Chapter 26

"Don't go in until we've secured the perimeter." Clint called through the commlinks when the quinjet, Hulk Buster, and War Machine had landed in the dusty fields atop the steep mountains with doors and passageways carved into the sides which appeared to be hundreds of years old.

"He's in there, Clint. What if he escapes!?" Tony asked with a "I'm slightly pissed off" tone.

"Tony, if you go in blind you'll get yourself killed." Clint began. "And where would we be without our red and gold mascot?"

Tony didn't respond to that, since he did sort of deserve that after the one comment about how HawkEye's purple was a girl color.

"You deserved that one." Rhodey's silver-metaled hand patted his red-metaled elbow.

"If you boys are finished arguing over who our mascot is, I found an entrance that won't get us blown up." Natasha said, leading them over to a metal door with an unlatched frame leaning crooked on the edge of the mountain.

"Mind your step." Natasha suggested, flipping above hundreds of feet of air and perfectly into the door's frame, which she then ungracefully kicked in.

Clint copied her motions, followed by Thor who just plain flew. Steve jumped an impossible length for a normal human, landing in the door frame and following Natasha, Clint, and Thor down the hall while Tony, Hulk, and Rhodey flew over the ledge.

"Can you find him?" Tony asked Natasha with his face-plate down as they slowly made their way down the dimly lit tunnels.

"Needle in a haystack." Replied Natasha at first, then added. "No problem."

"Honestly, I thought you'd be here sooner. But you always were one to be fashionably late." Obidiah's voice came on the old speaker system that looked too old and broken to function, but that was, Natasha deduced, a facade.

"I'll see you soon then." Obidiah's voice disappeared as they turned a corner, which opened up into a large room with ceilings reaching as high as the mountains tip.

"So now he has a rat hole." Tony mumbled to himself as he met eyes with a black colored suit of armor, complete with a glowing blue arc reactor in the center.

"He has a reactor." Rhodey said in shock, since they were all connected by comms in each of their ears.

"She found me, didn't you red?" Obidiah's sickening voice came from the black suit, which moved the same way he once did.

Natasha looked furious. "You weren't hiding." She informed him.

"Wasn't I?" Obidiah's black suit peered around the cavern.

"Not from me." Natasha said with a deadly grimace.

"Then I don't suppose we can sit down and talk about this?" Obidiah said, right before Tony began firing repulser blasts at Obidiah's armor.

All hell brook loose as robots powered up around the room, programmed to fight alongside Obidiah. So this is what he's been doing, Tony mused.

Hulk threw the robots across the room, smashing them into walls and trying to hold back enough so that he wouldn't make the mountain come down on them.

"Tasha, 5 o'clock!" Clint hollered as a robot snuck up behind Natasha.

She turned and demolished it with an electric knife, nodding thanks to her partner.

Clint shot arrow after arrow into the robots, he found that the electric arrows were best suited for this job, but he still used a few normal ones just to make it interesting.

Tony focused his energy on the suit of black armor, closely followed by Rhodey in the War Machine armor.

War Machine's blasters didn't leave a mark, whereas on Tony's own suit, the black armor that Obidiah was wearing could leave dents.

"How the hell did he build this?!" Rhodey yelled over the comms, blocking hits and punches from the black armor.

"He knew me for years. My tactics were his. And mine haven't changed." Tony realized that while Obidiah was upgrading, he was sticking with what worked, and with what was effective.

All of the robots were spare parts in minutes, leaving just the avengers and the black armored liar.

"You're outnumbered. Surrender." Steve suggested.

"You're outgunned." Obidiah yelled back, shooting missiles at Steve and Natasha, who dodged them diligently.

Thor's hammer didn't leave a mark, which made Tony cringe. His armor could be fully powered down with a powerful enough hit from Thor's hammer, although it'd be worst case scenario for that to happen.

"You're new friends are weak." Obidiah yelled to Tony, who grimaced underneath his faceplate.

"You're new tactics are sloppy." Natasha mused from where she leapt onto the helmet of Obidiah's suit, ripping wires out of the control panels on the back before being tossed off.

"Damn ginger took out my missile launcher." Obidiah whined, making Natasha proud for a moment, before he continued by saying, "It's too bad I've already used all of my missiles." with the same sass that had annoyed Tony as a child.

"You're not getting out of this one." Tony said, blocking the exit and blasting Obidiah's suit away from him with a repulser blast from his chest piece.

"You always did love to put your heart into things." Obi complained as he lifted himself easily from the ground.

Obidiah appeared to be out of ammunition, since he was mostly dodging attacks now.

"Surrender, Staine. You're going to loose. Can't you see that?" Steve attempted once more to talk reason into their enemy.

"You surrender!" Obidiah shot a repulser blast from his own chest piece at Natasha, who was once again tampered with his exposed wiring.

Tony saw everything before it happened. The repulser would hit Natasha, she'd die, Clint would hate Tony forever for letting her come and everything they'd built up at the tower would be gone. Ah, Screw it, Tony told himself as he flew at his highest speed and landed in-between Natasha and the blast at the last possible second.

Before the burning sensation came through his damaged armor, it was just blue arc reactor light, which was actually quite comforting, considering that the light he was seeing told him he was still alive.

So sorry for lack of chapters, there was a death in the family and I just haven't had enough time to write.

Thank you for your patience.

This fic will be concluded fairly soon, definitely before Age of Ultron comes out.

Avengers Tower Part 2 will also be concluded soon, also before Age of Ultron.

Thanks again for your ongoing enjoyment of this fic.

-MarvelLuver