Chapter 106
Above Mexico City
November 2011
Tony pulled off his headset and stepped down from the cockpit. “Good news or bad news first?” he asked.
His teammates were sprawled around the jet in various stages of post-battle exhaustion. Natasha and Bucky, as Tony had taken to calling him, were the most functional; Steve was still one massive bruise from getting thrown across the desert without even a Hulk-cushion. Bruce was still bleary-eyed from four hours of power napping, but Tony decided he’d want the update.
“Bad news,” Natasha said.
“Clint’s in critical condition. Punctured lung, three fractured ribs, and they had to give him a blood transfusion. Sam’s also in the hospital with a concussion, not too bad but also not superficial, and a few scrapes and sprains that aren’t serious.”
Bucky blew out a breath. “Could be worse.”
“What’s the good news?” Bruce asked.
“Good news is the munitions story is holding up,” Tony said. “According to Maria.”
“Remind me why we’re doing that?” Bruce asked. “Couldn’t we just tell them we wanted the drugs gone?”
Tony shared a glance with Steve. “Ross came to me after a meeting and said he wanted us to get him samples,” Steve said flatly. “I think he thought going to the military man would help his case. I don’t trust him with that information but Tony convinced me we should at least not make it obvious that we kept it from him.”
“And you didn’t tell us.” Natasha was unreadable.
“Nope,” Tony said.
Steve rose to his feet. “We hoped it wouldn’t come to this. We didn’t want to even open the door to a path of going against the UN unless we had to. A small quantity of the drugs we could’ve gotten out and hidden or destroyed like we planned. This drastic action, though–it was a last resort.”
“Mmm.” Natasha didn’t show any visible reaction, just looked down at her hands again.
“Maria?” Bucky asked.
Tony tapped the headset. “In the hospital. She’s finished dealing with the UN for now–she had to give statements and other bureaucratic time-wasters–and in the hospital. Clint and Sam are being transferred back to New York Presbyterian within the next few hours; Maria’ll fly with them.”
“Loki?” Steve asked.
Tony pointed at a screen on the rear wall of the jet. “There.”
Steve looked. Tony knew he’d see the tracker dot of the wrist cuff blinking a few miles southwest at the United Nations combined forces’ temporary camp, under the command of a Mexican general. “Maria had to go bust him out of UN custody before he had to lie his ass off about who he was. We need to create a fake identity for him stat–JARVIS, remind me to do that when we get back to New York. For now he’s waiting by the base; he’ll rejoin us when we stop to refuel. Which is where we’re going now.”
Bucky sat back against the wall. “So we have another few hours in here.”
“Unfortunately,” Tony said. “If you need target practice, try and wait till we’re back.”
His tone had a bite to it. Bucky’s studied lack of reaction was a reaction in itself. Tony turned away and slid into the captain’s seat. “JARVIS, get me a flight plan,” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
“Oh,” Tony called over his shoulder, “and all the Sinaloa guys who survived are being arrested. Drugs and human trafficking. We found records of their plans to run the product across the border and that truck that Sam went after had a couple missing persons in it, mostly women and girls. Just so you know. We did good, guys.”