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“I’d say offhand that you have a ghost,” Dean said into the phone.
Sam could hear the person, a woman, laughing on the other end of the phone.
“You need to find the bones of the ghost and burn them,” Dean continued, quite seriously.
Sam raised an eyebrow and Dean held up a finger for him to hang on a second.
“Yes, I’m serious. You’ve killed aliens. Why is it so hard to believe in ghosts?”
Dean listened to the answer and answered her again. “All right. Me and Sammy will come to New York and check it out.”
“What was that all about?”
Dean could see that Sam was really curious now. “You remember that stuff on the news a few months back about some group of heroes calling themselves the Avengers?” he asked Sam.
“Sure. You can’t go anywhere without seeing Captain America or Iron Man toys and shirts and kids in costumes.”
“Well, they have a woman hero, too, and her name is Natasha and she believes that they are being haunted.”
“Has it hurt anyone yet? The ghost, I mean,” Sam asked.
“She says it’s spooked the hell out of Iron Man.”
“Seriously? Iron Man is afraid of ghosts?”
“She says he’s certain it’s a particular ghost. He was an enemy of Tony Stark and tried to kill him and his assistant, Miss Potts.”
“What did she say when you told her to burn his bones?”
“The man was blown up in an explosion,” Dean told him.
“Then his ghost must be attached to an object.”
“She said maybe it’s the arc reactor. That would be a problem for Iron Man.”
“Well, let’s go help them then,” Sam said. “It might be fun to meet superheroes.”
Dean shook his head, but headed for the car. Dean was not as jaded and blasé as he tried to appear. Sam knew that; he always had. Dean always felt like he had to be father and mother to Sammy. As much as they loved their dad, he was always out ganking monsters when they were boys and they were left to their own devices more often than not. Since Dean was the oldest, he watched out for Sam.
They drove to New York, fueled by cheeseburgers and pie when they could get it. They took turns driving though Dean preferred to drive Baby himself. They actually drove right up to the front of Avengers Tower and parked the car on the street.
Dean sucked in a breath when he saw the woman who called him, Natasha Romanov. She was a smoking hot redhead! How had he missed her when he’d seen the Avengers on television?
“I’m Nat. You must be the Winchesters.” She looked them over and motioned for them to follow her. They paused inside the wide entrance to the tall building.
“What about the car?” Sam asked. He was pretty sure they’d parked illegally.
“Hand the keys to Kevin. He’ll bring it into the parking garage.” A young man in a suit smiled at them as Dean reluctantly handed him the keys.
“You better not dent her, kid.”
Kevin nodded and got in the car.
“Come with me,” Nat said as she headed toward a line of elevators.
“So Miss Romanov, how did you hear about us?” Sam asked her.
“Just Nat. I know a guy. He said if you have trouble with the unexplained that isn’t alien or criminal mastermind, then you were the guys to call.”
“How did you get our number? We aren’t exactly on the grid?” Dean asked her.
She grinned and shrugged. “Like I said, I know a guy.”
That seemed to be all she had to say about that.
“Can you tell us anything about what we’re looking at here?” Sam asked her. He liked to know what was going on, liked facts and things he could check out. Dean just liked to get the job done. And drink beer and eat greasy food.
“You’ll see soon enough, I suspect.”
The elevator stopped and they got off. The whole floor was a massive lab. There were partitions and such but it was still a laboratory. And in the middle of it all stood Tony Stark, billionaire, former playboy, philanthropist and super hero.
“Stark, Sam and Dean Winchester. They’re the guys Barton said could look into our little problem,” Natasha told him.
Tony nodded. “So you guys are, what, ghostbusters?”
Sam grinned, but Dean raised an eyebrow. “Hunters, buddy, are not ghostbusters.”
Sam put a hand on Dean’s arm. “I’m sure Mr. Stark didn’t mean to offend you.”
Stark bristled a little at Sam’s words, but not nearly as much as Dean had at Stark’s words.
“So what’s going on here? We don’t have time to stand around playing grab ass and trading barbs,” Dean finally said. “Tell me about this ghost.”
Natasha gave Stark a look when he opened his mouth to speak and said, “We need your help. We don’t know what this is, but we don’t seem to have the skill set to get rid of it. The man who gave your name to Barton said you’re the best hunters in the country and he said it sounded like a hunter is what we need.”
“So what are we looking at?” Sam asked.
“Come with me,” Natasha said. They went up to the penthouse floor. It was a huge apartment. Nat led them to a group of large windows looking out over the New York skyline.
The windows appeared to be smeared with blood and other – things. There were foul words scrawled everywhere, words that even had Dean shaking his head. As they watched, new words appeared all by themselves.
Go the fuck away was written in a scribble that appeared to be grease.
NOW appeared a few seconds later in what looked like blood.
“We have it cleaned several times a day and it comes back,” Natasha told them.
“There’s more though, isn’t there?” Dean asked her.
“It seems to be after Stark. He wakes up in different rooms, as if he’s been carried from one place to another. Sometimes he’s covered in what appears to be blood. It disappears when you try to analyze it. Bruce has tried. The thing whispers obscenities to him. To be honest, we might all want to do that sometime, but it’s not us. It does seem to be getting more – real maybe.”
“So you do have an idea who it is?” Dean asked.
“Tony swears it’s his old business associate Obadiah Stane. Stane was killed when he tried to kill Tony and Pepper in California. He’d been a bad man for a long time and Tony simply didn’t know it,” Natasha told them. “He was not happy when Tony stopped making weapons.
“If it’s a ghost, we can burn his bones and that should take care of it,” Sam said. Then he remembered. “No bones though?”
“As far as I know, there was no body left to bury. He blew up,” Natasha explained.
Dean frowned. “We’ll need to consult with a colleague.”
Natasha smiled. “I’ll show you to your rooms and you can get cleaned up. We have a cafeteria on the first floor for employees and there’s a communal kitchen on the ninth floor that we all use. One word of advice. Don’t eat Thor’s Pop-Tarts.”
She led them to a suite with two bedrooms and left them.
“Wow!” Dean said as she shut the door. “I could get used to this. No bedbugs. Free food! Wonder if they have beer, too.”
“We should call Bobby before we do anything else,” Sam told him. “I’m going to look around online for any information on how to banish ghosts without bones.”
“Objects work, too, if we can determine what he’s attached to,” Dean reminded him. “Other than the Arc Reactor, whatever that is.”
Sam began his internet search while Dean called Bobby.
“Hey, Bobby, we need to get rid of ghost who doesn’t have a body to burn and we’re not sure about an object yet.”
“I was reading about that just the other day. There’s a thing called a Murray Box. You take a wooden box with a lock on it and get it blessed by a priest or angel then get it cursed by a witch then just set it out. A ghost can’t resist all that magic and when it gets inside, lock it with a padlock and burn it just like you would bones.”
“Well, all we need is a box, a priest and a witch!” Dean said with no enthusiasm at all.
“Where the hell are you idjits, anyway?” Bobby asked.
“New York City. Avengers Tower.”
“Them superheroes? They gotta ghost?” Bobby laughed.
“Looks like it.”
“Uh, can you get me a photo of that pretty redheaded girl?”
“Really, Bobby?” Dean asked.
“Well, I’m old and ugly, not dead and she’s a looker,” Bobby defended himself.
Dean laughed. “She is at that. I’ll see what I can do and call you back later.”
He rung off and looked at Sam. “Well, we gotta make a Murray Box.”
Sam burst out laughing.
“What?” Dean hadn’t got the ‘joke’.
“Murray as in Bill Murray.”
Dean still looked blank.
“Ghostbusters.”
Dean laughed. “Damn. Wonder if Bobby named it. Hell, maybe he just made it up.”
“So what is a Murray Box?”
Dean explained and they headed to the kitchen on the ninth floor. Both of them recognized Steve Rogers right away. Captain America was eating a piece of pizza. Natasha was there as well and sharing the pizza. The third person was a sandy haired man, a little older looking than Rogers and Romanov.
“This is Barton, guys. Clint Barton, the archer known as Hawkeye,” Natasha said, then turned to Clint. “Clint, these are the Winchesters – Sam and Dean. Oh, and that’s Rogers. Captain America.”
“Glad to meet you,” Barton said and turned back to stirring his pot on the stove. Whatever he was cooking smelled good.
Steve grinned. “Want some pizza?”
Dean sat down and reached for a piece. “Got any beer to go with it?”
Natasha nodded toward the fridge. Sam opened the door and grabbed two beers, handing one to Dean.
“So what’re you going to do?” Natasha asked them.
Dean told her what Bobby had said.
“I can find you a box,” she said with a grin. “I’m afraid the rest you’ll have to find yourself.”
“We’re used to that. I’ll make some calls after we eat and we’ll get things rolling,” Dean told her. Bobby was not wrong about her at all. Dean knew they called her Black Widow. Did she kill the men she mated with? It might be worth the risk to find out.
Sam was staring at Rogers like he hung the moon. Sometimes he worried about Sammy. Rogers was a good-looking bastard, though, he’d give him that.
Steve noticed and smiled back at Sam. Dean wondered if he needed to worry about those two.
“Um, can I see the shield?” Sam finally managed to say.
Steve nodded. “Sure. It’s in my quarters.”
Dean raised an eyebrow at Natasha, who shrugged.
After Steve and Sam left, Dean looked across the table at Natasha. “Is Cap, uh, you know?”
Natasha laughed. “He’s just Cap. Mostly he’s a really weird, geeky guy.”
“Oh, well, he and Sam should be able to nerd out then.”
Clint made a noise.
“What’s his deal?” Dean asked.
“He’s really weird, too.”
“But you love me,” Clint said as he tasted the sauce in his pot. He made a happy sound.
“I do,” she answered. “Marinara sauce?”
“Yep. I’ll share tonight at dinner if you all behave.” He turned back to his pot.
Dean finished his beer and headed back to their quarters. “I’ll make those calls now.”
Back in his room, he tracked down a priest who had worked with demons before and was willing to help and a witch who would curse the box for cash. He figured all that Stark money ought to be good for something.
Natasha showed up with the box.
“You’re serious about this being a ghost?” she asked Dean.
“We’ve burned hundreds, hell, maybe thousands of them out over the years.”
Natasha nodded. “Let’s do this then. Stark is scared out of his mind of this – whatever it is, and we need him not scared.”
“We’ll do this tomorrow evening then at 8pm.”
“I’m still not positive that it’s all real,” Natasha said.
Dean grinned. “Then you might be in for a surprise.”
The next day, Dean and Sam were treated to a highlights of New York tour, hosted by Steve Rogers himself. They saw the most famous landmarks in Manhattan including Ground Zero. Even after years, everyone was somber as they stood at the reflecting pool. Steve was, of course, one of the only adults on earth who had no memory of 9/11.
“Dad was out killing a nest of vampires that day. Sam was at college and I was sick with the flu,” Dean remembered. “Sam called me, crying, and I tried to find Dad. He didn’t know anything about it when he got home the next night.”
“I was dancing in Budapest,” Natasha told them. “We knew that something was going to happen in the US, but not what yet.”
“You were a kid?” Dean asked her.
“I was but I worked from the time I was six.”
“Doing what?” Sam asked.
“I was a child spy, Sam.”
“I was still in the circus,” Clint said.
“Circus?” Dean asked.
“Yep. Trapeze, high wire, acrobatics.”
“Trick shooting?” Dean asked.
Barton nodded. “Yep, that was a good hustle.”
“How did you get into this?” Sam asked.
“Phil Coulson, same as everyone else almost.”
They moved on, stopping to grab pretzels and hot dogs from street vendors. Dean made happy noises eating the hot dogs.
“You don’t eat many salads, I’ll bet,” Natasha said with a smile.
“Green food is for cows. Then I’ll eat it as meat,” Dean assured her. “Grease and beer are my favorite food groups.”
They left Sam and Steve at the MOMA. Dean, Natasha and Clint went for a carriage ride then rode a tour bus down to the harbor.
“I feel like we’re on a date,” Dean told them and noticed the knowing smile they gave one another. “What?”
“We were thinking the same thing,” Clint said. Dean couldn’t tell if he was serious or not.
They all met back at Avengers Tower late in the afternoon.
None of them said much as they went to their respective rooms.
“You ready to do this, Dean?” Sam asked as they got their guns and equipment ready for the ghost.
“Yeah. I hope it works. Bobby said he read it, so there’s no guarantee.”
The priest and the witch came and did their blessing and cursing thing with the box and both declined to stay for expulsion of the ghost. Dean wasn’t sure it that was a bad or a good sign. At this point, it didn’t matter much anyway.
Everyone gathered in Tony’s penthouse suite a little before 8pm.
“What do we need to do?” Natasha asked him.
“Stark needs to call him. Tormentors can’t pass by a chance to do just that. This guy seems to be here solely to torment Stark. Hopefully, Bobby was right about the attraction to the box. Once he’s inside, we burn the box and him, too, I hope. Well, it won’t destroy him but he will no longer be anchored to this world and his spirit will fly away,” Dean explained.
When everyone was gathered and the Winchesters were ready, Tony stood. The box was laying on the coffee table, lid open.
“Obie, come out. This has gone on long enough. My friends want to see you,” mTomny called out to the empty room.
For several minutes, all was quiet. Clint was getting wiggly in his seat beside Natasha on the sofa. Steve was looking at his hands and Tony looked like he could chew nails.
The room seemed to rattle suddenly and a great gush of cold air howled through.
Everyone sat up straight and paid attention.
“Fuck you!” the walls seemed to hiss.
“Come out, Obie!” Tony said to the sound.
“Bastard!” came the hiss again but a shape began to form in the center of the room.
Obadiah Stane’s ghost slowly began to take shape in front of Tony Stark. He looked like a decayed version of Obadiah himself, still tall, bald and menacing, but almost transparent now.
“Your father would be ashamed of such a pussy!” the ghost shouted at Stark. “You silly little cunt!”
Tony said nothing.
“Afraid of selling weapons! Afraid of everything!” Stane’s ghost taunted.
Dean nodded at Sam and Sam began to chant something in Latin. Sammy always liked the Latin.
The ghost wasn’t paying attention to anything or anyone in the room but Tony. Neither was anyone else but Sam and Dean. It got louder and fouler.
“Your mother was a whore and your father created monsters like your friend, Rogers.” Obadiah’s ghost swirled up and flew around the room. “Rogers wants you to suck his dick. Did you know that? Does he know you like dick?” Obi laughed maniacally and flew over to Steve then back to Tony.
Sam kept chanting in Latin and Dean stood up and took the box in his hand.
Suddenly the spirit whirled around and circled Dean and the box. “OHHH, you think you can trap me in that box! Fool!” it shouted at Dean as Dean joined Sam in the spell again. Sam nodded to the others and they began to read the same words from cheat sheets that Sam had copied for them earlier. They all stood and moved close to Dean. Tony also came to stand with his friends.
“Silly shits! I cannot -” abruptly the ghost made a choking kind of sound and was sucked into the box, screaming as it went. When it was fully in, Dean slammed the lid shut and locked it. He put it in the fireplace at the side of the room and poured a small amount of fuel on it then lit and tossed a match on it, still saying the spell over and over.
The box nearly exploded as it began to burn and smoke went up the chimney. They all heard what sounded like another scream as something more substantial than smoke suddenly went up the chimney, too. In a few minutes, all that was left of the Murray Box was a pile of ash, the metal hinges and the lock.
Tony was the first to speak. “Is it over? Is he gone?” he asked in a loud whisper.
No one answered for a few minutes and Sam pulled out their EMF meter. “Nothing,” he said to Dean.
“I think he’s gone,” Dean said to Tony.
Everyone sort of hugged Tony and congratulated him. Dean noticed he didn’t look as strained and frightened as he had before.
“Maybe we need to celebrate,” Natasha suggested.
Tony took them all out to celebrate, buying a pricy restaurant up for the evening. They ate fancy French food and consumed wine and champagne, then they went to a dance club. That they were all in jeans and t-shirts didn’t bother anyone when they saw how green Tony’s money was.
Dean sat with Natasha, but he watched Sam and Steve Rogers. The two were sitting in a corner having a very intent conversation.
Natasha ordered a bottle a very expensive vodka and two glasses. She poured two glasses and pushed one toward Dean. He lifted it toward in a sort of informal toast and downed it. She did the same. They smiled at one another.
This was his kind of woman, Dean thought. He even danced with her when he got drunk enough not to care that he couldn’t dance. Maybe he could talk her into letting him bunk with her tonight, he thought.
They all got back to the Avengers Tower about an hour before sunrise. Dean saw Sammy disappear with Rogers. He followed Natasha into her room.
*
The sun was bright and his hangover was a bitch when Dean finally got up. Natasha was already gone. He assumed she was where there was coffee and aspirin. He dressed in last night’s jeans and made his way to the kitchen.
Natasha kissed his cheek and set a cup in front of him and followed it with the aspirin bottle. He washed down about 5 of them.
“Did I have a good time?” he asked her.
“The best, Winchester.”
He grinned but not too much or his face might break.
His brother came in with Rogers. They were talking and laughing.
“You two need to get a room,” Dean snorted.
“We did,” Steve told him with a smirk.
Dean just shook his head.
“You about ready to hit the road, Sammy? Our job here is done,” Dean asked.
“Yeah. I read about something that sounds a lot like shapeshifters in Oklahoma this morning. We probably should check it out.”
Tony came into the kitchen. “Thanks, guys. I don’t know what we’d have done without your help.” He handed Dean a fat envelope.
“Uh, we don’t charge. Doing this is our calling, Stark,” Dean didn’t look very offended even if his words said different.
“Call it a gift then. You gotta eat,” Tony told him.
Dean nodded and stuck the envelope in his pocket. He could feed him and Sammy for a while, and get Baby some new oil and tires and still have a few bucks left.
“If you ever need us, call. Romanov has the number and I expect Cap does, too,” Dean told Stark.
Steve had the good graces to blush a little.
The car was parked out front and Dean was pretty sure it was cleaner and had more gas in the tank than when they’d gotten there. He took the keys from the young man, Kevin, who’d brought her around and he and Sammy took off, heading west to another hunt and another day.
*
Deep in the bowels of the city, beneath Avengers Tower, something stirred…