Vital Communication Chapter 14
DISCLAIMER/AUTHOR'S NOTE: suffices that the continuation of the previous warnings is in play. We're done with the outright torture, and this time, we're back with the rest of the team. So nothing ought to be triggering, but I'm just the author. Please continue to proceed with caution until I say otherwise, okay? Okay. =3 Have this chapter to make up for the utter brain-f*** of the previous.
The team gathered the next morning to plan their next movements and figure out what Steve could do to help. Bruce didn't appear for breakfast, but no one thought much of it, thinking maybe he'd overslept, or was still keeping to himself.
"Anyone still in the service that I might know is probably going to be of high rank, if that, Tony. Most of our boys served and got out, or just retired," Steve insisted, waving a glass of apple juice around to emphasize his point.
"Doesn't matter. You just need to be seen. The super spies can handle anything else," Tony countered.
"Now wait a minute!", Clint tried to butt in, but Natasha just shook her head. He subsided with a grunt.
"Pepper can call up our contacts, and see who wants to host Captain America for a day. They'll fall all over themselves to do it," Tony sounded very sure of himself, drinking his coffee. But then, when didn't he?
"Let me think about this, all right? You're basically asking me to help you commit what amounts to treason at the Pentagon of all places!?", Steve sounded upset. And he had a point, but Tony was undeterred.
"Well, when you put it that way, yes," Tony agreed, grinning.
Natasha chose then to voice her opinion, "Captain, what we're trying to do is figure out the source of the spying. Right now, it's a bit too widespread. This might be our best chance at narrowing the field somewhat. We won't be doing anything with any information that does not pertain to Stark Industries, Dr. Banner, or the Avengers."
"How would that work, exactly?" Steve wanted to know. Natasha finished off her omelet, giving Clint a quick thank you before answering the super soldier.
"We'll run the same kind of program Tony did when he got on the helicarrier. What we'll do is have you, accompanied by myself and Clint, and we'll take care of all that while you do your thing as an American icon," she explained.
Clint hmmed from beside her. "Chauffeur, I assume. Not like Rogers needs a bodyguard in this situation." He got up and gathered the empty dishes to take back to the kitchen.
"Where's Bruce this morning?" Pepper asked, finishing her own breakfast.
"Sleeping off a late night?" Tony guessed, "He got a call to go meet a friend of his last night while we were at dinner. Told me to 'not wait up'. As if."
"Unusual," Tasha softly said, drinking the last of her orange juice. She left the table when she was done, taking her glass back to the kitchen where Clint was cleaning up.
"You're so handsome being domestic," she quipped, curling into his side.
"You're lucky I love you, Red," he was flippant in return, but smiling, taking the proffered glass to rinse and put in the dishwasher.
"Stark doesn't do anything by half, does he?", she asked, indicating the industrial, chromed kitchen surrounds. She leaned on one counter to watch him work.
"Hah, no. What's up? Change in the plan?", Clint queried.
"No, something about Bruce though. He went out last night." Clint raised an eyebrow in curiosity. Tasha went on, "Exactly who are his friends right now?"
"Oh, damn," Clint said, hands coming to rest on the edge of the counter at the sink.
"We'll see. If he's not around by lunch time, well, it's an all-call," Tasha confirmed.
They went about their day, Natasha to her PA duties, and Clint down to security. This gave him a chance to check over when Bruce had left the Tower the night before. He received a text from Tasha not long after he'd started his video search, telling him that JARVIS had something from the event. He opened a second window on his computer, querying the AI from his station and they exchanged a text based conversation on what had happened with the good doctor. Clint also checked on whether Bruce was in the Tower at all at that moment. When the negative was confirmed, he called Tasha, and requested a luncheon meeting.
"To go over a new plan for the garage level surveillance system," he told her, for the benefit of the rest of the security team scattered around him.
"Of course Mr. Artison. How does 12:30 sound?" Tasha neatly replied, grateful there was nothing on the schedule that day she'd have to shuffle.
"See you then." And he caught good-natured ribbing from the rest of the department for the next 15 minutes.
Clint leaves for lunch just a few minutes before he's to meet with Natalie, completely clearing his computer's work history before shutting it down. Being compulsively paranoid has only saved his skin about a dozen times, so its worth the extra steps. He saunters out of the security barn and checks to see if Natalie is in the lobby yet. She's not, so he goes to the elevators and punches the up button. Once inside, and thankfully alone in the car, he can use his passcard to trigger the security protocols to let him push the button for Pepper's floor. Only the team has access, besides Jason Thomas, his second and a few other department heads. The ride up is quiet, not even muzak to distract him. When he reaches the right floor, he steps off to see Natalie coming towards him, something of a look of chagrin on her face. He does love the way she moves though, the spiky 5" black heels giving her hips more sway than normal. The black pencil skirt and gray blouse she put on that morning make up the rest of the outfit, keeping her demure, but gorgeous. It made his heart race, and his sky blue eyes soften with love.
"Mr. Artison, I'm so glad you got my message. We'll have to take a working lunch, if that's all right?", she points back at the elevator he'd come out of.
"No problem, Miss Rushman, Level 8?", Clint assures her, pressing the car call button again. She nods acceptance and they leave the floor.
"JARVIS? Upstairs please," Tasha commands once they are both safely ensconced in the elevator.
"Of course Miss Romanov," the AI says as the car moves upwards.
"So, he never came back last night?" she asks. Clint shakes his head in denial. "Great. JARVIS, sound the all-call. This is now a rescue mission," Natasha shifted personas from bubbly Natalie Rushman to deadly Black Widow in the space of that sentence. Clint's own happy-go-lucky attitude switched off for the impersonal mask he wore as Hawkeye.
By the time the elevator reached the 89th floor, the rest of the team is in the meeting room, dressed for action. Well, Steve was. Tony was simply wearing dark, stone wash jeans and a Led Zeppelin tee over a navy colored, long sleeve shirt that minimized the glow from the arc in his chest.
"So, what's up, spy twins?", Tony asked, leaning casually against a wall. His indolent posture hid the tension strumming through his body. He knew Banner was missing, and that it could only mean bad things.
"We've confirmed that Dr. Banner did go out last night, and never returned. We need to follow the lead to the location he was called to and see what we can shake loose," Natasha explained.
"All right then, let's suit up," Tony pushed away from the wall to walk out of the room.
"Wait Tony," Steve called, "I'm not sure figurative guns blazing will work here." He turned to Tasha and Clint, "Were you able to get any intel on this location?"
"Thought you'd never ask. JARVIS?" Clint settled into his chair, and asked the AI for the files he'd compiled that morning. The files came up, and Clint sent them to the projection screen and everyone else's place for viewing.
"At approximately 7:30 last night, Bruce got a message via JARVIS that someone had tried to reach him through the Tower's phone system. It appears, from recorded conversation just minutes later, to have been Dr. Elizabeth Ross." Tony sat down in the nearest chair, surprised. Clint flicked open a separate file, composed solely of information on Dr. Ross. Highlighted was the tidbit of her relationship to Bruce, and her father, General Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross. Clint went on, "They chose to meet at this location, the Bar and Stripes. Street cameras have Bruce entering the bar, but not leaving. There's an odd vehicle sighting in the back of the place around 9:00, with several individuals, but no specific sign of Bruce. As the name implies, this bar is a popular hang out with servicemen, current or former. Owner is former Army, by the name of John Allen." And another file opens in front of Betty Ross's, this time of a military record.
"Bank records show Mr. Allen had previously been behind on the mortgage on the building, as well as behind on many of the related bills for the business. Then, just today, he's come current," Nat reads off the pertinent info that she spent time on that morning.
"So, what do we need to do then? Can't send in the IRS, they'd take too long," Tony quipped. He was clearly worried, but trying to hold himself back. He needed these two for his best chance at finding Bruce.
"No, we send Steve," Clint said, eyeing Steve for a solid minute.
We'll be back on the normal, one chapter a week schedule next weekend with Chapter 15.