A/N. Heyy :) Hope you liked the last action-filled chapter because here comes another action-filled chapter. Enjoy! :D
CHAPTER XXX
Pepper, Graham, and Betty were in the lab, half brainstorming and half freaking out about the press outside blocking all exits and clogging their phone lines and Pepper's inbox and voicemail and absolutely EVERY means of communication was filled to the brim with some form of paparazzi. Pepper had never seen them this crazy. And that was saying something.
Felicity needed to pay. And she knew she just to do it. The CEO called up Director Nick Fury. Once she gave in her code for level six clearance, she was patched through to Agent Hill, who patched her through to Director Fury. Graham and Betty watched with interest.
"Fury."
"Director Fury, it's Pepper Potts."
"How can I help you, Ms. Potts?"
"Remember when I organized the entire clean-up for all of the Avengers after the Chitauri incident for you and you said you owed me one? I'm calling it in."
"What for?"
"I need you to deport somebody."
"Again, what for?"
"For selling out private SHIELD information to the public. The whole world knows that Captain America and Sonata have been kidnapped by a resurrected HYDRA and their panicking like crazy. She sold us out to the press and now I need you to deport her."
"And how did she get this information?" Fury asked in a stern voice.
Pepper fidgeted with the hem of her blouse nervously. "Well… her name is Felicity Deed. She's also Tania's mother so… we mistakenly thought we could trust her and- don't you sigh on me! I don't need to hear it! You don't think I feel guilty enough about this? I'm calling in that HUGE favour, no questions asked."
"You do realize that I could throw you in prison right now, right?"
Pepper blanched. "What?"
"But since I know Stark will either bail or break you out, there's really no point. But I'm giving you a strict warning, Ms. Potts. Break protocol again and we'll be having a very serious talk."
"Understood director. And my favour?"
"Consider it done."
"Thank you." She hung up the phone with a huge grin on her face. "It worked!"
The others cheered. "Okay, now back to work," Betty said seriously. "So because we're dealing with HYDRA, I think we should try and contact world war two veterans, see if anyone could know something about them that we don't."
"Good idea, Betty," Graham encouraged with a smile. He immediately set to work along with Pepper and JARVIS to navigate cyber space for WWII veterans.
Betty smiled sheepishly before taking a sip of tea and joining in as well. She was a nuclear scientist, she was expected to be the smartest of the three of them. It was never spoken aloud, but she could tell from how they looked to her for guidance that she was supposed to be the one to eventually find Steve and Tania. That was a lot of pressure. But of course, it would be worth it if she actually did find them.
Even though Betty had only been living at the Tower for a few months, she hadn't had much time to get to know Tania or Steve. Sure, she'd spent a lot of time with the woman because she practically organized her whole wedding for her along with Pepper and there was the whole, "get ready for theatre that everyone seems to think is prom" thing. It was like a teenage sleepover. Betty honestly liked Tania. She seemed like a really good person who was strong and brave and good at heart, inside and out. And she was grateful to anyone who was willing to watch over her Bruce for her. And then there was Steve. He and Betty didn't talk much but he seemed like a really, really nice guy. And Bruce had told her that Steve had never cared that he was the Hulk, not even when they first met, and that was something she had to admire. He was friendly and charming and his blush was so darn cute! It was so hard not to pinch his cheeks whenever he was embarrassed. He was so innocent in so many senses but… not… in other sense. The man himself had been through WWII and yet he still had this childlike air of innocence about him whenever he looked at technology or modern pop culture or things like that. He was just something that you immediately wanted to shield from life, to protect. It was probably some motherly instinct deep inside of her, but she wasn't exactly going to fight it. She was fond of everyone. They were one big dysfunctional family. And she would risk her life for all of them in a heartbeat.
As they searched for veterans and began making a list (so far they had two- oh wait, make that three), a sudden explosion seemed to rock the entire Tower and the trio inside teeter dangerously.
"What was that?!" Graham exclaimed.
"Jarvis?" Pepper looked up at the ceiling.
"We are under attack, Ms. Potts."
"By HYDRA?"
"No. By Mr. Hammer and his droids." An image of security footage began playing on the holographic screen. There were dozens of Hammeroids
blasting the Tower. Justin had obviously had them remade and in bigger numbers too. They looked bulkier and were all completely black and shiny. They had what looked like jet packs on their backs that allowed them to fly and appeared much taller, with the heads looking like actual helmets inside but there was no doubt in Pepper's mind that there wasn't actually anyone in them.
Suddenly, Justin's face popped on screen. "BOO! Did I scare you? Haha, either way, Ms. Potts, you are surrounded. So why don't you get out while you still can?"
"This is just bad publicity for you Hammer," Pepper shot back with venom. "And you have chosen the absolute worst time to do this!"
He laughed. "I know! That's why I'm doing it! All of your precious Avengers are out trying to find their missing teammate and his girlfriend and YOU, my friend, are defenseless."
"The press are all around the Tower! You'll kill them all!"
He shrugged. "Every war has casualties."
"HAMMER!"
The Tower rocked again and this time, Betty did fall, spilling her tea all over the floor and smashing the mug to pieces.
"Whoops," Justin said, "my bad. But you had your chance. No one will recognize these drones as my own. They look completely different. So I get to destroy SI without anyone believing that I destroyed SI. It's a win win! For me, I mean. If you don't come out with your hands up, I'll be forced to detonate the Tower." He pouted. "It would be such a shame to have to kill you, Virginia. We could have been amazing business partners."
"Go to Hell," she spat.
"Have it your way." The screen closed and the three of them could hear the blasts attacking the bullet proof windows.
"What do we do?!" Graham panicked.
"The Tower is in Lock Down. He can't destroy it," Pepper shouted over the noise.
"I have a feeling he's not going to just say, 'Aw damn, they're too hard.' And then leave. He's going to keep at it until he destroys us! Those are robots, right? They'll never get tired!"
"He has a point," Betty yelled while she used the counter to pull herself to her feet again. "We have to do something!"
"Like what?" Pepper wanted to know. Another explosion sent them all to the ground.
"ANYTHING!" Graham cried.
Pepper's face lit up. "Jarvis, is the Rescue Protocol still available?"
"Yes. Ms. Potts. But due to storage difficulties, I can only activate it when you are outside."
She paled. "Oh fuck." She pushed herself to her feet and ran for the elevator.
"Where are you going?" Graham shouted.
Pepper turned around in the elevator and pressed the button for the party deck. "Find Clint and Natasha's weapons! Shoot them down and keep them away from the arc reactor!" She shouted right before the doors closed. She was already hyperventilating. How did Tony do this so often? She finally reached the floor she was on and stepped out just as another explosion caused the elevator cord to break and send it crashing down to the first floor. Pepper watched in horror but was put back on task by the blasts from the Hammeroids.
She turned and ran for the glass doors, blocked by the metal JARVIS had installed earlier. "Jarvis, let me out!"
"Are you sure you want to-?"
"JARVIS!"
"Alright."
The metal lifted and Pepper shoved the double doors out of her way and stumbled onto the mini helipad for Tony's Iron Man armour. It was utter chaos outside. Droids were flying this way and that, arms held out straight in front of them and blasting grey bolts into the Tower and shooting bombs at them while criss crossing over each other and the sheer number of them nearly made Pepper dizzy.
She shook her head free. One of the droids was looking at her. It raised its arm and began firing. Pepper ran and jumped off the pad. "Deploy!" She landed on the actual helipad several meters below, where Loki and Thor had fought during the Chitauri incident, and rolled several times to soften the blow. It still hurt like hell. "Jarvis, DEPLOY!" The robot kept shooting at her and she pushed herself to her feet and ran forward. The edge of the roof came ever closer. There was nowhere else to go. "DAMN IT, DEPLOY!" She jumped off the roof as a bomb exploded a few feet behind her, creating a kind of pretty orange smoke above her but she was a little too busy falling to take notice.
So this is what Tania felt like except she hadn't known it was coming at the time. Pepper screamed and flipped and flailed and "Oh God I'm going to die!" ran through her head multiple times. But that was when something metal clamped around her ankles and crawled its way up her back and this was the creepiest thing she thought she'd ever felt. It suited itself up over her entire body, encasing her in the suit she knew Tony would never destroy – her own.
She waved her arms and legs frantically to try and get the thrusters working and managed to spark them enough to turn around and fly back up. After flying all the way to Malibu in an Iron Man suit, she (and the others) were pretty good at utilizing the suits. Not to mention Pepper's turn to use the Mark forty-two during the attack on Malibu Point.
She shot back up into the sky in her red and white (silver, really) suit, a feminine version of the Mark Five design. She began using her repulsors to blast at the drones while trying to catch her breath inside the suit. The HUD limited her peripheral vision while at the same time allowed her to see so much more details and heat signatures and things like that.
JARVIS helped talk her through different attack strategies and she was totally freaking out because she knew she was alone against an innumerable amount of foes and Tony wasn't here.
Inside, Graham raced to the stairs to follow Pepper's orders while calling back to Betty, "Stay here! Use the comms to communicate and watch the battle through the surveillance tapes. Warn us of the things we can't see!"
"What are you gonna do?!" she cried, making a move to follow him.
He whirled on her. "I'm going to help." He rammed his shoulder into the door to the stairs and began running. It was quite a few flights to Clint and Natasha's floor. Several flights later, panting, Graham told JARVIS to override all security systems before bursting into the weapons arsenal.
He looked around. "Damn." He grabbed the first familiar thing he saw (what looked like a paint gun but obviously wasn't) and another smaller hand gun as a back-up as well as several cases of ammo, a few grenades, and something he knew Natasha called, "Widow Bites". He grabbed them all, stuffing them on his person before equipping himself with a Kevlar vest and a hard hat (yeah, he looked ridiculous but he didn't exactly care at the moment) and ran back for the stairs. He sucked in a breath before running down a whole bunch until he reached the lobby.
"Jarvis, let me through!"
Without answer, the doors opened and he ran outside into the fray. All the people were fleeing in random directions and the Hammeroids were attacking. With a mighty battle cry in imitation of his childhood favourite Avenger (Thor), Graham began firing the gun in the air at all the robots. The bullets bounced off them harmlessly but he got their attention and some of them stopped firing at the Tower.
"SHIT!" He turned and ran around the Tower while they followed in flight. "SHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHIT!" This wasn't going according to plan. What was his plan again?
"Graham, behind you!" Betty's voice shouted in his ear and he dove to the side just as bullets peppered the pavement where he had just been. He rolled over and grabbed one of his grenades. He pulled off the key with his teeth before tossing it at one of the robots. They exploded into little bits. Okay. So grenades worked. Good to know.
"Where's Pepper?" He yelled as he began running again. He was running in circles around the Tower but he didn't care. As long as he was alive.
"I'm up here!" Suddenly, Rescue plopped down in front of him so fast that he ran right into her.
"OW! What the hell?"
"No time to explain, just hang on!" She grabbed him and shot upward, twirling in the air as they flew and dodged more repulsor rays being shot at them. "I'm dropping you off on the roof! Here!" A compartment in her side opened and she reached in and handed him what looked like more grenades. "They're heat-seeking. Don't waste them. Off you go!" She dropped him a few feet from the roof and kept flying, shooting at the enemy as she went.
"Thank you!" he cried after her before whirling around and tossing one of the grenades she gave him at a droid that sneaked up on him. "Take that Robo-Ass!"
At such close proximity, Graham was blown back in the explosion and he scraped his back and arms against the floor of the roof, rolling dangerously close to the edge. He groaned and rolled away, backward somersaulting when he saw the repulsor headed his way. He just barely judged it before he jumped off the roof and landed on the back of a Hammer Droid. "Thanks for the lift!"
He took out his knife and stabbed it in the throat. It sizzled and sparked before it went crashing down onto the roof. He jumped off just in time to land on his feet on the helipad. "Boo yeah!"
That was when he felt two metallic hands grab his biceps from behind and lift him off the ground while flying forward. "Hey! Woah! No need to get handsy! Let go! Pepper!" The robot dropped him and he totally didn't squeal like a girl (he would deny it until the day he died) but managed to grab hold of the remaining "A" left on the Tower with one hand. "WAAAAAHHH!"
His muscles strained and his shoulder pulled away from his torso dangerously. He grunted and dropped the gun he was holding in his left hand in order to use both and lift himself up onto the top of the letter, where he sat dangerously. "Fuck off, Hammeroids!" He pulled out his pistol with his left hand and a grenade in the other and threw it into the air before shooting it, causing it to explode earlier than planned but to take out two droids at the same time. "Take that!"
An explosion above his head cause him to duck and cover and hang on to the big "A" for dear life. Betty's voice suddenly invaded his ear. "Happy's here! And he's got a gun! And the police are here too! They're helping out on the ground but they don't know what to do!"
"I got it," Graham said before he leaped off the building. He had always wanted to go skydiving. "WEEEEEEEE!" No, he was not squealing.
He grabbed the ankle of another robot (thankful that their thrusters were in their backs, not their boots) and hung on for the ride. "Say hello to my little friend!" He reached up with the pistol and shot the thing between its legs. It came down immediately. He climbed onto its back as the jets stopped working and hung on as they fell from the sky. He ripped the pack off started banging it while he let the rest of the body fall before him. He hit it hard enough and it shot him upward again.
"Woah! Wrong WAAAAAAAAAAAY!" He was doing loop-de-loops and twirls and totally not knowing how to steer this thing, he let go of it somewhere near the ground and rolled around a lot, scraping his skin against a bunch of tiny, dirty rocks.
He coughed and pushed himself to his feet. He lost his pistol somewhere in that fall. Great. He looked around. There were at least half a dozen police cars parked around the front entrance to the Tower with several policemen armed with guns firing at the robots. Over to the side, behind a bullet proof limo, was Happy, also firing at the robots with a gun.
Graham made his way over to the chauffeur/bodyguard and dove behind the car to hide with him. "Got room for one more?"
"Oh yeah, plenty of space." He popped his head over the top and began shooting again. Graham followed suit with his grenades before they plopped back down again. "Hammer?"
He nodded. "Hammer."
"Son of a bitch."
"I know right?"
They continued with another round of shooting before Happy finally noticed Graham's weapon of choice. "That seems to be a lot more effective."
"Yup. I've only got a few left though."
"The police might be able to get their hands on a few more if you tell 'em."
"Good idea. I forgot that was why I came here in the first place. Cover me." Graham waited until the coast was clear before springing for the safety of the nearest police car.
"Get out of here kid, we'll handle this."
"I'm not a-! Look, grenades are going to be a lot more effective against these guys than any bullets you've got."
"How would you know?"
Graham leaned over the top of the car and threw a heat-seeking grenade at one of the robots, blowing it up on impact. He hid behind the car again. "I play a lot of video games."
The policeman still eyed him warily. "Where did you get grenades?"
The police car next to them exploded, sending the other cars flying and flipping over their heads, barely missing their bodies as they dove for cover.
"Does that really matter right now? Just get grenades and aim for their necks and crotches!"
"What?!"
"JUST DO IT!" Graham ran forward and threw his last grenade. It began raining sparks above him. "FUCK!" He ran into the lobby just as three droids began firing repulsors at him at the same time. The glass shattered behind him and he kept running before he hid behind the front desk. It was somewhat similar to Tania's situation in Philadelphia – except Graham was prepared for it.
He listened as the robots stepped closer, their mechanical whirring giving away the element of surprise, before he grunted and shoved the desk in their faces. Okay, he wasn't strong enough to throw a desk that high, but he worked out. He was pretty strong. The furniture smashed into their torsos and they all staggered back as one. That was when Graham jumped onto one and stabbed his knife into their neck before yanking it out and jabbing it into the next one. He fell back and threw it at the last one, but the robot caught it and midair and threw it back.
Graham cried out as it rammed into his right arm and pain exploded in that very spot. He ducked a repulsor ray and crawled between its legs but it grabbed the back of his shirt and lifted him off the ground, turning him to face the robot.
"Heyy… no hard feelings right? I blow up a few of your buddies, you destroy my home a bit… we're even right?" he asked nervously.
"Graham!" Betty shouted through the comm. "You still have the knife! His neck is right in front of you!"
"Oh fuck…" he grabbed the hilt of the knife and yanked it out, shouting in pain as he did so before stabbing the throat of the robot that held him. He dropped to the ground immediately and cried out in pain, blood seeping from his arm. The robot sparked and fell on its back before dying. Hammer tech sucked. "Ow! Betty! I could use a doctor!"
"I'm not a doctor!"
"You've got a P.H.D, don't you?"
"Well, yes-"
"You know what, never mind." He pushed himself to his feet, gritting his teeth through the pain. "I've gotta keep going."
"No! You're hurt!"
"Who's going to stop me?"
"Jarvis, stop him!"
"Too late!" Graham jumped through the broken glass and back into the fray. "Hey Pepper, got any more of those bombs?"
"No, sorry! Used them all. But if you need a lift, I'm your gal."
"That would be awesome! But watch the arm, watchthearm, watchtheARM!" Pepper grabbed his left arm (the one without the blood spewing from a wound) and pulled him up into the skies while the witnesses below watched in awe.
"Where to?"
"Clint and Nat's floor? I need to stock up."
"Sure thing."
She stopped just in front of a floor-to-ceiling window that led into Clint's solarium and apologized to him under her breath before blasting it open. She dropped him off inside before turning around. "I'll cover you. When you get back out I'll drop you off on the very top!" She flew just out the window and began firing.
"Gotcha!" Graham ran into the hallway and back into arsenal to stock up again. "Man I go through these fast. How do these guys keep this place so full? I can only imagine how many of these things they go through all the time."
That's when he saw it. "Wicked!" He grabbed the pair of nunchucks hanging on the wall beside Clint's many back-up bows (he wasn't going to touch those – Clint would literally kill him).
Graham had taken karate as a kid at the same time Tania took dancing. Aunt Gemma had wanted them to do at least one extra-curricular each, so he picked martial arts. He took it for ten years, just like Tania with her lessons and he still remembered most of it. He had been at his blue belt when he went off to University and had to quit. He had just been too busy with school and all that stuff. But he remembered how to use nunchucks. Sure, he wasn't an expert, per say, but he knew what he was doing.
"Let's get this party started!" He grabbed a backpack and filled it to the brim with grenades before sticking another two knives in his belt loops and grabbed his nunchucks. All set.
He ran back out to Clint's solarium and approached the broken glass. "Pepper!"
She appeared immediately. The numbers of the droids seemed to have diminished quite a bit since he had left. "Ready?" she asked.
"Ready steady!" he jumped toward her and she caught him before zooming upward, avoiding the bombs being thrown at them as she used her evasive maneuvers and dropped him off on the very top of Avengers Tower.
"Don't fall!" She called before flying off.
"Seriously, don't fall!" Betty echoed in his ear before he began throwing grenades.
"You guys worry too much!" He threw another one. "Just cause I've never done this before, doesn't mean I'm gonna fail!"
"You're not wearing a suit like Pepper!"
"I'm wearing Kevlar!"
"That won't stop you from dying!"
"Betty! Calm down!" He whipped out his nunchucks. "Watch the ninja at work. Hi-ya!" He whacked an approaching robot in the head with his new weapon. "Just like old times." He dodged a repulsor ray before kicking the robot in the chest. "Jarvis, how many are left?"
"Six, Mr. Banks."
"I like those odds." He used his knife and stabbed the robot in the neck. "Keep the countdown going."
"Five. The policeman just neutralized one on the ground. Three. Ms. Potts took out two behind you. One. Mr. Hogan brought down another two."
"One…" Graham watched as the last robot flew up in front of him. "You're going down, ugly."
"Maybe so," Graham nearly fell off the roof himself when the Hammeroid started talking – with Hammer's voice. There must be a speaker in there somewhere, "But you're coming down with him." The robot shoved Graham off the building before heading off to distract Pepper.
Graham screamed and whipped past all the windows and walls at an incredible speed. "HEEEEEEEEEEEELP!"
Down below, Happy and the others watched in horrified suspension. "Clear out!" One officer yelled before ushering everyone out of the way. There was no way Graham could survive that fall. Happy was transfixed, unable to take his eyes away or remove the painful feeling in his gut.
Still in the lab, Betty screamed. "NOOOOO!" she gripped the counter with white hands. "Pepper, do something!"
"Jarvis!"
"On it."
Pepper landed on the helipad as the armour began to remove itself from her body, pulling her limbs in different directions and causing her to spin around like when the Mark forty-two was pulled away from her and to Tony in Malibu. When everything was peeled away, she fell forward with her head over the edge of the roof and she watched as her suit raced after the falling Graham. But it was still too far.
"PEPPER!"
She spun around just in time to be grabbed by the big robot – the last one. She squirmed in its iron grip around her waist and kicked uselessly.
Down below, Graham hit the ground with a BOOM.