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Steve missed the warmth of the Sunday sun against his back the minute he walked into the nondescript office building. Usually he didn’t come into work on the weekend, instead using that time for baseball games and cookouts, but when Nick Fury gave a call…It was in everyone’s best interest that you respond and be quick about it.
As he approached the doorway at the end of the second floor hallway, it opened to allow a petite brunette to exit. He smiled down at her and was slightly amused when she gaped in fear and scuttled down the hall as quickly as possible, glancing over her shoulder to make sure he didn’t follow. He should have been used to the reaction he received as the mob’s pet soldier, but it still amused him to see how people scuttled away, as if he didn't notice them over twenty paces away.
Grabbing the doorknob, ice cold in his hand, he took a deep breath. Fury had assembled his main players, which meant the marksman, the spy and the doctor were on the other side of the door waiting for him, the captain, to arrive so they could start the meeting. Brushing his free hand against the concealed Glock, Steve took a deep breath. This is what he knew he was getting into when he threw his lot in with SHIELD, he really had nothing to complain about, he thought to himself as he opened to door silently.
“I have just heard some interesting news.” Fury began as soon as the door clicked shut, not waiting for Steve to find a seat. “It appears our good friends Stane and Hammer have been building up their numbers recently. Hiring whatever trash they can get their hands on. Why do you think that is?” His single eye roamed over the four other occupants in the room.
“They’re…scared?” Dr. Banner mused thoughtfully from the couch, rolling his eyes when the delicate redhead next to him, the only woman in the room, snorted loudly.
“They are always scared. Hammer’s one of the most paranoid men I have ever met. It has become even worse now that he is in charge of people.” Her eyes tracked Steve’s movement across the room; looking away when he sat in a chair nearby. “If you need me to get more information, infiltration’s easy, but I really do not want to be Stane’s PA again. He’s too grabby.”
Fury hummed deep in his throat, “I do not think that will be necessary. It seems like a surface problem, but what could send our associates scurrying around like the cockroaches they are? Rogers?”
Steve shifted his weight, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees, “I haven’t heard anything from our men. Stane and Hammer haven’t been moving into our territories, they’ve actually withdrawn slightly as if preparing for something.”
“Preparing for something...” Banner said slowly, brain already working quicker than usual, “What would scare two bosses, who we know have controlled their men and neighborhoods for almost ten years in an iron grip? Not the government,” He scoffed, “That’s never scared Hammer, and Stane just sees them as another source of income. Maybe a new drug ring is forming, they never answer to us...”
“War?” Natasha, the spy, said glancing the door as if expecting it to buckle under an attack the moment she said the word. “It wouldn’t be the first time they tried to team up against us…” Steve stiffened, grimly thinking about the troops he’d have to round up and train if it came to street fights again.
“No.” Fury rubbed at his bottom lip with his right hand, single eye closing in thought, “It seems as if-“
The landline phone, looking obtuse on the thoroughly modern desk, gave a shrill ring before quieting, interrupting Fury. Every eye in the room snapped on the receiver, aware that it only rang when things were about to become a combination of interesting and dangerous with a steaming side of firearms, dirty fighting and money.
“Yes, Agent?”
The tension thickened in the room when the man behind the desk answered the interrupting call in almost a pleasant manner, a tinny voice responding to the greeting almost immediately. Of course, only one person ever called on that line and they were one of the few people who Fury respected on the planet.
Having the balls to be a mole inside the FBI, while still keeping in contact with the mafia that raised you, was something even a hardened mob boss would think twice about doing.
After a moment Fury nodded absently, picking up a pen to scribble something down, “Yes, I see. That does make things interesting, doesn’t it?” He glanced over at the rumpled looking blond lounging against the wall; the only one in the room hadn’t said anything the entire time and was probably sleeping with his eyes open again. “I’ll make sure to tell him. Yes. Thank you, Agent.”
Fury replaced the receiver and leaned back in his chair, a smile gracing his scarred features. Nobody in the room was reassured by this show of pleasure. “Hawkeye.” The smaller blond blinked in response, showing he was listening, “I have a job for you. An old friend of mine is in town. I need you to see if you can find him.”
“Sir.” Clint pushed off from the wall, moving to the door but pausing with his hand on the handle, a sudden thought hitting him, “Are you going to give me anything else about this guy? Like maybe what he looks like? What I should be on the lookout for?” He shifted from foot to foot, unable to control his excess energy once he was moving.
A chuckle. “Get in your nest. Look for the fire. You’ll find him.”
The door slammed a little bit louder than necessary when Clint left, and everyone focused on their leader once the marksman’s stomping footsteps in the hallway could no longer be heard. Banner wanted to get back to his lab, to start working on the assignment Fury gave him last week, but he paused when the boss cleared his throat and stood to walk over to bar that spanned one wall of the room.
“I have just been informed of a possible reason of why Stane and Hammer are bunkering down.” He poured himself a glass of amber liquid before turning around. “And if Coulson is correct, which he always is,” Natasha gave a slight nod at the mentioning of her associate, “Then we are headed for some fun times ahead.”
As Fury knocked back the three fingers of brandy, Steve touched his sidearm again and shivered against the chill of adrenaline and anticipation.
--
Wet, muffled, gasps were the notes to the symphony composing itself in Tony’s mind. His steps against the warehouse floor were the metronome, and the briefcase that bumped against his thigh the counter rhythm. It was beautiful music, albeit performed with instruments that went against the norm, but it leant a certain air of desperation to the song.
Then again, who was he to judge musical composition? The only song he’d listened to in the past hour had been from a crappy radio station on the drive over, which involved a ridiculous amount of bass and someone speaking words too quickly. Best to keep his day job and let the people with the oboes and clarinets get the limelight.
He smiled at the stone faced grunt standing next to the wall, frowned at the lack of response before finally shrugging if off. Mr. Bodybuilder would be out of his hair at the end of the day anyway; it wouldn’t make sense for him to become attached to the hired help. Reaching into the pocket of his pressed slacks, he pulled out a pair of leather gloves and slipped them on as he walked to the center of the building.
Today was a good day. The sun was out, he wasn’t in jail, and his delightful secretary got him a ‘welcome back’-present.
He shot a glance at Pepper, who gave a single nod in confirmation, before focusing on the man sitting in the chair. “Oh, Ty, it’s so good to see you again.”
A burlap sack, soggy with a rust colored liquid, covered the man’s face while his wrists and ankles were attached to the arms and legs of the chair with duct tape. It was a fairly messy restraint job, but it was efficient and the man wasn’t going to be leaving anytime soon. Obviously Pepper felt that the man wasn’t going to be saying goodbye with his limbs intact after he had slighted her employer.
She really was made for this business.
A muffled groan came from behind a gagged mouth when the sack was pulled off, a weak gaze landing on polished shoes before shakily moving up to stare into the amused expression of Tony. A few moments were spent uselessly struggling against his restraints, a high scream coming from chapped lips, before the man shrunk against the chair and whimpered frantically around the piece of cloth pulling at the corners of his mouth. Dried saliva covered the front of the once crisp button-down shirt, mixing in with the blood dripping from the broken nose.
“Aw, it’s so nice knowing you missed me too.” Tony murmured, leaning close just to see the fear spike in the blue eyes looking at him from a heavily bruised face. He absentmindedly dug a thumb into a piece of skin that was almost black, relishing the wail he received in response, before drawing back and backhanding the other man.
Tony eyed the copious amount of blood that splattered across the cement at the action, turning his head to cock an incredulous eyebrow at the polished redhead standing next to him when he spotted the pale white of a tooth in the puddle.
“Pepper. Really?”
She frowned, pursing her lips as she looked up from the PDA. “He resisted.” Her French-tipped nails loosely held the small stylus as she typed something in, “I had to help Mr. Stone understand that arriving on time is important in my scheduling for you.”
Tony tutted under his breath, "Ty, you tried to make Pepper late? You should know better." He smirked and pulled his sunglasses off, handing them and his briefcase over to Pepper. "You should have known a lot of things.
"Like not to cross me." He hooked his fingers around the gag, ignoring the teeth that gummed pathetically against his gloved skin, and yanked without opening the knot. Ty's upper body jerked forward, neck snapping at the quick action, before he started dry heaving around the additional pressure forcing his jaw open too wide. Tony let go abruptly, wiping his hand on Ty's neck before giving another pull to the gag so it pressed uncomfortably tight against a blood crusted chin.
“I didn’t want to do it! I swear Tony!" Tiberius began immediately, eyes scanning the building for an escape route, a full-body tremor beginning when none was found. "Tony, Tony, you know I’d never do that to you!" Ty looked up, flinching when Tony dropped to his knees in front of him, both hands suddenly bracketing his face so it couldn't move, forcing him to make eye contact, "Tony, it wasn't supposed to happen the way it did, you weren't-I mean," He paused when the warm leather tightened, Tony flexing his hands in mute warning, "I mean, it wasn't supposed to happen at all!"
Tony tilted his head to the side, "Who?" His eyes narrowed, seeing the small flinch that told more than it should have as Ty began retreating mentally. "Now, Ty. Who was it?"
"I don't know what you're talking about, Tony, it was just me, stupid, me being stupid-It wasn't supposed to go so far-" Shaky blue eyes looked at the door, as if searching for someone else and panicking when they weren't there, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, Tony, I didn't want you to be locked up-" Ty started hyperventilating, spit flying from his open mouth as he tried to control his racing heart.
“I don’t want you to kill me.” Tears made clean tracks down through the filth covering what used to be unblemished features, “I want to live, don’t want to die, don’t want to be killed.” Tiberius’s face spasmed as he sucked in huge gulps of air, eyes screwed shut and sweat beading on the surface his forehead. "I don't want you to kill me and-"
“Shh, shh, shh, it’s okay. Who said I was going to kill you?” Tony said smoothly, running a hand through the blond hair streaked with blood and other bodily fluids. “When has Tony ever said he was going to kill you? Me? Kill Ty? One of my oldest and most dear friends?
“Never.”
Watery eyes looked at Tony helplessly, neck craned down at an obscene angle against his chest so he could meet the steady brown eyes that stared at him. Though Tony was the one genuflecting on the ground, looking up in a face that was slowly becoming too pale from blood loss, nobody in the building had a doubt of who was in control.
Ty took another shaky breath, “Never?”
“I would never kill you.” Tony said beatifically as he held up the hefty gray handgun Pepper had seamlessly slipped into his hand a few moments prior. “But, see, Ty, you hurt me badly when you sold me out.” He rotated the weapon in his hand so the light reflected off the 'MXII, Mark I' engraved along the barrel. "And something needs to be done."
“Oh, God…Not an ARMOR, how do you even, not-no-OhgodTonyohgodohgodTonyplease-“
“And I don’t like being hurt by friends. By people I trust.” He smiled and rested his empty hand on Ty’s knee so he could lean forward into the other man's face, the gun pointed down on Ty's knee to support his weight. “I remember trusting you with a large amount of information. Information that Hammer somehow got his hands on. Maybe we could start with that?”
He didn't even flinch when the handgun went off, exploding through cartilage and femur bone, the metal projectile traveling straight down Ty's leg towards the floor. A piece of thigh muscle flapped limply against Tony's stomach and he licked his lips, tasting blood and gunpowder while his face stretched oddly from the contact burn he had received.
Obviously he'd have to start working on the next model if this kept being a problem.
"Ah, ah, ah-don't leave me." He tapped the muzzle of the weapon against an unshaven jawbone, smacking it harder when Ty's eyes flickered back to show blank white. He wouldn't have to worry about bruises where he was going, no need for Tony to be gentle about it. "Can't have you checking out. I still need you."
"Ahhh, I. Tony…I-I-I…" Ty had thrown his head back, no longer trying to pay attention, eyes squeezed shut and breathing out his nose to try and stay conscious. Trying to block out the taste of vomit in the back of his throat or the burn, the burn that was encompassing where his leg used to be. "I can't say. They'll, Tony, they're crazy, they'll-"
"Again. Hammer. Information. Now." He shifted and the gun pressed firmly against the other, undamaged, knee. "Ty. If you don't tell me, I will make sure you spend the rest of your life with a catheter attached. Starting with your other leg and working up."
Tony slid his free hand under Ty's chin, where it had fallen forward in defeat, and forced it back up with a nudge. "Now. Information. Hammer. Why."
"He's the one who killed them." Ty gasped out, inhaling sharply afterwards, straining against his duct tape bonds in a last futile effort to break free, trying to get as far away from Tony as possible. "S-Stane p-p-paid him to d-do do it."
Tony sat back on his heels, calmly looking up and down the man he used to call friend. He ran his gloved hand across his thigh, wincing at the stain it left behind on the fabric, looking over at Pepper who was crouched next to the open briefcase. She handed over the MXXXI without a word. "Wrong answer."
It was amazing what sounds someone could make when they put their mind to it, Tony thought as he stood, handing over the firearms to Pepper for her to disassemble and replace back into the briefcase with the rest of the ARMORs. He cracked his knuckles and absently pressed an open hand against the mince meat that made up Ty's torso, trying not to find too much pleasure in the snap that reverberated up his arm when a rib gave way under the pressure.
"Time to wrap it up, Pep. I think I got everything my dear Ty was willing to part with." Tony said, nodding over to Pepper as she clicked the case closed, spinning the tumblers before standing on her dangerously tall heels.
The grunt, he still didn’t know his name, was in the same position against the wall, all menacing features and twitchy muscles in ill-concealed irritation. Obviously he wanted to get this done with so he could get paid and go drown his sorrows in the nearest bar as soon as possible. At the simple nod he made his way towards the man who was coughing huge chumps of clotted blood up, ready to 'professionally' finish the job for his employer.
“Get rid of him.” Tony calmly threw over his shoulder to the man as he left the warehouse, Pepper automatically walking two strides behind and to the left to cover his blind spot. He had to plan, had to get in contact with certain people, and he needed to start gathering assets. Some of his information he had from over a decade ago had obviously gone stale, but some of it may have ripened into something more potent like a fine wine. The little bit Ty gave him was nothing new, but at least he had proof on what he always assumed from all those years ago.
Tony sighed at the afternoon sunlight pouring in from the open door, it hadn't taken as long as he thought, and patted at his waistcoat to find the pack of cigarettes he kept whenever things went just right. Tilting his head to the side to shield and catch the flame away from the wind, he took a deep breath to allow the nicotine to clear his mind, flicking at the ashes that drifted down with a lazy hand.
He slowly took another drag of cancer stick, relishing the feeling of smoke filling his scarred lungs and pumping through his faulty heart. It was something frequently denied to him in prison and he was damned if he was going to rush it. He was going to start enjoying the simple things in life.
The garbled noises of Ty trying to talk around a cut out tongue made its way out the door. Loud crunches of heavy fists slamming into a yielding body echoed through the empty warehouse, snapping bone. Tony imagined he could even hear the straining of the duct tape bonds as the chair was thrown around with its occupant still strapped in it.
A buzz of his phone informed him that it was just past the hour and time to take his medication. He held the cigarette in one hand, bit the base of his leather glove, and yanked it off with his teeth. Tossing it off to Pepper, who was buried in her cellphone now, he reached into his outside jacket pocket for the plastic cylinder. Popping the top off, because childproof locks were ridiculously easy, he tipped the container so two pills rolled out and into his waiting mouth.
He chewed mindlessly on the capsules, yanking off his other glove and dropping it in the plastic bag Pepper held out patiently to him. He shrugged out of the jacket and also shoved it unceremoniously into the bag, mindful of his special-occasion cigarette.
"I was a little messy, yeah?" Pepper smiled as she closed off the bag with practiced motions, marking it biowaste and shoving it inside her purse, "Obviously I'm out of practice. I'll have to work on that." He sighed, taking another drag. The sounds of flesh meeting flesh came from the open door, and he frowned at how long it was taking.
“Get rid of him.” Tony said to the pleasant afternoon, watching a butterfly float past, pleased to hear the click of delicate heels echoing on the cement floor behind him as his secretary went to inform their hired help that the meeting was over and it was time to leave.
The gunshot exploded behind him, cracking through a thicker than usual skull as Pepper paid the grunt his dues, and usually Tony would have been grinning at the irony, but he was too busy tracing a path of exhaled smoke to care.
Pepper appeared at his side a moment later, handing him his sunglasses and taking the briefcase holding the ARMORs without question. She paused a moment to pull a wet nap from her Gucci purse to clean a speck of red that had landed on her manicure.
They both moved in step towards the Town Car idling in the crossroad, neither looking back.
“Tony, we have another meeting.” She mentioned offhandedly as they approached the car, tucking her hair behind her ear as Happy opened the door for her. “Another old friend.” She smiled at the ex-boxer and ducked inside, tucking her feet under herself after she slipped off her business heels, which were now splattered with tiny bits of skin and blood. "I know you like being punctual."
He couldn’t help smiling, running a hand through his goatee after he flicked his half-smoked cigarette on the ground. "You know me, Pepper. Always ready to take the ARMOR out to play."
It was a good day to be Tony Stark.
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