Chapter Text
“Good morning, Mr. Leandros,” Jarvy said from the ceiling. I just rolled over and shoved my face into the pillow. “Mr. Leandros, Sr., has asked me to inform you that the first batch of pancakes is ready for consumption.”
I shoved myself off the pillow. “Damn ninja is going to throw his creaky back out. Houdini! Up and at ‘em!”
Loki just groaned and pulled the covers over his head.
“If you would allow me, Mr. Loki, Mr. Stark keeps several hangover remedies in the bar.”
“This would not be an issue if you just allowed me my magic,” the godling grumped.
I rolled my eyes. “Yes, yes, the sufferings of the boringly mundane, so tragic, now get your ass up.”
I stomped out of our room, fully intending to tear my darling brother a new one, then happened to catch a whiff when the elevator opened on the common floor. I paused. Stalked down the hall to the kitchen. “Chocolate and butterscotch?”
“Stark happened to have them.”
Niko, the bane of all foods good and unhealthy for you, was making me chocolate and butterscotch chip pancakes, with real butter and fake maple syrup. I decided to accept the gesture for what it was and settled for glaring at his back pointedly from the breakfast bar.
Houdini staggered with as much alien dignity as he could muster—which was a lot, considering—to the bar Jarvy had pointed out and started ruffling through it. Niko set a cup of herbal water down for him after bringing me my stack of caloric heaven on a platter.
“After this, you’re going back to bed,” I said, tucking in. Niko said nothing and we both pretended that was a yes.
Stark stumbled into the kitchen, eyes barely open, apparently making his way to the kitchen by feel and memory. His memory must not have been very good as he ran into the breakfast bar. He pried his eyes open to stare at it uncomprehendingly then glanced around, blinking when he saw me, eating my pancakes with a spoon to make sure I got the maximum melted chocolate goodness to fluffy pancake ratio and thoroughly enjoying the spectacle of the genius billionaire in his natural state.
“Ah, the punk,” he muttered, still unfocused gaze fixed somewhere around my hairline. “Just so you’re aware, I’m not going to waste breath apologizing to you about yesterday, no matter how much Pepper natters or your evil brother glares.” Niko was doing just that. I waved my spoon at him. Stark obviously had no idea he was even in the room and I wanted to see where this went. “’Cause you obviously don’t give a shit either way, so what would be the point anyway, and I’m an engineer, I make decisions based on the information I have at the time, and I make no apologies for those decisions. ‘Caliban’ is an apt descriptor of your situation and your mother had a grasp of irony.”
I shrugged and scooped up more melted butterscotch. “I think so too. Chill, Nik,” I added when Cyrano looked at me. “I’m not going to insist on Caliban again.”
On my other side, Houdini was staring at Stark with slightly wide eyes like he’d never seen him before in his long alien life, and his hands were clutching at his mug.
Stark nodded at me, grabbed a whole bag of onion bagels and three tubs of cream cheese, all in ridiculous flavors—seriously, who even made olive tomato cream cheese?—and shuffled back to the elevator, still without noticing that there were other people in the room.
~*~
Thor hide himself around a corner as Tony reentered the elevator. He had managed to go nearly the entire meal without anyone in the kitchen sensing his presence and while the Man of Iron was not at his most observant after having spent the night in his smithy, Thor wasn’t taking any chances. The events of yesterday had shown that a new approach was required, so Thor was attempting to take a page from his brother’s book and trying stealth.
It was much easier in the woods.
Still, he had gathered some interesting knowledge of the two mercenaries Director Fury had hired to watch Loki. Niko, while quick to take offense and sometimes irrational, could be reasoned with, and the skywalker would not fly into a rage at the slightest hint of insult. Loki still acted half-dead when hungover.
That last made an ache bloom in his chest.
The skywalker shoveled another stake of cakes of pan into his mouth, his older brother not bothering to mask his disgust but also not saying anything. Loki hunched over the counter, grimacing into his cup of tea.
A sopping piece of cake hit Loki on the cheek.
Both Loki and Thor looked to the skywalker, who was holding a spoon with another piece loaded and cocked between his hands. “Come on, Houdini, it’s just a headache. Stop acting like the whole universe is squatting on your head.”
Loki’s eyes smoldered over his cup. “I would have more cause to know what that feels like than—”
The second piece hit Loki across the mouth.
The two of them stared at each other. The skywalker smirked as syrup dripped off Loki’s chin. Thor jerked forward when Loki sprang out of his seat, but the skywalker was no longer there, appearing instead near the door, taunting. Loki snarled and the two of them disappeared down the hall.
Niko rolled his eyes at their fading footsteps and started gathering dishes. “Are you going to skulk all day?”
Thor startled. He thought he’d been doing well! Not even Loki had sensed his presence.
Niko turned to the sink, starting the water. “You can start by picking up your brother’s cup.”
Thor shuffled slowly into the kitchen, eyeing Niko. “How do you do it?” he asked finally.
Niko glanced over at him as he rolled his up sleeves. “Grasp the handle with your hand and lift. It’s not terribly difficult.”
Thor shook his head with a slight huff, picking up the cup “You’re actually just as rude, aren’t you?”
“That’s what happens when you grow up with someone. You pick up mannerisms. Especially when you’re the only thing keeping each other alive.” Niko delivered a flat stare over the sink. “Let me make one thing clear, Odinson, Cal is my brother and I will protect him before anything else.”
The cup cracked in Thor’s hands. “The auphe are a scourge. Indiscriminate killers and plunderers.”
Nothing changed overtly in Niko’s stance, but Thor knew a blade when he saw one.
“Cal is not a monster. He is my brother.”
~*~
There were times I really hated this babysitting job. This was definitely one of them.
After a hard day of boredom since Things One and Two still wouldn’t let me fly the alien hover car—apparently Niko had called early before making the pancakes and scared them half to death—I was looking forward to my fourteen hours, and it was goddamn beautiful, until that fucking bloody alarm went up.
I could have happily killed someone.
Houdini must have shared that sentiment from the dark curses being muttered under the blankets.
I stuffed a pillow over my head and clamped my whole arm down on it. Sound was pressure, right? So I could just over-pressure it out, right? Right?
“Hydra agents have allied with Dr. Doom and are currently attacking SHIELD HQ,” Jarvy informed us. “Your assistance is required.”
“Fuck that! We spent the whole fucking day there! I’m not doing any more!”
“Unfortunately, as per the new clause in your consultant contract, you can be called on as first responders when the situation calls for it, regardless of work hours. The current circumstances fit the contract criteria.”
I debated furiously with myself for several long minutes before throwing everything off the bed in a fit of pique. “Fine. Then let’s get to the fight so I can kick some bloody fucking ass. Houdini, up! I need to punch something, do not let it be you.” Houdini glared at me and curled tighter into a ball as I snagged my duffel bag. I simply grabbed his ankle and gated us both to HQ, dumping his lazy ass on the lawn.
People immediately started shooting at us. I fired back while Loki flipped himself behind an overturned car.
“Fantastic planning!” he snarled. “My magic is still sealed and I have no weapon!” I tossed him the first gun that came to hand from my duffel. He rolled his eyes like an angsty fifteen-year-old but braced the gun on the car and went to town, mowing down a line of Hydra goons.
Yeah, we had definitely been woken on the wrong side of the bed.
This was helping, though.
The lawn was roiling with activity. The annoying cloaked robots were once again trying to dig their way through the lawn to the corpse storage. SHIELD hadn’t managed to completely fill in the first hole, which was really just sloppy of them, so the robots were well below my line of sight. The Hydra goons had set up a sort of barricade around them formed from weapons crates and overturned cars from the damaged parking garage and were keeping the SHIELD agents occupied enough that the doombots had free reign. Most of the goons were being cowardly meerkats and staying behind the barricade, but one dude was just sauntering all over the lawn, dispatching any agent that got within range and providing cover as goons repaired breaches. He looked like some kind of walking weapons arsenal, with guns stuck to his back and knives strapped everywhere else, not to mention all the little grenades tucked places. And his getup just got weirder from there: some kind of mask covered the lower half of his face like he expected to get gassed at any point, and his arm was fucking shiny. Like, really shiny. It was the middle of the night, sure, but SHIELD had spot lights up and that thing was practically a disco ball under them.
I cursed and ducked behind a car as a bullet grazed my calf. See, this is why you don’t drag me out of my bed straight into a fight. I have no attention whatso-fucking-ever because I was sleeping a moment ago.
Loki didn’t spare me a glance as I peered down at my leg. Mech, it was just a scratch. I ripped a strip from my t-shirt for a quick field bandage, then grabbed my Desert Eagle and two magazines from my duffel and gated myself into the doombots’ midst.
I was working my frustrations out on them—watching their heads explode into millions of tiny pieces was hugely satisfying—when a quinjet zoomed overhead and Tin Man plopped down next to me.
“Hey, punk,” he said through the suit’s speakers, sounding way too awake. Knowing the idiot genius, he probably hadn’t ever gone to bed and had caffeine seeping out his pores. Probably a good thing he was in the suit. I’m sure the air around him would have been radioactive otherwise. “Try to save some of their good bits, I need new toys.”
The Hulk dropped down practically on top of him and started smashing the robots to smithereens.
“Goddamn it!” Stark yelled. “Every single time! Fine! I didn’t want to play here anyway.” And he zoomed off.
With the way the Hulk was going at it, I didn’t really think I wanted to be there either, so I gated myself back up to the lawn and immediately ducked as a gloved hand went for my face. It was the guy with the shiny arm, and he was currently fighting both Black Widow and Captain America, a fight which unfortunately now seemed to include me as he seemed to take my appearing in his bubble rather personally. Touchy-touchy.
Holy shit, that shiny arm was metal.
Widow was doing some strange octopus move to keep his hands busy while Captain America tried to take his legs out with a foot sweep. Mr. Sparkle Sparkle just jump-roped it, pried Black Widow off by turning the jump into the nearest flipped car and came straight at me.
I shot him in the face.
Because Captain America, never say never, was punching his shield into the shiny arm, he didn’t have enough grace to fully dodge. The bullet scraped his head gear and made him stumble out of Captain America’s range. Well, it damn well should have. That was my Desert Eagle. What the hell was that mask made of, titanium? Ha, now it was falling off. I win!
Captain America froze. “Bucky?”
The guy punched him in the face.
Oh, that had to hurt. He’d used the metal arm.
Still, this was an interesting development. Better than cable. But Widow seemed to have been impaled through the shoulder with something and a tank of guy like that was not going to go down easy. So I gated him away.
The two Avengers stared at me, Widow blandy and Captain still a little shell-shocked. “What did you do with him?” he asked. “Where is he?”
“He’s at the bottom of the Atlantic.”
“What?!”
“Relax, I’ll bring him back in…” I glanced at my naked wrist. “Eh…seventy seconds.”
I shot the last two Hydra goons while waiting.
I fetched him back. That fishy-briny-hovering-between-pleasant-unpleasant sea smell swamped the whole area, making me sneeze. And he was still awake. And still aware enough to try to take a swing at me. A very weak, stumbling swing, but still. Back he went. “Not done yet,” I told Captain America.
SHIELD agents started canvassing the lawn, triaging fellow agents and carting off Hydra goons. One came over to check Black Widow’s shoulder. Looked like a nice clean through-and-through. The she-ssasin only allowed a light bandaging before she hobbled over to the hole to do some weird thing with the Hulk. SHIELD really need to get that hole filled. Seriously. Leaving it like that was just asking for it.
“Mister. Leandros,” Captain America gritted.
Loki teleported next to me and dangled his broken gun in my face. “Your ‘device’ does not handle stress well when applied to the Midgardian cheekbone.”
“Mr. Leandros!”
“Fine, fine, don’t get your spangled panties all in a wad, I’m getting him.”
This time Mr. Sparklies was unconscious. Fucking finally. I gave him a decent kick in the back to encourage the water out of his lungs. Captain America seems to suffer a stroke.
I looked at the nearest SHIELD agent. “You guys got any superman cuffs? Guy’s got a metal arm.”
The SHIELD agent rolled his eyes. “Superman isn’t real.”