Chapter 26
[Classified Location], SHIELD Helicarrier
April 2011
Tony didn’t want to be having this meeting.
His body felt like one massive goddamn bruise, and he had two fractured fingers. The digits on his suit had the least structural integrity; he’d had to compromise some armor to maintain mobility. Tony made a note to figure out how to strengthen the alloy there, and also that he had to go get a new suit. The Mark VII was ready and waiting back at the Tower, but no way would Fury let him go get it.
And then there was Coulson.
Tony sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“You good, Stark?”
Tony glanced at Rogers. “Yep.”
Rogers nodded once and fell into silence once more.
They were waiting on Fury and Natasha at the conference table above the bridge. Below them, the SHIELD personnel were scrambling to get the virus fixed and their equipment up and running. Navigation and communication were both completely fried; from the sound of it, staying in the air was in itself a challenge, much less getting anywhere. Tony supposed he should help them, but right now he was definitely feeling the impact of too many fights and not enough sleep. And also like he did not want to help SHIELD at all.
“Did you know him?” he asked abruptly.
“Coulson?”
“Yeah.”
Rogers sighed. “Not well. I’ve not been awake much, and he’s been busy. On…”
“Widow Watch,” Tony said, and laughed without amusement. “Sounds like Fury doesn’t trust any of us as far as he could throw this helicarrier.”
They lapsed back into silence. Tony sneaked glances at Rogers, who was examining the big bay windows with a faraway expression. This man was disorientingly different and similar from the one in Tony’s dad’s stories. That Captain America had been tediously noble, lawful good all the way, America’s golden boy. This man was inherently good, but - Tony got the sense that he was nearing a breaking point of some kind, and also that the “lawful” was maybe more “neutral”. He’d do what he had to to get what he wanted, and what he wanted - that was the real question.
Fury marched in, snapping Tony out of it.
“Romanoff?”
“No sign of her,” Rogers reported.
Fury grimaced. “She’ll-”
“Here, sir.”
Natasha slipped in the door in Fury’s wake, looking bloody, dusty, and exhausted.
“What happened to you? Interesting hairstyle, by the way,” Tony drawled.
She shot him an irritated look as she sat down across from Rogers. “I had a spat with the Hulk.”
Tony whistled. “And survived. Impressive.” He glanced at Fury. “Is this where you tell us what the hell happened?”
Fury sighed. “Coulson was the only available resource I could dispatch to the containment unit. He took a Phase 2 prototype - yes, Rogers, from the weapons arsenal we were building with the Tesseract - to control Loki. Thor beat him there. Coulson told me, before he died, that he arrived just in time to see Loki flush Thor out the containment tube. He tried to stop Loki, but Loki killed him and then escaped. The scepter is gone, Banner is gone, and we have no way of tracking either at the moment. Communications are down; so are navigation and propulsion. We’re dead in the water.”
“Well, that’s just great,” Tony muttered.
“On the upside, we got Hill back. Barton’s with her. It seems that cognitive recalibration is enough to snap someone out of Loki’s control, although it’s dangerous - there’s significant risk of brain trauma.”
Natasha relaxed a tiny, tiny fraction.
There was a long moment of silence. Rogers was the first to break it. “What now?”
“We rebuild.” Fury looked determined. “We rebuild, we get communications online, we find that cube, and we stop Loki.”
No one answered.
At last, Fury sighed. “Fine. Yes, we were going to build an arsenal with the Tesseract. I never put all my chips on that number though, because I was playing something even riskier.” He paused. “There was an idea - Stark… knows this - called the Avengers Initiative. The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people, see if they could become something more. See if they could work together when we needed them to, to fight the battles that we never could. Phil Coulson died still believing in that idea, in heroes.”
Tony stood up and walked out of the meeting.
It was too much. Fury had lied, and Banner was gone, and the helicarrier was down, and Coulson was dead.
He was a good man. The good people weren’t supposed to die.
Tony was suddenly and overwhelmingly furious with himself. He should’ve known better than this. He shouldn’t be so fucking naive.
Sometimes the good guys don’t win.
Slowly, slowly, Tony’s fingers clenched into fists.
Maybe it was time to not be a good guy anymore.
Where had it gotten him, anyway? Mocked by his fellow businessmen, ridiculed and shunned by all his old social circle. Pepper was the only one who’d stuck by him, the only one who’d believed in him and tried to help him be better. Who’d been convinced he could change even when he had his doubts.
Tony glared down the corridor, walking without knowing where he was going, barely noticing how people got out of his way. He was done. Done trusting the wrong people, done relying on anyone else. He’d be following his own code from now on, his own orders, or those of someone he trusted. Sure as hell not Fury’s. He would stand by his people and do what he wanted, and the world would move out of his way.
He was Tony fucking Stark, after all.
[Classified Location], SHIELD Helicarrier
April 2011
Natasha stood up shortly after Tony did. “Where’s Clint?”
“Med bay,” Fury responded. “Before you go find him, I need you to put Foster and Lewis and the other civvies on a Quinjet to Stark Tower. It’s a lower profile target and they’ll be safer. If this is any model to go by, they’ll only be liabilities in the real fight.”
“Yes, sir,” Romanoff said, and left.
Fury sighed. “I suppose heroes are a bit old-fashioned,” he said bitterly. “You’d know.”
Steve looked at the tired man for a long moment. “No,” he said at last. “I don’t think I do.” I don’t think I am one. Not anymore. I gave everything I had and then some for this world, and from now on I get to choose.
But he couldn’t say that. Not when Fury already didn’t trust him, already had proven that beyond a doubt by keeping him in a coma until he was needed. Steve gritted his teeth and left Fury in the ruins of the bridge.
He found Stark in the containment unit, staring blankly at the space the cell used to occupy.
“Was he married?” Steve asked.
“There was a cellist,” Stark said tightly. “In Portland.” He turned abruptly to Steve. “Did you notice the cameras in here are all down?”
“What?”
“The cameras,” Stark repeated impatiently, gesturing at the ceiling. “They have red lights when they’re active. Every single one in here is down. There’s no footage. Fury could be hiding anything.”
“What is there to lie about?” Steve asked doubtfully.
Stark laughed. It was a hollow sound. “His secrets have secrets, remember? He could be lying about anything. We already know he will.”
“You’re too suspicious for your own good.”
“We balance out, then. You’re too trusting.”
“Not anymore,” Steve muttered.
Stark’s lips quirked. “Always entertaining to watch naiveté die.”
“Coulson seemed like a good man,” Steve said, remembering what he’d come here to say.
“He was an idiot,” Stark said, but it came out jerky, and Steve knew it was a lie.
“For believing?”
“For taking on Loki alone.”
“He was doing his job.”
“He should’ve waited! He should’ve-” Stark broke off, breathing harder than he had been a moment ago.
Steve examined the scientist. “Is the first time you’ve lost a soldier?”
Stark snapped. “We are not soldiers! And I am not marching to Fury’s fife!”
“Neither am I,” Steve said.
Stark turned to glare at him. “If you’re just saying that to get me to cooperate, Rogers, I swear…”
Steve shook his head. “No. I’m being honest. That doesn’t mean we can’t work with Fury long enough to take Loki down. We’ll get him. He’s killed too many people.”
“Yeah, and he made it personal,” Stark said darkly, glaring at the bloodstain on the wall.
“We can’t think like that,” Steve said, even though he didn’t believe the words. Making it personal limited soldiers’ effectiveness in battle; he knew that from experience. He had to remind Stark and himself of that fact.
“No, we have to,” Stark insisted suddenly. “That’s the point. That’s Loki’s point. This whole plan of his was idiotic. ‘Divide and conquer,’ sure, but-” He shook his head. “There’s better ways to have handled this. He wants attention, an audience - which is weird in itself, since Thor said he always preferred to work behind the scenes, but whatever-”
“Yeah, I caught that act in Stuttgart,” Steve said.
Stark shook his head, becoming more and more animated. Steve could see him latching onto this idea as a way out of his grief. “No, that was like - the preview. This is opening night; he wants action, he wants drama, he wants a monument to the skies with his name plastered - Son of a bitch.”
“What?” Steve asked in alarm, as Stark turned with blazing eyes and jumped down from the platform.
“Stark Tower,” Stark said. “He’s using my tower, my new power supply. Asshat. And - oh, fuck.” His face was ashen suddenly. “Pepper’s there.”
“And Fury sent Darcy and Jane there,” Steve said suddenly.
Stark pointed at him. “Do not breathe a word of this to Fury. He’ll saddle us with babysitters and slow us down. I need to fix the suit to get me there, and you need a jet - we’re not too far away from New York.”
“I’ll try to get to the hangar bay, keep Darcy and Jane on board,” Steve said.
Stark shook his head. “They’ll be gone by now. Go track down Barton and Natasha, Hill if she’s well enough. Catch them up. We have to sneak out while the rest of the ship deals with repairs.”
“Meet me in the medbay as soon as possible,” Steve said. “Stark. Are you sure about this?”
“Sure as sure,” Stark said. “Also, call me Tony. You did save my life.”
“And you saved mine, so call me Steve,” he replied.
Stark - Tony - glanced back once while taking the stairs two at a time. “Deal.”
[Classified Location]
April 2011
He came to at the bottom of a crater.
Bruce bolted upright with a gasp from dreams (or maybe memories) of killing and falling. For a wild, endless moment he didn’t know who or what or where he was, and then it all came rushing back.
He sunk down onto the stones beneath him with a groan.
Little snippets were all he remembered from his time as the other guy. The boiler room, and - Natasha had been there? He’d been chasing someone with red hair… and then an image of the sky and the accompanying knowledge that he was on a smaller aircraft, infuriated, tearing it to pieces. And then falling.
I hope I didn’t kill her.
“Ya fell outta the sky.”
Bruce jerked toward the voice.
An older man in a worn uniform of some kind stared down at him from the top of a crater of shattered glass and concrete and metal and earth.
Bruce paused, but the man didn’t seem perturbed.
“Did I hurt anybody?” he asked. That was the question. Always the first one he asked when he woke up. He just usually didn’t have the advantage of someone there to tell him.
“Nobody around here to get hurt,” the old man replied.
Bruce closed his eyes, crippling relief washing over his body. “Lucky.”
“Or good aim,” the man said. “You were awake when you fell.”
At that, Bruce twitched, eyes snapping open. “You saw?” And you’re not screaming while you run? You’re not calling all the media?
“Whole thing,” the man said. “Big and green and buck-ass nude. Here.”
A bundle thumped to the ground next to Bruce, who flinched before he realized it was clothes: pants and a shirt and a belt. “Didn’t think those’d fit ya till you shrunk down to a regular-size feller.”
Bruce hesitated, then reached over to the clothes. “Thanks.”
He had the pants on and was struggling with the belt when the old guy spoke again. “You an alien?”
“Huh?”
“An alien, like from outer space.” The man sounded impatient, and Bruce let out a rusty chuckle. If only this guy knew.
“No, I’m… no. From Earth.”
“Well then, son… you’ve got a condition,” the security guard said, nodding as if he was the wisest sage since Plato.
Bruce had to laugh.
When he at last climbed out of the pit, clothed in too-big hiking boots, too-short gray pants, and a shirt that was missing a button - he didn’t care, though; it was better than most of his post-blackout experiences - he paused and looked around.
It was a damn-well isolated area. Hills on one side and forests all around, with no roads or buildings in sight beyond the abandoned-looking one he’d demolished.
Very lucky indeed.
Or… was it possible that the old man was right, and the other guy had aimed for an unpopulated area?
No. The other guy was unchecked and unmitigated rage and destruction, nothing more. It was ridiculous. Impossible.
Tony’s words echoed in Bruce’s mind.
He narrowed his eyes. Maybe it had to do with intent? With wanting the other guy’s help, rather than accidentally changing when he was furious and in danger? Or possibly with the target of his emotions-
“Do you know where you’re goin’?” the old park ranger asked.
Bruce startled a bit. “Uh - do you know how I could get out of here? Transportation? I don’t want to call a service if I can help it.”
“Come with me,” the man said.
He led Bruce across the clearing around what Bruce thought was an old airplane hangar with an attached seating area, or something. There were traces of an abandoned runway in the grass that he and his guide crossed, finding a worn track beneath the trees and setting off beneath their shadows.
In a quarter of a mile, they came out by an old but well-kept house in a clearing, surrounded by a garden and the signs of grandchildren.
Bruce felt a lump in his throat. “You live here?”
Pride gleamed on the old man’s face. “Sure do. My wife and I’ve lived here for twenty-four years. The grandkids came down for a few days during spring break. She took ‘em into town for ice cream.” He snorted. “Good thing, too, otherwise I’d have to explain this and I’m not sure I could.”
“You don’t want to know,” Bruce muttered.
“Probably not,” the old guy agreed. “C’mere.” He crossed the garden and walked in the back of a freestanding garage through a people-sized door. Bruce hesitated on the threshold, unsure, and then the old man stuck his head back out. “You comin’ or what?”
Cautiously, Bruce stepped inside.
The garage was dim but not dark, and cluttered; furniture and bicycles hung from the ceiling and disorganized workbenches and shelves lined the walls. It was big enough for three cars but only held one, a silhouette Bruce thought might be an old-model minivan, or possibly a Jeep. It was hard to tell.
The man laughed at Bruce’s expression. “I know. Been meaning to clean this place out for years, but it just never seemed that important.”
He picked his way through the stuff - Bruce couldn’t quite bring himself to think of it as junk - with the ease of long practice. Bruce himself was slower, careful to not knock anything over or disrupt this peaceful life any more than he already had.
“Here we are,” the old man said, heaving an old puttery-looking motorcycle out of the shadows.
Bruce stared at it. “You mean-”
“You can take this,” the man said, thrusting it forward so that Bruce had to take it or let it crash to the ground. “It was my son’s, but he-” Sadness crossed the man’s face. “He had a fall, years ago. Doctors said he had to give up the bikes, too risky to ride anymore. He sold most of ‘em, but this one was one of his first. Built it with him. I couldn’t bear to junk it.”
“I can’t take this,” Bruce said.
The man waved his hand. “If you don’t, it’ll sit here gathering dust and get thrown on a junk pile once I’m gone. Might not be too much longer now. I’d rather it saw some use before that happens.”
Bruce stared and stared at the old man, who seemed perfectly content to sit and wait for a response. At last, he asked, “Why are you helping me?”
“I’m a good judge of people,” the old man said with a grin. It twinkled, and Bruce suddenly imagined with stark clarity exactly how much the grandkids must love this man; how he’d bounce them on his knees and tell frightening stories in the evenings and sing goofy songs around an outdoor fire on summer evenings. They would adore coming to this peaceful cabin in the woods, and they’d fight over his affection, for his attention.
Anger and grief welled up in Bruce in equal measures. Grief because this was a life he could have had, in a different life, if his pride and stupidity hadn’t set him on this path where he was nothing but a wrecking ball. Anger at all the people who’d betrayed and shunned him over the years until he turned into somebody who couldn’t even want this life anymore.
And there was Bruce’s greatest secret, the thing he kept hidden from everyone and sometimes from himself: he didn’t hate what he was.
He wanted to. God, did he want to. But he couldn’t.
“Thank you,” he said softly, and took the motorcycle.
The old man rolled up the garage door and Bruce pushed the thing out into the sunlight, blinking. His guide lifted a dusty gas can and topped off the fuel tank, brushed off the seat, and handed Bruce the keys. “Here ya go.”
It took three tries before the ignition caught. Bruce squeezed the brakes and tested the throttle. The engine’s slightly putzy growl rose to fill the yard and then slackened off when he relaxed.
Stark Tower. That was where he’d have to go if he wanted to contact his team, and where they’d probably be headed. For a time, with Stark and Foster and Steve and even Romanoff, he’d felt - useful. Needed for more than the other guy. There he might find camaraderie among the only people who might understand what it was to be broken, bitter, betrayed, and a monster that lashed out at everything around him.
Or he could run.
Bruce knew he could do it. He had years of practice. He could vanish on this ancient, unregistered bike into the wilds of Canada or the chaos of Central America, as he’d done before, and leave the world-saving to people who actually cared about what they were saving.
Even as Bruce had the thought, he knew he did care. For the innocents, at least.
But then again, he was a burden. To anyone, any team.
“Thank you,” he said, turning to the old man. “For… all this.”
“I like helping people,” the man said. “You seem to need it more’n most. Do you know where you’re goin’?”
Bruce examined the dirt driveway stretching out in front of him. “Yes,” he said, two futures spreading out in front of him. “Yes, I think I do.”