Chapter Twelve
Zola prowled the streets in a smoke of concealment, his glassy eyes disdainfully scanning the pedestrians. He scented the air with a singular purpose.
{Any sign of him?} He inquired.
{Not yet} Rumlow growled. {No, sir} Rollins reported. The replies came inaudibly, a communication of minds.
{Then look harder!} Zola shrieked. He could sense their winces through their link. The pedestrians in front of him drew away at his snarling expression as he stalked forward, scenting, searching.
When he scented Them - far before they appeared in his line of vision - he slowed to the pace of the crowd, pasted on a smile, and thickened the smoke of concealment around him with the press of a button in his trenchcoat pocket.
They walked by, just as casually as he walked, and he sneered. They thought They were his match. They knew he was here because of a mistake of Rollins, and the hound had paid for it. However, They dared to presume that The Shield was his superior, that he would grovel to obey Their Code, that They would brand him. Were he not on a mission, he would take Their presumptions and rip them to shreds.
He felt through the link again, glimpsing what his two bondsmen saw and sensed. Nothing of interest yet. He smiled nastily. No matter. He would look until he found Steven at long last. If it took burning the city down to bone and ash, so be it. Zola find him, and Zola would crush him.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Tony sat back from the project, his eyes aching, his fingers shaking slightly as he relaxed his tight, precise control of them. "Boom," he whispered to his bots. "Look what Daddy's making. That's right, the most beautiful thing since his suits."
There had been something in Bucky's eyes that had pushed Tony. People thought he was unobservant because he let them, but for god's sake, he was a genius. He noticed everything. He took a deep breath, and the shaking in his hands settled a little.
Bucky. The guy looked like a homeless ex-biker gang dude, yet he walked around with a name like Bucky. That was the name for, like, your pet woodchuck. Tony sighed. If only he were in charge of naming everything. He was so much better at it than everyone else. He would have named Bucky Old Man Winter, for example. His eyes were ancient in his face, and what with his long sleeves and grimace, he looked terrifyingly cold. Steve had weird friends. Though Tony was willing to bet that there was more than friendship there. He knew what love looked like, and Steve looked at Bucky like Tony looked at Pepper.
Speaking of which, the date with Pepper had been nice. He'd even gotten a kiss before she made him go into the meetings and listen to the shit his company was busy doing. Back to the date, he chided himself. He didn't want to remember the meetings. Ugh.
They'd run into Peter at the cafe on a date with some girl named MD or something. Again, Tony should have been in charge of naming people. He referred to Peter's date as Smart&Sassy in his head. She'd reminded Tony of himself. He wondered what that said about Peter. Pete had looked happy, at least. Happy and amused. Smart&Sassy had gotten him to smile enough that it had actually distracted Tony from Pepper. She had rolled her eyes when Tony realized she was waiting for a reply to a question he hadn't been paying attention to. It was the waiter's fault for putting Tony within eyesight of Peter and Smart&Sassy.
"Why don't you offer him an internship?" Pepper had asked him for the second time. Tony shrugged. Mostly it was because he thought he'd be a shit teacher, and Peter deserved normality in his schooling. He wasn't going to say that, though. Pepper would give him A Look, and he wanted the date to be about them, not about his paternal feelings towards a kid he wasn't even vaguely related to. He'd checked.
Anyhow, the date had gone well, Pepper had been really smiling at him by the end, and they'd had a great night last night. He sighed. It had been a great night until he had woken up with nightmares and slipped off to the lab. He'd meant to go back before she woke up, but she'd woken up alone, and that added a stone to his mountain of guilt.
Dum-E knocked something over. Tony spit out an insult automatically, going over to fix it, his thoughts distracted. The robot whirred an apology, but Tony still threw a wrench at the bot.
"Are you going to come eat with me?" Pepper asked from the doorway. "I made us brunch." She didn't hold hard feelings, which was good, because she would have had a mountain of them for Tony if she did. "Are you still beating yourself up?" She asked when he came towards her. "Tony. It's okay." She reached out, pulling him in for a hug and a gentle kiss. "I get it. Don't worry."
"I'm not worrying." He chuckled, and then looked away when she gave him A Look. "Fine, I was worrying. You win. What'd you make for brunch?" His hands wrapped around her waist gently, and he pulled her in for another kiss. She smiled against his lips, letting him deepen the kiss.
"Well, I'm not for brunch," she finally said, pulling away, taking his hand in hers. "Come on. You haven't eaten real food in too long."
"I had chocolate blueberries an hour ago." He protested. Pepper laughed, her slim fingers fitting between his perfectly. He smiled. Everything seemed okay, so long as he had Pepper.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Odinsen watched Barton replace his weapons in the armory, takeing especial care with the enchanted compact bow that he concealed within his jacket.
Their hunt today had been unsuccessful, despite all their checks. It seemed the three unBranded beings in the city were working by their selves. Maria had been displeased as she had checked with team after team and gotten nothing.
When the man had left, Odinsen went to the back of the room, where glass engraved with runes separated the particularly dangerous weapons from anyone without proper authorization. He still hadn't earned that authorization. His fingers hovered longingly over the glass where a large hammer lay underneath.
It was SR1939's fault he didn't have authorization to wield his hammer. No one else truly could, but the Director claimed he was unstable with it after the fiasco that capturing and breaking SR1939 had been. He rested his hand against the glass and the brand on his back burned. He drew back mournfully. The Shield and The Code were strict. One obeyed or one broke and then obeyed. The only other options were imprisonment or annihilation. The best case scenario was the one that Thor had chosen: employment.