Chapter 1
“Iron Man, head over to the southern border of the perimeter. You need to get the civilians out of there asap,” Steve’s voice rang clear through the comms into Tony’s HUD. He’d been scanning the streets from the sky for more casualties, but everything seemed clear here.
“Sure thing, Capsicle. Where do I go?” he asked as he flew up and emerged above the high-rise buildings of Manhattan. The HUD showed him the map of the perimeter they had secured. The damage, thankfully, was maintained within an area of three by four blocks. He’d been wrapping up on the northern side of the area.
“Oh, you’ll notice,” Steve said ominously, but Tony saw what he meant straight away. As he shot closer to the southern border, he could see plumes of smoke rising from one of the lower buildings. The HUD showed him information on the building, seemingly an office building for some social media company. He resisted the impulse to sigh. That could make or break the story of the attack for days to come. At the very least, ‘HYDRA’ would probably rally public opinion behind the Avengers. Yay. Crossing the distance quickly, he stopped to hover in the sky in front of the building.
“Jarvis, what can you tell me?” he asked his AI as his eyes roved over the building, reading the HUD's intel but not getting a very clear picture.
“It appears that some of the debris from the original explosion managed to find its way into the building, Sir. It has caused a minor fire on the upper floor of the building. However, it seems the elevators have stopped working.”
Tony nodded, thinking quickly. He hummed into the HUD, “So, the other floors are good, right? I just need to get the people out. Has the fire department been notified yet?”
“Certainly, sir, although I can imagine they’re quite busy at the moment,” came the dry response in posh British.
“Don’t sass me, Jarvis, or I’ll sell you to one of these influencers. Just get the fire department here, I’ll get these people out.”
“If I could, I would be begging on my knees for mercy, sir.”
“Ha ha,” Tony replied drily as he readied to propel himself through the window that had already been smashed by the projectile. The HUD showed him there were 13 people on the upper floor. Glancing to his left, he could see the building where it all began – the HYDRA base – and he could see Steve fighting on the street below him. He knew Clint and Natasha were hunting down the rest of the Hydra goons somewhere behind him. Bruce was still at the tower, but ready to get into the field if necessary and Thor- Thor was God-knows-where.
“Going in now. Legolas, Nat, what’s your status?” he asked as he fired the repulsors to get him inside. Within seconds, he found himself in an office with a weird amount of neon signs barking inspiring quotes at him. ‘Good vibes only’? Yeah, right. He huffed out a laugh as he focused on what he could see. Most of the space where he landed was clear of smoke, and he could see that the employees were huddled together in the corner with, unsurprisingly, their phones out to film him. As he filtered out the ‘it’s Iron Man!’s, he heard his teammates’ replies coming in.
“I’m all wrapped up here, heading back to HYDRA’s nest to help the Captain,” Clint said, disgust colouring his voice.
“Me too, I’m just waiting for the NYPD to take these guys in, I’ll be right over,” Natasha panted into the comms.
Good, that meant most of the damage had been done and it had been limited to minor losses. He heard the Captain reply something along the same lines to the two spies, before asking about Tony’s status.
“Nothing too bad, here. I’m getting these professional over-sharers out of here before they forget about the fire because of me,” he said as he walked over to the fire that he could now see. He heard Clint snicker over the comms while Nat hummed approvingly. The smoke was heavier on this side of the room, and he could see a piece of aflame debris burning into the carpet on the floor, with most of the surrounding workspaces also engulfed in flames. A neon-yellow sign telling him to ‘shine bright like a diamond’ flickered sadly at him. He raised his right hand slightly at the general area.
“You know what do to, Jarvis.”
A stream of white foam sprayed out of the palm of his hand, instantly blanketing the area that was on fire. He sprayed until there was a generous blanket of white covering the room, deciding that would hold the fire until actual emergency services could get here. He turned on his feet and walked toward the employees in the corner and rolled his eyes to himself. They’d better get his good side on the headlines tonight.
He opened his arms in a ‘who first’ gesture and started hoisting the employees out one by one, not really in a hurry, as it seemed the fight was over and the danger had been contained. Satisfaction bloomed in his chest. They’d done well this time. The team had been shaken when the anonymous tip had come in on the tip-line that Tony had set up after The Battle. The tip mentioned a hidden HYDRA base in the middle of the financial district, right under their noses. They had decided to raid the base themselves, as they would be better equipped to deal with the fallout than NYPD, which had proven to be the right call. After storming the base, they’d found more agents than expected, and the ones that had managed to crawl out wanted to go out with a blast. Literally. Explosives had gone off in multiple buildings around them, taking good chunks of the road with them. Emergency services, which had kindly been alerted by the Avengers, had been on the scene to do most of the damage control and first aid, so the team could focus on bringing all the guys in as quickly as possible. Which they had managed quite well.
He put the last of the young influencers down on the street and flew off in a chorus of cheers from the group. He landed briefly to explain the situation to some firefighters nearby, before he took off again and crossed the remaining distance to the HYDRA base. Most of the front of the building had been blown out by the initial blasts, so he simply headed into the building before landing gently on the first floor where he saw a flurry of activity. As he marched over he saw Steve, Clint and Natasha all eyeing the happenings in the room. NYPD were ushering the captured HYDRA-agents out in groups and Tony let out a breath of relief before calling out to the others.
“Go team!” At that, the three of them turned around to face him, slight smiles breaking out on their faces as well.
“Park the can, you savage, I’m not talking to a blob of metal,” Clint challenged and Tony choked down a laugh while he did as he was told. As he exited the suit, telling Jarvis to put it in Sentry mode, he felt the heat of the smouldering debris around him. The grey undersuit felt comfortably cool against his skin. He sauntered over to them and raised his brow at Clint.
“You seem awfully chipper for someone who just fought their ex,” he quipped back. Clint barely seemed fazed at his comment and had just opened his mouth to engage in another verbal battle of quick wit, but was stopped by Steve.
“Right. All in all, it seems the mission went quite well.” Tony inclined his head, agreeing with him. He eyed the three agents in front of him and they all seemed mostly unharmed.
“We should have a look around, see if we can find anything of value here,” Steve commanded and Tony eagerly nodded his assent.
“Yes, please. I wanna get my hands on their crappy tech,” he said as he flexed and unflexed his fingers. The four of them walked past the burning remains of the break room they’d been standing in and headed over to the stairwell on their left where most of the police agents were coordinating the arrests as smoothly as possible. They’d initially began the attack here, and knew from the blueprints that HYDRA only possessed the first few floors of the building. They resumed walking and entered a long hallway to the right lined with doors. Some of those had also been blasted out. They opened door after door, not finding any more spies or anything that seemed of interest until they reached one of the last doors. Tony let out a triumphant laugh as he spotted the screens inside.
“You guys go ahead and check the other floors, Daddy’s going to work these babies.” Clint’s face contorted with a disgusted glare and while Natasha raised an eyebrow at him, she nodded and left. Steve just nodded curtly and pulled Clint with him.
As he entered the room, he turned around and commanded his suit, “Watch my back.”
The room itself was not that interesting. It was nothing more than a simple room, if quite spacious, lined front to back with TV-screens showing CCTV-images and computers. As far as evil lairs went, this one wasn’t that impressive. He grabbed one of the office chairs and rolled it towards the computer, dropping down onto the chair and pulling himself closer to the computer. He retrieved a USB from his pocket and inserted it into the side before writing the code that would copy all the files on the system onto his system. As he scanned through the files he opened on the screen, he felt disappointment flash through him as nothing of interest popped up. Nothing new, at least. Lists of names and objectives that they and SHIELD already knew about. There was a pop-up on the bottom of the screen and he leaned in closer to read it. His eyes widened and his heart leapt into his throat as he jumped up out of the chair and sprinted back towards the hallway with a shout.
“Jarvis!”
Immediately, the suit’s front started to open, mechanisms clicking and whirring as Tony dove for the suit. At the last second, he whipped back around as he remembered the USB in the computer. Stupid mistake.
The screens in front of him exploded and shattered glass and machinery scattered everywhere, jagged pieces shooting straight towards him. He couldn’t hold a pained grunt as he felt the shards slide across his skin before he felt the suit closing around him from behind. He fell to the ground, back hitting the floor, rattling his body and head slamming back as white-hot pain exploded over his chest. He screamed as he felt a line of what seemed like fire slice his chest in two. His breaths came out in pained gasps as he tried to ride out the sharp sensation of the new injury, eyes clenched shut.
Self-destruct. Of course. Awfully smart, considering.
He felt blood running down his side, pooling on his back, reminding him to get up. He realised that Jarvis had been calling his name, the HUD showing Jarvis’ diagnosis to him.
“Sir! Sir? Are you alright?” Tony could hear the obvious worry in the tone of his AI, while he managed to get his legs back under him and stand up, albeit a bit unsteady.
“Jarvis, open the suit, open the chest. I need to see it,” he ordered with a voice that was surprisingly cool.
Without a reply, the helmet was pulled away and he looked down as the suit was opened at his chest. Now the adrenaline was fading, he felt the sharp pulses of pain in time with his heartbeat. He stuttered out a breath as he saw the wound on his chest. An ugly line of red ran from his left shoulder to the arc reactor, the glass seemingly having been stopped by the casing in his ribs. Crimson blood seeped out of it, despite the wound not seeming too deep at first sight. His fingers came up to prod at it, and he hissed as he saw how the skin gaped in the area under his collarbone. All in all, it could’ve been much worse and it was not the worst he’d ever had. Just hurt like a bitch.
He looked up as he heard commotion coming from the direction of the stairway. The suit was already closing when he saw Steve running up to him, the two spies right on his heel. Steve skidded to a halt right in front of him, only sparing a glance into the room that had just tried to kill Tony.
“Tony! Shit, are you okay?” the Captain asked him worriedly.
“Language,” Tony berated him half-heartedly, gut twisting at the worry he saw in his friend’s eyes.
He heard and felt the knock on his suit as Clint stepped closer.
“Open the suit, idiot. Are you hurt?” Clint asked him with genuine concern in his voice.
Well, yes. But he wasn’t going to tell them that. They’d had enough worries for one day. He opened the face-plate, the helmet neatly folding back into the suit, leaving his entire head exposed. He flashed a grin at them. Natasha’s eyes bore into his.
“Just some scratches, I’m fine, I called the suit to me in time.”
He could see the others didn’t entirely believe him, so he decided to quickly side-step. He gestured into the room, now covered in debris.
“I lost the data. Kinda blew the USB before I could get it back. It didn’t seem like there was any new information on there, but still, I’m sorry,” he admitted his defeat gingerly. The two spies both stepped into the room, looking around. Tony dared a look at the Captain.
Steve slowly dragged his eyes away from Tony’s face, looking into the office, before snapping them back to his face. His eyes narrowed in suspicion, probably zeroing in on the cuts that Tony could feel on his forehead and cheek, and crossed his arms. Tony nearly fidgeted under his stare, but held fast. He couldn’t let on about his second mistake here. It had been such a good day for him, too!
“That’s alright. I’m glad you’re okay,” Steve admitted to him, voice gentle despite the mistrust still in his eyes.
“We didn’t find anything either on the other floors, so we should probably head back to the Tower, okay? I can check you over once we’re there, see if you missed anything.”
And if that didn’t feel like a punch to his stomach. Tony stared back into Steve’s eyes, taken off guard by the genuine care he found there and he nearly spilled his gut then and there. He actually wouldn’t mind too much if Steve patched him up back at the tower, but this injury just felt… different. Vulnerable, he supposed. He swallowed around a dry mouth as he was reminded of the arc reactor deeply embedded into his chest. He’d rather not have Steve poke and prod at it if he allowed the other man to patch him up. They knew about it, of course. But they’d never actually seen it. He didn’t want them to look at him differently after they had. And they would look at him differently. Looking at Steve now, the emotion displayed freely in his eyes… no, he did not want that to change.
He forced himself to breathe calmly and he smiled back gently at Steve as he told him, “Thanks for the offer, Worrywart, but I’ll be fine. I’m gonna fly back now. See you there?”
He went to stalk past Steve into the hallway, but he was stopped when he firmly grabbed his arm. He looked sideways at him, another moment of silence passing between them as neither of them commented on the sheer openness of the look. Tony had to fight a gulp. Then, Steve let his arm drop away.
“Okay, Tony. I’ll see you there. I trust you, okay? But you can still ask for my help later, the offer still stands, alright? Take care of yourself.”
Tony nodded and when Steve looked back into the room, probably to find Nat and Clint, he used the opportunity to escape from the situation and left the building. Damn his heart for skipping a beat.