Cruel Vengeance

Avengers Tower, New York, United States

June 2011

“Uh… remember that most of the people in this room aren’t privy to your kind of clearance,” Tony said. Yet. He’d get into SHIELD’s files eventually. “So that would be ‘nothing’.”

Fury glared at him. Tony took a drink and gave the man a scornful look because he knew his disdain would piss Fury off, and it worked wonderfully. The scowl lines deepened, but Fury didn’t rise to the bait. “The Winter Soldier,” he said, “is an extremely dangerous operative first utilised by the KGB in approximately 1947. We know next to nothing about him. He’s a ghost. He’s cropped up dozens if not hundreds of times around the globe in the last sixty-four years, but only as whispers, and by the time we arrive, he’s long gone. We don’t know who he is, where he comes from, what they’ve done to him, or even whether it’s only one person.” He paused. “Until now.”

“You think he did this?” Steve said, moving toward the table. Tony felt the edges of a flashback pulsing around his thoughts and kept his eyes well clear. “Was there surveillance?”

“Cameras all over the hotel. Armed security, undercover bodyguards in the party, motorcades, you name it,” Fury said. “He got around all of it without a hitch. This gathering is comprised of extremely highly-placed officials from Russia, China, Ukraine, Turkey, Poland, and Greece. All of them were attending a party held in the hotel pictured.” Fury tapped one of the photos, and Tony chanced a look: a well-lit building modern building with a sign in Russian characters. “It seems they were having some kind of covert meeting. We don’t know what they were discussing and haven’t had a chance to investigate- my Russian counterparts aren’t too big on sharing. I’m told they don’t like me much.”

“I can’t imagine why,” Steve muttered.

Tony turned around. “I’m sorry, did I mishear you or did you just sass back at your CO?”

“He’s not my CO,” Steve said quietly. “Continue, sir.”

Fury looked like he was about to have a conniption. Clint, conversely, appeared to be having a fantastic time watching all this, but Tony wondered why he’d been so uncharacteristically quiet.

“What do we know?” Maria asked, all business.

Fury tapped another file. “We have basic autopsies. They match what my people saw before they were kicked out. About half these men died of wounds characteristic of our Soldier: a person of immense strength, over six feet tall judging by the angles of some wounds, who favors his left arm. The real giveaway, though, was this.” He magnified a video feed. Faint pops of silenced gunfire emanated from the table’s speakers. Tony clenched his fist around his glass of Scotch. “We caught one glimpse of our guy on the way in.”

A man in a suit appeared, face hidden expertly from the camera, and dove for the door.

Fury paused the video right as the man’s fingers closed on the handle. “Look.” He magnified it, and the group shuffled in closer.

“Tattoo,” said Maria, and Tony nodded.

It was a faded red star-shaped tattoo on the back of the man’s neck, almost hidden by his hairline. They could only see it because his hair was pulled back into a ponytail.

“That tattoo’s been reported in several sightings of this Winter Soldier over the years,” Fury said. “It’s one of only three things we consider true about him: he’s male, he’s marked by that tattoo… and it’s very likely that he’s been modified much as Captain Rogers and Agent Romanoff were.”

“So you do think it’s the same person,” Maria said. “The KGB managed to make one of their own.”

“Possibly more than one, but I do believe that there is one man who has been running missions for the Russians since the outset of the Cold War,” Fury said. “Agent Barton, tell them what you found.”

“An old bunker, a while north of Moscow,” Clint said. “You don’t want to know what I had to do to find the place. Thirty-eight people inside, dead–soldiers and scientist-looking types. The weirdest bit was what looked like a massive industrial freezer, half-melted, with people-sized cryotubes. One of them was in use until very recently.

“I was able to get into the servers, but since I’m not a computer person, I accidentally tripped some kind of autovirus. I did get a few fragments of video and enough information to strongly suggest that our target, the Winter Soldier, was there in cryo for at least a decade, probably longer. Someone showed up, sterilized the place, and defrosted him.”

“Agent Barton,” Fury said, voice like stone, “tell them why you went there in the first place.”

Clint hesitated. Tony’s finely tuned sense of bodily cues sat up and perked its ears. That was– anguish on the SHIELD agent’s face.

“You were looking for Natasha,” Darcy said.

Clint’s eyes flicked to her. “Yes.”

“Agent Romanoff dropped off the grid after her last mission,” Fury said. “Disobeyed orders and gave her watchers the slip. She’s highly skilled; we couldn’t track her.”

“But I could,” Clint said.

“Agent Barton went off the reservation as well, but given that he was successful and returned to us with valuable intel, he’s only on probation,” Fury said. “Agent Romanoff’s in a tougher position. The other half of the men in that room?” He shook his head. “They were killed with knives to the throat or heart, impossibly precise blows indicative of a fighting style that I’ve only seen used by three people with any degree of skill. Two of those people are dead now. Entrance wound angles suggest someone significantly shorter than most special operatives, a population subset comprised overwhelmingly of men.”

“Natasha was there,” Darcy summarized.

Fury pressed play on the video.

Muzzle flashes, bullets, and the sounds of dying men poured out of the room for less than thirty seconds, but it was enough to start a dull roar in Tony’s ears. He gripped the edge of the table, hyperaware of the way it drew Steve, Darcy, and Clint’s attention to him.

Two people slipped out of the room, heads turned expertly away from the camera, but even before Fury hit pause Tony knew he recognized that head of red hair.

“Natasha Romanoff is considered a rogue agent, armed, fugitive from the United States, and highly dangerous,” Fury said. Each word fell to the table like a chunk of ice. “She’s aiding and abetting a criminal, mass murderer, and wanted man who’s been MIA for twenty-five years but is quite possibly the most dangerous single person on the planet.”

That’s what you think, Tony thought at Fury, picturing Loki as he’d been that morning: impossibly tall and imposing when he came in for food, far healthier than he had been during the battle of New York. And then there was Natasha herself, and Darcy, who could be very dangerous in a very different way. And Bruce, of course. Though Steve was exempt– the golden retriever made human had too strong a moral compass to be as frightening as the Winter Soldier.

The point remained that Fury was dramatically underestimating the Avengers.

Tony almost smiled.

Almost.

Fury tapped the table and the files vanished. He plucked the flash drive off the glass and dropped it back in his pocket. “Effective immediately, Natasha Romanoff is at the top of my ‘wanted’ list, second only to the Winter Soldier himself. The people in this room are the only people we know her to have any concrete ties with.” He pointed at the cardboard box. “She left that for you. We’ve been scanning it for any trace of bugs or messages, and come up with zilch, so you can have the contents now. If Agent Romanoff contacts any of you, if you so much as catch a glimpse of her on the street, I want to know yesterday. If I find out you’ve been in touch with her and didn’t tell me, I’ll have you up on charges of treason so fast you’ll get whiplash. The Tower is under surveillance beginning right now. Consider this a courtesy warning.” He looked around the table, face uncompromising. Tony wanted to argue but he suspected that if he opened his mouth, the only that would come out would be gibberish. “Effective immediately, Agents Barton and Hill are coming with me.”

“I quit,” Clint said quietly.

Fury froze. “What did you just say?”

“I said I quit. Sir.” Clint stood tall and faced the Director, eyes hard. “I’ve already tried to convince you that it’s a mistake to chase Tasha. She’s gone already, and if you go after her like this, you’re only gonna make it worse. I’m not going to participate in a manhunt against my oldest friend.”

“You signed a contract,” Fury hissed.

This, Tony could do. He released the table and stepped forward. “Barton’s contract expired two years ago.”

Every eye in the room snapped to him. Normally the center of attention was exactly where Tony wanted to be, but right now it only made him nauseous. He ignored the twist of his stomach. “The only remaining restrictions on the termination of Agent Barton’s employment are the Statute of Secrecy, and the clause requiring him to move into either retirement or work for an employer who has a Level Six or higher SHIELD security clearance, keeps Barton in SHIELD’s line of jurisdiction, and has a history of cooperation with SHIELD. Stark Industries meets all those characteristics. I’ve been looking for a bodyguard, and Barton here’s been kind enough to accept.”

Fury’s face was twisted with anger, but he didn’t say a word for at least thirty seconds. Tony leashed the storm inside his skin. The best part was that Fury couldn’t even come after Tony for knowing that information; the legal documents were part of Clint’s file, which had been released to Tony as part of the Avengers Initiative.

“Fine,” Fury growled, and glared at Clint. “Enjoy your demotion. Hill, with me.”

He stalked toward the doors.

“Maria,” Darcy hissed, and tossed the other woman something small and black. Maria caught it in one hand, glanced down, and dropped it in her pocket. She nodded once at the group and then left without a backward glance.

“Well, that was dramatic,” Tony remarked.

The helicopter took off.

Steve looked at Darcy as it swung out of sight. “What’d you give her?” he asked.

Darcy grinned. “Burner phone. It’s got my spare number in it. She can contact us if she wants.”

“Spare number?” Clint asked.

“I have a second phone registered under the name Lizzie Moore,” Darcy said, a shadow crossing her face for a brief moment. “Working for the feds makes you a little paranoid. Looks like it paid off.”

“You are certainly an entertaining group of people to live with,” Loki remarked from the stairs.

Clint turned around. “The fu–what the fuck is he doing here?” he demanded.

Steve looked at Darcy, clearly at the end of his metaphorical rope. “You get to explain. Since you dragged the stray inside.”

“I am not a stray,” Loki said, sounding affronted.

“No, you’re a mass murderer standing in my penthouse!” Clint snapped.

Attention flicked to Tony. He realized they were all waiting for him to make some comment about it being his penthouse.

Tony looked down at the table. “I need…” he said, and collapsed.