his eyes.
He staggered on the edge of the hole he'd made and tipped backward toward the drop off. A strong hand caught his back and pushed him into the room while lightning flashed past, mercifully silencing the infernal clanging, as well as shorting out the lights, crashing the computers and causing the electronic locks to pop open.
They might have been ready for Iron Man, but apparently they weren't ready for the rest of the Avengers.
As Thor charged past, the outer door swung open. Tony's hazy vision could see Clint, aiming an arrow, guarding Natasha who was down on one knee with an as-yet-unopened toolkit in her hands.
"Well, that saves picking the lock," Clint commented. "I told you we'd beat him if we blasted it open."
"I thought stealth might be useful," Natasha answered, slipping the toolkit in its pocket and pulling her pistol in one smooth movement. "I should have known better." She looked at Iron Man down on one knee and shaking his head. "This is the antithesis of stealth. I told you to wait, Stark," she said severely.
"If you're going to kill me, do it now and put me out of my misery," Tony said, lurching to his feet. "I've got a headache like Big Ben banging in my skull."
A roar came from the other room, loud enough for Tony's half-deafened ears to hear.
Natasha took off in the direction of Thor's bellow. Clint remained on guard until his teammate recovered.
"I'm impressed that you know that Big Ben is the bell," Clint said.
"Hey, genius here," Tony said. He stood more firmly, shaking his head cautiously and seeing his controls come back to green. "Not feeling so bright right now, however," he admitted.
From down the hall, they heard a bombardment from several assault weapons that almost drowned the sharper crack of a handgun. With each crack, an assault weapon died.
Clint counted almost to himself. "Nat, Nat, Nat."
Then an explosion sounded from a few rooms away. It was accompanied by a shout of Asgardian triumph.
"Thor," Clint finished his count. "If you don't hurry up, Natasha and Thor will have all the fun," the archer told Tony.
With a last shake of his head, Iron Man rose on his repulsors. "Right, time to party."
He shot forward with Clint right behind. They raced through two shattered rooms littered with bodies still clutched assault weapons. The corpses that still had faces had the same faces, each with a neat red hole in the center of the forehead.
"Nat, Nat, Nat," Clint counted.
The final corpse was little more than a charred smear on the wall with a couple of shins dangling by threads. "Thor," Clint muttered, giving credit for the kill.
Clint peered at a long piece of metal flattened into the smear. It took a second to reconstruct it in his mind. "Wow, I think that was a rocket launcher. Nice work, Mjolnir!"
The archer hurried on to catch up with Stark who had caught up with Thor. The thunder god tossed his hammer from hand to hand in frustration as he looked at a heavily armored door between him and his prey.
"Why didn't you knock it down?" Iron Man asked as he readied his repulsors.
"Because the Widow is inside," Thor said. "She ran through before the door closed and I fear to hurt her."
Clint's heart clenched in fear for his partner. There were at least two clones unaccounted for, plus Loopy Lupe Santos. "What's inside?" he demanded.
"I caught only a glimpse. It was a laboratory with chemicals and computers and an odd machine like … like the booth where Jane and I took amusing pictures."
Picturing Thor squeezing into one of those little photo booths was too distracting, Tony thought.
"Jarvis, scan the room."
"It is too heavily shielded, sir," the AI reported regretfully.
"Then what can you tell me?" Tony asked.
"I can give you the schematics for the vault door," Jarvis said. "It is a standard Pinnacle Model 724A."
"Right! I bought one for target practice, didn't I?"
"Indeed, sir."
The door swung on two massive hinges, which couldn't be seen from the outside, but Tony marked the locations on the wall while he told the others his plan to make sure the door couldn't hit Natasha inside the room. "On three … One, two, three!"
Hawkeye fired an explosive arrow at the top hinge while Tony hit the lower hinge with his smallest missile. The explosions sounded as one. Then Thor punched his magical war hammer through the vault lock clear up to his elbow. He grabbed the edge of the door and pulled. The Avengers leaped aside, as it fell at their feet.
Inside the laboratory, chaos ruled.