The Bone Breaks, It Grows Back Stronger
The night was filled with stars, not a single cloud blocking them. There had not been a night like this in months. “Sir, I will need confirmation.”
“Yes, go ahead with the launch,” Ross said, looking up at the sky. It was a shame to ruin such a beautiful sky, but some things had to be done.
“Yes, sir,” the woman on the other side of the earpiece, Reyna, said. Ross thought he could hear reluctance in her voice, but decided not to say anything. He watched as the missiles were readied, and heard Reyna give the orders to launch them. He knew that they would do nothing to destroy Wakanda, his engineers had yet to figure out a way to break down the shields, but it would have an effect. Missiles of this strength would cause some amount of damage. He knew for a fact that there were many injured people within the shields, and the jarring of said shields with the impact of the missiles would surely do them harm.
“The missiles have been readied,”Reyna said into the earpiece.
“Fire,” he ordered. He watched as they flew off into the night, blocking the stars from sight as they passed. He would send another message to Wakanda once they’d had a chance to gather themselves and once more request the Avengers and company be turned over to him. He knew that he would not be able to keep this up much longer, he was on a short leash as it was. The president and congress were not pleased with the protests going on, and were threatening to order him to surrender unless he got them results, and fast. The cost was also proving problematic. If he fired to many more of the missiles that would do actual damage on the shields, than the taxpayers would turn on him, not wanting to have to pay for a war they didn’t support.
Ross headed back into the main control room and stood beside Reyna as she watched the missiles progress towards Wakanda.
“Are you sure this is the right call?” she finally asked. “I mean, all this for the Avengers?”
“Yes. They are dangerous, and must be handled properly before this gets out of hand,” Ross replied firmly. Reyna pursed her lips and turned her attention back to the screens in front of her, clearly wanting to say more but thinking better of it.
“We are approaching the target,” one of the other people in the room said.
“Any sign of an interception?” Ross asked.
“None that we can detect, sir,” a man, Ferris, replied. Ross nodded his approval, and continued to watch the screens carefully. “Wait, I think I’m getting something… SHIT!” Ferris yelled, right as one of the missiles exploded in mid air, taking a second out as well.
“What is happening? Why could we not detect that sooner!” Reyna asked urgently, going from computer to computer to get eyes on the remaining missiles, which were still on course.
“I-I don’t know, they must have some sort of advanced cloaking device,” Ferris stuttered, flinching as another missile went up in flames.
“We’ve lost three, seventeen are still on target,” Someone from across the room reported. “Make that five,” he added as two more missiles were shot down.
“Are the others going to make it?” Ross asked.
“We can’t tell for sure, but it looks like it, yeah,” Ferris replied. He was right.
Tony woke to the sound of explosions. He sat bolt upright and looked around wildly before running to his window to stare up at the shields, which seemed to be glowing blue and orange as flames exploded across their surfaces and burned pieces away.
“Well, shit,” he grumbled to himself, quickly racing out of his room and running straight into Steve, who was doing the same thing.
“Meeting room?” Steve asked.
“Yup, just gotta get someone,” Tony said, pushing past him. Steve nodded and raced to Bucky’s room where he found said man half out the door already. Tony ran swiftly down the hall until he reached Peter’s room, where the teenager was just coming out of the door, wearing full spiderman gear, and seeming to have instant kill mode activated.
“Mr. Stark? W-what’s going on?” he asked.
“Surprise attack on the shields, American missiles,” Tony replied, leading Peter down the hall where they met up with Wanda and Shuri as they came up from the lab.
“Shuri, how much of this can those shields take?” Tony asked worriedly.
“I’m not sure, your people’s missiles are strong, and the shields are already in a weakened state from all the work that’s been done on them,” she explained as they ran for the meeting room.
“Well that is quite impressive,” They heard Loki’s voice say as they rounded a corner to see him and Thor looking out a large window at the flames licking at the shields. “Quite an interesting creation you midgardians have made. Not as sophisticated as Asgard's, but interesting,” the mischief god noted.
“Well glad you like it,” Tony growled, pulling the two gods with the larger group and into the main meeting room. Okoye and T’Challa had been there all night from the looks of it, and Bucky and Steve were there as well, along with Nebula, Palmarius, and the Guardians. Rhodey and Bruce came running in next, followed by Sam, and Clint.
“What the Hell is going on?” Bruce asked.
“Ross,” Dr. Strange answered, coming in a little after the others, his cloak wrapping tightly around him as if it thought it could shield him from the missiles.
“I’m sure tomorrow we’ll get a nice little note about unnecessary blood spilt, and us needing to turn ourselves in,” Sam mocked, the others nodding in agreement.
“T’Challa, what do you want us to do?” Bucky asked. The king looked worn thin. He had dark bags under his half lidded eyes, and was lacking his usually perfect posture.
“I think, for now, we wait it out. All citizens are being evacuated if they are near unstable areas of the shields, we can see the damages come morning,” he said with a sigh, running a hand over his face. Okoye nodded in agreement and Shuri lay a comforting hand on her brothers shoulder.
“For now, everyone stay in here,” Okoye instructed, getting no resistance. Everyone settled down, flinching whenever a missile hit, and trying to ignore them, to little avail.
“It will be fine, brother,” Thor said, draping an arm around Loki’s shoulder when he noticed the other god flinch when a missile struck directly above them.
“I would not be so sure about that, Thor,” he said with a hollow laugh. “This Ross fellow does not seem like the relenting type. He will destroy the entire nation before he loses, trust me, I know.”
“Well at least we’ll burn together,” Thor said, squeezing his arm lightly.
“Thor, in what way is that helpful in the slightest?” Loki asked, looking at his brother incredulously.
“Because we’ll be with those that matter to us. We’ll be with family,” Thor finally said, pulled Loki closer so that his head was leaning on the God of Thunder’s shoulder, and Thor’s red cloak was draped across both of them.
“I hate you, brother,” Loki said, not moving.
“I know you don’t,” Thor said gently. “And someday, you will too.”
“You hanging on okay, kid?” Tony asked as he and Peter both flinched at a particularly load missile.
“Yeah, perfect,” Peter responded distractedly, fidgeting with his hands.
“What are you thinking about?” Tony asked, knowing there was something more going on in the kid’s head than he was letting Tony see. Peter didn’t answer at first, making Tony think that he was being given the silent treatment. Finally, though, Peter managed to find the words.
“It just reminds me of the Vulture. You know, the sound of explosions. The sound of falling buildings, the dust everywhere, it’s all the same,” Peter said with a shrug. In his mind he knew that this building wasn’t going to fall on him, and that even if it did, people were there to help him, but he was still scared.
“It’s alright,” Tony assured him. “We’re safe in here,” he whispered, looking out the window at the flames eating away at the shields, and positioned his body in front of Peter so that the kid couldn’t see the damage being done. Peter seemed to know what he was doing, but didn’t seem to care. He didn’t want to look at it anyway.
People from farther out in the city were being moved into the large building, and engineers were already setting up for repairs on the shields. The missiles lasted little over five minutes, but it looked as if it had been hours. The shields had given out in small areas, and the land underneath was burned and destroyed, leaving families homeless, and vendors jobless.
Shuri divided her time between remaking Vision, and helping the other engineers with making stronger shields while Okoye made arrangements for those left homeless, and tried to calm the people of Wakanda with Ramonda. Wanda used her powers to try and knit some of the larger parts of the shields back together temporarily while the engineers were working on newer ones in case Ross decided to attack again. It was draining, but worth it.
“Pepper’s launching another media attack,” Bruce said, walking up to Rhodey. “She’d ripping him apart.” Rhodey smiled, just imagining what Pepper was doing.
“I’ll bet she is. Has Tony seen it yet?”
“Not sure, probably. The country definitely has, and they’re listening. Sooner or later public opinion is going to either end this, or keep it going. We want as much of it on our side as we can get,” Bruce replied.
“I hate to say it, but Bruce is right,” Natasha agreed, joining the other two. “The people are going to start rioting if this gets too out of hand. We need to use that. Do you know if Okoye has released a statement yet?”
“Yeah, just something inspirational and fierce to make sure America knows that we’re still alive, and we’re now pissed,” Rhodey said. “Something about us building ourselves stronger than ever to fight for our rights, and yadda, yadda, yadda.”
“Well, it’ll have to work,” Natasha said, the others nodding in agreement.