Marvel 616 Fic: Undo | Chapter 4

[vail_kagami]

summary and story information this way

Steve spends a night lying in wait hidden on the roof of the Resilient building while a man called Macken keeps watch through the security cameras. Predictably, nothing happens. After stirring everyone up, whoever tired to break in doesn’t risk coming back so soon after having been seen. Still, it was worth a try.

The next day, Steve finally gets a hold of Wolverine. The downside of the mutant being on two teams at the same time is that he tends to not be available when the X-Men have any sort of crisis, which is basically every other day. But he comes when Steve calls him and uses his sense of smell (which is, in this case, better than any technology they have at their disposal), and tells him in no uncertain terms that “It’s them. I recognize the smell. It was all over Stark.”

Then he’s off to follow the trail and Steve follows him, itching to finally find them. It takes all his focus to remain calm.

He does curse, and loudly, when the trail is lost not even a mile later. “Teleported away,” Logan deducts, standing in a room on the second floor of an empty apartment building. “From the fact that they walked this far instead of jumping straight to their goal, I’d say it’s either a flashy way of travelling they prefer to do in hidden places, or they need a stationary unit to do it.”

It’s not much, but at least Steve can be fairly sure that during a fight they won’t simply dematerialize right before his eyes.

And they have a concrete hint as to where their targets are. The room they are in is bare and was clearly never the kidnappers’ base of operations. There has to be a place nearby where they holed up while planning their break into the company, and even if they are no longer there, chances are they left something useful behind. A trace. Anything.

Wolverine goes searching for it. He can find pretty much anyone if they are anywhere to be found. Steve leaves him to it because it’s nothing he can help with. He informs SHIELD, though, tells them all they found out.

When he comes back to Pepper’s office to tell her what he knows, he finds her just finishing a call.

“That was Rhodey,” she explains after hanging up. “They used pretty advanced technology, possibly alien, and he thinks maybe the scanners of his suit will be able to pick up something we missed.”

“That’s not actually a bad idea.” Steve tells her of the cut trail and their conviction that there’s a large teleporting station moving around somewhere in the city. As far as he knows, the equipment of the War Machine armor isn’t as refined as Iron Man’s, but it’s still better than anything else they have at their disposal.

On the other hand, it means that Rhodes will have to leave Tony alone, and Steve isn’t so sure about that. But then, it’s not like Tony will be completely on his own and unobserved, and right now, taking out the ones who hurt him and thereby keeping them from doing so ever again has to come first.

“Tell him to come, then,” he decides finally.

Pepper shakes her head with a smile. “He’s already on his way.”

 

-

 

It’s a long way from New York to Seattle, but War Machine is fast. He won’t need any longer for the journey than Steve did in the Quinjet. Still, it’s a few hours to wait before they can take any action on that front and Steve returns to the building where Wolverine lost the trail. Maybe he’ll find something they missed since they only concentrated on things like smell the first time they came, but no. There’s nothing. Steve lingers a moment longer, missing Tony and feeling like smashing in the window. Naturally, he doesn’t.

Eventually, he leaves. He regrets it one block later when a woman in a smart suit walks straight up to him, followed by a man holding a camera.

It’s probably not too late to run away. And Steve really, really isn’t in the mood for this. He has made the decision to deal with the reporters, however, and besides, there’s no way to get out of this right now without looking like a fool or a coward and giving the gossip mills more food.

He has to deal with this because Tony can’t and Steve can’t allow them to keep slandering his name when he doesn’t even know it’s happening. (He really hopes Rhodes doesn’t let Tony watch TV.) Still, he’s in civilian clothes and didn’t really think anyone would recognize him when they shouldn’t even know he’s in Seattle.

They are approaching Steve Rogers now, not Captain America. Kind of fitting, considering this is a matter of Steve Rogers’ private fucking life.

Steve wonders if she waited here for him, or if she was just getting lucky, standing around at some corner with a cameraman all day waiting for anyone interesting to come her way. Yeah, that’s likely.

He lets her come close to him and hopes against hope that she wants to talk about Doombots.

“Captain America,” she greets him. “You’re a hard man to catch these days.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Steve sees more people coming towards him: a man with a microphone and another with a notebook. He wonders if there’s a nest around here somewhere, while a part of his mind that is particularly paranoid screams ‘Trap!’

“I’m just Steve Rogers right now,” he tells her, indicating his civilian clothes.

“So I take it you take the separation between your civilian identity and your superhero persona very seriously?”

“Well, I try to keep it separate as much as that’s possible. I understand that Captain America is a public figure but I do what I can to keep my private life as private as that of anyone else.” He smiles and desperately hopes she’ll get the hint.

“And yet it cannot be denied that Tony Stark has always lived every part of his private life in the spotlight of the media,” she points out.

‘You have no idea,’ Steve thinks sourly. It’s frightening how much even Tony’s closest friends never knew about him. Out loud he says, “The media didn’t even know he was Iron Man until rather recently.”

“So it can be said that his private life was always more public than anything business- or Avengers-related,” she twists his words right around. Steve already regrets not having pretended to be mind-controlled by aliens upon first seeing her. “Yet there has been no sign of him for weeks. We all expected Stark himself or the Avengers to give a press conference long ago.”

It’s good that he does this, Steve reminds himself. If he didn’t, if no one talked to the press (other than Luke or Logan, who really shouldn’t be allowed to), this would be what the reporters asked about the next time the Avengers gave a press conference on something decidedly more important.

“There has been no official statement whatsoever,” the man with the notebook joins in. “We all expected you to clear up this misunderstanding as quickly as possible.”

There, Steve stops. “What misunderstanding?”

“The general assumption that you and Stark are sexually involved, based on one not-very-telling photo,” the man says as if it were obvious.

“Oh.” Steve honestly hasn’t expected that. “I’d describe it as romantically involved before anything else, but either way, there’s no misunderstanding. We didn’t give an official statement because we didn’t think the matter deserved any official statements.” He turns back to the woman who addressed him first, while the other guy stares at him as if he’s suddenly grown rabbit ears. “We will not hide it, but we didn’t see why we should act like our relationship was in any way of interest to other people.”

“But haven’t you been hiding it? We never saw you and Stark out together in any way that could be interpreted as particularly romantic. Or is that a recent development?”

“Does that mean you and Stark tearing the city apart was just an elaborate lover’s spat? Was that really for political reasons or did you catch him cheating on you with the Hulk?” Other Guy asks. He grins as if he’s said something funny. Steve ignores him because the only appropriate response would be punching him in the throat.

Instead, he considers lying for the sake of simplicity. Not a good idea. He tries to be as vague, however, as he can get away with. “We started our relationship about eight months ago. The reason why we didn’t parade it in public is exactly this.” He makes a gesture that encompasses the entire scene. “We felt it might distract the media from more important things they should be interested in.”

“It’s what’s interesting to the public that determines what’s of public interest,” the woman replies smoothly. “Anyway, you have both been in hiding since the news came out, which led many to the belief that you are ashamed of being seen together in public.”

“We are not,” Steve says more harshly than he meant to. “What is there to be ashamed of about being together with someone you love and who loves you back? Explain to me, since you know so much, what is wrong with being in love.”

“I think,” the third man speaks for the first time in a completely reasonable voice, “the issue many people have is with how unnatural a romance between two men is and how, if a national icon like Captain America participates in it, it gives the wrong message to the public.”

“What message? The message that it’s okay for everyone to be happy? If that is considered wrong for this country then I should change my name.”

The man opens his mouth to reply, but the woman is faster. “You say that, and yet you do it alone. Your lover hasn’t been seen since all this started. Does Tony Stark not share your opinion?”

“Did you break up?” Other Guy asks, serious for once. “With a reputation like his, I can imagine Stark doesn’t need the bad publicity this brings, though I’m more surprised about—”

“With a reputation like his, do you honestly think Tony cares about what the media have to say about him?” Steve snaps. He needs to pull himself together and retreat as gracefully as possible. It was a terrible idea to go into this unprepared. He’s only going to make things worse if he pisses off the wrong people, and this woman, at least, is working for a major news station.

“Tony is occupied with other things. That’s why you haven’t seen him around lately.” He tries for a reasonable, professional, not-at-all angry tone. “We are not joined at the hip. As you know, Tony Stark is a very busy man and it’s not at all unusual for his obligations or for matters Iron Man has to deal with to take him away for weeks at a time. In fact, I doubt he even knows yet that our relationship has become public knowledge.” Steve feels like this is a mistake the moment he says it. Lying, even a little, has a tendency to get out of hand and come back to bite him when it comes out, but he doesn’t want them to know Tony is sick and unable to deal with these things. It’s none of their business.

“Are we really supposed to believe that Tony Stark, master of electronic communication and data theft, doesn’t know what’s been on the news for the last weeks?” the man asks incredulously.

And there is it already. “Yes,” Steve says none the less, hoping to convince them by sheer power of sounding convincing. “I know this is not the story you were hoping for, but it’s literally all there is to it. Tony and I are together, yes, and we are not ashamed to say it, and I kept away from the press because I was busy and because I had hoped I could postpone dealing with this until I had the chance to talk it over with my partner. And now, if you’ll excuse me…”

“There are voices saying this is a publicity stunt,” the woman interrupts him, and Steve thinks if ever there was a good moment for an alien invasion, this is it. “Mr. Rogers, you have never been known to show an interest in men. You’ll have to admit that this comes a little suddenly.”

“Not at all. As I mentioned before, I make a point of trying to not live my life in the public eye, so unless someone was spying on me in my home, I’d like to know how those voices you cited would know who I have or haven’t shown an interest in.”

“But Stark has been living his life in the public eye—” Other Guy starts.

“Yeah, you mentioned that already. And he has been seen with a wide variety of people.”

“And there are voices that think he corrupted you,” the woman finishes what Other Guy started.

“Would they ask the same question if it were a woman with a reputation I hooked up with?” Steve asks darkly. He starts walking again and picks up speed, hoping they’ll get the message or get tired of keeping up with him.

“And he’s been very keen on being seen with beautiful women,” Other Guy finished the way he intended that statement to go.

“So you are unwilling to comment on the rumor that Stark ended your relationship in the wake of its reveal to protect his reputation and avoid the inconvenience this causes,” the second man concludes. It sounds final.

“What? I said the opposite!” Steve protests, but the man has already stopped following him, having apparently gotten what he wanted. Steve wonders why he went through the trouble of ambushing him when he intended to make everything up as it suits him anyway.

“You know what?” Steve snaps at the remaining people. “Tony will give you his own answers as soon as he’s able to. And now please leave me the— …alone, I have things to do, and quickly.” He starts to jog, and none of them are in any kind of shape or clothes to follow him. This will come down to more footage of Captain America running from the press, he’s sure of it.

And everyone was wondering why he didn’t want to deal with this. With his luck, he’s just made everything worse.

 

-

 

He makes it back without further incident, mostly by using back alleys and going off-road and generally employing stealth tactics for broad daylight. He wonders how long it will be until his interview—and he uses the word very generously here—hits the TV screens. He won’t watch it but he’ll know anyway, because people will tease him about it. And scold him. And both at once.

Once in Tony’s old office, Steve loses himself in the security tapes again, for lack of anything better to do. Maybe he missed something. Mostly, he wants a distraction.

Maybe he can actually contribute something useful to catching the people who hurt the man he loves, but he has little hope. This day, at least, he hasn’t done much that was helpful.

If Tony were here, he would tease Steve mercilessly about his lack of skill when it comes to handling the press. But he’d still somehow manage to be nice about it.

Tony never wanted this thing between them to come out. Steve is sure of that. He never really thought much about it but, now that he is, he’s certain Tony didn’t avoid bringing it up only for Steve’s sake.

In the past few days, he’s thought a lot about what Rhodes said about Tony’s motivation for keeping it secret. Protecting Steve’s reputation, that’s big. As if Steve needed someone else to make that decision for him. Except, of course, that’s exactly something Tony would do. And he would think that Steve’s reputation needed to be protected. Not from the same-sex relationship but from the relationship with Tony Stark.

It’s hard to forget how naturally they slipped into their romance when it happened, yet how reluctant Tony was in the beginning to let it go on. First he assumed it had been a mistake on Steve’s part and acted like he was fine with it, then he tried to break it off several times, each time looking like he was ripping his own heart out with every word. The look on his face was what had Steve convinced that Tony would regret losing this just as much as he would, and for once he had taken the initiative and made sure Tony understood he wasn’t going anywhere.

And what else did Rhodes say? Tony wasn’t sure how long it would last? It makes sense, too, and knowing Tony, he wasn’t worried about losing interest in Steve. He was worried—no, he was (is?) convinced, because Tony is an idiot in all the important matters—that Steve would lose interest in him. And if the media had known, if they had been in the spotlight as a couple at that time? It would have been a lot harder on both of them. Everyone would probably have blamed Tony, due to that reputation of his that is completely unfounded where committed relationships are concerned. It would have broken Tony’s heart, and it would have been (another) very public heartbreak.

Or maybe he’s been scared that Steve would stay with him even if he didn’t want him anymore to avoid the media fallout. And he would always have been in doubt. And Steve wants to put a fist through the wall because they should have talked about this.

But they didn’t since Steve was too comfortable with the way things were. With just enjoying what they had without letting too many people know about it, because…

Because if the world had known and decided that it was some kind of statement it would have been hard to end it should they ever need to. The realization comes suddenly, when he can no longer avoid it, and it makes Steve groan and bury his head in his hands because he was so stupid.

Now the world knows and he doesn’t want to think how hard a break-up, even an amicable one, is going to be now. He just wants Tony to be at his side again.

Eventually, after a long time, he moves. Gets up and gets out of this damn office that is so amazingly small and doesn’t contain anything personal anymore, no sign that it was ever not empty. He wanders through the building, trying to get a closer look at everything, a feel for the layout of the place should he ever need it but really just wandering around because his mind is running in circles and what he really wants to do is be somewhere else.

It doesn’t take long for him to end up in a room full of computers. All of them are running but only one is occupied by a young man with dark hair who seems to do little else but stare at a graphic in front of him. While Steve still tries to decide whether he should leave or ask what all this is for, the man turns around and looks at him.

“Hey,” he says. “You’re Captain America!”

“That’s right.” Steve tries not to sound wary. Pepper certainly told her co-workers that he’s here. Actually, he was pleasantly surprised no one had approached him so far. But then, there aren’t many people around here and those who are all worked for Iron Man, so they are used to the whole superhero thing.

But then the young man grins. “I have to say, when I saw the would-be burglar the other day, I didn’t think it’d result in Captain America paying us a visit. I’ve been wanting to meet you for ages.”

Steve isn’t sure what to say to that, even though he hears it a lot. Before he can say anything, however, the man leans back in his chair and looks him over with raised eyebrows. “So you’re the guy who has it going on with Tony, huh?”

At once, the anger flashes up again. “If you have a problem with that, now isn’t a good time to tell me,” Steve warns.

The other’s face falls. “No, I didn’t mean it like that. I’m actually-”

“Rogers.”

Steve turns, glad for the distraction. He didn’t expect Rhodes to be here already and but then, he might have lost his sense of time over his inner turmoil. And while he didn’t get the impression that the man was particularly happy with him last time they met, he didn’t expect the cold fury on Rhodes’ face, nor does he expect the fist that connects with his jaw a second later.

“Whoa!” the guy at the computer says. “What.”

Steve stumbles back a step, more out of surprise than because of the impact, although his head does ring for a moment. He can take a lot more than a normal human but Rhodes is a strong guy with muscles similar to Steve’s, even if they are not enhanced by the serum. And he wasn’t holding back.

“What the hell?” Steve asks dumbfounded.

“You bastard!” Rhodes hisses. Despite the punch and a body language that says he wouldn’t mind punching again, he is remarkably calm, and seems all the more angry for it. “You wanted to murder him!”

“What?” Steve repeats. “What are you talking about?”

“Tony. You meant to kill him and he didn’t even know. You got involved with him as if nothing ever happened and he didn’t remember. But you did. And you call yourself a paragon of morality!”

Steve would like to pretend he doesn’t know what the other man is talking about but he would be lying. It’s not something he is likely to ever forget. “Tony knows we fought,” he points out, raising his own anger like the shield he’s not carrying. “He learned all he could about what happened. Do you think he missed that we were enemies in that? And we talked about it a lot. Tony is not naïve, and he’s not clueless.”

“Yeah? Did you tell him, at any point, that you wanted him dead? That the man he’s happily in love with used to hate him so much he wanted nothing more than see him die?”

“I didn’t…” The lie won’t pass his lips because at that moment, he had. “I never meant for that to happen.”

“For what to happen? The fighting, or the fucking?” Rhodes sneers.

Steve sneers back. He hates that word and he hates hearing it applied to what he has with Tony. “I never wanted to fight Tony. Under the circumstances, it was inevitable, and I would do it again if I had to. We both would. We wouldn’t work otherwise.”

“I’m not talking about fighting. I’m talking about how you played perfect world with my best friend who never knew that you were going to kill him, actually murder him. I know you; you don’t kill people. But you wanted to kill Tony, you despised him that much, and he accepted your love and didn’t know. That’s what I’m talking about. Or did you tell him, with exactly those words?” Rhodes stares at Steve with open challenge in his eyes.

There is nothing Steve can say in return that won’t sound defensive. He never told Tony. He’s never been happy that Tony lost his memories, even felt betrayed that he got off easy without having to carry the pain and the responsibility while Steve had to deal with it all on his own, but the closer he and Tony became again, the happier he’s been that Tony forgot about that particular moment. It was the worst of Steve’s life, one thing he hates himself for, and he and Tony used to be the only ones who knew. When Tony forgot, it was a chance to rewrite that moment in time and erase it from history. And selfishly, Steve took the chance offered to him.

He never forgot.

He never got over it either. But this is something he was willing to carry on his own. There was never a reason to hurt Tony with it.

And now Tony knows. There is no other explanation for this scene.

There are a lot of things Steve wants—aches—to do. Defending his actions to Tony’s best friend is not among them.

He wants to ask, rather. How Tony is doing. How he’s taking it, all this shit no one would need in their memory. If Steve still has a place to return to in this world.

“You’re not the one I should discuss this with,” is what he finally says.

“Well, tough, because I’m the only one you get, and I’m not going to—”

”Did you come here just to say this?”

“It was an added bonus—”

“So you left Tony alone— “

“He’s not alone, there’s—”

“What the hell, guys?” Pepper’s voice cuts through the discussion. At some point, while Steve’s attention was focused on the man before him, she’s appeared in the doorway and now she’s looking from one to the other with an increasingly darkening expression. “What’s going on? Rhodey, did something happen to Tony?”

“Tony is fine,” Rhodes answers unwillingly, not taking his eyes off Steve. “Or as fine as he can possibly be right now.”

“Then why are you standing here looking like you’re about to break into a fist fight?”

Steve resists the urge to rub his aching jaw and hopes it’s not going to bruise anytime soon.

“Actually,” the young man at the computer starts. Steve had pretty much forgotten he existed.

Of all the discussions he doesn’t want to have in front of total strangers, this is the worst.

“It’s something between Rogers and me,” Rhodes interrupts, darkly, and Steve has to be grateful for the small mercy of not having been rattled out to Pepper Potts.

“Actually, it’s something between me and Tony,” Steve clarifies and forces his body to relax, to signal that no fistfight is likely to happen anytime soon.

Pepper looks from one to the other with narrowed eyes but doesn’t say anything more about it. “Wolverine is in my office,” she tells Steve with the expression of someone who came back from lunch break to find Wolverine in their office. “He wants to talk to you.”

“Fantastic,” Steve says grimly. Logan wanting to talk to him indicates Logan having found out something of interest, right?

Rhodes and Pepper follow him as he makes his way to her office. Logan is lounging in the chair, one foot propped up on a half-open drawer of her desk, and he’s smoking the inevitable cigar. Steve has long since meant to ask him where he keeps those when in costume because they always tend to show up out of nowhere. He’s never dared, not sure he really wants to know the answer.

Logan is not in costume now. He’s wearing jeans and boots and a plaid shirt and looks one hundred percent like the Canadian he is.

And his boot is resting in Pepper’s drawer.

It’s not for long, however. As soon as the woman in question enters the room, the boot exits the drawer. Steve isn’t quite sure if that’s courtesy towards a lady, which Logan has been known to show every now and again, or fear.

“You found something?” he asks hopefully, pretty sure that he can’t take a negative answer right now. (Tony knows, Tony remembers everything and Steve can’t go to him clear things up, or apologize, or comfort him or do any of the other ten thousand things he should be doing.)

“Got ’em,” Logan confirms. “Not in person, though. I found their HQ but they bailed. Can’t be far, though. Their teleport is short-range.”

“Then what are you doing here? You could have called me while looking for them!”

“No point. They can’t be far but they could still be anywhere in the city, and a teleport like that doesn’t leave a trace I can follow. Gonna need technological help for that. If you don’t have anything at hand without Stark, the X-Men could help out, probably.”

“Good thing I’m here,” Rhodes declares and turns to leave. “I’ll get my armor.”

 

-

 

The scanners in the War Machine armor do the job. Logan leads them to the place their targets used to be holed up in and Rhodes does the rest. Steve hadn’t really dared to hope it would work, but apparently the teleportation device leaves a faint but traceable trail of ions in the direction it’s sending its users in.

The lair—Steve honestly finds it difficult to find a different word for it—is located in a basement underneath a factory. The factory above is still in use, but there isn’t much going on anymore and most of it is run automatically. The rooms beneath appear to have been used for storage once, but they are sealed and probably forgotten by almost everyone. They are vast, though. There are two very big halls with several smaller rooms lining them; some are filled with outdated technology, some might have been used as offices once. Now the storage rooms contain nothing but a few empty boxes, one large machine that looks like a sauce mixer to Steve’s untrained eyes, several dozen feet of cable and a couple of modern computer flat-screens. The attached computers have been detached and removed.

“There were six of ’em staying here long term,” Logan growls around yet another cigar. “Their smell got into everything. Six beds, too, in the other rooms. But two more came and went occasionally.”

“That machine is practically drenched in ions,” War Machine explains, the artificial voice so like yet so unlike Iron Man’s. “There are traces of it all around the place. If their materialization point is anywhere within scanner range, I’ll find it.”

And then Wolverine can pick up their smell and follow them until they got them. Steve feels his fingers twitch, feels the reassuring weight of the shield on his back.

“Why did they leave all this behind this time?” Steve wonders. “They never left their teleportation device before. I thought it traveled with them.”

“This one seems to be some kind of mother station,” Rhodes says. “It certainly doesn’t go anywhere. I’d say—but really, Tony is the expert on things like this. But I supposed all jumps are waylaid through this one, so there would be smaller, more mobile stations elsewhere that they removed when they were no longer needed.”

“If they had carried a thing like this, even smaller, down the streets of Seattle, someone would have seen them.”

“And they would have left a trail I could smell outside the building,” Logan adds.

“Well, then maybe they disintegrated it after use.” Rhodes sounds impatient, but with his voice being distorted by the armor, it’s hard to tell. “I scanned the basement you found Tony in and I’m pretty sure that’s what happened there. I’m surprised they didn’t do it here.”

“They probably would have,” Logan mentions. “I almost managed to take them by surprise, guess they barely made it out. They fried the electronics so I couldn’t reactivate the thing, but they didn’t have the time to place any explosives.”

Surprising that they didn’t have them placed from the start, just in case. Maybe this station was never meant for temporary use and they didn’t prepare for discovery.

Odd that they seem to be so well organized, yet made such a gross oversight. They have to have known about Wolverine—the whole world does. Steve has a couple of ideas about this, and he doesn’t like a single one of them.

One thing is clear: These people didn’t think they’d need security beyond a certain point. The conclusions he gets to draw for their ambitions come down to world domination or world destruction.

Yet something clearly went wrong with their plans, and Steve is looking forward to making them realize just how screwed they are.

They exit the building and War Machine takes off to scan the area from the air. Steve and Wolverine stay down and wait; they are both dressed in uniform and very ready for action. Steve called the rest of the Avengers for backup before they left the Resiliant offices, but it will be a while before anyone can make it here.

War Machine reports whatever he finds. The teleportation left a trail in the atmosphere, running straight through solid walls more often than not, but it becomes thinner and more diffused the further it goes. Steve begins to worry that they will lose it when finally Rhodes names an address and takes off in the direction of the building the bastards materialized in.

It’s more than fifteen miles from where they are. Fortunately Steve and Logan came by car; by Pepper’s car, to be exact. This is for Tony, so she will probably forgive them when they crash it, Steve thinks as he drives down the roads as fast as consideration for the safety of other drivers allows him to.

Not five minutes after he moved on ahead, Rhodes calls. “Tell Wolverine to move his ass here,” he says, with his real voice because the call connects him from the inside of his helmet. “They bailed and I need his nose.”

“Did you see them?”

“Do you think they patiently waited here for us so they could make a last-minute escape again? They’ll be eager to get as far from us as possible. Let’s hope they’re panicking and make a lot of mistakes.”

Steve and Logan reach the location not long after. Rhodes was right: The apartment is empty. There’s furniture, but it looks more like a hotel room than a place where anyone actually lives. It was a front, or a getaway address.

And it’s full of smell. They have what they want now. There is no new ion trace, but that’s because the people who came here left the place through the front door. People stare at them as Logan leads Steve down the street and Rhodes flashes by above them. But this is much slower than taking the car, and the guys they are hunting are not moving on foot, so with every minute they are falling further and further behind.

“Do you have a guess where they might be moving?” Rhodes asks after a few minutes? “I could fly ahead and check it out.”

A minute later they take another turn and both Logan and Steve have an answer for him. “The airport!” Steve realizes. “Hurry! And take Logan!”

War Machine sweeps down, grabs Wolverine under the shoulders and disappears with as much speed as carrying someone allows him. Steve stares after them even as he’s looking for a car or motorcycle Note 2 he can commandeer and thinks of the way Iron Man carried him for as long as he knew him.

 

-

 

The airport is not a commercial one. It’s small, for freight planes and private machines, and it’s pure coincidence Steve even knows where it is. Rhodes knows the location because he has a place nearby and Logan just knows things because he’s old and has been around.

It shouldn’t be hard to identify the owner of a plane that took off here even if they don’t catch them, Steve tells himself again and again.

He needs this to be over.

They are too late. Steve doesn’t even make it to the airport before the others report that their targets boarded a small private jet and took off to places unknown. After the call ends Steve curses for a good five minutes, but this isn’t the end of the hunt, he reminds himself. They just need to find that plane.

But of course, as it turns out, the name the plane is registered to is fake and leads them nowhere. They have no idea where it’s flying to. Once it lands at another airport they can get it back on their radar, but until then they are as close to catching these guys as they were in the beginning.

In the meantime, Steve alerts all the airports in the country, hoping that the small plane isn’t some modified high-tech wonder capable of international flight. Half an hour later he is sitting on the hood of the stolen car he needs to see returned to its rightful owner, with Rhodes standing nearby, his faceplate up and his expression dark.

“Why didn’t you find the ion trail sooner?” Steve finally asks what he’s been thinking about for hours. “They teleported out of the basement we found Tony in and you inspected it. It must have been there.” He didn’t mean for it to sound like an accusation but it does, even to his own ears.

Rhodes scowls at him. “You think I didn’t check? I scanned for everything there is on the spectrum, but I couldn’t find anything, just the emission left behind by their teleport device self-destructing. It overlays everything else, and the trail is much fainter for the small ones. It’s a very specific frequency that I wouldn’t have found if the big one hadn’t been drenched in it.” He stops for a beat, looks away sharply. “I simply missed it, okay? I missed it!”

‘It happens,’ Steve should say. ‘You didn’t know it was there. Don’t beat yourself up over it.’ He doesn’t say any of that and he doesn’t say what he wants to say either.

They sit in silence until Logan comes back to report that he found the one person whose scent he picked up along with the others who did not board the plane. It’s a taxi driver who helped carry the targets’ boxes to the plane. He’s dead in the garage, from a small cut on his palm where they apparently poisoned him shaking hands. They weren’t seen on any of the few security cameras around.

“They won’t come down anywhere we can find them,” Rhodes states in an overwhelming display of optimism. “They won’t make that mistake.”

“They made mistakes before,” Logan chews out around the stump of his cigar. There are times he reminds Steve of Nick Fury.

“Stupid mistakes,” Steve agrees. “It doesn’t fit. They hadn’t even rigged their HQ.”

“Because they didn’t expect they’d need to,” Rhodes says aloud what Steve thought before. “Whatever they were planning to do, they either thought they could do it without being detected, or they thought that once they were done with it, hiding would no longer be necessary. And they certainly didn’t expect to fail.”

Come to think of it, the way their unknown enemies acted spoke of an awful lot of arrogance.

“They got something out of Tony’s mind and thought it would give them easy access to Resilient.” Steve frowns. “Is that really what they were after? Why unlock his other memories?”

“Might have been a side effect. Or Resilient was just the start and they are just waiting to use all the other secrets they got out of Tony’s hard drive.” Rhodes snorts grimly. “Or thought they did. Obviously, it didn’t work as well as they thought or they really would have come and gone with whatever they wanted and we would be none the wiser.”

“So the reason they failed is because Tony managed to keep his secrets,” Steve concludes. “And apparently they were fooled into thinking he didn’t. And now they can’t fix their mistake and get what they really need because…”

“Because they don’t have Tony anymore,” Rhodes finishes when Steve trails off, distracted by the icy cold hand that reaches for his heart.

The share a look.

One second later War Machine’s face plate snaps down and he takes off into the sky.

chapter 5