Avengers Assemble
One by one, the portals opened up.
It'd taken them no time to surround the building.
“What are your visuals, Wilson?” Tony’s voice was devoid of its usual wit, clipped and on edge as the red boots of his sleek, nanite-structured Iron Man armor struck the ground with determined haste.
Behind him, orange embers dissipated into the evening sky, some sparks soaring high with those who took aerial, others fading as they brushed the dirt beneath their boots.
Neither he nor Steve waited for those to portals to close before taking off, charging towards the large building up ahead — half-hidden by dense foliage that stretched on for miles across the isolated acres of land.
“Give me a minute, I’m recalibrating the infrared,” Sam’s voice crackled through the comms, clearly at a distance from the ground where Tony and Steve took command. Each word of his came out tight and tense, almost matching the beat of their footsteps. “Something ain’t right. I’m not getting any feedback from Redwing, and nothing’s showing up on my specs.”
The portals finally winked out of existence at the same time Steve’s boots finally hit pavement, all but slamming against the concrete lot leading up to the building; completely devoid of any cars filling the empty parking spaces. The sun set behind them in a way that reflected orange hues vividly against the glass structure of its exterior, bouncing back on them — making the bold red and blues of his Captain America uniform nearly as bright as Iron Man’s armor.
The grip on his shield was tight enough to break the average mans bone. The only thing keeping Steve from barreling right through the entryway doors just so happened to be Tony’s presence at his side — barely keeping up with his speed, but determined to try; with the amber glow of the halogen parking lot lights gleaming on them from high above.
For what the surrounding lights didn’t show them, the dimming sun ahead of them did.
The final streetlight struck down from above before Steve and Tony both took a sharp turn, simultaneously — rounding the side of the building and tucking themselves tightly away into the shadows.
Steve kept his focus on their surroundings, hyper alert and heavily aware, while Tony immediately busied himself with a hologram that shot out from his high-tech armor, fitted skin-tight around his forearm.
“Quill? What about you?” Steve pressed his back firmly against the buildings wall, his shield held defensively at his side. His grip only managed to tighten even further. “What do you see at your post?”
The team hadn’t split up entirely, but they did spread out — enough to move quickly, cover ground that far exceeded their reach.
They didn’t have much of a choice; Tony immediately noticed just how easily the facility nearly rivaled in size to his Stark Industries Headquarters. The distance went on for miles; it was impossible to see one end of it from the other.
For what his eyes couldn’t see, and for what his HUD couldn’t provide him, the map on his forearm did. Tony was already moving it in different directions, occasionally glancing to the sky where he could see each of his drones take position above them — giving him insight without him ever needing to take flight himself.
There was more of them put together now than ever before — for once, Tony didn’t need to engage in flight mode.
He needed to be the first one to get eyes on his kid.
Standing frighteningly close to the buildings entrance, with a grip on his shield paling his knuckles white beneath his gloves, it was clear Steve was more than aligned with that purpose.
“I see the same thing as your guy, just higher up,” Quill’s smooth voice cut through the comms, free of stutter or static. Even as his jet boots propelled him high above the ground, his transmission remained clear. “Those walls are definitely reinforced with something heavy-duty. My scanners pick up lead and some other material I can’t identify. Whatever it is, it’s way too dense to penetrate.”
Tony looked up, his neck craning back as he watched his drone’s cast a harsh blue scanning light across the building. Each one nearly mirrored the glow of the illuminated sign towering above, the company name Bio-Labs shinning down with bold, futuristic lettering.
The hologram from his forearm began to blink red with error messages that warned him of failure, gaining Steve’s brief attention — his confusion only outmatched by a soldiers pulse-pounding need to stay sharp.
Tony frowned beneath his helmet, staring down at that flashing red hologram with unblinking eyes.
“If Bio-Labs has been partnered with OsCorp for as long as you say they have, Bruce…” Natasha started to speak through the comms, her tone hushed — yet she didn’t need volume to be heard. “Then they’ve likely been providing some kind of assistance towards Osborn’s experiments. And it goes without saying activity like that isn’t exactly the type of activity you want feds finding out about.”
It wasn’t a failure of his technology. His technology never failed — and ego aside, Tony knew it was impossible for their communication devices to be working perfectly if there was any interference nearby.
The LED’s of his Iron Man mask were nearly as vivid and bright as the company logo shinning down on top of him. The helmet covering his head easily hid the rage in his eyes.
No, it wasn’t his tech at fault for everyone’s inability to get visuals.
Almost always remaining two steps ahead of most, Tony’s sudden realization stopped all movement to his HUD.
“I must say,” Vision sounded as if he were unsure he should even speak. After a pause, he decided to continue. “I do find it quite coincidental that the location of this facility — one that has made itself known for holding rare and advanced genetic testing equipment — is in such close proximity to the Collar City Bridge of New York.”
Steve suddenly whipped his head over to Tony, his brow furrowed deeply against his forehead, hidden beneath the helmet that protected his head.
His own realization burned in the blues of his eyes.
“Four point two miles down south, to be exact,” Clint clarified with ease, the pounding of his footsteps heard right alongside his voice. If he felt any bit startled over the facts, he didn’t let it show in his tone — only in his breath did he sound troubled, with each huff and puff telling the others he was climbing up somewhere high. “We’re right on the peninsula of Pebble’s Island — back of the building is entirely up against the river, can’t even see the highway from here. Geographically, Adam’s and Stormy Island should just be a few minutes away, straight down the Hudson. Leading you right to the Collar City Bridge.”
Tony absorbed the information fed through his comms, but while Steve stared him down, he never once looked away from the holographic image flashing red against his helmet.
The error message from the failed scans of his drones flickered across the LEDs of his eye slits.
“That’s really no coincidence,” Bruce’s sigh pierced right through his trance.
Tony shot his head up and around as if the troubled scientist was nearby, only to re-direct his gaze back up to the sky once catching sight of his drones flying alongside a passing Falcon in the air.
“You don’t think Bio-Labs had anything to do with that rock android, do you?” Sam asked, all as he directed his wings in a sharp narrowed focus over the building, the red scanner light from his combat systems grazing over where Steve and Tony stood; the scan not effecting them, and ultimately not providing any results on what the inside held.
No technology — not Tony’s, not Quill’s — could get them answers on what laid beneath those walls.
“It does not sit right with me,” Wanda’s voice was quiet against the still evening air, her accent softening the weight of her unease.
“Sits perfectly with me,” Rhodey quickly countered, and loudly at that — his tone immediately growing jaded. “Think about it. That rock-head creature didn’t just crawl out of a cave. It appeared, fully formed. Engineered.” A hard beat sounded. “If Oscorp’s been partnered with Bio-Labs, that means the thing was created right here — and escaped from right here, at that. A lab outfitted with CRISPR tech? You know it’s the clearest explanation we’ve got, Tony. Whatever’s in that building has the capability to create rock monsters — that’s a problem. That’s a big problem.”
Tony turned his head around, surveying his surroundings; all to find Steve still staring him down with a look as hard-pressed as he felt.
Tense and rigid, Steve didn’t look away from Tony.
“What are you thinking?”
Finally, Tony locked eyes on him.
“It’s re-enforced with Adamantium.”
A harsh look of confusion twisted Steve’s face, quickly — abruptly.
“The building?” A turn of his head, left and right, and Steve arched an eyebrow that couldn’t be seen underneath his helmet. “This whole building?”
Without ever uttering a single command, the helmet encased around Tony’s head peeled away with a bright flash of hexagonal fragments, vanishing into thin air as the microscopic swarms of nanites flowed down his neck and back into the arc reactor on his chest.
“How else would they hide a walking, talking, Hulk-sized rock creature?” Tony asked, exposing his face for Steve to see. His arm swung outward and pointed to nothing in particular. “Not to mention, Adamantium is OsCorp’s bastard child. Of course a new element on the periodic table wouldn’t show up on Flash Gordon’s Google web search — to the world, it doesn’t exist.”
“Got no clue what a Google is,” Quill butted in,“but I’ll take Flash Gordon as a compliment.”
Tony wanted to roll his eyes, but he was far too pre-occupied to care; working hastily to spin wheels in his head that would generate an idea, a plan — something, anything.
As if sharing in that frustration, a crass shout sounded through the comms.
“Ain’t no flarking way our technology can’t find one pea-sized tiny fella, in one single, pea-sized tiny building,” Rocket snapped, the power of his jet-pack working hard to keep him in the skies. “Quill, gimme your visor, you ain’t doing something right!”
That static suddenly hit the comms with a harsh intensity; the sound of Rocket’s jet-pack was picked up by Quill’s comms, both of whom were air-bound — both of whom having found too-close-of proximity to one another.
“What? No!” Quill bit back, his voice echoing in double-frequency through the comms. It was almost too loud to bare. “I know how to use my stuff, I’m not—”
“Clearly you don’t, ‘cause there ain’t no way—”
“Didn’t you just hear him, dude!?” Quill’s shout seemed to come with some kind of physical push-back towards Rocket, seeing as the static quickly came to a stop. “This guy isn’t some drunken, down-on-his-luck, fifth bet down the hole at some sketchy bar on Contraxia loser — this guys like, a mad science genius who created a whole new whoppin’ element!”
Rocket huffed as he distanced himself far enough to eliminate the static entirely.
“I can do that in my sleep!”
Quill choked on an incredulous laugh.
“Then why don’t you?”
“Maybe I don’t want to!”
Tony quickly had enough.
“Strange, you gotta do some voo-doo — and do it fast.” Without saying a command, his helmet re-built around his head, forming snugly against his skull with a blaze of nanites that all sparked and shined against the darkening sky. “You’re the only one who can find a way to tell us what’s going on inside of there.”
The pause that followed was almost strained enough to suffocate.
“I’ve been attempting to enact a visionary spell since we arrived, Stark,” Stephen patiently responded, after a moments time. Tony didn’t need to listen hard to hear the aggravation in his tone, as swallowed back as it was. “However, the method’s used to see through physical realms in that sort of way require a great deal of effort,” he explained, letting a beat pass before adding, “and concentration.”
Steve got the hint first.
“Everyone, be quiet.” His voice tore through the comms with a sternness that wasn’t to be questioned. His shield shined underneath the dim parking lot lights as he pressed his back harder against the wall to remain discrete from view. “We have only one shot at this, and we can’t afford to go in blind.”
“There’s only one of him and many of us,” Drax, per usual, didn’t take well to social cues. It was hard to tell who vocalized their frustration louder at the interruption— Tony or Strange, or Drax himself. “I say we charge in now, and take back what this miscreant has taken from you!”
“Drax, stop!” Gamora’s voice all but tore through. “Your obnoxiously persistent thirst for a battle doesn’t warrant ruining this mission to get your thrill on!”
The noise that followed could’ve very well been a growl. “Let me have at this man and I will shred him to pieces!”
“Everyone quiet!”
Steve was the one to snap, the stress in his hushed command as sharp as his focus up ahead — he didn’t dare break his attention from his surroundings, his shield firmly at his side as he prepared for any attack that may come their way.
The others remained scattered, but finally quiet. The distant hum of multiple air-bound individuals was the only noise that broke through the weighted silence. Each stayed in position, hovering high, surveying the building from above — all while those on the ground didn’t dare make a single move without being instructed to.
Out of sheer desperation, Tony was working hastily to try and enhance the settings on his drones, when suddenly a faint noise came through his ear-piece.
“…I am Groot.”
Rocket’s groan picked up in volume the louder he exhausted his exasperation.
“I told you to use the bathroom before we went through the portals!”
Unlike those who kept the comms active with hushed bickering — their whispered arguments not quiet enough to go unheard — Clint had been courteous enough to mute himself before inevitability making his jump from the tree he’d used as his vantage point.
Each leg of his shimmed down until he was ready to make his descent, with the sound that broke through his lips telling of the regret he felt in his knees once hitting the harsh dirt beneath him.
It was smart to mute his comms first.
His curses drew the attention of both Wanda and Vision from up ahead, both kneeled to the ground behind the bushes that lined the parking lot — both looking behind them with a great deal of concern at Clint’s sudden bouts of swears.
Clint waved them both off as he stumbled up ahead.
“I’m f’ne,” he murmured, crouching down to their level with purposeful slowness. “F’ine, I’m fine.” Waiting a minute to get settled on his knees, Clint peaked through the bushes in front of him with his jaw clenched tight. “We need to stay here — the nearest entrance is only a few feet ahead, right round the back of the building. Moment Cap gives us the go, we break in through there.”
Quietly kneeled next to him, Vision exchanged looks between Clint and the building seen through the bushes; with the setting sun highlighting the intense maroon of his synthetic skin, held captive by calm of his facial expression.
“Will we have a means of getting through this building if the structure is, as I’ve been told, unbreakable?” he questioned, seemingly as concerned as Wanda appeared.
Clint looked to them both, holding their gaze for a hot minute before finding himself suddenly looking away.
“Stark will get us a way in,” he muttered, the corners of his lips pitching into a deep frown. “Or Strange, or…or you two with your gem-nonsense, that always seems to work.” Clint waved his hand dismissively, again. “We’ll find a way in. No matter what, we’re getting him out.”
Vision either had no counter remark to add, or he knew better than to vocalize one.
Seeing as the android could list off a hundred dozen thousand possibilities to any scenario sent their way, Clint had a good feeling it was the latter of things.
For what it was worth, he appreciated it — the nerves in the air were already making it hard for him to get a good breath in. He didn’t need worst case scenario’s ramping up the tension.
Suddenly aware of how close they sat next to one another, Clint gave the synthetic red skin of Vision a long once-over.
And then once again, as if he wasn’t quite paying attention the first time.
“It’s weird, by the way,” he blurted out, bluntly at that. So direct that even Wanda looked his way, noticeably confused. Clint didn’t let that intimidate him from continuing. “That you can do that. Switch — back and forth. From that to….that.”
It went without saying what Clint was referring to. While Wanda seemed baffled at the turn of conversation, Vision kept his focus on Clint with an expression that remained neutral — completely unbothered by the topic.
“With Wanda’s aid, wearing my…unobtrusive disguise — it takes a great deal of effort, no different than this Doctor’s efforts to cast his spell,” he explained, patiently, as if Clint had even asked in the first place. “Right now, there is no need for my appearance to be hidden. It is wise to reserve Wanda’s powers for what might come.”
Clint arched an eyebrow, all while reaching an arm behind him for his bow.
“Still weird,” he muttered, switching his focus to preparing his weapon for use.
The comms suddenly crackled with lively activity.
“How long do you think it’ll take for the wizard-man to provide an answer?” The soft, innocent tone of Mantis’ voice broke through the brief bout of quiet.“I have a bad feeling we should not wait much longer to do something.”
A scoff loudly cut in.
“Feelings don’t mean jack squat, and you know that,” Rocket’s blazing jet pack followed right alongside his retort. “Don’t start with none of that fear mongering touchy-feely scut — we don’t know anything that’s going on in there until we get in there and see for ourselves what’s going on in there!” Barely a beat passed by.“Which we should probably be doing soon.”
“I am Groot.”
An unmistakable grown of irritation rose up over them all.
“Quiet!” Gamora bit back.“All of you!”
The moment of silence on the comms didn’t last for longer than a few passing seconds, if being generous.
“I’m just saying,” Rocket didn’t seem ashamed to keep the conversation going. In fact, his tone was all the more smug.“Wouldn’t be the first time things have blown up in our faces while we stood around like idiots.”
Tony was losing his ability to concentrate on the work to his drones; the hologram from his forearm began to blur into one blob of colors the more he let his aggravation build up from his surroundings, penetrating the very depths of his patience.
It was a good thing that Rogers was keeping lookout, because Tony never even noticed when Quill descended from the sky, his jet boots sizzling with hot, blazing energy until they touched the cement parking lot beneath his feet.
“He’s got a point,” Quill quickly picked up pace until he was standing close to the two men, his own helmet melting off his head in similar fashion to Tony’s nanite technology. “We should come up with a code word — just in case things goes wrong.”
Steve gave Quill a brief, startled glance before his narrow focus returned to his surroundings, staying vigilante to the danger around him.
“Things won’t go wrong,” he insisted, sharply — somewhat agitated, all while keeping his shield raised high and defensive.
Quill either didn’t notice Steve’s guard, or didn’t pay any mind to it. Each step of his kept breaking the distance between them.
“Can’t say that for sure,” Quill insisted, giving an overly exaggerated shrug along the way. “Just my experience, you know. One leader to another.” A pause allowed him to gesture his hand forward. “It’s good advice, you should take it.”
Steve didn’t respond right away. He also didn’t give credence to the remarks made, never once letting his eyes drift away from his focus up ahead.
“Keep your visuals,” Steve firmly instructed, his voice deep with command. “We can’t let our guards down.”
The pavement to the parking lot took the echo’s of Quill’s footsteps as his boots stepped away, just a few feet from Steve was positioned — when he suddenly spun back around, snapping his fingers with abrupt enthusiasm.
“I got it!” Quill grinned ear-to-ear, ineptly upbeat for the circumstances. “Unicorn. It’s just wild enough that we’d know for sure when something’s wrong, right? Who’s saying Unicorn in the middle of a fight, am I right?”
Tony snapped his head around with stress that could be seen beneath the nanite structure of his helmet.
“Strange?” he strained, urgently.
Before any other noise could be heard, Strange’s sigh cut right through.
“If time is truly that pressed, Stark, I would suggest finding an alternative route to obtain answers,” Stephen began, doing his best to refrain from showing his impatience — knowing full well he wasn’t maintaining much of a facade. “I can only work so fast, and conducting a spell to see inside a structure that I’ve never once stepped foot inside—”
“FRIDAY, what does drone access look like?” Tony didn’t waste a beat in interrupting Strange, hurriedly wiping away the blinking hologram that arose from his forearm and swiping it out for something else entirely. “Can you get yourself inside, something for visuals — anything for visuals— ”
“I’m sorry, boss,” FRIDAY didn’t allow him to keep on with his wishful thinking. Her voice was all but devastated at what she had to say next. “The only points of entry the drones could possibly bypass without detection would be the ventilation system, and the pipes are far too narrow to accommodate their size. They’d never make it inside.”
Tony was just about ready to scream. He’d dealt with a floating city in the sky, not to mention aliens from outer space, and yet he couldn’t get answers on what was inside a lousy, measly, one hundred thousand square feet of brick and mortar?
“Screw it!” he snapped — making the echo of his words from beneath the metallic of his helmet all the sharper. With the front entrance to the building just a few feet away, Tony quickly made a go for it. “It’s not like we knew what we were walking into with Strucker—!”
Steve had a strong grip on Tony’s bicep before he could take another step.
“And look at what happened then,” he quickly reminded him, all but pulling Tony back with one swift tug. “We have no idea what kind of traps could be set up in that place, what kind of danger could get us hurt. It’s too risky to go in without some sort of visual, and you know that.”
The further the sun set, the brighter Tony’s LED’s lit up Steve’s face; each eyeslit beaming with a sharp intensity of energy ready to be unleashed.
“Yes, I know that! I know that!” Tony wasn’t shy in showing his quickly boiling hysteria. The smooth technology of his nanites made it all the easier for his helmet to retract away from his face, leaving Steve without the reflection of those LED eyes — and instead with the harsh panic settled in Tony’s. “Not even magic can get that for us right now, Rogers! The longer we waste time, the more time we waste — we need to do something, pronto.”
Steve’s lips split apart as if he were ready to say something.
His voice never got out of his throat.
The long stretch of silence that followed could’ve easily replaced a layer of the atmosphere, thick and tense enough to amplify the stress already felt by most.
“Hang on a minute.”
Quill, of course, was the one to break it.
He turned back around to look at Steve and Tony; a glint of epiphany in his eyes, and what appeared to be a slight smirk tugging his mouth upward.
“Did you mention something about vents?”
There were plenty of things Peter had done twice in his life.
“Oxygen thirty-five, fluctuation seen up to forty-two, pulse remains thready — steadily declining. Collection currently at twenty-eight percent, no dΣViations foreseen.”
Win first place in the school science fair? Not only had he won twice, but he won back-to-back — eight and ninth grade, and he would've snagged lasts year too if he hadn't gone ahead with Ned's ridiculous idea of a strictly solar powered coffee maker.
Turns out, most people wanted coffee before the sun came up.
“Last recording of blood pressure reads at…unrecordable. Pressure too low. Both peripheral IV’s still suitable, no vein collapse yet — all very promising to conᑕᒪЦDΣ in a timely manner.”
But that was okay, because when it came to winning, he held more top spots with Midtown's Academic Decathlon than anyone else in their entire district. It was why MJ was so determined not to lose him on their team, always there to keep him straight when his ‘extracurricular activities’ would tip the scales of justice just a little too far on one side.
“Core temp ninety-three fahrenheit, full hypovolemic shock in effect — twenty-nine percent collection. By analysis trend of vitals, subject should not fall deceased before ΉΛЯvest is completed.”
And with MJ, well...Peter still couldn't believe he'd kissed MJ. Not just once, but twice .
He'd kissed a girl twice now.
So cool.
"Composition of FӨЯMЦᒪΛ is mimeographed, awaiting implantation of nuclei from spider modified leukocytes within subject' s DNA.”
There were many things in his young life he'd gone through, more than he could keep count of. Some exciting and great, some not—so-exciting and really not-so-great.
“Collection now at thirty percent. Approximately eighteen minutes until DЯΛIПΛGΣ reaches completion.”
Dying twice?
“Losing stats — too low, far too weak. Adjusting equipment for additional sensitivity. Need clear vitals, all precise — eVΣЯything muƧƬ bΣ preᑕIƧΣ.”
Peter had to admit, he never thought that he would die twice.
The distant noise of Norman’s mad rattling continued on in the background, though it remained significantly far away in Peter’s ears; the drum of his pulse overtook anything surrounding him, hammering painfully in his skull, each beat of his heart screaming with a deplorable cry for help.
He tried to open his eyes — tried. He could feel the flutter of his skin as he fought to peel his eyelids apart, each suddenly feeling too heavy; as if concrete had been injected into his veins, weighing him down until he could barely lift his chest for his next breath.
He couldn’t lift a single eyelash. He couldn’t do so much as twitch his brows.
“Breath sounds both bilaterally, faint. Asthenic. Oxygen through nasal cannula increased to siXƬY liters for compensation.”
Peter almost couldn’t feel as his head rolled to the side, his neck suddenly losing all and any control of the muscles that kept it in place. His chin fell deep into the crevice of his collarbone, the skin underneath his exposed white button-down already blossoming with an angry blue and purple as the bone underneath remained painfully disconnected from where it belonged.
The throbbing agony as his head lolled into his dislocated shoulder was no more than an echo against his mind. Peter was no longer cold — he couldn't feel anything.
Couldn't feel the next drag of his breath, couldn't feel the vibrations against the table as Norman paced many different directions around the room; couldn’t even feel the pain that settled deep into his gut, flowing through him at a speed his own blood was flowing out.
A voice, dry and hot, slithered through the air and only faintly reached his ears.
“The first five-hundred milliliter’s is now collected, extraction of DNA beGIПs.”
Even with what he could hear, even with what Peter could scarcely make out — he wouldn’t allow himself to panic.
Norman was right. He was right about a lot of things, which was downright frightening on levels Peter didn’t have nearly enough strength to process right now. But he knew, when all was said and done, there was no reason to waste his strength and allow himself to panic.
Not when he knew help was on the way.
A strong tidal wave of vertigo hit him all at once, sending him into a vicious spin of dizziness that he was sure not even astronauts had ever encountered before. The threat of unconsciousness burned into the back of his throat as his eyes spasmed with each tug they made, trying desperately to roll into the back of his skull.
Peter just hoped he could hold out long enough for his optimism to matter.
Of all the things he’d experience twice in his life, he really, really, really didn't feel like dying again.
“C’mon, Rocket!” Quill’s irritated plea was met with an equally irritated,“I ain’t doing it!”
Tony listened, silently, as the two argued through the comms; afraid that if he put anymore pressure on the bridge of his nose, he was sure to break the bone.
They were wasting time.
They were wasting too much time.
“You’re being selfish!” Quill paced back and forth in front of Tony, occasionally crossing paths with Steve; both of whom watched as the space-man argued with his teammate over the comms with unrelenting, stubborn determination.
“Yeah? And so what!” Rocket’s voice came through loud and clear — Tony was ready to rip out his ear-piece at the crass retort. “You want me going in there when you’ll are worried about this place being full of booby traps and death mechanisms? I don’t think flarkin’ think so!”
Frustrated, Quill punched the air.
And then again.
And again.
Steve arched an eyebrow high into the protective covering of his helmet, slowly holstering his shield against his back — watching wordlessly as Quill continued to pace back and forth.
“But you love both those things!” Quill tried to argue, hoping that his attempt at sounding upbeat and positive would win Rocket over.
“That’s not the point!” Rocket was quick to bite back, seemingly planted firm in his stance.
Steve caught onto that quickly, stopping Quill mid-pace when he walked on by, grabbing at his forearm only long enough to get his attention.
“Let’s not waste anymore time if he’s not going to do it,” Steve insisted, the urgency in his tone more noticeable than before. He looked behind him at the building, briefly, before returning a hard expression towards Quill. “We’ll just have to come up with another plan—”
“—this is the plan, this is what we need to do!” Quill made it clear he wasn’t about to give up. With a slight dip to his chin, he looked away from Steve as he spoke into his comms, “Rocket, come on — you're the best at crawling through tiny holes and spaces!”
A crackle sounded. Then a scoff.
“That don't mean I gotta do it!”
Quill couldn’t hold back his groan, loud and obnoxious through and through.
“And why the hell not!”
This time around, the answer didn’t come through the comms.
The noise of jets whipping the wind around them made Rocket’s descent clear as day, his landing from the aerial position he once maintained smooth and agile up until the very end.
“Let's get this straight,” Rocket began, his jet pack simmering to a stop as he stomped forward towards Quill — not letting the height difference between them intimidate him whatsoever. “You want me to go into a lab, where a creepy mad scientist fella is doing creepy mad scientist fella things? In a lab!?” Rocket pointed a claw at nothing, and everything all at the same time. ”What's stopping him from taking me to do creepy mad scientist things to me?”
Quill was mid-inhale for a quick comeback —
“Could you stop being selfish for one minute, Rocket!” Gamora interjected, harshly at that.
Rocket’s jaw dropped low, a look of insult carving into his every feature. “I ain’t being selfish, I’m being smart! Fool me once—!”
“The guy won’t even know you’re there!” Quill shouted, all as his arm also gestured to nothing in particular. “The goal isn’t for you to attack him, Rocket, it's for you to give us the clear so we can come in and get Little Peter out!” The more he spoke, the more attention he gained — Quill took the beat of silence as a push to continue. “He won’t even know you’re there, you won’t have to do anything at all. Just look for booby traps! That’s all we’re asking you to do! Look for booby traps!”
For a split moment, Tony had to wonder if some sort of reasoning finally took place.
He dropped his fingers from the bridge of his nose, releasing the pressure he’d been putting against his sinuses; watching silently as the moment kept on without a response.
A beat passed.
Followed by two more.
“You go and look for booby traps!” Rocket finally retorted, his hand moving about wildly with indignation.
Quill threw his arms up and let out a groan of frustration. “You’ve gotta be kidding!”
“I have counted seventeen of us to one of him,” Drax failed at holding back his outrage. It broke through the comms louder than anything or anyone else.“It's maddening that you won't simply charge in and take back what is yours!”
Tony’s annoyance was recognizable even for those who weren’t present to see his exposed expression highlighting his every feature.
“Hey, Mad Max — were you interested in bombs blowing off both your knee caps? Because the last time we were in a building of OsCorp’s, things didn’t go quite too well for us.” A sharp sigh separated what Tony said next — almost as if it took him a little more strength to find a way and say it. “Cap is right, we can't go in blind.”
And still, even with Tony’s unguarded vulnerabilities coming out for all to see, Drax still remained riled up.
“None of us are blind, our vision works just fine!” he argued, fiercely, angrily — clear in his grunted breath that someone was holding him back from letting that rage loose.
“That's not what he's saying, Drax,” Gamora seemed to be the lucky one chosen for the task. Her own breath grunted as she clearly restrained her teammate from their position in standing guard around the building. “They’re right. We risk becoming a liability to the rescue if we hurt ourselves along the way.”
“I am Groot!”
Rocket pouted — Quill physically grimaced at that pout, both Rocket’s arms crossing tightly around his chest as he shouted,
“I. Ain't. Doing it!”
“You’re being a brat!” Quill quickly shot back.
“You’re being a brat!” Rocket mocked his voice with a pitch high enough to crack his words, followed by a chuckle not even he could restrain.
Quill tensed his jaw at that chuckle. “This is serious, Rocket!”
“Fine, forget the rodent! Count me in,” Clint took a deep breath in before audibly letting out a tight exhale, almost as if he were stretching his arms and legs along with each word he spoke. “Vents and me go back to 1980—”
“Not happening,” Rhodey wasn’t shy to interrupt. The frustration in his tone had only increased from last time.“The structure of the HVAC is far too narrow, Tony’s drones can’t even get in. Each vent is the size of your head — you'd never fit.”
There was a sound that followed — too faint to distinguish, but silently acknowledged by most to be Clint’s audible noise of aggravation.
What came after was silence that only existed by lack of conversation; the tension grew with each beat, the looks exchanged eventually becoming wordless opinions of concern.
“So…Rocket," Quill slowly broke that tension with a bit of hesitation to his tone. He cleared his throat before gesturing to the building next to them. “We're gonna need you to squeeze through a tiny hole up there on the rooftop—”
Rocket growled. “Quill, I'll choke you—”
The argument lit up the comms with nonstop activity, each quick retort of banter and dispute going on for what felt like forever.
Listening almost absentmindedly as that bickering continued, Natasha’s feet touched down on soil without a sound, the only noise she made being the foliage she pushed aside to approach the edge of the parking lot up ahead — finding two of her teammates stationed there, exactly where she last saw them before going to clear their surroundings.
With those surroundings now cleared, and the argument over the comms not showing any sign of letting up, Natasha made her way closest to the man furthest away.
“Of everything we’ve done for you, Rocket!” Gamora’s voice was quickly growing more hostile through everyone’s ear-piece — in a way that made them all feel a little too nervous. “Just last month when you and Groot ran off during our stop on Citopia—”
“We didn’t run off, I told you that!”
“I am Groot!”
“Does it matter!?” Quill, almost hysterically, bit back. “We still had to save your furry butt from—”
“You know,” Natasha spoke quietly, even against the chatter of their comms; bringing herself low to the ground so she could reach the same height as the man sitting next to her. While she rested agilely on her knees, he stayed tucked away against the foliage of the nearest bush. “I hate to ask this of you…but we might need to try a reverse lullaby here soon.”
Bruce’s scoff of incredulity was harsh enough to reach over the argument on the comms.
“That’s rich,” he muttered, cynicism dripping heavily through each word. While Natasha stayed high on her knees to look over the bushes that lined the parking lot, he stayed as low to the ground as possible — fearfully refusing to be seen. “You know it's positively asinine to have me here.”
A sound came from beside them both — not quite a chuckle, not quite a scoff.
“I said the same thing,” Bucky mentioned, never once looking away from the scope of his gun as he did.
Natasha arched an eyebrow at that comment, watching silently for a moment as Bucky held a steady grip on the machine gun planted firmly on his shoulder. Nothing in his surroundings dared to distract him — not the comms, not the conversation from nearby.
“Yeah…you aren’t wrong,” Natasha distantly answered them both, quietly, while taking a long look at the large building up ahead. Her eyes never looked away once there. “Could definitely use the other guy a lot more right about now.”
The sun continued to set around them. Intent on keeping her eyes straight ahead, it was only due to the harsh wind blowing her hair forward that Natasha tore her gaze away — craning her head around just in time to see the red cape come descending from above.
“Hulk! My good friend!” Thor bolstered — a little too loudly, earning a harsh grimace from Bruce and an annoyed grunt from Barnes. Thor didn’t mind either of them as he flew down from the sky, the twirl of his hammer coming to an abrupt stop as his hefty boots struck land. “Oh, what great times we had on Sakaar — Sakaar, of all places!”
Natasha narrowly held back her discontent at Thor’s painfully conspicuous presence. Like Bucky, she aimed to keep her focus sharp, only allowing herself a brief moment of distraction before looking back at the building up ahead.
“You know, he almost beat me in battle!” Thor gave a hearty belly laugh — a too loud of a belly laugh, finally earning that heated look from Natasha. He failed to notice it, though his laugh did taper off into a sighful, “Almost..almost.”
Still remaining steadfast on what was up ahead, Bucky refused to let any distractions — even Thor — take his focus away.
“I highly doubt that.” Even as he muttered, his hand remained clutched tight to his gun, with his eye pressed firmly into the scope.
Far more interested in the man desperate not to be seen, Thor grasped Bruce’s shoulder and shook him, hard — rattling the foliage of the bushes and further irritating Natasha along the way.
“Surely the Reigning Champion seeks the thrill of this fight!” Thor insisted, his clutch on Bruce’s shoulder growing harsh enough that the scientist eventually pushed him away — his strength doing nothing, but the intent behind the action speaking all Thor needed to hear.
“I shouldn’t be here!” Bruce snapped, his voice drawn tight. He waved Thor off even as he turned to look at Natasha, his face pale but perturbed. “I really shouldn’t be here.”
Natasha didn’t need to be a genius like Bruce to understand what was being said — or more accurately with Bruce, what wasn ’t being said in what was being said.
A tight crease brought her brows close together. Suddenly, the weapons she had felt laughably pathetic without their biggest bullet in the chamber.
“What do you think it’s gunna take to get him out?” Natasha could hear her own hesitation in the question asked. If she could hear it, she knew he could, as well.
Bruce turned to look at her.
“These days…” he trailed off, a little too somber for anyone’s liking. “These days, that's a really good question.”
Natasha felt the curse sitting on the edge of her tongue. Rather than express it, she swallowed hard — looking back to the large laboratory ahead, with an unstable frown tugging harshly at her lips.
“Oh, boy.”
A groan of frustration rumbled right through their comms as Gamora suddenly raised her voice.
“Rocket, will you just be considerate for once—!”
“FINE!”
Rocket’s shout could’ve very well short-circuited most of their communication devices — he didn’t hold back. He made sure not to hold back.
“Fine! I’ll flarkin’ do it!” A claw pointed right at Quill, and didn’t dare point anywhere else. “But don't say I don't do nuttin’ nice for any of you all’s!”
Steve watched, wordlessly at first, as Rocket stormed away from them — muttering harsh words under his breath that most couldn’t quite make out.
His tone alone, however, told them everything they needed to know.
Steve turned slightly to face Quill, a deep pitch bringing his brows together. “You don't have to risk one of your guys, we can find an alternative—”
A hand grasped at his shoulder, holding firmly with a grin that nearly met its strength.
“Trust me, Rocket is the best at this,” Quill’s excitement was a harsh contrast to the tension at hand. He patted Steve’s shoulder, almost casually, as he cockily ensured, “I ain't risking one of my guys, I'm loaning you one.”
When it was clear Steve wasn’t entirely convinced, Quill gave an exaggerated wink of confidence to win him over.
Tony pressed his fingers back against the bridge of his nose, harshly, each digging deep groves into his skin.
“You owe me, Quill!” Busy calibrating his jet pack, Rocket never looked up from the device strapped around his forearm as he exclaimed, “Fifty units!"
The hologram that projected the ins and outs of his tech contained details only he could make out. Rocket pressed at a few buttons, swiped at a few images, and only shortly after did the sparks from his jetpack ignite with a blast that carefully took him up to the buildings rooftop.
“I do not believe Peter has fifty units to spare, furry one,” Mantis’s voice was timid and unsure as the quiet of her tone barely cut through the activity around them.
All three men on the ground looked upwards as the creature took to the air, his voice heard half in their ear-pieces, half at a distance.
“What'd I say about calling me furry one!"
It wasn’t until Rocket was completely out of sight that Quill brought their attention elsewhere.
“Here, check this.”
Technology they at first couldn’t see quickly filled the dark space between them, making the small corner wrapped around the building a little less dimly lit than before. Quill gestured down at his own wrist as a holo-map vividly lit up from around his forearm.
“We've all got a tracer on us, it's how we do retcon. Well, how Rocket does it, anyway — we never send anyone else. His size just makes things so much easier, both him and Groot. Though we try to use Groot less ever since he got lost in the coolant pipes of the Milano."
Quill’s chuckle caught both Tony and Steve’s attention, although Tony continued to give sparing glances to the rooftop above them — Rocket long since out of sight from where they could see.
Quill quickly cleared his throat, more than once.
"We can track his movements as he makes his way through the building, plus we’ll see any strange temperature difference that could indicate, you know, bombs and such. All of it will show here. ” Quill wordlessly made a few adjustments on the hologram without paying much attention. “Anything abnormal, we get to know."
It was sometime around Tony’s fifth or sixth sparing glance to Quill that he finally stopped looking away, his eyes locking on with a glare stronger than the Adamantium walls of the building they surrounded.
Quill noticed.
It took a while for him to notice, but he noticed.
“What?”
Tony, at first, failed to conjure up a response.
It was a beat later — a long and drawn out beat later— that he found himself finally pointing to the ear-bud nestled tightly in Quill’s left ear.
“Are you seriously listening to music right now?” Tony didn’t recognize the words as his own. The incredulity that laced his voice was almost too foreign for him to comprehend.
Quill met Tony’s confusion with his own.
“Well…yeah,” he answered, all too simply. “Queen? The 1979 all time hit, Bohemian Rhapsody?” Without hesitating, Quill dug for the inner pocket of his red leather jacket, bringing out the small, black, rectangle device that connected back to his ear-bud. “How else am I supposed to get pumped for this?”
Tony’s eyes grew wide enough to fall right out of their sockets.
“You shouldn’t need to get pumped for this.”
A string of smug chuckles began to ricochet through the comms.
“Quill’s incapable of going on any mission without that d’ast music of his!” Rocket’s voice shouted back with a slight echo to each word; the distinct sound of metal hitting beneath his nails — his claws striking down with each movement he made.
Back on the ground, Quill smirked. “You love it!”
“What I love is the fifty units you’ll be paying up after this!” Rocket’s retort echoed alongside the walls surroundings him, each capturing the unpleasant tone his words held.
It wasn’t just the strength of each reverberation that caught Tony’s attention, and subsequently Steve’s along with it — past those echo’s, it was the distant acoustics of a highly feminine, highly robotic voice that flooded through the comms, causing them both to listen intently.
“Welcome to Bio-Labs,” came right alongside each claw of Rocket’s hitting against the metal plating of the interior vents, somehow sounding far too hyperrealistic to be anything real.“Where evolution is engineered, and human potential meets precision science. Founded in 1964 by Doctor Farley Stillwell…”
Tony quickly made the assumption that whatever direction the small creature had decided to take off in, it had led him to the lobby’s of the building — somewhere not far beyond the same entrance doors Tony and Steve guarded.
It didn’t take long for the tension to grow thick. Tony dug his heels into the ground just to keep himself from bursting right through those entrance doors.
“C’mon man, don’t keep it all to yourself,” Quill was finally the one to blurt it out. “What do you see?”
Tony was starting to count each clack that sounded from each footstep Rocket took forward — double tapping, at that, indicating he crawled through the small space while on his knees.
“A whole lot of vents!” Rocket snapped, his tone low, irritated. The double-tapping of his hands and feet in the small cramped vents spoke to his frustration, all as the feminine voice continued on in the distant background. “…Bio-Lab strives to achieve mankind’s pioneered success to human modification, combining the modern day wonders of — where exactly am I going? These tunnels ain’t stopping!”
Steve answered before Quill could even have a chance at it.
“Are you coming across any vent covers?” his voice was stern. Any heavier and it would’ve crushed. “Anything that can give you visuals on what’s inside, what’s going on below you?”
A crackle sounded. A beat of silence, followed by a few more.
“I’ve seen a few of those things so far,” Rocket finally answered, each clack of his nails coming further and further apart. His speed had drastically decreased, his attention clearly being drawn elsewhere. “Just shows me lotta rooms. Empty rooms, too. Ain’t no one seems to be around.”
Tony had his response sitting right in his throat, halfway to being spoken when—
“—I see a little silhouette of a man,” Quill sang, somewhat under his breath, mostly audible to all,“scaramouch, scaramouch, will you do the fandango?” as the music in his ear-bud kept playing.
“They shut down right after OsCorp bought the facility along with their share’s,” Rhodey explanation came before Tony’s scolding could form — and it was a good thing, considering the look Tony had thrown Quill’s way. Any hotter and the space-man would’ve known what the heat of a repulsor blast could do to his face. “According to reports released by the National Institutes of Health, their last day of operations was six weeks ago.”
The shuffling heard through the comms was full of echo’s from the vents, each movement Rocket made far from anonymous to those who listened.
“The place is empty, but it ain’t empty,” he said, almost distantly — as if exploring the sights more for himself than he was for the team. It was clear his attention had gone elsewhere. “There’s still…stuff…here. A lotta stuff.”
Steve exchanged a glance with Tony.
Tony didn’t hold that look for long.
“What kind of stuff?” Natasha was quick to ask, assertive through-out.
And yet, it was Bucky who derisively tossed back, “Think it’s safe to say we know what kind of stuff.”
“I don’t make assumptions based on insinuations,” she pressed, almost immediately.
Quicker than that, Mantis cried out, “You are both feeling very stressed!”
“OsCorp bought them out. All of them, everything,” Bruce’s words barely got through the chaos that poured through the comms. It was a feat Tony could hear him past the frantic chatter that erupted. “They wanted the CRISPR tech, all that equipment became theirs. Its no wonder they left it behind—”
“—thunderbolt and lightning, very very frightening, me! Gal—”
“—Peter, zip it!”
Gamora was the one to snap.
If she hadn’t, Tony would’ve.
“Not feeling the Boho Rasp?” Quill responded as if she were present and nearby, bringing the device out of his red leather jacket along with a lopsided grin that spoke to his musical passion. “Or just not feeling Queen? Better not be that, I thought you were better than that—”
Tony turned to him with a heated glare. “If you don’t turn that off this very instant —”
Quill snapped his fingers.
“You know what, I think it is the Bohemian Rhapsody.” Without even hesitating, Quill looked down at the device in his hands; his thumb scrolling through the playlist with intent concentration. “It’s not the right tunes for this, I’m not feeling it. I got the perfect song in here somewhere, just give me a second—”
“You two done droning on about that stupid music?” Rocket’s question cut through the commotion with an odd sense of unease. It didn’t take long for the others to notice. “Cause, uh...the Spider-Kid here don’t look too hot.”
“You found him!?” Tony all but exploded as his helmet quickly re-formed around his head, the nanites encasing his skull once more with his Iron Man helmet.
“Where are you?” Steve didn’t ask. That much was clear in the tense authority of his quick response — he may have been the one thing keeping Tony from barging into the building, but he wasn’t far off from doing it himself, either.
“I don’t know! How am I supposed to know!?” Rocket snapped back, the most irritated they’d heard him sound so far — a bit of panic to his tone didn’t go unheard. “I just kept following the vents like you told me too!”
Tony spun around to face Quill with dizzyingly speed.
“Quill — tracer, now.”
The frantic movement from Quill made it obvious that he wasn’t as calm as he made himself appear.
“I can’t ping a location on him, the walls are too dense—” A harsh frown tugged at his face as Quill moved his fingers rapidly across the wrist hologram that functioned from his forearm. The images moved as quickly as his hand did. “I don’t know what’s going on, the navigation system can’t get a read.”
That wasn’t a good enough answer for Tony.
“Weapons? Traps? Bombs?” He was about to choke on his next breath as he stressed, “Anything?”
There was no response.
Tony was far from okay with there being no response.
“Quill!”
“I can’t get a read!” Quill finally snapped, the stress beginning to show in his voice. “Whatever that structure is you’re talking about, that metal — it’s got some sort of negative energy, the ions are off the chart!” Though he kept working on the hologram, his speed had greatly slowed down. “There’s no way to get radio channels through it. I’m trying, but it’s not—”
“Give me that!” Tony reached for Quill’s arm without a beat of hesitation.
Quill pulled away before the armored hand could touch down on him.
“Dude,” Quill warned, his face falling flat. “Don’t touch my stuff.”
The echo of shuffling through the comms was the only thing that kept their argument at bay.
“You guys should really consider barging in guns blazing,” Rocket’s voice broke right through their dispute — the panic in his tone absolutely discernible, now more than ever. “I dunno how much blood your tiny terran’s got, but, uh…that’s a lot of blood not in of him, right about now.”
Tony was done — he was long since done, long before they stepped through the portals that took them to a isolated island off the Hudson River, long before they had sent the goddamn raccoon to get them answers —
He was done waiting around.
“It’s seventeen of us against one of him.” Tony twisted sharply to face Steve, head-on, his own reasoning failing to uphold the level of confidence he knew was needed to sell the plan. His mask, at least, hid any exposure to his doubt. “How bad can it be?”
While Steve stared him down, almost appearing deliberative, their earpieces crackled with activity.
“We still don’t know what traps could be inside,” Clint mentioned, trying not to let the unease show in his tone; disguising it instead as sarcasm. “Funhouse gas wasn’t fun the first time around.”
Steve made a face as he recalled the same, unable to hide the discomfort of the memories — all of which showed clearly in what features of his face could be seen beneath his helmet.
“There’s that,” he dryly remarked, still deliberative — yet still determined.
“We don’t have a Hulk,” Natasha chimed in, all but taking that determination right away from Steve’s aura.
Tony wasn’t far off from the same, looking at Steve with a jaw clenched tight.
“And apparently, we don’t have a Hulk.”
He couldn’t have seemed anymore defeated, bitter, frustrated — Tony worked his jaw side to side as their deliberation reached an impasse that, much to his dismay, couldn’t be resolved.
Suddenly, a sharp, decrepit, creAKIng sounded from their earpieces—
CreAK — CReAkK — cREAkkK —
“Uh, guys?” Rocket’s timid tone stood out more than anything. Even as he whispered to keep from being noticed, the undertone of fear in his voice was clear as day; as clear as each creaKIng that sounded from his surroundings. “Anyone else happen to hear—?”
—CRRRASssshhHHHHH!
“Oh, FLARK!” The only thing louder was Rocket’s shout — borderline screams — as havoc erupted around him. “Unicorn! Unicorn!”
Tony and Steve locked eyes as fiercely as magnets, with the CLING! and CLATTER! s ounding through their comms at an alarming volume.
It didn’t take long to recognize what had occurred — the slamming reverberation of metal falling, crashing; the sudden outburst of another voice — a different voice, increasing in volume as Rocket finally fell through the broken ceiling vent below him, landing with a shattering commotion from his fall.
“Quill, you son of a—!” sounded right alongside a distant, “ƜӇƛT—!?” combined with Rocket’s shrill, panicked, “UNICORN!”
Steve didn’t dare waste another breath.
“Everyone rendezvous at the main entrance — I repeat, everyone rendezvous at the main entrance!” Within seconds, Steve bolted for the entrance doors not far away from them, the others following his lead from all directions, zeroing in at full speed. “I want all men front and center —go, go, go!”
The only one of them all who matched his speed was Tony — Iron Man hot at his side, with his repulsor’s bringing him to those entrance doors before anyone else; each blast that shot from his palm doing absolutely nothing to the integrity of the buildings structure.
“And what the hell is your brilliant idea to get in there!?” Tony snapped, his words laced with the reverb of his metallic nanite armor. With the sun having set, the LED’s of his eyes shined fiercely against the dark sky. “These doors are lined with Adamantium, Rogers — your shield barely broke through a couple bars of the stuff!”
Steve looked the doors up and down, taking a quick step away as he reached around his shoulder and for the shield he’d holstered against his back.
At the same time he whipped that shield in front of him, the harsh, piercing gust of wind whizzed right by their ears — right alongside the shiny, silver hammer that flew straight forward, colliding into the doors with God-like strength.
Steve quickly brought his shield high to his face, guarding himself from the broken shards of the buildings structure hurling towards him — shattered by the hammer that kept catapulting forward through each wall that stood in its path.
With the others still zeroing in on their location, Tony and Steve stood front and center to the splintered and smashed-open entrance doors — Steve slowly lowering his shield to eye the large hollow space in front of them, showering down dust and debris from the damage occurred.
“Huh,” Tony dryly remarked, with a slight tinge of metallic to his voice. “That works.”
Neither men noticed as behind them, many others ran forward; flew forward — gathered like a beacon in the night.
Thor broke through them all with a speed only his flight could take him, his red cape hurling by at speeds that nearly whipped Tony and Steve right off their feet; a blazing blue trial of lightning electrifying the air around them, with a harsh lingering scent of ozone burning in their nostrils.
Tony’s repulsors added to that intense heat as he lit up his palms and boots with blazing energy, darting through that hollow space and following Thor forward.
Mjölnir crashed through wall after wall, not letting up, not stopping — not until finally striking resistance.
It was at the same exact time Tony’s repulsors came to a startling halt, so quickly that his arms and legs were thrust forward in front of him, that both himself and Thor watched with synchronized timing as the flying hammer came to a unheralded stop, forced to cease all movement once colliding with—
“—oh, fuck.”
Tony cursed against the harsh, howling flames that poured off the scale-like skin of the body in front of him — the piercing brightness of fire adding to the piercing brightness of florescent lights from all around.
He could feel the energy of his nanite suit vibrate against his bones, watching without breath as Thor’s hammer fell uselessly to the ground below — consumed by the very inferno that wreathed the body standing before them.
Norman spun around, emerald flames licking from within his eye-sockets, his skin disintegrating into ash and soot, showcasing the hard, green scales breaking free from beneath.
The next thing Tony saw was a surge of scorching heat hurtling toward him.