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doorsclosingslowly · 5 years

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Your death is a number but I cannot count that high (9/15)

Meanwhile: Obi-Wan meets a monster.

Zombie Savage AU | 2.9k | warnings for graphic body horror, dehumanization, past child abuse | also on AO3

If this was an ordinary afternoon, the choked-off screams of clone soldiers over the radio would have been the first sign that something is going wrong. It isn’t: Obi-Wan has been suffering a pressure headache for nigh-on two hours now, triggered when the air grew foul with the presence of unshielded corruption, distinct even against the general lingering taste of the war. A malignant wail, longing and piercing. Desolation. A hole in the living force. A burning maelstrom of loss and terror and the anticipation of rest.

Not Sith, though, not quite: warping the force around itself, hungry for death, completely unlike the refined calm of Count Dooku or Darth Maul’s excitement at facing Qui-Gon or even the unhinged violence of the animal, all grown up and returned, murdering Satine right in front of Obi-Wan’s eyes. This new presence is not rational.

“General Kenobi, we’re under—aargh!” The radio splutters, and the voice dies. Another: “Retreat! Retreat!” Then, a plea. “Why doesn’t it karking die?!”

The screaming on the comms is not the first sign that something is wrong, no. If it was, though, the mere fact that Obi-Wan can see the enemy approaching now, only a few minutes after they must have touched down on embattled Entralla, with barely enough time for Obi-Wan to wake and pick up armor and ‘saber and run towards the explosions—that the attack has already passed the perimeter of the base camp… that it’s one single shape, too, and it has mowed through seasoned commandos as if they were not even an inconvenience… no, this is not an ordinary afternoon.

Quickly, it’s not just a shape anymore. Obi-Wan can see the creature now. It’s stomping through blaster-fire, too ungainly to deflect it, exactly like the day they met. Back then, it looked like complete incompetence—an unwise betrayal of Dooku on Dooku’s own ship, and there were too many droids for the untrained Sith to parry. Desperate grunts of pain. Escape.

Now, there’s not even an attempt to protect itself.

Bolts, hundreds of blaster bolts, enough that they would have cooked any man, sizzle uselessly on half-covered skin and new writhing metal cables. They take a chunk out of the right shoulder. The creature flinches, but it does not stop advancing. Instead, it is gradually engulfed with spurts of bright green light, and then, when the light dims, the hole in the shoulder is gone. No. Obi-Wan looks more closely. Not gone. A piece of plastoid—a clone trooper’s helmet, warped and dripping blood with its individualist paint chipped off beyond recognition, Obi-Wan realizes with horror—is wedged in there, wrapping into and over the wound almost protectively.

The creature is still mostly obscured by green miasma and the thick stinking animus that swirls around its body in the force, but Obi-Wan knows that face. (Knows it well, indelibly, an impassive background scowl while a blade is driven through the chest of—)

It’s Savage Opress.

Count Dooku’s traitor zabrak acolyte, who disappeared and returned as Darth Maul’s henchman, and then, supposedly, disappeared once more.

(Communications out of Mandalore are patchy and rare now, after Obi-Wan failed his mission and fled. After the death of its Duchess. Of Satine. The fall of kind Mandalore to terror and Sith.

A few days ago, though, Obi-Wan received a terse, smuggled communiqué sent by Bo-Katan Kryze. “Outsider gone. Mandalore fully under Nite Owl control. Death Watch scattered.” Obi-Wan allowed himself a sigh of tentative relief at the news, but in retrospect—he’d fallen for that once already. It would have been too much to hope that Obi-Wan would never see Maul or Savage Opress ever again.)

Opress is only a few meters away now, on the other side of the empty space in the middle of the camp’s tents.

He’s—it’s impossible to shake the impression that, even at this distance, Ob-Wan should be able to smell fire and maggots and freshly rotted flesh. It’s not just the white plastoid helmet of a dead man plugging up a shoulder wound. It’s not just the green light making him appear sickly. It’s not just that whatever happened seems to have shriveled him a head size.

The Sith is a trash heap strewn over a day-old battlefield, all punctured unoozing skin and haphazard scraps of durasteel. Bare red muscle tissue peeks through in places, and his armor, still on, is much worse for wear, its metal plates separated and ragged and softly swaying with the breeze, only there is no breeze, and metal doesn’t sway. It looks like chitinous insects, wriggling, eating.

Cables drip like black blood from a deadly-looking hole in his chest—no, it’s not a trick of appearance but an actual mortal wound, Obi-Wan recognizes dizzily, straight through the heart, only that can’t be right. One can’t live without any functioning hearts, and the zabrak’s other organ is plugged—punctured—by scraps of a lightsaber hilt.

This can’t be right.

Opress shouldn’t still be moving.

He is.

The creature finally comes to a rest an arm’s length away from Obi-Wan, unimpeded by the bombardment of blaster fire that’s almost singeing Obi-Wan himself at this range. His yellow bloodshot eyes blink and focus. Then, the living corpse of Savage Opress rumbles, “I hate you.”

Apparently, there are things even death won’t change.

The grin tugging his facial muscles is automatic. Obi-Wan hopes it looks insouciant, and not like someone attempting and barely managing to keep his last meal down. “You came all this way to tell me? I’m flattered.”

Voices explode in Obi-Wan’s earpiece again, worried chatter: General, should we—you can’t seriously consider—weapons ready on your command—it’s dangerous—General, please… He shakes his head. Whispers, “No. Wait. Hold.” The fire ceases.

‘No’: not now. Not yet. Something else has brought the Sith here to proclaim the obvious, and there is the green light to consider and the cables to investigate: the impossible reality that Opress’ putrid existence outlasted the skewering of his vital organs. Obi-Wan recalls a dusty tome on the foul marriage of flesh and droid he’d once hastily pulled from its stack in the Jedi temple library after the reappearance of Maul, lower half severed in a way no ordinary prosthetics should have been able to compensate for. No-one listened to Obi-Wan then. No-one wanted to believe the apparent return of the eccentric darkside perversion called mechu-deru. Obi-Wan should have expected it to get even worse. These days, everything does.

‘No’: no danger. There is no intent behind these words, none of the violence one would expect from a creature of Savage Opress’ caliber. Instead, the statement is old and tired and long resigned to its own impotence. Curious.

This is plainly not a death threat, and so, he will give Opress—or what’s left of him—more time to explain his purpose.

Not that the Sith is in any hurry to get to the point.

“I hate you,” he growls. Light glints when he shakes his head: for an inscrutable purpose, whoever did this to him embedded a shard of metal near the bridge of his nose, three in his right cheek, one over his left carotid artery. “I hate you. You mutilated my brother, you cut him down and you left him fighting for survival, alone and helpless, in a trash heap for ten years.”

Obi-Wan winces. True. Necessary, and nothing undeserved, but true.

“I want you to die. You hurt my little brother, and you laughed. I like your new legs, you said. I heard you! I don’t—I found him mumbling and scared and starving and alone, and there was pus flecking his belly where the metal was digging into it and I couldn’t go near because he was… and you said you liked his new…” Opress looks lost. There is real emotion now in those yellow-devil eyes, a grief howling and insatiable, and Obi-Wan has to remind himself that he is facing a Sith.

A Sith who, instead of making good on his words, slowly reins himself in.

“But I also learned… you didn’t torture him because you wanted him tortured. It was just what you are. You filled your role. A Jedi, fighting a Sith. I want you dead, but… I need…” Opress swallows. His left hand, chipped and half-melted metal—Obi-Wan remembers cutting it off, targeting Savage’s weak defenses to distract Maul—the hand trembles violently. “You didn’t… You didn’t steal a baby from his family. You didn’t punch that baby in the face, over and over and over and over.” He’s breathing wildly now, thick spittle dripping off his fangs and through a tear in the muscle of his left cheek, and the cables hanging from out his ribcage sway and rise and softly caress his slaughterhouse shoulder, as if they were animated by a need to comfort him.

Obi-Wan feels almost voyeuristic watching it, listening in: once he travelled to Dathomir in the hope of learning more about the creature of his worst nightmares, his deepest loss, trying to figure out what drives Maul’s zealous hatred in order to stop him. It didn’t do much good then, and it couldn’t have, if Savage is to be believed. Stolen away. Tortured.

The explanation is rough-hewn, bare-boned, intimate, and it feels like more than Obi-Wan was ever supposed to know.

Savage Opress continues, “You didn’t convince him that it’s normal. That you’re making him strong by punching him. You didn’t stomp on his hands, and you didn’t keep hurting him, until it’s thirty years later and he still wakes from nightmares he can’t tell me about because that would be weak, and Sith are not weak. You can’t—he’s not a Sith! He’s my little brother! He was...” The voice breaks.

Tortured. Stolen. Baby. There’s something taking shape in Obi-Wan’s mind, and he shivers: Maul was the Sith apprentice, and there’s another Sith Lord at the heart of the war. There is still regret in the Temple, at Dooku, a respected Jedi Master, being led astray, but Savage is talking about Maul’s childhood—not the enslavement on Dathomir, like Obi-Wan had guessed and pitied, but something much worse—and Maul was already fully grown on Naboo.

Dooku had left the Order after Qui-Gon’s murder, and then he fell. That’s the story. He’d been well-regarded before that, cordial to his grand-padawan, not warm, but he’d cared deeply for Master Qui-Gon, and once he’d given Obi-Wan a stonenut biscuit.

Yet, apparently, he’d abducted and tortured a child, years before that.

It is a shock, that the rot goes this far back.

“The monster came to Mandalore, and my brother was terrified. I could feel it. And the monster slaughtered him. You never cared about that. You don’t. You didn’t help him. You didn’t… But you didn’t kill my brother. You did not kill all of Dathomir.”

“I see,” says Obi-Wan. There’s nothing else to say. He hasn’t heard anything about an attack on Dathomir, Separatist or otherwise, but there’s no reason why he would have. It’s just a backwater world of force witches and slaves.

He hasn’t heard anything about Maul’s death.

It should be a relief. It’s a just death, Obi-Wan knows, for Qui-Gon, for Satine, for all the corpses on Raydonia, but it’s hard to find righteous satisfaction in present company. The force is a maelstrom gaping with hunger and loss, and the word ‘brother’ shimmers, twists. It is a baby, eagerly gnawing an index finger. It’s a spider scuttling and trembling away. It’s a broken promise. It’s love, love, love. Opress never used to be this powerful. Obi-Wan concentrates, for a moment, on his shields.

“I want you dead, Kenobi,” Savage Opress rants, and out slip green smoke and thin strands of saliva through purpling undead lips. “I want you dead. I want Sidious to beg for mercy. The Mother created me to be her weapon, She raised me to wreak Her revenge, and I cannot die until I tear out his lying tongue. Until his bones break and his skin sloughs off. I’ve been hurt. I know pain, and he will feel it. I want him to beg, I want him to weep, and then I will show exactly as much mercy as he showed my little brother.”

“And you—came to me?”

Opress shrugs. “You’re a Jedi. You want the Sith dead too. You know your role. You’ll help. I don’t know where Sidious is yet, and a weapon must find its target to be effective.”

He’s proposing an alliance, then. Obi-Wan wants to laugh incredulously, imagines the pleasure of rejecting him—a blade pierces Satine’s chest, and in the background, uncaring, Savage scowls—the utter pleasure he’d have felt yesterday, and that is how he knows he can’t. It’s a desire, selfish and in vain, and he knows his duty to the galaxy. Besides, it wouldn’t be in her memory, if it’s what may end the war. He lets go of the impulse.

“If we could find Dooku that easily, the war would have been won by now,” Obi-Wan argues instead, softly.

Savage frowns. “No, not Master Dooku—” he spits the name— “not him. His Master. Dooku’s Master. I heard Dooku talking to him, to Sidious, before I knew what he did to my brother. Taking orders. He didn’t know I could—that I wasn’t unconscious anymore. I didn’t move. I’m not stupid. I heard. I saw. Sidious. No beard, a human, with cloak and wrinkles and snide soft words. That’s who Maul begs—begged for mercy, in his nightmares. That’s who came to Mandalore.”

Another Sith lord. This is getting worse and worse. Only two there are, one to embody power and one to crave it, or at least that’s what Obi-Wan learnt when he was young. We should have known that it’s a trick. Only two, but how many has Obi-Wan himself faced? Maul. Dooku. Ventress. Opress. Grievous.

And now, this Sidious, Master to Maul and Dooku.

Yet another Sith.

More than another Sith, even: the creature at the center of the web, completely unknown.

Fuck.

The Council needs to know, immediately. Obi-Wan needs to find out more. He needs to keep Savage Opress here, keep him talking, the only man who appears to know anything about this Sidious. He needs to—

Unless—no. Obi-Wan looks up at Savage’s face, eyes fever-bright and some sort of dark insect wriggling into the deep scratches in his cheek. No. It’s not just another Sithly misdirection. There are no tells, no signs of a lie. Of unholy mutilation, yes, of the sort of force magic that would need to be studied immediately under any other circumstance—"the Mother raised me,” he said, raised him, it appears increasingly, from the dead, a power unheard of in all of Obi-Wan’s research even into mechu-deru—a magic like Maul’s forcedriven droid parts except far more twisted and degraded; but not a lie.

“We must find this Sidious immediately,” Obi-Wan says.

Savage nods.

“How do you propose we do that? You accosted me. I assume you have a plan.”

“You know the galaxy better than I do,” Savage admits. “My brother told me that Sidious is rich. Very. He has several bases. Maul was kept on the planet of Mustafar at first, he mentioned, and there are several offices somewhere called Coruscant. That’s where he was, most of the time. Contacts to Orsis, too, and to some Hive prison where Maul was forced to—they’re destroyed now. He’s a politician. Maul flinches—flinched at some accents. I asked someone to look up where those people were from. It’s Naboo. Sidious is from Naboo.”

“Not from a Separatist world?”

Savage blinks at him, as if the expectation that the puppet master of the leader of the Confederation of Independent Systems was a Separatist is completely out of the blue. It’s…

The fatigue feels ancient now, everlasting, but the war is less than two years old. That’s not enough for propaganda to deeply penetrate. Why expect the personal alignment of anyone to coincide with their home planet’s choice? Of course Sidious could have been from anywhere, could live on any planet, and for millennia, Coruscant was the undisputed lone center of power. What better location for a Sith Lord?

“That does narrow it down,” Obi-Wan says encouragingly when Savage stops and frowns. Opens it up too, to all the people that stayed within the Republic, but that’s a positive if it puts them on the right track. Not Separatist, then, but Naboo, possibly, and rich, human, old, male. One in a million instead of several quadrillions is much better starting odds, and if they manage to correlate property holdings on Coruscant and Mustafar, provided he’s not going through too many shell companies… It’s much more than Obi-Wan had a minute ago. Still, time is of the essence, and so he adds, probing for anything else, “Albeit not quite to one person.”

“It—” Savage bites his ravaged lip and looks away. Disappointed, not surprised, steeling himself. There’s a backup plan. “I’ve—seen his face. I don’t recognize it. You might.”

“You’re proposing—”

“You have… the force,” Savage whispers. Obi-Wan wonders distantly what he was going to say instead. The armor-shards and cables and scraps jitter, bracing for an attack, and Savage fails to square his juddering shoulders. “You can breach into my head.”

#Zombie Savage AU #Savage Opress #dimtraces makes things

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ao3feed-clintbarton · 5 years

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by petroltogo

“Someone within SHIELD sold out an Avenger. That was their first mistake.”

When Avenger Steve Rogers is declared killed in action, everyone expects his best friend and fellow agent Bucky Barnes to go on a rampage. It’s the quirky mechanic with a sharp tongue and a secret talent for less-than-legal hacking that throws the whole agency for a loop.

Featuring: A dead Steve (but when is Steve ever dead), a very pissed off, fucked-up secret agent Bucky (so basically your usual Bucky), and a very civilian Tony (who is exactly as harmless as you’d expect Tony Stark to be).

Words: 2643, Chapters: 1/5, Language: English

Fandoms: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Iron Man (Movies), Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: M/M

Characters: James "Bucky" Barnes, Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Clint Barton, Natasha Romanov (Marvel), Pietro Maximoff, Wanda Maximoff, Alexander Pierce, James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Pepper Potts

Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Double-0-Agent Bucky, Double-0-Agent Steve, Character Death (Double-0-Agent-Style), Hacker Tony, Mechanic Tony, Tony did not sign up for this, Tony Accidentally Adopts A Killer, Tony Makes Friends In Weird Places, Betrayal, BAMF Tony, BAMF Bucky, Canon-Typical Violence

#IFTTT #ao3feed #fanfic #clint barton #clint #hawkeye

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tonystarktogo · 5 years

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In celebration of my birthday *yay, I’m getting old*, here’s the second part of An Unwise Murder (An Inconvenient Survival). It’s only half of the chapter, but once I’ve finished it (which will hopefully be tonight although no promises cause I’m spending a lot of time with my family today) I’ll post the full version on AO3 as well.

Part II

Tony pours himself a glass of lukewarm coca cola on autopilot. It tastes disgusting, but that doesn’t stop him from swallowing it all down in one go. He should probably put the glass down afterwards, except that’s easier said than done when his hands clutch the fragile cup so hard, his fingers ache. Still better than watching them shake and tremble though.

Maybe it’s a remnant of being raised as the heir of the leading company in one of the most cutthroat industries. Maybe it’s just a byproduct of being the son of Maria Carbonell. Either way, Tony has learned the value of good pokerface early in life. It’s going to take more than some stranger appearing out of nowhere with ominous declarations to shake his composure. Particularly considering Mystery Guy has the guts to introduce himself as James.

James. Of all the fake names he could have picked, seriously. The least he could’ve done is put a bit of effort into the pretense. Tony wants to snort, make a stupid James Bond quip, except—

Steve is dead.

Tony doesn’t know what to do with that information. His mind is racing into five different directions at breakneck speed and simultaneously shies away from the terrible, inevitable conclusion that rests at the center of it all. The implications of what Wannabe-Bond [who, by the way, is glowering suspiciously at Tony from where he’s leaning against the wall on the other side of the kitchen, the best vantage point to keep an eye on all windows and the door, and is apparently incapable of understanding why Tony might need a goddamn minute] has oh so casually announced — and, more tellingly, what he hasn’t said — are staggering.

"Want some?" Tony gestures jerkily towards the open bottle of coca cola. Never let it be said that his mother didn’t drill some basic manners into him, whether the situation calls for it or not.

00-Copy-Cat shakes his head, which suits Tony just fine. He’s not in the mood to share.

Officially, Tony barely knows Steve Rogers. [And fuck, it’s knew now, isn’t it, no, no, don’t think about it—] They ran into each other twice, once accidentally, once on purpose. Both times they spent more time arguing than agreeing on things. Both times left Tony feeling raw and tired, a little bit like he’d just barely escaped a violent death.

Officially. Such a nice, convenient, little word, isn’t it? The grounds you can cover with that kind of safety blanket are truly astonishing.

Tony takes a sip from his drink, is reminded that the glass is already empty, and promptly grabs the whole bottle instead. Lukewarm cola is disgusting, but it’s still sugar and caffeine — the magical combination, in this case. Tony has no illusions about his odd visitor: He’s going to need all the energy he can get if he wants to make it through the next forty-eight hours intact. That he’s got what is quite possibly a real-life assassin watching over his shoulder, screaming murderous aggression from his every pore, is doing wonders for Tony’s ability to stay calm and focused.

Not.

Anyone asks about me, don’t trust them. Anyone searches for me, lie. Don’t say anything, don’t admit anything, don’t imply anything. If they don’t think you useless, they’ll convince themselves you’re a threat. Do you understand? Steve’s voice whispers into his ear, low and serious and so irritatingly commanding that Tony wants to turn around and punch him in his stupid, white teeth.

But since he’s currently in the company of a more volatile version of Steve — something Tony didn’t know was possible — who looks like he might eat aspiring serial killers for breakfast, that’s probably not his best idea.

“Alright,” Tony says eventually, mostly to himself. “Steve’s dead. Shit happens.” Move on and adapt, is what is father used to tell him. These circumstances probably aren’t what the old man had in mind, but Tony has underestimated Howard before. The man has his fingers in a lot of pies, some of which the general public doesn’t even know the existence of. If Tony was three years younger and two times more paranoid, he’d suspect this to be another attempt by dear old dad to show him "the error of his way". Although not even Howard Stark would kill off Steve Rogers just to prove a point.

Probably.

Tony turns around and looks Wannabe-Bond straight in the eyes. [He’s lied to Maria Stark’s face, okay. This is nothing.] They’re a very pretty shade of blue, there’s no denying that. That doesn’t change the fact that it would really suck if those eyes were the last thing Tony ever sees though. He’s too young to die. He’s got things to do, people to annoy. Not to mention Pepper would murder him if he got himself killed before the whole mess with his inheritance is sorted out.

“That doesn’t explain why you’re here." As far as questions go, it’s an implied, roundabout way of asking. The kind that raises Tony’s hackles — as well as the spiteful child inside him — and makes him snipe back viciously in response. Despite that Tony can’t bring himself to ask the far more direct 'Why are you here?' out loud.

It helps that he really, really doesn’t want to know.

Wannabe-Bond stares at Tony with a blank expression that gives nothing away. It’s creepy as fuck, Tony’s not gonna lie. Like staring at a lifelike puppet and half-expecting it to start moving any moment now, even though you know damn well it shouldn’t.

Double-0-Leather takes a measured step towards him. Then another. “How much do you know about Steve?” he asks in that gravely voice that makes Tony want to lecture him on the dangers of smoking. Totally not helpful right now, but it’s always good to know that, despite all evidence to the contrary, Tony has been listening to Pepper’s lectures.

Not that he actually lectures Mister Tall, Dark and Murderous. Tony has some sense of self-preservation, thank you very much.

“I know seven different Steves. You’re gonna have to be more specific."

Alright, maybe not that much. In all fairness though, everyone who knows Tony knows he doesn't handle fear well. He just doesn’t. His fight or flight response is broken beyond repair — or so Rhodey likes to mutter under his breath when he pretends to be the reasonable adult he definitely isn’t and Tony has done something Improbably Stupid™ again — and it’s moments like these when it shows.

To his surprise, Wannabe-Bond snorts. It might have been a trick of light, but Tony could’ve sworn he sees the beginnings of a grin there for a second. Huh. Are assassins allowed to have a sense of humor?

“Fun as this might be-” Wannabe-Bond takes a hold of both of Tony’s shoulders, looming straight into his face now, and, nope, Tony doesn’t like that at all, he’s fond of his personal space, okay, this totally isn’t cool because he’s made Steve a promise and Tony keeps his damn promises — no matter what stupid, self-righteous Steve might think — and Tony really isn’t sure how well he’s going to hold up under torture, that is so not his specialty.

“Are you even listening?” the Man in Black snaps suddenly, in the middle of what is undoubtedly a lengthy, well-delivered threat. It’s the impatience in his tone more than the words themselves that jerk Tony out of his internal rambling.

“Not really?” he blurts out, then immediately regrets it when Double-0-Lame-o’s expression darkens even more.

“Listen carefully!” the guy grinds out between his teeth with the barely restrained violence of a panther on the prowl. "I don’t have the time or patience to play nice right now. This isn’t the time for games. Because I’m not Steve and no one’s gonna look twice if some mouthy civvie disappears." Tony does not shrink into himself — he’s been trained better than that, and it’s not true anyways, Pepper and Rhodey would raise hell in the wake of his disappearance— but, damn it, he really, really wants to.

“We’re compromised," Agent McGrizzly continues with glacial calm. "Someone from the inside betrayed Steve. And you’re going to find the rat. I don’t care how, you’re gonna get it done or I’m gonna use you as a demonstration for what will happen to them when I catch them, got it?”

Tony swallows. Wannabe-Bond hasn’t raised his voice even once. Has spoken barely louder than a heated whisper. Somehow that makes him all the more terrifying.

“And how exactly—” Tony croaks, immediately clears his throat and continues without pause, "How exactly am I supposed to do that?"

Because even when he ignores every command Steve has given him — and there’s a certain delight in that knowledge, not gonna lie — even if he believes this stranger with a handsome face and murder instead of tears in his eyes, even if he wanted to — which he doesn’t because Tony Stark doesn’t help people out of the goodness of his cold, black heart — that still leaves him with a grieving madman sprouting conspiracy theories and nothing else to go on.

Tony expects many things in response to his very legitimate question. The USB stick Suit-Without-The-Suit throws at his face isn’t among them. Luckily, he’s got fast reflexes. Evading DUM-E’s claws whenever he’s trying to help because he’s fallen in love with yet another car is one hell of a training exercise.

The stick is unremarkable in all the ways that matter. A black, plastic casing. Nothing to see there, it screams at anyone who might care to listen. Tony stares at the small, outdated piece of technology in the palm of his hand for a long moment. Then, slowly, like a cat stretching before its next nap, he smiles.

"You should’ve led with that."

Sleep is for the weak anyways.

(tbc)

#ReRe writes #WinterIron #Tony Stark #Bucky Barnes #Secret Agent Bucky #Secret Agent Steve #Mechanic Tony #Hacker Tony #That AU I should've finished six months ago but didn't #An Unwise Murder (An Inconvenient Survival)#fic #wip #MCU #AU #James Bond AU #Tony loves his nicknames #I put a lot of effort into those to keep them from getting too repetitive so appreciate them

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tonystarktogo · 5 years

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An Unwise Murder (An Inconvenient Survival)

Summary: “Someone within SHIELD sold out an Avenger. That was their first mistake.” When Avenger Steve Rogers is declared killed in action, everyone expects his best friend and fellow agent Bucky Barnes to go on a rampage. It’s the quirky mechanic with a sharp tongue and a secret talent for less-than-legal hacking that throws the whole agency for a loop. Featuring: A dead Steve (but when is Steve ever dead), a very pissed off, fucked-up secret agent Bucky (so basically your usual Bucky), and a very civilian Tony (who is exactly as harmless as you’d expect Tony Stark to be).

Read on AO3

Here is, as promised, the first part of the Double-0-Bucky/Hacker-Tony fic! To most of you, this part will probably be familiar already, but we have to start at the beginning *shrugs* and don’t worry, the next part will follow soon. Enjoy!

Part I

Funerals aren’t meant to be a pleasant event, so Bucky doesn’t bother to put on a show.

His face could be carved in stone for all the emotion it conveys, and his muscles are tense, coiled, trembling faintly with the desire to grab his gun and pull the damn trigger.

Bucky isn’t sure if he’d stop shooting once he starts though. Not with how many tempting targets currently surround him. Not with how it would finally shut Pierce the fuck up. People tend to talk a lot less after you’ve emptied a magazine or two into them — and Bucky has always been a man who appreciates silence.

Fuck, Bucky doesn’t even know what he’s here for. He doesn’t attend mandatory events. It simply isn’t done. The few weeks of the year that Bucky spends in his own country, he wastes drinking and sleeping around, often both at the same time. What’s to stop him from walking straight out of this impersonally sterile room filled with people he doesn’t trust, and go back to his favourite rundown bar to knock back vodka until he can’t feel the cold on his skin anymore?

Oh right. His best friend just got himself killed in action. The lucky bastard.

On a fucking nightmare of a mission in France of all places. If it had been Russia or Iran or North Korea or even just Sokovia (and really, it takes skill to be wanted by all four sides of the conflict), Bucky could have dealt with it.

But France? Bucky takes that as a personal offence.

Avengers don’t get killed in France. Avengers get killed the way they kill: brutal and messy, with no one left behind who’d bother to avenge them. Because justice is a fairy tale, and every act of peace is built on the actions of someone smart enough to wash the blood off their hands before they step in front of a camera.

At least the acknowledgements are short and free of false sentimentality. A whole lot of bullshit, sure, but it’s not like there is another choice. Not when the truth amounts to Steve Rogers died on a mission we weren’t authorised to give, in a country he wasn’t supposed to be in, over intel that we won’t admit exist.

Bucky doesn’t laugh. Barely huffs a a breath, but the people on both sides of him twitch tellingly.

Like all Avengers, Bucky has sought out the back of the room, where he can keep his back to the wall at all times, has a clear view on all available exists and a good excuse to keep an eye on the crowd of mourners.

The thought that one of them — multiple ones, possibly — are faking their sorrow makes Bucky clench his fingers against the urge to start an interrogation right now, Avenger style.

“Don’t kill anyone you might need to sign you off on field work again,” Barton mutters to his left, the words barely audible.

Bucky forces the tense muscles in his shoulders to relax, adopts an at-ease position that won’t fool the other Avengers, but at least won’t traumatise the attending techies and lawyers. The psych department always makes such a fuss when you break their precious, civilian employees.

There’s no point in fooling his colleagues though — if the Avengers can even be called that. It’s not like he meets them for brunch or goes out drinking with them in his downtime. They’re the elite of a internationally operating spy organisation for a reason, and it’s certainly not their ability to play well with others.

Just hours after having one of their own killed in a SHIELD-issued safehouse, all the Avengers are on edge. More so than usual. That the entire op smells like foul play all the way across the Atlantic does about as much to deescalate the situation as throwing a hand grenade into a room filled with weaponized uranium.

Someone inside SHIELD sold out an Avenger.

That was their first mistake. Their second was taking Steve out without killing Bucky as well.

There’s a shift in Bucky’s peripheral vision. Natasha Romanoff, codenamed Black Widow, looks as affected of recent events as she always does: not at all.

Is she the traitor? Bucky wonders as he tilts his head ever so slightly in acknowledgement. The rivalry between Black Widow and Steve is no secret. It isn’t a friendly one either, not that any of the Avengers are the sort of person one might associate the word “friendly” with. She betrayed the Red Room at eighteen. What offer would it take for her to turn on a fellow agent? An Avenger at that? Is she tense because she expects me to do this country a favour by killing Pierce or is she afraid to be found out?

The service lasts barely twenty minutes — unsurprising, considering how much isn’t said, can’t be said, because living within the specter of the highest security clearance makes for a shoddy eulogy — but to Bucky it feels like forever.

It doesn’t help that half the people around him are waiting for him to fly off the handle in either grief or blind rage. Blind rage admittedly being the more likely outcome.

It doesn’t help that the other half undoubtedly suspects him to be the traitor — who better to kill Steve Rogers than his best friend, after all? Especially when Avengers so clearly don’t have best friends — though Bucky can’t fault them for the sensible assumption.

He’d suspect himself too. The black hole that is four years of being held as a POW on his résumé hasn’t left him with what one might call a solid standing within the agency. Or a stable life in general.

Bucky has simply been lucky that Avengers don’t have much use for stability as it is. (Also, Steve was planning a revolt, should they stop attempting to recover Bucky. Not that anyone likes to acknowledge that. Pierce’s secretary still pales every time she catches sight of one of them.)

He’s been lucky that he’s too useful to be killed.

That might change now — Steve Rogers’ death changes a lot of things — but if it comes to that, Bucky will make damn sure to take the traitor with him. Another outcome isn’t acceptable.

And Bucky is very, very good at getting what he wants.

But first, he needs to find someone clean — meaning unaffiliated with SHIELD in any way — who can take a look at the USB flash drive he’s found in one of his dead drops two days after Pierce declared Steve KIA.

Fuck, but the first thing Bucky is gonna do when he sees Steve again is punch him in the fucking face.

Tony has always had an interesting way of making friends.

For example, Tony meets his best friend Pepper during a hostage situation when he’s sixteen. He’s never before seen a girl throw high heels at a guy’s head with such a deadly accuracy. Suffice to say Tony likes her immediately — and promises to buy her all the shoes she needs to knock stupid people down, naturally.

They keep in touch afterwards, and it’s the start of something great.

He meets his brother in all but blood much the same way, only Tony barely remembers that one because those kidnappers were smart enough to drug him before trying anything funny. Luckily, Tony has Rhodey for the straight thinking part — or at least he does after that episode.

On another, memorable occasion, Tony befriended one of his kidnappers.

In his defence: they were some pretty alright people, for being criminals holding him for ransom. No unnecessary threats or bodily harm, and they actually gave him drug-free food too. Also, you have no idea how mind-numbingly boring being kidnapped is. Well, not the getting kidnapped part but the staying-kidnapped-whilst-your-kidnappers-fail-to-get-their-money part.

Sadly, some people still believe that Stark Industries will pay for the disowned heir Tony Stark’s safe return. And usually they don’t react too well to being proven wrong. That time being one of those rare exceptions. In no small part thanks to a certain member of the crew whose identity Tony will protect until the day he dies. Or something.

Never mind.

The point is, Tony is used to meeting cool people under very hazardous, extraordinary circumstances.

Which is why — as he will later explain to a very exasperated Rhodey and an even more distrustful Pepper — when Tony locks up his garage at 7.40 pm after a long day of changing oils and busted tires, only to suddenly find himself face to face with a hooded stranger — after he’s already locked the doors, though he won’t share that part with his friends — he doesn’t panic.

He greets the guy — there’s a twenty percent chance Tony knows him, okay, hiding their faces as they track him down isn’t exactly a rarity — like a civilised person instead.

“Hi there,” Tony says with his best customer smile. “How may I help you?”

The guy — who definitely has more upper body strength than Tony, not that he notices or anything — doesn’t so much as twitch. He just stands there, body turned towards Tony, face shadowed by his hood. Tony really should have switched out the broken light bulb ages ago, maybe then he wouldn’t have to squint at his visitor like a sceptical squirrel, trying to make out the guy’s features.

“Anthony Stark?” the guy asks after a moment, voice low and rumbling, like gathering clouds on the far end of the horizon, as a violent storm approaches.

It’s that specific, unfairly nice sound that decides it: Tony definitely doesn’t know this guy. There’s no way he would have forgotten a voice like that.

Tony lets his smile brighten a little because if he’s about to be kidnapped — is it that time of the month already? Tony wouldn’t know, his last calendar sorta had a small accident involving a fire and DUM-E using up all the fire extinguisher on Tony rather than the actual fire. It was a pretty sweet, protective gesture, actually. Tony may or may not have teared up, just a little, but that didn’t change that half his equipment had to be replaced — then he’d like to start their working relationship on a good note. The kidnapping attempts tend to have less violent endings that way.

Additionally, Tony really doesn’t want to start a fight in his garage. This is his work place — which is basically holy, ask anyone. His cars are in here. They are not acceptable collateral damage, no matter what Pepper says.

“Do you know a Steve Rogers?” is mystery guy’s next question.

Which is a damn shame because it takes all of Tony’s not inconsiderable self-control to not tense at that particular inquiry. Steve Rogers.

God fucking damn it.

Tony forces the memories, the reflexive questions — a bloodied, broken body, screams of pain, narrowed, blue eyes glaring at him even as strong hands push him out of the line of fire — down immediately, takes care to keep his expression calm and clueless instead. He’s got lots of practice doing that. It’s just like being confronted with an obnoxious reporter who won’t stop bothering him with stupid questions about why he denies his father’s legacy. Bloodthirsty reporters, bloodthirsty assassins, it’s really just more of the same.

Tony has been handling shit like this since he was nine. If mystery guy expects him to trip up and give up even a single piece of information the easy way, he’s got another thing coming. Tony Stark doesn’t do easy.

Especially not when it concerns people he almost considers tolerable. Those gems are hard enough to find as it is — well, among the boring, totally legal working crowd at least — Tony will protect them with all he has. Not that he wouldn’t do the same for people he doesn’t like, he just wouldn’t be as happy about it.

Mystery guy is in for a surprise.

“Rogers?” Tony furrows his eyebrows in confusion. “That doesn’t ring a bell.” Close enough to the truth to count.

Then, the grin slides completely off Tony’s face and his eyes narrow in open suspicion. “Not that it matters. I don’t make a habit of handing out contact information to strangers who can’t be bothered to introduce themselves. Client privileges, I’m sure you understand.”

And yeah, some sarcasm may slip into those words, but can you blame Tony? He’s been working for almost ten hours in that special place reserved in hell for customer service, and, frankly, Tony is done with the world for the day. That he’s most likely dealing with what’s either a very diligent mercenary or a very strange kidnapper does little to lighten his mood.

Both options are far less appealing than mystery guy’s sexy voice initially indicated. Tony feels a little cheated.

“Oh, I understand,” mystery guy murmurs ominously.

When Tony squints, he can literally see the shadows behind the guy blacken. On an unrelated note, he really needs to stop binge-watching those horror flicks. Clearly it’s messing with his mind.

Not that this keeps Tony from bristling at Mystery Guy’s threatening tone — if anything, it has Tony reflexively square his shoulders because he does not fold.

Mystery guy snorts, and Tony has the fleeting impression that the stranger has the gall to be amused by him. He kind of wants to deck the guy just for that.

“I can see why he liked you.”

Something in those words freezes Tony into place long before his brain has puzzled through their meaning. By the time his mind catches up to the past tense that refers to a person it should absolutely not refer to, mystery guy has already taken a few steps towards the only functioning light bulb in Tony’s garage and slips his hoodie back.

The bleak light reveals a pale, handsome face with a strong jaw and icy, blue eyes. Absently, Tony approves of the way the hoodie has messed up Mystery Guy’s wild hair into something untameable and unfairly attractive, but it’s kind of hard to melt into a puddle of appreciative goo when you’ve just learned of the death of a friend.

Or well, acquaintance maybe. Rhodey always reminds Tony that he can’t just go around, adopting friends left and right just because he wants to. And with Steve it’s hard to say. The guy is almost impossible to read.

Still, it’s Steve they’re talking about. And whatever mess he’s gotten himself involved in, Tony doesn’t doubt for a moment that Steve thought he was doing it for the right reasons. He’s annoyingly self-righteous like that. It sucks even more when you listen to him rant and realize he’s got a point, not that Tony will ever admit such a thing to his face.

Which will be hard to do if Steve is actually—

Tony presses his lips together and defiantly stares up at Mystery Guy. Who is, in fact, taller than him. There really is no justice in the world.

“Who the fuck are you and what the fuck do you want?” is what Tony settles on to summarize the maelstrom of confusing emotions wrecking chaos inside him.

The man takes a threatening step closer. Of course, it’s not that hard to come across as threatening when you’re half a head taller and made of muscles and steel. Still. The guy could at least try to keep his looming on the downlow.

Not that Tony does him the courtesy of giving up an inch. This is his garage, damn it. No one makes Tony feel afraid in his own home.

Mystery Guy growls and there is a lethal coldness in his eyes that Tony doesn’t think a human should be able to portray.

“I was Steve’s best friend. And you’re going to find the people who killed him so that I can return the favor.”

Thoughts?

#ReRe writes #An Unwise Murder Verse #Tony Stark #Bucky Barnes #WinterIron #Double-0-agent Bucky #Hacker Tony #Mechanic Tony #Tony has a peculiar way of making friends #Bucky's social skills leave something to be desired #to be fair he's had a rough day #betrayal #AU #fic

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