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Somewhere in the middle of a rutted road in a South American jungle, the ex-Special Forces team known as the Losers had backed up until they’d decided backing up wasn’t working for them anymore and so they’d stopped and just made a stand where they were at. They weren’t pinned down, not exactly, but they couldn’t really move either. And the cartel’s men, although they’d been thinned out quite a bit, seemed to have a pretty much unlimited supply of ammunition. Not to mention, they could have reinforcements show up at any time, possibly from either end of the road the current gun battle was stalled out in the middle of. So it wasn’t the greatest of afternoons for the Losers, and it wasn’t looking like things were going to get any better within the next few hours.
But then, quite unexpectedly, the shooting stopped – or at least, it stopped being aimed at them and started being aimed at something else. Cougar, the Losers’ sniper, let their self-proclaimed ex-colonel Clay know with a gesture that he’d seen something, and from the opposite side Jensen, their communications expert, indicated the same way that what he was hearing from their opponents’ radio transmissions meant something new was going on. Clay motioned for his remaining man, their transport specialist Pooch, to cover him and risked breaking cover enough to look. Nothing happened. He took a deep breath and stood up, and nothing happened again. There were some gunshots, but they were distant echoing pops further back in the jungle, and nothing was moving up close. “Okay, I think I’m offended,” Clay said finally, shaking his head. “They just ran off and left us.”
“Someone else attacked them,” Jensen told him. He stood up too, but he left his equipment behind the rocks that had been sheltering him. He shrugged at Clay and Pooch, who had also stood up out of cover; Cougar was still perched up mostly out of sight with his rifle, just in case. “They sounded like they were getting their asses kicked, and they were scared.”
Pooch raised an eyebrow. “Any idea…?”
Jensen ran a hand through his spiky blond hair. “I heard a few of them yelling something about a gringo and hombre de metal.” He shrugged again. “Iron Man, maybe?”
“Hopefully not. He’d take them out and then hand us our asses as an afterthought.” From back in the jungle came a scream, and they all winced. “Cougar, see anything?”
In answer, Cougar slid down from the tree he’d been in and adjusted his battered cowboy hat. “Metal, moving in the trees, heading this way,” he said. “Could be an hombre de metal, but it’s the wrong color to be Iron Man.”
“Yeah, he’s red and gold, wouldn’t be able to miss that out here.” Pooch was unhappy and it showed. “The Pooch thinks this might be a good time to haul ass out of here and come back another day. Don’t want to find out the cartels are duking it out with robot armies now.”
“I doubt they are, but I still agree that bugging out might be for the best…” And that was when they all heard it, the stamp of heavy metal feet, coming right down the road they were now standing on. “Okay, I think we may have lost our shot at running from this one already. Whatever it is, it’s moving fast. And it’s big.” He waved the other three back to cover. “Get out of sight, be prepared to cover me – or to run like hell in opposite directions.”
“I think we may be a little late for that to work too.” Jensen pointed. There was a bulky metal man stomping up the road, and it looked armed to the teeth. “Okay, yeah, not Iron Man.”
Pooch started to raise his gun, but Clay quickly shook his head. “No, don’t – if that’s a robot, a sign of aggression might start it shooting at us. And if it’s a guy in a suit, pointing guns at him might piss him off.” Pooch pointed at Cougar, who had his rifle aimed right at the metal man’s head. Clay sighed. “Okay, so not a robot. Hopefully it’s not easy to piss him off, either.”
Jensen was muttering to himself, and then he suddenly snapped his fingers and pointed at the oncoming metal man. “I remember now, that’s War Machine!” He made a face. “And he works for the Air Force, so we may really be screwed here.” He waved at the metal man, though. “Hey, War Machine! Could you please not blow us straight to hell until we’ve at least had a chance to explain?”
War Machine stopped walking. “You don’t have to, we already know,” it boomed, and then one massive metal hand reached up and flipped up the armor’s visor to reveal the face of a black man who looked to be about Clay’s age. “Hope you don’t mind us taking away your playmates, but we came out here to talk to you and they were in the way.” He nodded at Clay. “Colonel Clay, I’m Colonel Rhodes. I’m doing a favor for a friend, I escorted someone out here…” Another scream came from the jungle, and a sound of metal hitting something, and he winced, turning partway around. “Captain, quit playing with them and get your ass over here!” he ordered.
A fainter voice came floating back. “I was taking out the rest of the snipers, you’re welcome.” Feet were coming, booted feet instead of metal, and a moment later a tall young blond man wearing Army-issue fatigues and a t-shirt jogged into view, dog tags making a distinctive bulge under his shirt and something bulky slung across his back. He waved a hand in the direction he’d just come from. “Sorry, I didn’t want them to circle around and sneak up on us from behind.”
“That’s okay, we didn’t either.” Clay looked between the young – really young – Army captain and the metal-suited Air Force colonel, raising an eyebrow. “Colonel, mind explaining what’s going on?”
“We came out here to find you,” Rhodes told him. “For a couple of reasons. There’s a former extraction team closing in on your rogue CIA bastard as we speak. I was told to tell you that the former Badgers, now the Botos, will get his confession of what he did to you boys out of him before they take what he did to them out of his ass. Director Clarke says it shouldn’t take them more than a week, because, and I quote, “Max is a limp-dicked little weasel when he doesn’t have the upper hand’.” He raised an eyebrow. “I’m guessing you understand that?”
“I got part of it, yeah, and yes he is.” Clay looked at Jensen. “Botos?”
“Amazon river dolphins,” the younger man told him, bouncing a little on the balls of his feet. “They’re pink, like My Little Pony princess-girl pink. And they eat piranha. They’re endangered now, but only because humans started killing them to get their skin.” He stopped bouncing. “I guess that’s how the Badgers came back from getting burned, huh?”
“Yeah, I guess. They were certainly nuts enough to rename themselves after a pink dolphin, nobody else would do something like that.” He returned his attention to the other two men. “Okay, so Allison and her team of lunatics are taking out Max. Which is fine with me, because he got them before he got us. So what were your other reasons?”
The blond captain cleared his throat. “That would be my reason, Colonel,” he said. “I needed to talk to Corporal Jensen about…well, about some experiments the Army did with genetic material some years back.” He fidgeted, coloring up a little. “We’re…well, we’re sort of related, and I wanted to tell him myself.”
Clay looked at the openmouthed Jensen, and then back at the captain; Pooch and Cougar were doing the same. “Okay, yeah, I can see the resemblance,” he agreed. He was a little surprised he hadn’t seen it immediately, the young captain looked a lot like his communications specialist, just bigger and without the glasses. “But if you’re Army, then I’m sure you know what we were accused of doing…”
A shot rang out, ricocheting off of War Machine’s armor. Everyone reacted, ducking and grabbing weapons, but the blond captain reacted faster than everyone else did. In one smooth movement he had yanked the bulky thing off his back and intercepted a second pot-shot with it, and then he threw the thing into the jungle. A couple of crashing noises and a quickly cut off scream later it came flying back to him, and he caught it and raised it in front of him – obliquely shielding the rest of them as well – automatically. It was round, metallic, and had a very distinctive red, white and blue design painted on it. When no other shots came he slowly lowered it, and blushed beet red when he realized everyone was staring at him. Rhodes cleared his throat. “I’m guessing I don’t need to formally introduce Steve at this point, right?”
Clay shook his head slowly. “Nope. Nice to meet you, Captain Rogers.”
Steve nodded back. “Likewise, Colonel. And yes, I heard how you were all framed. They were looking to see if I had any more descendants running around, and when Corporal Jensen’s profile came up…” He squared his shoulders. “I’m sorry to tell you all this, but a lot of higher-ups apparently knew you’d been framed – not just the CIA, but also the Army and SHIELD, too.” His jaw set. “That made me pretty damned mad, and not just because the corporal is my…” he deflated a little, blushing again, “…well, my grandson.”
That got some more looking back and forth between the openmouthed Jensen and the way-too young-looking Steve. Pooch shook his head. “Well shit,” he said. “This situation is way outside the Pooch’s experience.” He pointed at Steve. “You can’t even be thirty yet.”
Steve shook his head, blush coming back with a vengeance. “I just turned twenty-seven – by my count, anyway. If you go by the year I was born, though, I’d be in my nineties.”
Cougar shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
“He crashed his plane in the Arctic to take out a missile that was headed for New York, right before the end of World War II,” Jensen supplied; being stunned almost speechless apparently hadn’t turned off the trivia fountain. “They found him about a year ago, in the ice.” He shook himself. “You’re younger than me, man. And you’re my grandfather?”
Steve made a face. ‘Yeah. I know it’s weird…”
“It’s awesome!” Jensen started bouncing again. “Are there any more of us?”
“Two more so far: Sue and Johnny Storm,” Rhodes supplied. “Sue and her husband went to visit your sister and your niece so they could explain what was going on.”
“Johnny and Ben are helping the other Avengers guard the city while the rest of us are gone,” Steve added. “Johnny wanted to come with us, but I thought it would be better if he stayed there; since Thor still hasn’t come back, he’s the only one besides Tony who can fly.”
“Good thinking,” Clay said, nodding, and noted that the captain relaxed just a little when he said it. Oh yep, he was a kid all right – he wasn’t actively looking for validation, but he still needed it. Clay put that aside to think about later. “So what are we doing now? Because I gotta tell you, this isn’t the best spot to have a family reunion.”
“We noticed.” Rhodes smirked. “Actually, we have a plane waiting. Are you boys ready to come home?”
Pooch looked at his colonel. “Clay…”
Clay frowned. “I know.” He cocked his head at Rhodes. “Ready, yes. Able? Not until we get this job finished – although I think you may have finished most of it for us when you came in. If the road is clear, all we need to do is skip down there and set a few buildings on fire and then we’re done. Can you give us an hour?”
Rhodes snorted. “I can give you air support,” he said. “You mind if the captain runs with you?”
Clay shook his head. “Not as long as he can use a gun.”
Ouch, he’d only thought the kid was blushing before. “I…they won’t let me carry one.”
Hmm, he was definitely going to have to do some thinking later – and some talking, too, possibly some yelling. “Can you use one?”
Steve stiffened and his jaw set; that was obviously a sore point. “Clint and Jarvis requalified me last month, I’m still at sharpshooter level.”
“Well, then ‘they’ are a bunch of stupid fucks. Cougar, get Captain Rogers set up and let’s get the fuck out of here, because I am sick of running around in this god-damned jungle.” Clay grabbed his own gear bag and walked over to Rhodes, cocking an eyebrow as he looked up at him. “Afraid he’d eat it or afraid the PR corps wouldn’t be able to spin it?”
A shrug. “Probably both. I don’t think SHIELD realized he wasn’t a 3D comic book character when they woke him up – they weren’t really working with him, they were just writing him a new storyline. That got mostly fixed, our problem now is the Army refusing to acknowledge he is who he says he is unless he ‘surrenders himself’ for testing.” Rhodes snorted again. “I passed that one along to my superiors day before yesterday; if the level of swearing was any indication, Steve may be switching branches soon.” His lips twitched. “Even though his piloting skills do leave something to be desired.”
Clay chuckled. “I’m sure the folks in New York thought his skills were right on the money – you Air Force boys are too picky, the Army’s all about results. So since you’ve obviously met the former Badger Team…what have they been doing? Nobody’s heard anything in years, not since they said they were gonna get back at SHIELD for burning them.”
“Oh, they got their own back, all right.” Rhodes grinned. “They’re running SHIELD’s Human Resources department.”
He was still grinning half an hour later behind his visor while they watched the buildings with the drugs and money in them burn, because the look on Colonel Clay’s face had been just that funny.