Chapter Text
It’s the third time that really brings out the rage. It’s the third time he’s gone through a wall, metal beams and concrete scratching the new paint job all to hell. He wants to be done with these assholes yesterday. Four on one isn’t a fair game and he’s only got two hands. Tony pulls himself free of the debris, facing two opponents, and with a swift pull of two fingers, they go down, clean cauterized holes burnt through their skulls. At least they’re not hard to kill.
Something - no, someone - smacks into him from behind. It’s brutal, desperate, and rage-loaded; a broad chest pushed hard against Tony’s back, hands grabbing for his eyes. Tony literally shakes the man off and turns, seeing his attacker for the first time. This one is a man with pale skin, two arms, five fingers on each hand, and black holes for eyes. He's a fairly strong man actually, muscles bulging through a thin white hospital gown. An experiment then, some sort of modification or drug beefing up his rage and his muscles, but none of his intellect. The man, panting against the wall for a moment, appears briefly dazed, but shakes his head and charges again. The repulsor blast goes straight through the man's chest and through layers of wall and the fight, this small one, is over.
Tony steps back from the carnage, tells JARVIS to scan the floor for survivors. The floor schematic and fading lifesigns appear in the top right of his screen, but Tony catches his breath and looks around the room, trusting JARVIS to tell him if he finds anything. Someone is going to have to hire a hell of a cleaning crew. There’s not all that much blood, but there is a fair amount of material. There’s a wet smacking sound that hits close to his ear and he flinches, ready to kill again. But as he does so, what appears to be a wet gray sponge falls onto the ground with a splat. Brain matter? “Ugh. Jesus.” Obviously nothing is alive here. “Fifth floor is clear.”
“Copy that, Iron Man. Fifth floor is clear. We could use some help on two.” Trust Steve to sound like he’s baking cookies when he’s slaughtering genetically altered soldiers. The guy’s not even breathing hard.
“Copy, on my way.”
The hallway is all flickering fluorescent light. It’s a nightmare. Just like he’s ten years old, and his throat is killing him, and he’s rolling into the operating theater and letting go of his mother’s hand. He’d imagined bloodstains, screaming kids just his age, evil doctors with ten inch syringes. Here, the bloodstains on the walls are real and monsters’ bodies are strewn in doorways, but all the doctors are gone.
Sweat drips from his chin onto the interior of the face plate as he navigates the stairway. Two hours of fighting and he’s fucking tired. His tongue is swollen with dehydration and the power monitor is in the yellow. He can hear his own harsh breathing echoing against the face plate. There have been more difficult battles, more complicated ones, but this one has gone on for a long time. There’s an odd resistant feeling in his joints when the suit moves.
“J- push some air through. It’s stifling in here.”
He’s halfway down the second staircase when JARVIS cuts in on his comms. “Sir, I am detecting a lifeform fifty yards to the west.”
“Great.” He flips the comms back over to the team. “I’ve got one more up here, guys. Be down in a sec.”
The third level is pitch black. Without the HUD, Tony is pretty sure he’d be lost in two seconds, but the red and orange glow indicating a lifeform is clear on the readout. He moves forward slowly, each step measured. Forty yards away, a fiery ball on the floor, very clearly alive, but making no effort to attack or retreat.
“Don’t hurt me!”
The ball of yellow and red and green rises into the form of a human, less than five feet tall, less than a hundred pounds.
“Sir, it appears to be a male child. He bears no arms, but his heartrate and body temperature are significantly higher than average.”
“Switch to active infrared.”
Immediately the image of the kid changes to green. Tony can make out the kid’s face now. His hair, too long, is moppish and he’s half dressed in a hospital gown and jeans.
“JARVIS, watch my back, okay?”
“Sir, I am always...”
“Yeah yeah. Just... nevermind.”
Tony continues moving forward. The kid stands against the wall and his features never change. It’s hard to tell with the nightvision, but the kid seems stoic, like it’s nothing to see a huge metal man with a flashlight in his chest walking towards you in a dark building that's littered with the bodies of dead mutants.
“How’d you get here?” He waits until he’s ten feet away to ask, his voice probably a little more metallic and scary through the mask, but the the kid still doesn't react.
“I go to treatment here.” That one burns a little, makes him question his motives here. But Tony isn't naive: even the most evil acts can have beneficiaries.
“Where are your parents?”
“They’re at work.”
The answer is easy enough. Too easy really. Parents leave their kids to get treatment in illegal facilities all the time, right?
“Well,” Tony surveys the rest of the hallway. It’s vacant save for a single gurney. “Stay here. I’ll come back and get you. Just stay right there.”
“It’s not safe here. I don't want to stay.” The kid starts walking.
He’s not sure how or why he placates the kid, but Tony follows him through two doors and at each turn he finds himself willing to take the next without even a second thought. The kid obviously knows where he’s going, like he’s walked this way a thousand times in the dark. JARVIS stays quiet, and Tony supposes that’s a go-ahead. Nothing shows up on the floor’s schematic and the fighting on the lower levels is winding down anyway.
“They keep the others here.”
They’ve come to the end of a hallway and the kid opens the door for him, looking up at Tony with that blank green stare. Tony steps into the doorway and then it happens. Fire bursts from the walls, blowing out his infrared, turning the room a solid blank white for a moment. The door shuts behind him, some force pushing him further into the room and there’s a so much growling and yelling and bursting, he’s not sure which way to fire. And then Tony is hurled against a wall and lets loose an arsenal until the walls are black.
When he can hear again, the first words Tony can make out are: “Is he dead?”
He should be. It’s stifling and black in here. Like the depths of hell that he’s sure to enter one day. Maybe sooner rather than later. Probably not today though. The power in the suit is out. Whether that’s because of damage, malfunction, or depletion is a mystery.
“No. But we need a medic down here. Now.”
“How bad is it?”
“His arm’s... it’s.... gone. Most of the bleeding's stopped- looks cauterized. But I can’t wake him up.”
Gone? He can’t tell for now. He only feels like he’s about to suffocate.
“Black Widow to Control, we need medics. Iron Man is down and we have civilian casualties.”
“Stark, can you hear me?”
There’s a sudden burst of air as the face plate rises. The room is is all fluorescence and white concrete blocks. He takes a huge gulp of cool air and then two more. Barton is leaned over something in the in the middle of the room. Natasha, still holding a handgun in her right hand, has her left hand up to her ear and is looking at the ceiling. And then there’s Steve, squatting next to him, his shield in front of him on the ground.
“Tony?”
“Yeah. Yeah.” He forces the response past the rushing water in his head. He looks down at himself, at the suit. “I’m okay?” He doesn’t mean it to be a question.
“Yeah, you’re okay.” He'd feel better about that statement if he could move. Steve puts a hand on his shoulder.
“I need a tool kit. Help me outta this.”
Tony is only half watching the SHIELD team pour into the room as Steve helps him get enough of the suit off to move freely. There are agents snapping photos of everything and others loading parts of what looks a blue alien into multiple boxes. They're taking measurements, writing notes, looking at their tablets and reaching for protective gloves.
“What happened up here?” Steve puts a steadying hand on his shoulder as Tony takes a step forward and nearly falls over his own feet.
Tony shakes his head. “No idea. One minute, I was walking through here with...” He pauses. “What happened to the kid?”
All of a sudden, the room goes silent. Steve stares at his feet. Natasha bites the side of her lip. And that’s when he knows.