Where Are We?
20XX, UNDISCLOSED LOCATION
Anthony Edward Stark woke up with a strangled gasp, immediately feeling a throbbing weight press down on the back of his skull. He felt like he was facing the onset of a head-splitting hangover born of a night filled with downing too many shots and making too many mistakes. A rasping, guttural groan tore out of his throat as he sat up, one hand instinctively reaching up to massage his head in an attempt to ease the growing headache.
What the hell happened? he wondered, eyes still closed. As far as he knew, he hadn’t gone on a devastating liquor splurge in quite some time. Searching his brain for answers, he probed his memories carefully; the last thing he remembered was watching the Hulk slam the God of Mischief into the ground like a ragdoll and then...
Tony wrenched his eyes open in a panic, the pain lining his muscles and his lack of awareness of his own location reminding him all too eerily of Afghanistan. Did we lose? Did Loki do something? As soon as he had his eyes open, Tony frantically searched his surroundings, quickly taking in where he was and who was with him.
The first few people he spotted were the other five Avengers, Director Fury, Agent Hill –– and Loki himself. The sight of Loki made Tony freeze for a moment, the phantom terror of free-falling from his tower balcony returning to him in a rush. However, he quickly realized that Loki—just like the other Avengers and the SHIELD representatives—was sprawled out on the floor unconscious, which eased his worries slightly.
Tony frowned. As relieved as he was to find out that Loki clearly couldn’t have been behind this, the revelation didn’t help answer any of his questions. He picked himself up off the floor, swallowing down a strangled gasp when his whole body shrieked in pain, and twisted around slowly, eyes greedily drinking in his surroundings.
Aside from the first eight people he found, Tony could see a number of others scattered throughout the room. His eyes widened in surprise when he easily recognized Pepper, Rhodey and Happy to be among the crowd. What the...? Why are they here? Are they hurt?
He forced himself to set his concerns for them aside for the moment as he scanned the rest of the people. In one corner of the room, a group of seven people were gathered: two Africans—a man and a teenage girl—a brunet with a metal arm ( wait, METAL? Am I dreaming? Tony wondered to himself), a young woman with wavy auburn hair, a dark-skinned man in a heavy brown coat, another brunet dressed in flannel, and strangely enough, a red-skinned ( seriously, RED skin? I must be going insane ) humanoid in a cape.
In another corner laid three teenagers along with his bodyguard and longtime friend, Happy. For some reason, Happy was located all the way to the side of the room, a ways away from Pepper and Rhodey who were on their own and lying closer to Tony’s own group. The teenagers didn’t look like anything special—Tony had to wonder why they were here, too, amidst superheroes and super-spies and, apparently, men with metal arms and red skin. Two of the kids, a girl with curly hair and a heavyweight boy with possibly Filipino roots, looked as if they had just come from school, what with their casual t-shirts and book bags. The third teenager, on the other hand, looked worse for wear: his hair was unkempt and matted with blood, his pale skin was bruised in odd places, and he was dressed messily in a pair of ripped jeans and a bloodied hoodie.
Jesus, Tony thought to himself, a pang of worry shooting through him despite himself, what on Earth happened to that kid?
Tony was drawn out of his sympathy by a muttered curse a few feet away from him. He jerked back to alertness, eyes swiveling back around only to come face-to-face with Natasha Romanoff regaining consciousness.
“Tony?” Natasha blinked once, then twice. Her eyes narrowed as if she had just processed their current situation. “What happened? Where are we?” she demanded in quick succession.
“No idea,” Tony replied, “and, uh, no idea for the second question, too.”
Natasha rolled her eyes at him, visibly unimpressed. “Who else is here?”
Tony shrugged and waved grandly at the space around them as if to say, Take a look for yourself. When she arched an impatient eyebrow at him, however, he was quick to answer, “The rest of the Avengers, some of your SHIELD friends, and funnily enough Loki, are all here. There are also some other people who weren’t involved in the battle against Loki—I saw Pepper, Rhodey and Happy, but I didn’t recognize anyone else.”
Natasha hummed, finally tearing her eyes away from him to inspect their surroundings on her own. “Why are there kids here?” she muttered, quietly enough that Tony figured she hadn’t meant for him to hear. He spared her a quick glance and was surprised to find that her gaze was still fixated on the three teenagers, her lips pursed and her eyes tight at the corners.
Tony wisely decided not to mention it.
Natasha sighed, then, her eyes locking with his again. “Considering all of the couches and the large TV, I’m going to take a wild guess and say we’re in some sort of home theatre. The room’s certainly big, but not enough to be a public cinema. The TV is definitely here for a reason, though.”
Tony nodded. “How did we all even get here?” he grumbled. “A theatre is not exactly the first place I’d think of when I imagine a kidnapping, but...”
“Whoever took us here, they were powerful enough to render two Asgardian gods and the Hulk unconscious,” Natasha warned. “The theatre may look friendly, but just remember that looks can be deceiving.”
“You can say that again,” Tony agreed with a frown, mind unwillingly flashing back to Obadiah Stane, who’d taken his trust and torn it to shreds. “Wait a second,” he blinked, straightening up as Natasha’s words sank in fully. “Bruce is back to being, well, Bruce again.”
“Clearly,” Natasha remarked dryly. “What’s your point?”
Tony shrugged, eyes lingering on the doctor. “I’m just wondering what our kidnappers’ motive could be. They captured us all, and yet they took the time to replace Bruce’s pants.”
“Maybe they just want everyone to be dressed, Tony,” Natasha pointed out, exasperated. “Just be glad we don’t have to deal with a Dr. Banner who is naked, okay?”
“Sure,” Tony agreed dubiously. “Well,”—he heaved a sigh—“we’re clearly getting nowhere. We should probably just wait until everyone else wakes up.”
“You go do that,” Natasha huffed, leaping to her feet. “I’ll try find a way out. There’s no way I’m going to just sit here twiddling my thumbs.”
Tony rolled his eyes and flipped her the bird. “We can’t all be super-spies!” he called out after her, before wandering over to one of the velvet-lined couches. He sank into the cushion, exhaling a breath of relief as his aching muscles were finally given a moment of rest.
Eventually, a few minutes later, the other four Avengers slowly woke up, with Fury and Hill soon following suit. Tony noticed they were no longer unconscious and quickly rejoined them, filling them all in on the situation before anyone could panic.
Fury, unsurprisingly, was the most displeased with the turn of events among them, his gaze growing darker with every word Tony said. “How the hell did anyone get to me or Agent Hill?” he demanded. “I understand the rest of you; you were all at Stark Tower, which—you have to admit, Stark—is a goddamn beacon for villains. But Hill and I were both in a highly secure location—”
“I don’t know how they were able to locate you two, but I doubt it’s by any normal means,” Natasha interrupted, sliding into the conversation at the same time as she slipped back into their corner. “What’s important now is motive. We have no idea what our captors took us for, and until we find out, we can’t make any moves. Besides, I haven't been able to find any doors or even windows that could lead to an exit, so the only thing we can do now is wait.”
“So you’re saying we’re sitting ducks now?” Fury glared. “Oh, I’m sorry, allow me to rephrase. We’re sitting ducks and we’re trapped in a room with Thor’s wayward brother.”
Thor coughed awkwardly. “Yes, that is... unfortunate, to say the least,” he admitted. “But without his scepter or the Tesseract, Loki shouldn’t be nearly as difficult to subdue.”
“I see your faith in me is as shallow as ever, dear brother,” the familiar voice of the God of Mischief drawled. The Avengers, Fury and Hill all tensed in sync, collectively whirling around to find him already awake and casually sitting cross-legged on the floor near them. His posture in and of itself clearly telegraphed his nonchalance and apathy in regards to the entire situation, and he was smirking far too smugly for a man who’d just been downed. “You should know better than to underestimate me by now.”
“And you should know better than to underestimate us,” Thor retorted boldly, a vicious snarl on his face. There was no hesitation, no fear, in the God of Thunder; he spoke as surely of their team as if the bonds between them had been forged of iron, instead of only recently solidified. “Don’t forget, we beat you once before already. We can do it again if we must.”
“You had your green friend to help you before,” Loki sneered. “But I don’t see him anywhere now.”
“Oh, don’t be so certain that you’re completely free of the Hulk.” Tony’s eyes hardened into a glare. “I’m sure our one-man army would be more than glad to return if it means putting you in your place again. Isn’t that right, Bruce?”
Loki followed the direction of Tony’s pointed stare to find Bruce Banner, skin dirtied with dust and rubble even though Loki hadn’t seen him fighting earlier. He was quick to realize the implicit meaning behind Tony’s words, and he swallowed roughly in a moment of fear he would never admit to.
Bruce said nothing, merely nodding in agreement, and Loki winced, one hand absentmindedly rubbing his ribs as he remembered the beating he’d taken. “Very well,” he conceded, not in the mood to have another altercation with the Hulk, “I’ll behave.”
“Good.” Tony smiled darkly, forgetting for a moment where they were. When it finally dawned on him again, he groaned and turned around, drawing the group’s attention to the assortment of other figures lying around the room.
To Tony’s surprise, they were all already beginning to stir with varying degrees of alertness.
He tensed. “Guys, be ready,” he hissed to his teammates with a sense of urgency that missed no one. “Our company is about to wake up.”