An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
“Recognition algorithm for identity facial features complete,” FRIDAY’s voice was laced heavy with her Irish accent, and sounded no different than the few minutes that she spoke before. “No results found.”
Tony barely moved at her announcement — didn’t respond, didn’t look up — the muscles in his knuckles flexed as he squeezed at his temples, but it was all he did.
Steve noticed it.
Less than five steps were separating them. Steve was speaking before he even made three.
“We’re not going to let anything happen to him, Tony,” he insisted, reassuringly, with a tone as hard as stone.
Suddenly, Tony shot his head up; a scoff shaking his back so roughly, it pushed him right off the wall.
“There are times when you astound me with your nativity, you know,” he easily responded, smooth enough that it was almost impossible to tell he was fighting for control — of what, exactly, didn’t matter. It was clear he just needed it, any sense of control he could get his hands on.
Everyone kept working around them, determined — dedicated. But so far, they came up with no answers. Just more questions that were starting to push Tony to the brink of his patience.
Steve frowned. He could tell.
“We knew this was ahead of us with Peter,” he said, seriously, firmly, right to Tony’s face. “All of us, we’ve all been preparing for this.” Steve took another step forward, his dress shoes hitting the floor with resolve. “And we’re all prepared to do whatever it takes to make sure Norman doesn’t harm him in any way. You have my word on that.”
For what it was worth, Tony met his look — his eyes stayed as hard as Steve’s, the fear painting his expression one that Steve wasn’t fond of seeing.
“Right…right, right—” Tony swiped at his nose, quickly. “Just like all the people who’ve been involved in OsCorp’s experimentation's?”
Tony, no different then Natasha, also wasn’t afraid to speak of what no one wanted to hear.
Even Clint looked uncomfortable at what had finally been vocalized, turning back to his monitor without any remark.
Meanwhile, Tony didn’t break his attention away from Steve.
Steve didn’t look away from him, either.
“The Mysterio’s, the rock android’s, the re-assembled, violently programmed Chitauri bombs.” Tony took a step forward, closer to where Steve stood. “How about those unsuspecting, hung up of some quick cash college students who found themselves electrocuted until they became farm grown vegetables? Or the outright revolting archives of Experiment X that I saw, first hand, with my own eyes — or, I know, how about the symbiote project—”
“Stop,” Steve firmly interrupted. He shook his head, hard. “You can’t think like that—”
“—for all we know, the kid’s strapped to a table right now being dissected like a frog,” Tony choked out, forcing to speak through a throat that was tightening by the word. “The nuremberg code has never once stood in the way of what Osborn wants. And now he knows what he needs — now he has it. There’s no telling what he’ll—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!”
Quill wasn’t shy in interrupting what was clearly a tense conversation.
He quickly made his way towards Steve and Tony, both whipping their heads over to face him — Tony far more agitated than Steve — but not even that got Quill to slow down.
“You guys haven’t mentioned that this fella of yours tortures people,” Quill, for once, sounded serious; even as he made a face that crinkled his brows into one long, oddly shaped line across his forehead. He shook his head while marching forward. “Not awesome, man.”
Tony couldn’t have thrown Quill a more wild expression if he had tried, with his eyes wide enough that they were a threat to fall out of their sockets.
“I’m sorry,” he stressed, each word tighter than the last, “was I talking to you!? Does this involve you!?”
Tony’s shout could’ve echoed the R&D room, if the noises from computers and machinery didn’t already sound over their own voices. The video footage kept playing and keys continued to clack on, and each minute they stood around agitated his nerves harsher than the last. He could feel himself starting to crack at the seams.
“Dude!” Quill returned Tony’s look with his own. “It’s kinda hard to mind your own business when people are talking about other people being experimented on!” Quill pointed a finger firmly against his chest. “I’m part people, I kinda care about that!”
A inquisitive hum sounded not far from behind Quill.
“That is right,” Drax spoke up, staying in the corner where he sat away from the others, sitting on a stool that hunched his body forward. “You are half weakingly. I forgot this about you.”
Quill spun at the hips to throw Drax a dirty look, glaring with enough aggravation that Steve knew right away to intervene.
“I appreciate your worry.” Steve held a palm outward in the air, waiting until Quill returned his attention before speaking again. He was firm in his response. “But we don’t want anymore people getting involved in this than necessary. There are things that Norman Osborn has done—”
“What kind of things?” Quill wasn’t playing around this time. There was a noticeable shift in his posture. “Cause I’m not sure if you’ve been able to tell, but we aren’t the type to just stand about and let certain kind of things happen, if you know what I mean.”
Quill puffed out his chest — just slightly, enough that they all could see — and it was the first time Steve noticed the sense of sternness in his tone, unwavering through and through.
In a way, it sounded familiar.
A little too familiar.
“Oh, good God,” Tony exasperated the words in a single exhale, turning his back on both Steve and Quill — walking away the few steps that could give him extra breathing space.
Steve didn’t chase after him.
He still kept him close in sight.
“It’s…it’s complicated.” Turning slightly to face Quill, Steve crossed both arms over his chest, keeping one eye on Tony while the man paced the computers repetitively searching camera’s of New York. “Norman, he’s…he’s a very smart man — one who’s done terrible things with that intelligence. He’s used—he’s killed…people…for genetic engineering. He claims it’s all for science—”
Across the room, Bucky scoffed. Loudly.
“Yeah? And so did Unit 731.”
Bucky didn’t raise his voice.
He didn’t need to.
The whole room heard him.
Steve spared a look to no one, eyeing the ground for a passing moment before finally returning his attention to Quill; tough, but grave.
“We’ve been trying to stay ontop of him for months now,” Steve had to clear his voice to talk again. He worked his jaw along the way. “We’ve only recently found out what it is he’s done. Who he’s experimented on, how he’s experimented—”
A chair screeched from across the room.
“Now hold on a d’ast flarkin’ minute!” Rocket jumped onto the nearest table, knocking over his chair the process. “You trying to say that scrawny, awkward, weird, runt-sized, talks-a-lot, nervous looking funny kid is in trouble of getting experimented on?”
The bluntness of Rocket’s exclamation shot through the room like a bullet, and Steve nearly lost his balance when whipping his head over to Tony — who continued to pace, holding his head in the palms of both hands as the conversation kept on.
A deep frown sunk the lines around Steve’s face. The stress in the room was starting to weigh on him worse by the minute.
