The Assassin pt. 2
2 and half an hour later…
Budapest Ferenc Liszt International Airport
Tony was pacing on the floor back and forth for the last 5 minutes in the passengers row. His uncle came and peaked his head out of the room, shooting him with an annoyed look. “Tony, why don’t you sit down? I can hear you from a mile away.”
“It’s not my fault you have an enhanced hearing, “ he snapped.
He knew it was the wrong thing to say the second the words came out of his mouth, but by then, James had put on his mask.
“I’m sorry if I was worried about my godson, “ he replied coolly.
Tony sighed, combing his hair with a hand. “’m sorry James. I’m just worried about Robin Hood. It’s not like him to be late.”
He knew Birdbrain and he knew how punctual the man was in regards to missions. The spy might be the worst person ever when it came to be in time but he took his job very seriously. And since the man had been like 20 minutes late, Tony reserved the rights to be worry about his safety.
“Then call him, “ the ex-assassin took a seat and patted the seat in front of him, motioning for the billionaire to sit down as well.
“I have, “ he sat down, tapping his fingers on his knuckles. “It was disconnected. He didn’t even check in with me yet.”
“Okay, maybe I can help you if you tell me about it?”
“No, I can’t, “ Tony sighed. “This is a SHIELD problem and I can’t involve you back into SHIELD’s shit.”
“I literary signed up to help you do what I helped SHIELD to do for half a decade, kleiner junge (Germany), “ he deadpanned.
“Yeah, but…”
“Just tell me and maybe I can help you, my dear boy, “ he put his hand on Tony’s knee, giving him a ‘I’m the grown up here. Let me help you’ look.
Physically, Uncle James might looked like he was in his 30’s, just like his dad, but his godfather was 88 years old and since he was brought home by Tony’s family in 1991, he would be around 45 years old now, not excluding the times he was unfrozen to do HYDRA’s bidding.
Sometimes, people forgot how old he was with the way he look, but at times like this, his expression and eyes really mirrored how old his soul was and how much he had been through in life.
“Okay, “ he said reluctantly. “But I didn’t break my promise to him because I wanted to, okay? He was late and as a good friend, I’m worried. Especially with his tendency to pick up strays and see the best in people, even if it was some Russian spy chick. Dear Isolt, I talked too much.”
Uncle James just watched him with an amused expression on his face and motioned for him to continue.
After that he told his uncle about the minim information he received from Clint about his mission and his target (ex-target) and how he helped the Russian chick ran away from SHIELD to do something as crazy as trying to recruit the dangerous assassin.
“Well, then you should find any information about this Romanoff, “ James suggested.
“Yeah, but I promise him not to hack SHIELD…” then an idea struck him. “But Laura would be more pissed if I didn’t try to do anything at all if somehow her husband was really in danger. And between those two, I’m more scared of Laura.”
“I’ll make coffee while you find his location, “ James stood up before walking away to the jet’s kitchen.
The CEO didn’t care who Black Widow was but if she did anything to his friend, he would wipe her digitally and physically. Nobody would ever find her body or the traces of her existence. No one.
He walked to his holographic computer on the desk in his bedroom. When he sat down, J immediately welcomed him and as fast as his fingers could tap on the keyboard, Tony hacked into SHIELD and searched for the mission file.
“Ah, here it is. Mission handler Jasper Sitwell. Team members Clint Barton aka Hawkeye, blah blah blah… Ah, there’s the last sighting of their location,” he murmured.
With his hologram desktop, Tony was able to open another screen with a swift of his hand. With J’s help, he was able to trace Clint’s current location and found out that the safe house was on fire and surrounded by fire department as about 15 minutes ago.
“That’s not good, “ James vocally sounded Tony’s own concern behind him, slowly putting a cup of black coffee on his desk.
“Yeah, “ Tony frowned, thinking hard and started hacking the CCTV in the city and let J opened a search perimeter of where they could possibly ran to and who has been chasing after them.
As much as he didn’t like Fury, he knew from agent agent that the director wasn’t one for big shebang. He upheld the same standard in his organization. Subtle and quiet as a church mouse, that’s how he wanted his agents to act. And after what Barton did, Fury must have ranted this agent Sitwell a lot about being discreet and unassuming.
And on the account of Fury’s conversation transcript to Sitwell, Tony knew this wasn’t them. It must have been somebody else. Somebody who wanted the Black Widow as well. And as if the answer wasn’t clear enough, J pinged on HYDRA activities in the city.
Apparently, SHIELD wasn’t the only one looking for her. While his father’s organization made an order to eliminate her, the enemy wanted to recruit and brainwash her to be the replacement of their HYDRA first.
“Seriously?!” Tony groaned, narrowing his eyes at the screen. “We just dealt with these goons a few hours ago.”
“Are those HYDRA?” James asked with a hint of amusement.
“Yeah, they’re chasing after Robin Hood and the spider, “ Tony tried to find the breadcrumbs Clint possibly left for him to find. “
“Spider?”
“Yeah, Natasha Romanoff. Her spy name name is black widow, like the spider, “ Tony huffed. “Shit, I think they found them. “Seriously, could they be anymore cliché with the whole black SUV. It was such a typical bad guy transportation.”
The genius furiously typing on his holographic keyboard, searching for the destination of that HYDRA SUV. “Hah! Found them. We’re going to save Lady Marian.”
It might not be a wise decision to save his friend with the suit, but he could obliviate him later and put a false memory charm on him. It’s best to save the man’s ass first from Nazi ordo.
“Appertum, “ with a swift of his hand, a dimensional hole appeared, “ accio suit, “ and produced his iron man suit into his bedroom.
When he was working as SI’s head of R and D, Tony found a way to transfer the workings of his wand into another thing. At first he used a ring as a channel of his magic until he realized that he looked a bit girly in it especially with his short stature, so he used a watch.
He needed to tinker a little bit with it since he had to fuse it with a wristwatch, which was a tech, but it worked. His watch didn’t just work as a smart watch and wand but it also could be activated into a gauntlet. It was also unbreakable and removable only by him with an addition that his magic could only be activated with his voice.
“Since it’s HYDRA, do you want to join in, uncle James?” Tony turned around to look at the man.
James was frozen and looked as white as sheet.
“Black Widow,” he said with a blank expression on his face. His eyes though, they were stormy with emotions.
“Uncle James, what is it?” Tony asked, worried filled his voice. “Did you know her?”
The older man shook his head minutely and quietly told him,” Did you remember the secret that I told you before?”
“Does she has something to do wit ‘it’?”
“A little,” the photographer stood up, turning away from Tony to avoid looking at him. “It’s about… I missed a year worth of memory from my time as the winter soldier. From 89-90.”
“What?” He jumped from his seat at the news. “But I thought the healer at St. Agnes have undo everything HYDRA did to you.”
“I know. At first, I didn’t think much about it. But ever since I retired from SHIELD, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. There was a hole in my memory, so I tried to find out about Winter Soldier’s missions, “ James sat down on the bed. “It wasn’t easy so I asked JARVIS to help. And we found out something about the Red Room half a year ago when we raided that HYDRA base in Colombia.”
“Red Room?”
“It’s like HYDRA but they didn’t digitized their files, so there’s not many things JARVIS could find on them.”
Tony made a disgusting face at that. “It’s the era of tech, people. Be more respectful.”
Ignoring his godson, he continued. “The winter soldier was being rented to Red Room for a year but there was no further information about the organization. But I found new intel on today’s HYDRA data. There were something about the Black Widow program. It’s connected to the Red Room.”
“Let’s go then, “ Tony put his suit on. “We found Clint and the lady assassin and then you can interrogate the black widow and found out about what you were doing in Red Room and how did you miss your memory for a year. Then I will obliviate her.”
As an answer, Uncle James unpacked his suit case.
***
Outside an abandoned brick warehouse somewhere in Budapest…
J had put the video vid outside the warehouse on loop so that James could take out the guards quietly. Tony helped carry the guards somewhere and hid them.
“So, I’m going to…”
Before Tony could finish his sentences, his uncle said, “ I will watch from the roof.”
The ex-spy took out a pair of knives before running towards the warehouse, stepping his foot on the wall to walk, jabbing both knives on the bricks and began climbing the walls like… ironically Climbing wall, the sport.
Tony mumbled inside his iron man helmet, “ Show-off.”
After turning the cloaking device on, he charmed the door to open and quietly closing it behind him. Inside the warehouse, there were HYDRA agents in black body armors aiming their machine guns at the two people standing on guard in the middle of the big room.
One of them was Clint and he didn’t look so good. His face was black blue and even his left cheek has started to swollen. His right arm has been shot and leaving a flesh wound behind but his left leg has been shot through and through.
Next to him was a red-headed woman in her early 20’s. She looked quite fine besides from the obvious swollen on her cheek and a cut on her upper lip. She was wearing a catsuit that showed her figure nicely… Shut up, Tony! Not now, he ranted himself.
Then one by one the nazi agents started falling with bullet holes in their heads and now all the guns were directed towards the roof. They began firing at the glass rooftop. While they were distracted, Tony started firing with his gauntlets.
He got three of them before some of them began firing in his direction. Thank Merlin, Clint and the spider used the distraction to run away. One of bad guys saw the two of them getting away and aimed his gun at the red head.
Out of nowhere, James appeared and grabbed the gun. He hit him with it before sweeping the man’s feet in a matter of second. Then he moved his head to avoid the knife coming at him from the back. James grabbed his opponent’s elbow and flipped the man until his back hit the concrete. And after, he elbowed the man on his face and used his gun to shoot another man in front of him.
Tony knew that his uncle could handle himself, but he still worried sometimes. Then more bullets hit his armor, so he charged those men with his suit and sent the to the land of unconsciousness.
After all the men were down, as per usual, J called the authorities and Tony asked him to clue the SHIELD team in on the location of the HYDRA goons as well. It would throw their chase over Clint and his chick friend.
Iron man hoped they went to the airport immediately. And thinking about them arriving first put Tony into a panicked mode. “Winter, come on. Hurry up, we need to be there before the assassin duo.”
He pushed James outside and apparated with him into the jet’s bedroom. Tony immediately got out of his suit and kept it in his dimensional pocket hole. When he turned around, his uncle has finished packing his costume into his carry-on.
“Look good?” He asked his uncle, fingering his hair and tidied up his shirt.
“I think I am, “ the older man tied up his hair into a bun.
Tony cocked an eyebrow, giving him a look. “I mean me.”
His answer was a shrug; thus, Tony rolled his eyes at him. After checking that everything was fine and that nothing looked out of place, the wizard took his coffee and sip it. It was a bad decision since he cringed at the taste of cold coffee. From behind him, James looked over and commented, “ Cold?”
“Good coffee is hot black coffee. Hot, “ he emphasized and squinted at the coffee, like it had mocked him with its existence.
“Good coffee is drinkable coffee. Whether it’s hot or cold, “ James sat on the bed and shrugged. “I learnt that at war. You have to accept what you have because that’s the only luxury you can get.”
“Maybe it was like that at war in the past, uncle James, “ he sighed. “The future is filled with great wonderful stuff, like hot black coffee. Hot.”
Then he put his cup down and asked him, “ So how do we play this?”
The wheels on James’ brain started to turn around, “ I’ll come out after the jet is on air.”
“Genius, “ Tony snapped his finger. “By then, she can’t run away from the plane because we’ll be on the air. Okay then. You just stay here and let me wait for them outside.”
Tony closed the door behind him then taken a seat while sipping his bitter cold coffee. Maybe I had time to warm the coffee back, he thought to himself.
As he casted a warming charm on his coffee, Robin Hood and his friend sat down in front of him. And as if this was the first time he saw his friend looking terrible today, he immediately asked his pilots to fly the jet after door was closed.
When they were up in the sky safe and sound fifteen minutes later, Tony suddenly stood up which prompted the widow to tense up.
Feeling offended, Tony said, “ I have a first aid kit box here somewhere. I’m just going to take it.”
“You didn’t look surprised, “ the woman commented. Tony noted that there was no Russian accent in her English. “At his injuries.”
“Being friends with him, I tend to not be surprised at the scrapes or wounds of the day, “ he lifted both his shoulders nonchalantly.
“Forgive my friend, Stark. We’ve just been kidnapped by HYDRA, “ Clint answered in a mumble. “I think I lose a tooth.”
“Is that why you and your friend were late?” The genius came back with the box and put it on the seat next to him. He asked calmly, “So what happened?”
“We were ambushed, “ he grumbled. “But we managed to escape though.”
Clint’s lady friend’s informed him, “The winter soldier and ghost came. They were a good distraction.”
“The who now?” Tony didn’t need to pretend to be surprised, since he was surprised. Not at the rescuing, but at the alias that came after winter soldier. His alias, apparently.
“The winter soldier and the ghost… You didn’t hack SHIELD?” He looked at Tony incredulously. “They were quite famous these past two years.”
“I have other important things to do, like being a CEO and inventing new things, “ the genius raised an eyebrow at his friend.
“The winter soldier, well you met him before. But the ghost, he was a new guy. At first, we thought that the soldier was back working with his old employer after his retirement from SHIELD and with new costume, but apparently, he was continuing his vengeance towards his old employer and even got a new partner… Ouch,“ the archer gave him the stink eye.
“Big baby, “ Tony smirked at him and kept cleaning his friend’s leg. “So this new partner. Ghost? Why do you call him that?”
“He’s invisible, packed big punches and not many alive have seen his solid form, “ he said in conspiratorial tone. “And the ones who did, said that the ghost was a robot made of black metal.”
“Huh. Interesting.”
“You would have loved that, “ Hawkeye snickered. “Checking on the workings of the robot or something. I wonder where the soldier find his new partner. The man was formidable, but with his new partner, they were unstoppable.”
“The real winter soldier is dead. That soldier was a fake, “ Romanoff spat out.
“I told you, he’s the real deal. He worked with us good guys for 5 years. And you saw him just now, “ Clint huffed. “He’s very much alive and well.”
“He might fight like him, but the real soldier is dead. I know, “ she looked up from her hands and narrowed her eyes at Tony with so much hatred. “because he was killed by your parents.”
Then the assassin chick suddenly put a small knife onto Tony’s jugular. “You don’t want to do this, ms. Romanoff.”
Clint tensed up. There was a warning in his voice when he said, “ Don’t think about it, widow. If you do this, I will do what I was ordered to do. And you don’t want to make an enemy of the Starks and SHIELD.”
“Your parents killed him, “ she growled.
“No, they didn’t, “ he said calmly. Tony trusted his dad’s talisman to protect him from mortal dangers such as this. “They saved him.”
“You lied, “ she hissed. “ I read the file mission. I knew how the mighty soldat failed to assassinate the Starks 14 years ago. He never came back.”
“Because my parents saved him, “ Tony repeated peevishly. “He was saved. By my parents. Now stop making me feel like a broken record.”
Then suddenly she changed the subject.
“Someone is behind that door, “ the woman hissed in suspicion at the door, which were located two seats behind Tony. “Come out.”
“It’s just Stark’s uncle, widow. He’s harmless. A civilian, “ the agent told her calmly, as if talking to a spook animal. A spook widow…spider.
“Come out, “ she said, almost to the point of yelling.
The door to the bedroom opened. His uncle has his hands up in surrender. “Please put down your knife. I don’t want you to hurt…”
“Yasha?”
***