"Hey, hon. Bee- try-g to -each you. How's it -oing?"
The comms crackled with interference, but the voice was intelligible. Pepper stepped away from the crowd gathered at the window. "Tony? Oh, thank God. Homeland is storming the building! Does this happen to you? Am I doing something wrong? Should I try and talk to them?"
"It's the Department of Domestic Security and Defense. Way more funding, way less oversight and, Pep, I promise they are not interested in a calm exchange of opinions. I'm inbound. Three minutes."
"No, listen - Peter's gone: he tried to draw some of them away. Two of the helicopters followed him. And I think he must have taken out a communication jammer, because I couldn't reach you before, but-"
"-but he's on his own. Can you get out of there?" Tony asked, after a beat.
"Everyone else sounds confident they can." Pepper glanced at Jessica, who nodded. "If you can give me cover, I'll fly Ellie and Ned out to the Rand offices."
"Did I mention I'm bringing company? Sorry, honey. I know I should have told you sooner. There'll be enough pot roast for everyone, right?"
Pepper ignored the side commentary, sticking to the salient - and encouraging - point. "Rhodey's with you?"
"Rhodey's supervising Ross' leaving party. This guy is the exact opposite of Rhodey. The anti-Rhodey, if you will. But he knows Ellie, and hopefully Ellie will know him. Between us, I'm pretty sure we can give you a window. Love you."
The comms hissed with static as the jammer came back online. "I wasn't talking to you," she heard, before they cut out with a sharp whine.
"Okay, Spider-man's plan worked." Daisy said as Pepper turned back. "Now what?"
"Can we not call that a plan?" Luke glared at the open window as if it had personally offended him. "That was sure as hell not a plan."
"Tony's coming," Pepper interjected. "With an 'associate.' Apparently. They're going to help me get the children out, then Tony will find Spider-man and his associate will help you get out of the building." She knelt to pull Ellie into her arms, then held a hand out to Ned.
Jessica caught her shoulder as she stood, Pepper could feel the strength of her grip even against the hydraulics of the armor. "You take those kids anywhere but Rand and we'll have a problem."
Pepper nodded shortly and didn't reply; the situation was tense enough. She'd have the opportunity later. She hoped.
"What about S.H.I.E.L.D.?" Colleen asked. "They must be able to do something."
"We have no direct channels with the DSD, and there's no extraction plan for non S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel in this kind of scenario." Mack grimaced, no happier than anyone else.
Jessica snorted.
"But technically our shift ended, what?" Daisy looked at Mack. "Nine hours ago?"
"At least," Mack agreed.
"At least nine hours ago." She shrugged. "So maybe we'll hang around."
"Two guns. One sword. Me and Jess." Luke rolled his shoulders . "Stark takes out that last helicopter, I like our odds."
"Three guns," Castle said, from the doorway.
"Okay," Jessica said, as Mack gave a sharp, " no. "
He stared at her, and jabbed his finger towards Castle. "You want to arm that maniac?"
"He'll take a gun from the first guy he sees out there anyway," she pointed out, answering Mack, but looking thoughtfully at Castle. "Besides, he wants to shoot them, not us."
Castle nodded, fractionally. "I got no problem with you."
Looking torn, and ignoring Mack's disapproval, Daisy handed over her pistol. "Disable, don't kill," she instructed. "Unless you want to spend the rest of your life in S.H.I.E.L.D. containment. I don't recommend it."
Castle took the gun automatically, but frowned. It wasn't the threat he was concerned about, Pepper realized after a moment. Just that the agent had no weapon."You got a backup piece?"
"I'm good." Daisy flexed her fingers and the pressure of something rippled across the room. It rustled peeling wallpaper, and blew spider webs from dusty corners.
"You're one of them," Castle said, and checked the clip.
"That a problem?"
"No." He shook his head with a faint twitch of his lips that might have been smile. "It is not."
Over the sound of the circling helicopter, Pepper heard the first faint strains of an electric guitar and more bass than anyone wanted to deal with at five in the morning.
AC/DC's biggest fan had arrived.
-o o-
Here's the question we have to ask ourselves: how brave are we willing to be?
Elbow resting on her desk, chin resting on her palm, Karen considered the line. She deleted it.
Here's the question we have to ask ourselves: how afraid are we willing to let them make us?
-o o-
Wade watched the city pass under his feet in gleeful fascination, but looked up when they came within range of the JetRanger. " You can drop me here, " he shouted up, flexing his fingers experimentally, trying to free himself from Stark's grip on his wrists.
"'Here' is a helicopter, " Stark yelled down, fingers tightening.
"Right, what was I thinking - go a little higher? "
"Or - thought- I take the helicopter? "
Wade considered that for the moment. Of course, it was a team up: he could share. "Flip you for it? "
"I'm taking the helicopter." Stark shouted as he swooped them towards the street.
"Fine, but I get two next time!"
"No killing," Stark yelled, extra loud, and then Wade was falling.
He rolled as he hit the road, came up running from momentum alone, and dove with the grace of a heavily armed ballerina behind the cover of sedan.
Nice .
He pulled both pistols from their holsters and headed towards a souped up Rhino that needed a little more work.
Gaping hole here.
Throw body there.
You know, it could be home-y.
-o o-
Against his better judgement, Tony left Wilson to deal with the ground support and turned sharply back towards the helicopter circling the top floor of the apartment building. Any number of scenarios to bring it down came to mind, but all of them ended with the buildings either side with significantly more rotors in them than before. Not to mention the completely insane locals who were watching from windows or - worse - alleys and rooftops, like this was some kind of spectator sport.
"FRIDAY, can we disable it?"
"Of course."
A selection of images and instructional videos appeared in his HUD.
Tony studied the first. "Let me rephrase. Can we safely disable it?"
The images disappeared. "No, boss."
"Then we'll have to give them something else to worry about." He adjusted the thrusters vertically and flew directly into the helicopter's path. The pilot jerked hard on the stick, pulling the helicopter back and away from the apartment block at an angle that would take several seconds to recover from.
Glass shattered behind him. He turned to see shards of broken window falling into the street below, then the Rescue prototype - Pepper - flew out, two figures wrapped in blankets securely in its arms. It headed straight for Manhattan.
"That's my girl," he murmured proudly, then twisted back as something dinged off his armor.
The helicopter had righted itself and, unable to maneuver around him, was trying to go through him. With a little help from mounted machine guns. Well, those he could absolutely disable. Two precisely placed blasts and they were falling away.
He flung himself to the side as it finally tried ramming him, finally letting the helicopter follow in Pepper's wake. She was long gone. He flew in the window Pepper had exited. No one was in the apartment.
They had it handled, he reasoned. Hell, any two of them had it handled.
Time to find the kid.
-o o-
"I-think-I-can-I-think-I-can-I-think-I-can," Peter muttered as he swung back towards the shelter, the slightly unwieldy blanket-draped pillow under one arm and the other hand gripping hard to webbing. It was almost impossible to figure out where he should be dodging to between one moment and the next, danger flaring on every side of his senses, all around, above and below.
The helicopters abruptly wheeled away; they'd figured out Ellie wasn't with him.
He dropped the bedding.
Way better.
The shelter was a few blocks away - closer than Rand - a repurposed office building, eight stories high, with a roof that was home to some weirdly friendly pigeons and, he hoped, a few helpful Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. They were definitely the good guys now, right?
Pretty sure they were the good guys.
Daisy and Mack hadn't been laughing maniacally. That he'd noticed.
As he spun around the side of a building - and narrowly avoided a can of dog food, thrown by an opportunistic Bugle reader - it occurred to him that he should probably have webbed his leg a little tighter. Whatever he'd been hit by on the way out of the apartment had gone through the suit, but the material had taken most of the damage.
It hadn't seemed that bad, but maybe playing tag with helicopters right after hadn't been a great plan. The bullet was still in there, he could feel it every time the muscle flexed. But that was good, right? Pretty sure that was good. Or. No. Bad. Except no one should take the bullet out, that he did know. Ned told him one time.
Man, he better have made it.
If Ned got hurt, if Ellie got hurt, Peter would-
He didn't know.
Maybe he'd do nothing, because wow, actually, now he saw it, that was a lot of blood.
Because he'd been freaking shot.
Fleetingly he wondered if he was in shock, but then decided it didn't matter, because May was going to kill him. Wanted, kidnapped, drugged and shot all on the same day was a new and terrible, terrible record. Forget grounded times infinity, this was a whole new ballgame.
Also, thinking about it, this was probably not what Mr Stark had meant when he'd told Peter not to escalate.
"Peter, you should seek medical attention at the earliest opportunity."
"Hey, Karen. Yeah," Peter acknowledged, as he finally-finally-finally dropped onto the roof of the shelter. He managed to stay standing for a moment, but then the world tilted and when it stopped, he wasn't standing any more. "Yeah," he said again. "I'll get on that."
There was a buzzing in his ears, he realised. Didn't know how long it had been going on. He tried to raise a hand to tap the mic, but his hand didn't seem to want to cooperate.
Right. Freaking shot.
"Ned's okay? Ellie's okay?"
"They are located three blocks south of Rand Enterprises and moving rapidly. However, in your vicinity, police have cordoned off several blocks in all directions, with an NYPD helicopter within two-hundred and fifty meters. Additionally-"
"Additionally?" He asked, wondering with horror how it got worse than that. Maybe May had arrived.
"I can't hear whoever you're talking to, but I can hazard a guess how this conversation's going," said a man, who as far as Peter was concerned, had materialized from thin air to crouch at his side. "So, additionally, a team of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents has appeared out of nowhere, and have some searching questions."
Peter blinked up. "You're the good guys, right?"
"We like to think so."
"Mack and Daisy are okay. Ellie's not who you're looking for. And. Don't take off the mask, okay?"
"Hey. Hey, you with me? Ah, man. His suit's got a heck of a hole in it."
Vaguely aware of a sudden rush of activity, Peter went ahead and took a nap.
-o o-
Somewhere below, boots thudded up stairs. Orders were barked into radios.
Luke cracked his neck, gestured for the others to stay back, and strode down the dark hallway towards a bank of long-dead elevators and gloomy, graffitied stairwell. Daisy drew even after a moment, walking briskly to keep pace. "How indestructible are you?"
As she seemed to be asking out of more than curiosity, Luke kept his answer to the point. "Just the skin."
"Then stay behind me." Her smile was thin-lipped and confident. "I got this one."
He looked at her doubtfully, but stepped back as the first pair of DSD agents appeared from the stairwell. Daisy held up her hands as she edged forward. Several more agents, all fully geared up, appeared. "Don't shoot, okay?" Her voice trembled. "This is a huge misunderstanding."
Luke could feel Jessica and Colleen behind him, shifting from foot to foot. Hating this about as much as he did. At his side, Mack was watchful, but calm. That was about the only reason Luke hadn't rushed forward already.
A seven-man wedge advanced up the hall. "On the ground," the first demanded, punctuating with a jab of his barrel. "Now!"
Daisy stopped. "Yeah," she agreed.
She pulled her fists tight into her chest and then flung them into the air before her with a shout of effort. The floor rippled under the force, the walls blew in, old plaster torn away as pure force blasted in a rolling wave down the hallway.
The floor bucked under the wedge as the quake hit, the men fell with shocked - terrified - yells.
Luke strode forward in its wake, as the dust fell around them, punching down with clinical precision.
At his side, Jessica did the same. "Lady, you must be hell on ten pin," she said, as she knocked the last man out.
"They're wearing body cams," Mack reported. "We won't get away with that again."
"Pity. I was looking forward to losing the rest of my hearing." Colleen ground her jaw as she tried to pressurize her ears.
"You're welcome," Daisy said, with a flat look.
"Potts said there were four fire teams, right?" Jessica stepped into the elevator foyer. "Come on, I got places to-"
A window shattered; she dropped.
One more part to go and it's largely written, I'm just neatening (for reals this time, I am not about to go on another 30k word fic equivalent of a road trip. Probably.)
Thank you so much again everyone who's encouraged this fic along!