Cruel Vengeance

Chicago, Illinois, United States

July 2011

“So we still don’t know who’s selling these things?”

“No clue,” Steve replied grimly. “And I’m pretty sure Fury’s not telling us everything.”

Tony rubbed a hand over his face. “And my hack isn’t going anywhere, so we can’t fact check him yet. Fantastic.”

Clint banked the jet. Steve shifted his feet to maintain his balance and glanced out the front window bay; the skyline of Chicago came into view. “Do we know where the drop point is yet?”

Tony whacked the complex display built into the jet’s hull. “Can’t get a good reading. Bruce?”

“Nothing from this end,” Bruce said from his screen. “I don’t know what we can do, guys.”

“There’s no way this much Chitauri tech is just black-market sales from stuff collected in New York,” Clint called back. “It’s cropping up all over the country. Gang warfare, illegal experimentation. We’ve gotta do something to plug the leak in the dam.”

“Enough with the metaphors,” Tony snapped.

The jet jolted. Tony almost lost his balance. Steve laughed.

Tony and Bruce worked, talking back and forth in what sounded like a foreign language to Steve. He watched them for a few minutes, until his mind began to disengage, and walked up to the front of the jet.

“Hey, man,” Clint said with a grin. Steve folded himself into the copilot’s seat.

“Clint,” he greeted.

Clint snorted. “So formal.”

“I’m ninety-four,” Steve said. “People in this century have no manners.”

For some reason, that just made Clint laugh harder, but Steve never felt mocked.

“Oh, come on, that’s funny,” Clint said.

“What’s funny is how amused you are,” Steve retorted. His smile felt unfamiliar on his face, but good.

“Clint,” Tony called. “Head south again? And a little lower.”

“This is a Quinjet, not a helicopter,” Clint muttered, but he deftly banked back toward the southern part of the city, and Steve fell silent, watching the skyscrapers slide by.

His thoughts returned, as they often did, to Loki. Steve was concerned about the Asgardian’s presence in the tower and the effect he had on the team: tensions were higher and everyone was always watching their words and behaviors. It was impossible to truly relax when an enemy could walk into the common space at any moment.

“Stewing over Loki again?” Clint asked.

Steve glanced over, startled. “How did you know?”

Clint shrugged and did something with a joystick. “You get the same look on your face whenever he’s giving you a headache. Need to talk about it?”

“I… well.” Steve sighed through his nose. “I’m worried about him turning the tower from someplace we can relax and be ourselves to a risk.”

“We’ll adjust,” Clint said.

“He’s an enemy.”

“No, he’s a potential enemy,” Clint said. “He’s also a potential ally. And in my experience, when you treat someone like an enemy, they’re more likely to become one.”

“I can’t trust him,” Steve said.

Clint grinned. “I’m not telling you to trust him. I’m saying, don’t alienate him, and maybe stop expecting him to blow up the tower or kill us all in our sleep.”

Steve looked down. “That obvious, huh?”

“You’re pretty easy to read,” Clint said. “This team–we’re pretty different people. A lot of us are pretty messed up in different ways. But we take our cues from you. Dial it back around Loki, and maybe he’ll quit hiding in his room all the time when he’s not catching the stink-eye from everyone. If he’s spending more time with us, we’re more likely to work out a balance. Either get used to him being around, or come up with a valid reason to not trust him.”

Clint was a lot smarter than most people realized. Steve knew that, objectively, but still moments like this startled him. “Sound advice,” he said.

“You gonna follow it?”

Steve considered. “Yeah.”

“I’m assuming you’ve noticed that he’s pretty interested in Darcy, then,” Clint added.

Relief washed over Steve. “I thought I might be imagining it,” he admitted after a second. Below them, the city was giving way to suburban streets. A collection of warehouses jutted awkwardly from the homes and shops to their left.

Clint shook his head and adjusted something on a panel to his left. “You’re not. I just wonder-”

“Clint!” Tony shouted.

Warnings blared all over the console.

Steve flailed for a handhold as Clint threw the jet into a nosedive. Seconds later, something white streaked past the windshield and exploded behind them.

“Suit up, somebody’s got SAMs!” Clint yelled, and wrenched back on the controls in a massive effort to drag the jet upright. Steve twisted out of the seat and let gravity fling him backwards; he landed against the passenger seats with a painful thud and yanked his shield off the wall. The jet leveled out.

“Heads up!” Clint shouted, and the jet rolled. Steve barely had time to anchor himself with the seat belts before the jet rolled. Tony, halfway into his suit, clamped one gauntleted hand around a ceiling brace and his metal legs slammed into the wall with a clang. Another explosion rumbled outside.

“You guys gotta get out there and shut this down!” Clint shouted. “Deploying flares-”

“Get the bay door open!” Tony snapped. His faceplate clamped into place and he twisted to face the rear door.

“Got it!”

The door began to hiss open.

Deja vu hit Steve in a rush, but this time, he went with it. They didn’t have a plan but they didn’t have time to make one.

Tony fired his thrusters and shot out the gap.

Steve grabbed a parachute pack and dove after him.

Wind roared in his ears. He took a precious second to orient himself into skydiver’s posture and pull the chute over his torso. There was no time to do up the buckles and straps that would distribute the force; the ground was rushing up beneath Steve and he could do nothing but yank the cord and cling to the pack.

The impact shuddered through his shoulders and neck. I’m gonna feel that tomorrow. Steve’s body wrenched ninety degrees until his legs hung below, and he twisted his hands into the guidelines as his vision stabilized.

Up above, the jet was still dodging the occasional missile, but with less desperation. There was Tony, detonating the explosives before they got near Clint.

Another missile fired. Steve tracked the origin and yanked on the right guide line, turning down toward the warehouse.

They spotted him too late–the gray fabric blended neatly with the overcast sky. Semiautomatic fire tore through the chute; Steve balled up behind his shield and felt several bullets slam into it. He felt the chute shudder and start to fail. He shrugged out of the harness and dropped the last thirty feet to the roof of the warehouse.

Five guards sprinted toward him. Concrete splinters flew. Steve sprinted to his left, holding the shield in his right arm, to flank them. He angled until he could block four of the guards, dodged to avoid the bullets of the fifth, and slammed into one man full force. The guard went flying and his gun skittered across the roof. Steve snatched it up and opened fire on the others. Two fell and the others dropped back, ducking behind the rooftop door and out of sight.

Steve tossed the rifle aside, clung his shield onto his left arm, and ran straight for them.

Both guards popped around the sides of the concrete structure and opened fire. Steve dove sideways and hunkered down behind a vent. Bullets tore into the concrete on either side of him. He considered charging them, but he wasn’t sure he could cover both angles with his shield and his leg hurt like hell.

Then he remembered twenty-first-century comms systems.

“Tony,” he snapped. “Can you get these guys off my back?”

“Can I get an entire party drunk in half an hour?” Tony said. Seconds later, Steve heard two bursts of fire from above, and the guards’ guns fell silent.

“I don’t know, can you?” Steve asked, climbing to his feet.

An explosion rocked the building. Steve stumbled, caught himself, and eyed the smoke rising from the other end of the warehouse complex.

Tony hit the roof next to the door. “I was asking rhetorically.”

Steve jogged over and kicked the lock off the door. “Was that the launcher?”

“No more SAMs from these guys,” Tony said with satisfaction, and they charged into the rooftop door together.

Steve led the way down four flights of stairs. A guard popped out at the bottom and Steve dove the last segment, shield in front. He slammed into the guard with a crunch and rolled to his feet.

Tony hauled open the door.

Bullets tore through the opening.

Tony closed it again and looked at Steve. “Think they know we’re here?”

“How many?” Steve asked. He was already reaching for a strategy, pieces of a plan spinning together in his head like a puzzle.

Tony ripped the door open, fired his thrusters, and blasted into the opening.

Three seconds later, there was a distant crash and no more bullets.

Steve cautiously poked his head around the frame. The hallway was littered with at least thirty groaning men in army surplus body armor and automatic rifles. Tony was climbing to his feet at the far end of the hallway below a sizable dent in the wall.

Steve shook his head and stepped into the hallway.

“Cops incoming,” Clint said over the earpiece. “Darcy says she’s coordinating with the local PD but try not to kill anyone. She also said this is the suspected property of Carl Mott–drug and weapons trafficker with ties to Central American cartels. They’ve never had probable cause to move in.”

“If Mott’s there, he’ll be in a safe room or bolting,” Steve said. “Clint, take perimeter watch. Tony, find the servers or computers or whatever and have JARVIS pull what he can. I’m going after Mott.”

“Preliminary scans of the building suggest there is a bunker one story underground,” JARVIS said from Tony’s suit speakers. “The entrance is likely somewhere on the ground floor.”

“Good thing we’re already there,” Steve said grimly. “JARVIS, can you tell me where exactly–”

“Through the door to your left.”

It was locked.

“Move,” Tony said, and blasted the door off its hinges. Steve stepped warily through the dust and smoke into a small, innocuous room full of filing cabinets.

“These’ll be useless,” Tony muttered, almost to himself. “Just a–decoy–here we go.” He shoved against the back wall.

The door rumbled and gave way.

“Thanks,” Steve said, and took off down the spiral staircase.

He heard Tony and JARVIS talking, but Tony must’ve taken it off the comm feed, because their voices faded as Steve descended. He kept his feet as quiet as he could on the stairs, shield in front of him and angled downward, but he knew he wasn’t exactly inconspicuous. Or especially quiet. Combat boots really nixed the whole “stealthy approach” thing, especially on metal stairs–

“Hey!” someone shouted, and opened fire.

With no cover, Steve’s only option was to dive headfirst down the stairs (again) and pray he wasn’t too far from the bottom.

He slammed into another body with a grunt, but they weren’t near the bottom. He tumbled over the railing and twisted in midair, putting the body of the guard between himself and the floor. They landed with a crunch less than a second later.

Steve climbed to his feet, mindful of the burning bullet track in his leg, and did a quick soldier’s scan of the environment.

Steel bunker door, straight ahead. Vestibule area–one camera, pointed at the base of the steps and not the shadowy corner where Steve and the guard landed. He shook his head. Shoddy security.

The room was small, and the camera’d be easy to evade. But that door…

Steve didn’t particularly want to shoot it down with the guard’s rifle. Not only would that make a ton of noise and warn Mott that he had a visitor, but he wasn’t sure it would work. He hadn’t totally figured out twenty-first-century security systems and weapons yet.

“Tony,” he said into the comms. “I need to get through a steel bunker. Can you get down here?”

“Kind of on the other end of the compound,” Tony said tersely. “Busy trying to get us usable intel. Figure it out, Capsicle, you’re a smart one.”

Steve gritted his teeth. Reached for the guard’s rifle.

“Hold up. Steve, is the guard wearing a name tag?” Clint asked.

Steve squinted in the low light. “Yeah, James.” Grief, his old friend, reared its head. He imagined punching it in its depressing face and focused on Clint.

“-bluff your way in,” the archer was saying. “Just say there was a disturbance, or something.”

“Got it,” Steve said.

He walked over, careful to avoid the camera’s gaze, and pounded on the door.

A second later, a scratchy intercom came to life. “Yeah?”

“It’s James,” he said. “We got a problem. Buzz me in.” He deliberately spoke quietly in an effort to distort his voice.

“Didn’t see you come down the stairs,” the voice said.

Steve made his uncertainty into irritation in his voice. “Because your eyes are always glued to the monitor, right? Open the damn door already.”

There was a long pause.

I screwed up, Steve thought, and stepped back once.

“Yeah, yeah,” the other man said grudgingly.

Steve instantly stepped to the side, out of the sight line of anyone inside. The door began to scrape open.

A helmeted head popped out. “James-”

Steve grabbed the man’s head, dragged him out into the vestibule, and got him in a deft chokehold.

When the guard stopped struggling, Steve waited another three seconds and dropped him on the ground. The door was still open. He adjusted his shield and stepped through.

The bunker was stripped down to the basics: a concrete box underground with several different rooms. This first guard post was just a chair, a monitor, the intercom, and the control for the door. Steve stepped forward into the room beyond.

“Don’t move,” someone warned.

Steve froze. A forty-something-year-old man with a beer gut and a receding hairline had a pistol in his face.

“Carl Mott?” he asked.

The man’s hands were steady. “Doesn’t matter who I am. You’re gonna let me walk out of here or I pull this trigger.”

“Either shoot me or drop the gun,” Steve said. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

“You’re Captain fucking America,” Mott sneered. “I’d really rather not shoot you, I’d be the most wanted guy on the planet. They even love you in Europe–do you know how hard that is for an American these days? But I will if I have to.”

I’m sick of this.

Steve moved with brutal efficiency.

His took the first three shots and then the distance was closed and Mott resorted to hand-to-hand. He was pretty good, probably would’ve been a challenge in his youth, but this time he was forty and unfit. Mott went down in seconds.

Steve snapped a picture on his StarkPhone and fumbled with the thing for a few seconds before he figured out how to send the thing.

Is this Mott? he sent.

The reply was quick.

Got him, Darcy said.

Thanks. Steve tucked the phone away and looked around the room.

Two leather sofas, a television, a refrigerator, and a locked cabinet. Steve gave Mott a glance to make sure he wasn’t going anywhere and broke the lock off the cabinet with one strike of his shield.

“Bastard,” he muttered.

Inside was a pile of Chitauri energy weapons and a briefcase.

“Tony, I’ve got something down here,” he said. “Briefcase and Chitauri weapons.”

“Coming but I won’t be there fast,” Tony said. “Cops’re pulling up outside. What’s in the case?”

“Hold on.”

Steve grabbed the briefcase and opened it, grateful that he’d worn his gloves this morning–no fingerprints.

“Just paperwork,” Steve said, scanning the contents.

“Take pictures of it if you can,” Tony said.

“Tony-”

“Get off the high road already, that could be valuable and who knows if the police will share it,” Tony snapped. “Especially if it’s sitting on Chitauri tech!”

“Fine,” Steve muttered.

With another quick look at Mott–the arms dealer was still out of it with his back to the cabinet–Steve pulled out his phone again and started taking pictures of every page in the case, one by one.

At the bottom, he found a small plastic device with a rectangular bit of metal sticking out of the end.

Steve squinted at it.

The phone vibrated in his hand.

He looked down. Copy flash drive? Yes / No

Well, he’d already taken pictures of the files. This couldn’t be that much worse. Hesitantly, Steve pressed Yes, and the phone immediately switched to displaying a progress bar.

Steve tapped his fingers anxiously while the progress bar slowly filled, not daring to move the phone in case he broke whatever connection had been accidentally made.

As soon as it finished, he stacked the papers back into the briefcase just as they had been before, stuffed the flash drive beneath them, closed the briefcase, and put it back in the cabinet.

“Up,” he said, pulling Mott to his feet. “Talk. Fast. Where’d you get that tech?”

Mott blinked blearily and spat on the floor. “I’m not telling you anything,” he growled.

“Tell me or tell the cops, what’s the difference?” Steve asked.

“I’m not talking to either of you,” Mott laughed.

“Fine,” Steve snapped. “Let’s go.”

Just then, a roar and a clang announced Tony’s arrival.

“Talk or I tell the cops how unwilling you were to cooperate with Captain America,” Tony ordered.

Steve’s mouth tightened–they were threatening Mott, technically, and he hadn’t even been read his rights or any due process–but then again they might need to act fast.

Mott paled.

“What’s it gonna be?” Tony asked.