Escape
Tony was plenty used to being mistreated, he had spent three months in caves with a group of jackass terrorists, half his life with his father, the rest with Obi. If HYDRA thought they were going to get anything useful out of him they were sorely mistaken but that didn’t stop them from trying to beat the answers to their questions out of him, and then inexplicably try to be nice after that. He wasn’t much willing to talk before he got his nose broken let alone after, offer of food or not. Deciding it was a good idea to stick him with a needle hadn’t exactly been the best of plans either; he hated needles and if he hadn’t been inclined to talk before he was even less inclined now. HYDRA seems to either figure this ‘interrogation’ wasn’t working or they had some sort of backup plan because they toss him in a cell shortly after needling him.
“That was lovely guys, let’s do it again sometime!” he yells sarcastically after the agents that tossed him into some sort of cell with a glass wall. Great, now he was going to feel like a bug under observation.
“What’d they want from you?” someone else asks and he turns to find Steve of all people slumped in the far corner of the cell.
“How the hell did I not notice you right away?” he asks, mostly to himself because he didn’t care what Steve thought.
“You appear to be shockingly single minded, completely incapable of multitasking unless it helps you achieve your goal,” he says, earning a dubious look from Tony. “Bucky spent some time with you in the lab, very telling, which is odd considering how suspicious you are. We concluded that you are a paradox that makes no sense,” Steve tells him.
“I was making a weapon and my susceptibility to Commands is incredibly low, plus JARVIS was watching, don’t underestimate JARVIS,” he says.
Steve frowns, “your creepy robot?” he asks.
“AI, he’s not creepy, but yes,” Tony says, giving Steve and irritated look. JARVIS was not creepy, he was JARVIS.
“How low is low?” Steve asks, eyeing Tony wearily.
“Low enough to resist you if that’s what you’re asking,” Tony says. He wipes sweat off his forehead and frowns, why was he so damn hot? “God, turn down the temperature in here, what do you people think you’re going to do? Get your answers out of my by giving me heat stroke?” he asks. Idiots.
“Tony the temperature of the room is fine; it’s your core temperature that’s rising,” Steve says, “I think they expect me to get the answers out of you.”
Tony whips around to look at Steve and then back out the glass wall, “I am so fucked,” he snaps. He told Nat he couldn’t do this and now he was stuck in a room with an alpha with control issues halfassed in a heat that was probably going to be strong enough to kill him. Well fuck. So much for doing Skye a favor finding that info on her, whatever it meant, or any of the stuff he found on Nat and Wanda.
“Relax, Tony,” Steve mumbles, “I’ve never had that kind of control issue,” he says.
Tony snorts, “yeah, trust the guy who speaks almost entirely in Commands and can’t control it unless he has a black eye apparently,” because Steve had managed to keep his Commands to himself thus far, “to control himself. Yeah okay, sounds like a perfectly reasonable thing to do,” he says, heavy on the sarcasm.
Steve sighs, “my control issues only seem to affect the Commands, and there’s a reason,” he says, giving Tony a hard look.
Tony snorts, “yeah okay. Not interested in whatever excuses you have at the ready.” He was fairly certain Steve said something after that but he was already focusing on the seams of the walls around him, trying to figure out a way to get out of this damn cell.
*
Natasha felt horrible. It wasn’t that none of them got hurt before, but Tony was right, he wasn’t cut out for this kind of work and she knew it, everyone knew it. The guy was a subtle as a whale in a pool, couldn’t think two feet in front of himself, and his skills were next to useless in the field. Unless, of course, he was in the suit, then he was reckless, stupid, and… and well, good at strategy, much more clear headed, more confident in his abilities. Tony was at home in his tech, literally in the case of the suit, and it showed when he was in the field. But no, she had ignored him, stupidly, and now he was kidnapped because of her mistake. And then there was Clint.
Good damn Clint. Coulson had managed to find him via the damn bond, unsurprising, and she hadn’t had much choice but to take him in given his for-some-reason-still-existent bond with Clint. They went to a different location, of course, she wasn’t stupid enough to put all her eggs in one basket, and they needed to get rid of that damn bond for their safety. And Clint thought it was tacos.
At least Coulson was just as upset about that development. “I genuinely care about you and you thought my feelings were a craving for tacos?” he asks, looking downright offended by Clint’s apparent lack of common sense.
“I genuinely care about tacos,” Clint says, shrugging. Coulson, to his credit, doesn’t give Clint too hard of a glare for that, mostly just a look of intense confusion. None of them understood Clint’s love for food either, especially not when he decided that he was going to eat some left over sandwich someone left behind, potential to be shot by whomever was attacking be damned. Not to mention he had no idea who might have slobbered on that thing, but Clint was a lover of all things edible and that love knew no bounds. Apparently so much so that another person’s feelings, supposedly genuine feelings, could pass off as a food craving. Fucking Clint Barton, she loved the bastard, but she was going to kick his ass.
“I can’t believe you mistook my feelings for a food craving. Seriously, Clint?” he asks, shaking his head.
Clint looks one hundred percent unapologetic, “tacos don’t bite me. I bite tacos. I prefer to do the biting,” he says.
Coulson shrugs, “never really understood the appeal,” he says, “seems a bit violent for me.”
Fitzsimmons and Bruce squint at him, “that is so redundant,” Bruce says after a few minutes of confused silence.
“Not when you consider he bit me in the middle of a fight,” Clint points out, “also consensual bites that don’t happen in the middle of a fight with a neo-Nazi organization are very pleasant,” he says.
Natasha rolls her eyes, “Clint shut up and let Fitzsimmons take a look at you so we can throw Coulson back out on the lawn,” she says, gesturing for the two of them to go do testing or something. Hopefully they could figure out why the bond hadn’t broken and then break the damn thing. In the mean time she had to find Tony and remove him from where ever he was ASAP. Tony wasn’t built for capture and she had to find him before he broke out and stashed himself somewhere where she couldn’t find him. And knowing Tony his dumb ass would forget to make contact. The guy was a genius and a moron all at once.
Bruce finds her relatively quickly after she shoos Clint and Coulson from the room, “you know it won’t be hard to find Tony,” he says.
She sighs, “unless he blows up wherever he is I doubt that,” she says. It wasn’t like HYDRA didn’t know what they were doing, there was a reason they’ve functioned under the radar for so long without detection.
Bruce smiles, “Nat, Tony’s a tech genius, you know he doesn’t go anywhere without something and he isn’t fond of being held by terrorists, I can guarantee he has some way for you to find him on him. JARVIS has been suspiciously quiet since finding out Tony went missing, ask him,” Bruce suggests.
Natasha nods, not having thought of that, and she immediately runs off to Tony’s room and a sure connection to JARVIS. “Hey, wake up and stop fucking around JARVIS,” she says to the walls, feeling rather weird doing so. Tony always talked to JARVIS without any reservations, content talking to the tech no matter how odd he looked talking to the space around him. She needed to find him damnit, she has become attached and she didn’t want to see Tony drop dead. Especially because it would be her fault.
“I have compiled all relevant information for you and emailed it,” JARVIS informs her, “also it appears Tony’s core temperature it rising at a rapid rate. If I didn’t know any better I’d say he was going into heat.”
She swears loudly and pulls out her phone, checking her email while she instructs JARVIS to gather Bruce, Wanda, and Loki. The three of them plus her should be able to execute a breakout on the fly with relative ease and Bruce was only the backup plan.
*
“So ugh, what’s your favorite color,” Steve asks after sitting in silence for nearly thirty minutes. If he could find a way out he couldn’t now, he was way over heated and extremely pissed off. And Steve, he didn’t even look phased by his scent, which smelled appealing to him so he knew Steve must have found it pleasant. It was simultaneously creepy and reassuring.
“Red,” he mumbles, “you?”
“Everyone thinks I like blue because I wear a lot of it but I kind of like pink, I think it looks nice on me but I can’t actually find anything in the shades of pink I like,” he says.
“Boring,” Tony says, turning back to the glass panel to glare out of it.
“Really? Most people think that’s unexpected, a guy liking pink, I mean its dumb people think that but they do,” Steve says.
“I literally have no effort to question stupid gender roles right now, I just don’t like pink. Pink is red but lame,” he says.
“Eloquent,” Steve mumbles, giving Tony irritated looks. “Cat person or dog person?” he asks a few minutes later.
“Cat,” Tony says, “less maintenance, and cats and I have a deep understanding in which everyone thinks we’re one way but really we’re another and only a few people see it. Also we both bite when irritated,” he says, shifting a little in an attempt to find comfort.
He can see Steve subtly sniff but his face doesn’t really change. Tony isn’t sure if that means he’s safe or in the eye of a storm but either way he wanted the fuck out of here. “I’m more of a dog person but I’ve never had the time to own one. I like pugs, and Pomeranians,” Steve says.
“Mmm, I like corgis,” Tony says. The dogs were very cute, and fluffy. He liked fluffy and cute, like cats. He liked cats.
“Corgis are adorable, Bucky and I used to have a corgi. His name was Bob and he was fat as hell but then he died,” Steve says sadly.
“Poor Bob,” Tony mumbles, not really paying attention to Steve’s words, getting to hot to pay attention to much of anything at all.
“Hey, Tony, stay awake. What do you like to do in your spare time?” Steve asks.
Tony makes an irritated noise, “build things. Everyone knows that,” he mumbles.
“Yeah, but like you have to be working on something new, what are you working on?” he asks.
Tony cracks one eye open to glare at him, “you can’t even use my secrets. You wouldn’t understand the suit, no one does. It’s impossible,” he says.
Steve frowns, “if it’s impossible why are you working on it?”
“Impossible for other people,” he says, “but I’m smart.”
“How does it work?” Steve asks.
Loaded question, it would take so long to explain. Tony decides he doesn’t have the energy to explain all the technologies that he combined into a full-body suit of armor. The repulsor tech alone would take forever. “The things go with the things then they do the things,” he says in way of a real explanation.
“That tells me nothing Tony, that doesn’t even make sense. I think you might be over heating,” he says.
Tony makes a noise and passes out.
*
Rescue missions were not her thing, she was better at action, not reaction; this was more Tony’s thing. He was good at action too, but rescues were something he shined at, Clint too, though Clint mostly rescued himself and they found him wherever he ended up relaxing with food and Starbucks. “Are you sure we’ll be okay?” Wanda asks, raising an eyebrow.
Natasha shrugs, “worst come to worst we’ll just send Bruce in to fuck shit up and use that time to get Tony out of wherever he is,” she says, looking at Tony’s location on a map JARVIS sent over. She had to compare that with blueprints of the HYDRA building, one that had thankfully been in S.H.I.E.L.D databases. Bruce looks nervous about this potential hulking out but he remains silent about it. They didn’t use him often, being the hulk took its toll on Bruce’s mental health and none of them were willing to risk that if they could help it. But this was a medical emergency.
Bruce understood.
She was good, always had been, it was why they kept her. She was fucking ruthless and when she chose to she was a single minded force of destruction that no one in their right minds would want to cross. She was Black Widow and she was a legend people told stories about to their children at night or a reason. HYDRA really should have known that when they only sent a small team to try and take her out. She made quick work of them and walked on, not caring if Loki and Wanda were following. They could take care of themselves, Wanda was by no means helpless, and Loki would be returned within hours if someone was dumb enough to kidnap him.
She made quick work of the second team too, leaving a trail of HYDRA agents in her wake as she all but walked down the hallway. She’s almost to the end of the hallway when Bucky almost runs into her, glancing down the hallway, back to her, and back to the hallway again. “Holy shit,” he whispers, “you did this yourself?” he asks.
“And another small team a few hallways back, are you intent on joining them?” she asks sweetly, raising an eyebrow.
Bucky takes a step back, “fuck no, I’m just here for Steve,” he says. She decides to ignore him, sort of; she was paying attention to his footsteps, particularly when they started following behind her.
“And you are going where, exactly?” she asks. According to her maps she was only a few hallways and a left turn away from Tony.
“A few hallways ahead and to the left if that HYDRA agent I kicked the shit out of is to be believed,” he says and Nat stops for a second.
“Shit!” she yells and takes off running, Wanda, Loki, and Bucky all behind her.
“What! What did I miss?” Bucky asks.
“Oh fuck off,” Loki snarls and she hears skin on skin, presumably Loki picking a fight, and she hears a body that’s too heavy to be Loki hit the ground. Go Loki.
Bucky picks himself up quickly, still yelling about missing something and they all ignore him, having found the link Bucky apparently missed. They expect to walk in on a rather nasty scene but what they find instead is Tony, slumped against the wall half curled in on himself while Steve tries to keep him awake by asking him stupid questions across the cell. The guy didn’t even look phased and Tony smelled pleasant to Natasha and she by no means had any sort of attraction to Tony Stark. It was… unexpected when she knew he had control issues to say the least.
And Tony, he looked irritated with Steve’s antics and was trying to flip himself over so he was facing away from Steve and therefore telling him the conversation was over. The glass paneling of the front of the cell probably would have held her back a few minutes but Wanda pretty much vaporizes the wall and Loki beats them all into the room, moving at a speed Natasha had previously thought impossible for him.
He holds out his hands in front of Tony and they inexplicably start to grow ice over his fingers. Wanda is the first to react, “not too cold,” she says, “or you’ll shock his system,” she kneels next to Loki and waves her hand by his head, “do you mind?” she asks. Loki shrugs and Wanda waves her hand by his head, his eyes temporarily going red before settling back to their normal blue and the ice drops off his hands, presumably because Wanda was now controlling the temperature.
Steve, she noticed, picks his way along the edge of the room and exits the cell, promptly shoving Bucky out too. Bucky looks over his shoulder and Steve gives him another rough shove and then their gone.
Getting out was easy enough, easier than getting in, but them Wanda was happily tossing HYDRA agents at walls while Natasha and Loki made an awkward attempt to carry Tony while Loki tried to use some sort of ice power no one even knew he had ten minutes before to cool Tony down some.
Bruce meets them at the door, fidgeting with his sweater sleeves, obviously anxious, “it he okay?” he asks.
Natasha sighs, “mostly, thank god, and thankfully these people are more disorganized than we are at the moment otherwise this wouldn’t have been half as easy.” Bucky seemed to have provided an unintentional distraction having broken in when they had, and he was obviously capable given he didn’t look very bruised when she had come across him.
“Are you alright?” Bruce asks, touching her left cheek.
She leans away from his touch, “fine,” she says as she and Loki maneuver Tony into the back seat of the car they took. When she gets into the driver’s seat she looks at herself in the mirror and finds she has a pretty nasty cut along her cheek, and her eye was bruised though not badly. She didn’t even know when that happened.
HYDRA agents get their shit together long enough to take a couple shots at them as they leave but nothing comes of it and she’s pretty sure Wanda tosses them around too.