Cruel Vengeance

Avengers Tower, New York, United States

June 2011

Steve slowly unwrapped his knee, muscles aching.

Six punishing hours in Tony’s exercise rooms was enough to make even a supersoldier’s body feel the work, and his knee had been bothering him ever since that time he got tossed by an explosion in ‘44 and landed wrong. Tony had showed him some modern physical therapy tricks and braces that helped, but it still twinged now and then.

He walked into the bathrooms, undressed, and turned the water up as hot as it would go.

Forehead pressed to the tiles, Steve shut his eyes and let the almost-unbearably-hot water pound down his shoulders and back and legs, washing away the memories of the crash. It grounded him in the present, reminded him that he wasn’t trapped anymore. He was free of the ice.

The cold still lurked under his skin sometimes.

When the hot water began to run out, he sighed and shut off the faucet and went through the motions of putting himself back together.

Knee brace: on. Clothes: tidy. Hair: presentable. Face: stoic. (More or less.)

He moved on to the checklist of things for the day. There were reports of Chitauri tech circulating on the black market in Chicago; he was scheduled to meet with Darcy, Tony, and Maria about it in an hour (apparently Darcy knew some people who “engaged in activities of questionable legality”, as she put it) to discuss the problem and whether it warranted the Avengers’ interference or if SHIELD and the cops could handle the problem. He also had to corral Bruce and ask him if he’d made any progress talking to Tony about his PTSD. So far, every attempt had been met with evasion and scorn, but Bruce said he thought he was making progress. Steve just hoped they’d make Tony admit he needed help before he had a flashback in the middle of a firefight and got himself killed. (Steve knew all about flashbacks, but he wasn’t grief-stricken and plagued by a chronic lack of impulse control.) There was Loki to deal with–he’d been sitting in his room for a week and emerged only to get food at all kinds of odd hours, but Steve didn’t trust the guy an inch; he had to talk to JARVIS about the surveillance and what exactly Loki had been doing. And he had to contact Fury directly about Clint and Natasha’s whereabouts. It had been a week since they’d seen Clint and a lot longer than that since Natasha dropped off the grid. Both of them would be invaluable in any investigation of black-market Chitauri weapons. And Steve had to admit… he missed them.

Steve felt the foul mood he’d been trying to beat out of himself with a workout returning full-force. It suddenly pissed him off that he’d managed to find people who accepted him (broken dark pieces and all), people with whom he could make a difference and who didn’t try to make him follow orders, and here was Fury trying to interfere.

Maria caught up to him right as he left the gymnasium. “Steve,” she said quietly. “I’ve got news.”

“The Chitauri tech?” Steve said. “Darcy said she heard something-”

Maria shook her head and fell into step beside him. They headed for the stairs in silent agreement, the ingrained aversion to being trapped in a small space that could drop you eighty-plus floors if sabotaged. “Different subject. You’re not going to like it.”

“Of course not,” Steve muttered. “Shoot.”

“I’ve been recalled, effective today. Fury’s decided the crisis is over and he needs me back at his side. He’s going to be here in five minutes, he has Clint with him, and we haven’t told either of them about Loki yet.”

“Five minutes?” Steve repeated. “Why didn’t he warn us?”

“Best guess? He’s trying to catch us doing something off the books,” Maria said.

“Like harboring an offworld criminal,” Steve said grimly.

“Exactly.”

They broke into a sprint up the stairs.

When the two of them burst into the penthouse floor, or “common room” as the unholy duo of Darcy and Tony had taken to calling it, Steve stopped short. There was Darcy herself, leaning up against the counter with Loki.

“What are you doing?” Steve snapped, striding foward.

Darcy raised an eyebrow. “Is he not allowed to learn how to use the coffeemaker?”

Loki bowed slightly, that insufferable smirk on his face. It never seemed to go away, like he was always internally mocking everyone around him. Bastard. Steve scowled at him.

“He’s bad enough without caffeine,” he growled. “Loki, out. Fury’s gonna be here in four minutes and he can’t know you’re here.”

Darcy shot Loki a look. “Is it possible-”

“We made a list, remember?” Maria said. “Yes, Fury is one of seventy-four potential candidates for Thanos’ secret ally.”

Steve winced. He knew it was a possibility, but he couldn’t bring himself to really believe it of Fury. Tony, on the other hand, adamantly maintained that it could very easily be the director of SHIELD, and it had sparked eight arguments that went in circles for hours in the week since Loki’s little truth-bomb.

“We’re not having this discussion again,” Steve said. “Not only do we have no new information that would change the outcome, but we really don’t have time. Loki. Out.”

“Sir, yes, sir,” Loki said sarcastically, and accepted the coffee mug from Darcy before he turned and strode out of the room.

“So Fury’s about to show up. Anything else I should know?” Darcy said.

“I’ve been recalled,” Maria said.

“What?”

Steve left Maria to explain and jogged over to the window. No helicopter in sight. “JARVIS, can you send Jane and Bruce up here, please?”

“They are engaged in a sensitive experiment,” JARVIS said. “It would be unwise to disturb them.”

“Fine. What about Tony?”

“I shall notify him that he is needed in the penthouse.”

A faint sound of chopper blades reached Steve’s ears. “Thanks.”

Tony slammed through the doors a second later holding a weapon.

Darcy stared at him. “Is that a paintball gun?”

“I’m going to make a Jackson Pollock imitation on Fury’s duster,” Tony replied, a sentence that made no sense to Steve. “How much less intimidating do you think he’ll look spattered in pink and white?”

“Uhhhh… forty percent?” Darcy said.

“That was a rhetorical question.”

“That was before it met me.”

Steve pressed his fingers to his temple. “Can you please not? Tony, put the paintball gun away. And no one is to say a word about Loki, his news, or the fact that Fury lied to us about Coulson’s death. We don’t know enough right now.”

“Yet,” Darcy muttered, and flopped onto a couch. She whipped out her phone. “Hide the paintball gun, Tony, we can do splatter paint later.”

Tony tried to jam the gun beneath the sink. It didn’t fit.

“Chopper’s almost here,” Steve warned.

“Fridge!” Darcy called.

Tony hauled open the fridge, shoved a sack of broccoli and three cartons of chocolate milk aside, and stuck the paintball gun inside, upright. It fit. Barely. He closed the door and grinned at Darcy. “I knew there was a reason I like you.”

Steve squinted across the room. “Are you drunk?”

“Buzzed,” Tony said. “Helps me think. I’m running a hack on SHIELD. It’s not easy. They’ve got a hell of a lot of secrets to protect.”

“You’re what?” Steve snapped.

The helicopter sound increased to a roar as it swung around the side of the building across the street and came in for a landing.

“Save it,” Maria said. “Here we go.”

Hacking SHIELD. Steve felt the beginnings of a headache pounding at the back of his skull. The universe was determined to make his life unpleasant today.

“Can we just sit down and deal with one thing at a time? No paintballs and no hacking and no Loki for the moment?”

“Yes, sir,” Tony said caustically, and sat down across from Darcy.

Steve really wished he could still get drunk.

He felt it when the helicopter touched down and turned around to watch out the big bay windows, the familiar churn of anger starting up again in his gut when Fury’s bald head appeared in the helicopter door, a cardboard box tucked under his arm.

Then Clint stepped out behind him.

“Hey, it’s the Hawk!” Darcy said happily, then paused. “Wait. He looks upset. And Fury’s pissed.”

“This should be good,” said Tony darkly.

Steve wanted to sit down. The soldier in him kept him on his feet, hands clasped in front of him, ready to greet a commanding officer even though he wasn’t technically at attention.

Fury shoved through the doors with his usual force and dropped the box on the floor. “Oh, look, you’re all here,” he said. “I’ve got news, and you’re not gonna like it.”

“We should patent that phrase,” Tony said.

“Be quiet,” Fury snapped. “Where are Drs. Foster and Banner?”

“Sciencing,” Darcy said. “Something finicky. They don’t want to be disturbed.”

“Well, disturb them.”

Darcy looked down at her phone. “Nah.”

Fury paused. “Excuse me?”

“Last time I checked, I’m employed by Tony,” Darcy said. “And he’s not employed by you. So I don’t follow your orders.”

“Hill, Barton, get the scientists up here,” Fury growled.

“They’re under my employ,” Tony said. “And this is my property. They’re busy. Agents Hill and Barton get to stay here.”

Fury scowled harder and looked around the room. Steve made sure the man found no compromise in his face when Fury’s eye fell on him.

“Didn’t your mom tell you if you make that face too often, it’ll get stuck like that?” Tony asked him with mock concern.

“Too late,” Darcy stage whispered.

“Okay, enough, you two,” Steve said tiredly. “Fury. What’s the news?”

Fury slapped a flash drive down on the conference table, which hummed as the files were dumped into its system. The glass top doubled as one of Tony’s screens, and it shimmered and pulled up high-definition pictures of a massacre.

“Fun times,” Darcy commented from the sofa.

“That’s the news,” Fury snapped. “Natasha Romanoff went off the grid weeks ago. We’ve been trying to track her, always a step behind. Agent Barton here disregarded his orders and went after her himself. He uncovered her trail but lost her after this.” He paused. “What do you know about the Winter Soldier?”