Chapter Text
Okay, you expect Halloween to bring out the crazies. But this was a little...extreme, even for them.
"Zombies?" Tony groaned, more scandalized than anything else. "Seriously? I'm missing my party to fight freaking zombies?"
"It fits the theme" Clint pointed out from his perch atop the church tower. The bell tower had come in handy for a good view of the sprawling cemetery.
"At least the two of you don't have to smell these things" Steve complained "Yuck! My hand went through that one's head!"
Natasha laughed "I think Tony packed hand sanitizer"
Jokes aside, the damned things kept coming. For every walking corpse they cut down, another clawed its way out of a grave. Of course, there weren't really enough graves here to overwhelm the team, but these corpses had living people who loved them.
It wasn't a long forgotten burial ground. There were fresh flowers on most of the graves that vomited out their dead.
Steve tried not to think too much about that as the shield decapitated a zombie that looked fresh buried and barely eighteen. The kid looked like she had died in a crash or something.
The news drones circling overhead swooped down for a closer look. His over active imagination supplied the picture of her parents watching the battle on live TV, and it was all he could do to keep from aiming the shield at the drone next.
"Hawkeye, any sign of our target?"
The only blessing about this mess was that they already knew what was going on.
Not World War Z, regardless of Tony's initial declaration (apparently, both SHIELD and the ScienceBros had plans regarding what to do in the event of a zombie apocalypse – Steve didn’t find that at all reassuring).
Just one of the regular mad geniuses that had a taste for conquering the world. Only, this one had decided to go the magic route than the usual science route, and had even less common sense than normal members of the class.
"Not yet" Clint admitted.
They knew the guy had to be somewhere in the graveyard so as to control the horde - but it was a pretty big graveyard, and even Hawkeye would have trouble sorting through the melee of zombies vs Avengers.
"Where's Strange, anyway?" Tony demanded "Isn't this kinda stuff his jurisdiction?"
"He called this in" Steve reminded him "He's stuck in a fight with Mephisto, Drumm has got his hands full with that vampire problem and Wanda is negotiating with Chthon."
Halloween - and though most don't know it, the dark months of the year after that - is the time when borders between the worlds are thin. The time when the mystic defenders of the realms are usually trapped in battle day in and day out.
None of their usual magical big guns could be spared to handle minor incidents like a zombie army. Which was why the Avengers had been called in to take on something a little out of their usual comfort zone.
Strange, Drumm or Wanda could probably shut down the zombies with a flick of the wrist and a few weird rhyming words. The Avengers would have to do it the hard way.
"Hey, if we shut this guy down, the zombies won't go feral or anything, will they?" Clint worried.
"That possibility is negligible " Steve hoped the mystics on SHIELD payroll was right about that, or this would be getting a whole lot dirtier.
"Maybe we could lure them out with brains?" Tony suggested " Given mine are too pricey to be donated, we could get Hulk to change back and-"
Hulk's enraged roar drowned out whatever Tony was about to say. The zombie nearest to hand for the behemoth was sent flying at Iron Man.
"Tony didn't mean it, Hulk" Steve reassured him, over Stark's indignant squawks about having to dodge friendly fire in the form of flying zombies.
"Guys" Clint's voice went from mocking to professional "I've got eyes on our Frankenstein."
"Location."
Clint called out positions, interrupted occasionally by Tony's protests that the guy didn't deserve the dignity of being nicknamed Frankenstein, given Frankenstein had had the sense to go the science route.
In a moment, Steve and Natasha were closing in on the necromancer, carving their way through his zombie human shield. Clint played air support, clearing the path with some well placed arrows. Hulk and Tony took over keeping the horde contained.
“Hurry up, Cap!” Tony called over the comm. lines “I want this wrapped up in time for dinner!”
The necromancer, now that they could see him, didn't look like much. A middle aged guy, grey haired and wild eyed, clothed in what looked like an emo dark version of Strange's sorcerer clothing. He even had a cloak, black instead of scarlet, though his (fortunately) didn't seem sentient.
"Surrender!" he screamed the second he caught sight of the Avengers. "Surrender and your ends shall be merciful!"
“Yeah? How about no, thanks?" Natasha suggested.
"Arrogant fool!" The guy was practically foaming at the mouth. Steve was beginning to feel a little concerned about witnessing a possible aneurysm "Even you shall fall under my command! For I am the sole master of the slain!"
Hela might have something to say about that - but then again, this guy was clearly too small time to attract her attention.
The wanna be master of the slain made a gesture with the weird shaped piece of wood - some kind of a wand - he was holding. It started to glow a little, but that was all it had time to do before the shield knocked it out of his hand.
The effects were immediate. The fog covering the cemetery vanished, and the team on the ground once more had a clear line of sight. The necromancer let out an anguished scream. As if someone had pulled a switch, the zombies dropped, all at once.
"I suggest surrendering" Steve said.
Natasha had already grabbed the wand, holding it wrapped in a cloth. Can't risk the chance that the thing had some level of mind control powers. Those were usually based on skin contact. The necromancer glared at him.
All in all, things were going pretty well. The bad guy was down if not out, and it looked like they were indeed going to be able to wrap up this mission in time for dinner, even if Tony had to miss his party invite.
“We’re ordering Thai this time” Tony declared pre-emptively.
Steve kept his attention on the wanna be conqueror, but had to point out “It’s Bruce’s turn to pick.”
Tony groaned “No way! My taste buds still have PTSD from that masala thing he ordered last week!”
Steve, who had enjoyed the dish – and unlike Tony, had not attempted to practically inhale the whole plate in one go – smirked. “Still Bruce’s turn to pick.”
The necromancer – now securely held between Clint and Natasha – continued to glare, focused on Steve. “You dare mock me? Me?”
“Kinda tough not to” Tony commented, truthfully this time “I mean, Thor at least looked hot doing his Shakespeare in the Park routine.”
The man’s eyes darkened further
“Mark my words” his voice changed slightly, taking on a deeper, echoing tone “You shall soon witness my true power. You will tremble in terror and pray for death.”
His eyes were fixed on Steve.
Truth be told, no one paid much attention to the words. It was the standard supervillain threat, so cliché that B-Movie companies should already have trademarked it. All of them had scarier foes swear vengeance, usually more than once.
The job was done. No one was hurt, except for the usual crop of minor cuts and bruises. The zombies were inactive, the necromancer in custody.
Of course, there would have to be a massive clean-up, but that was thankfully SHIELD’s business to handle. They had enough experience, after all.
The procedure from there on was routine. Hand over the baddie to SHIELD. Listen to Agent Coulson go mother hen. De-brief with (and in Tony’s case, receive at least one death threat from) Director Fury.
No one had done anything particularly insane and/or disastrous this time (thank heavens), so the de briefing proceeded with unusual ease.
Perhaps they should have been worried when one of the junior agents hurried in, looking like he was about to walk the plank, and whispered something to Hill.
But it was just after a fight. They were tired. Wanted to get back to movie night. Plus, this is SHIELD – Fury has about a dozen world threatening crises a week usually, and most of them don’t require Avengers level response.
No one had spared much thought to it. Perhaps they would have, had they been aware the junior agent was one of the team in charge of monitoring their wanna-be Frankenstein’s transport to secure holding.
In any case, no one, not even Bruce, spared much brain space to worry about the fight.
………………………………..
Steve loved Movie Night – partly because he still had the impression of movies as something that had to be watched in a group, partly because it was an excuse to cuddle unashamedly together.
Fury had rolled his eyes at the Avengers Puppy Pile visual the one time he had walked in on and complained that they looked like a bunch of teen girls at a sleepover, but he had been trying to hide a smile as he said it.
Besides, who the hell cared? Steve liked the warmth, liked feeling the heartbeat of his comrades, his new – and admittedly questionably sane – family, all around.
Especially after a fight, even one that had ended perfectly well like this one - the unspoken reassurance that they had made it through, once more. That they had won, they were together, they were alright.
That won’t be true every time, they knew. There would come a day when the fight wouldn’t end so well. There would come a day when…
Well, this was not that day. And right now, that was all he intended to think about. His team was home, home and safe.
Tony nuzzled into his side, which would have been slightly more romantic if the genius was not wolfing down garlic smothered noodles at the same time.
Steve smiled. It was okay. They were okay.
And if some premonition warned otherwise, wiping the smile from his face for an instant, well, it could just be chalked up to an overactive imagination – and possibly to the mushroom chicken carton he was half way into.
………………………………….
Coulson frowned at the agents “What do you mean, vanished?”
The group, to their credit, met the senior agent’s accusing glare straight on. The time for apologies and groveling would come later on. Now they needed facts and facts alone.
“We tracked him into the Pleasant View cemetery” the team leader reported, standing ramrod straight.
All of them were looking at possible demotion and certain reprimands in the near future. Yes, the prisoner they were guarding was an Avengers level threat, but they were trained exactly in order to contain such threats.
The Avengers could not be on call for every event – regular human agents had to able to play their parts as well.
Usually, they were good at it, assisted by specially commissioned StarkTech (Fury bitterly complained about how far above the budget the damn things were priced – but Coulson knew perfectly well that the actual cost was less the reason for the unfortunate Director’s irritation than Tony’s smug look every time SHIELD had to renew the contract).
But this time all the training and equipment had not been enough to prevent the guy from slipping through their fingers.
“We had eyes on him till the last moment – we saw him vaulting over the Cemetery wall and into the burial grounds. We followed, but he had vanished.”
“You lost him” Coulson concluded.
The agent shook his head “No, sir. He vanished. Literally. Disappeared. We had eyes on him, as I said. And an instant after he had scaled the wall, a couple of us were atop the wall too – we would have seen him, no matter what route he took.”
“Unless he vanished. As in, literally vanished into thin air.”
The lead agent nodded, fully aware what he sounded like.
But then again, they were talking about a guy who had persuaded the entire well behaved population of a quiet suburban cemetery to go Zombie Apocalypse, so skepticism of all kinds had better be left at the door.
Coulson glanced at the agents who had accompanied him, made a slight gesture and walked out. They followed.
“Sir? Do we call in the Avengers?”
Coulson paused. He was basically there to represent the team, given his unofficial status as an honorary Avenger, not to mention the official status as the handler (or, as it usually turned out these days, supernanny).
The escapee was Avengers Level threat if and when it came to actual confrontation – no arguments there. But right now…
He knew his team perfectly well – the news of an escape would bring them all in, even after the fight they had just been through.
But the fact of the matter is, there was next to nothing the team would be able to do. No real options, not till SHIELD got a lock on the fugitive, or at least some indication as to where he was headed.
Right now, the regular agents – the paper pushers – were the ones needed. People who were trained for this. People with the resources and clearances handy.
“No” Coulson decided “Not yet.”
The Avengers had done their share of the work – for the day, anyway. Let them enjoy their Movie Night – plus whatever latest insanity Stark managed to bring in. For now, the regular humans were on watch.