Against My Will 5

Bodies were coming out of every door, the entirety of the operations deck full with uniformed bodies moving at a dead run — enough of them to almost shake the too-solid floor by the time Fury exited the elevator.

His first few steps into the Triskelion command center had him staring at chairs spinning and left spinning, somebody’s coffee tipping sideways over a terminal and no one bothering to stop for the leaking brown. Console after console filled the room, each one a different feed. 

“Somebody better start talking to me!” His bark resounded through the room, over a hundred heads snapping his way. “If you want to keep your jobs, I better receive a report at the end of this sentence.”

“Sir—” One of the watch officers, a woman coming at him sideways with her headset half off and clipboard in hand. “We’re pulling it all, the pict-”

“How long, soldier?”

“Estimating Hulk first contact at roughly six minutes prior.”

Six minutes ago. Fury pulled in a frigid breath, the air conditioning bracing his chest as the vents rolled cold across a room that had been quiet just six minutes ago.

“Who saw him?”

“We’re looking at casualty and witness reports, all from NYPD and 911 calls so fa-”

“Who saw him.” A single eye narrowed, halfway to a threatening slit. “On our end, soldier.”

“Nobody yet, sir.”

Alright. Fury pushed forward with a grunt of dismissal, hands clasped behind his back as he stared at the primary wall; three-quarters of it just garbage staring back at him. Three quarters of useless bullshit from a satellite feed precious seconds too slow on the refresh, traffic cameras pointed mostly at the wrong things.

Fury knew rooms like this.

He’d stood in many of them, after all.

Different rooms with worse equipment, and more of his own expertise required to get anything out of it than he’d like. A hut outside Bastogne with a field telephone and a map with less information on it than he could fit on his hand had served him well enough on a mission and Nick Fury doubted the principle had changed an inch in all his sixty-odd years of combat.

Reports out of Bastogne never had anything on the Green goddamn Giant.

“Get me every report we have on that goddamn ambulance.” The initial reports were clear enough, Banner in an ambulance speeding through Manhattan and Fury knew that for a fact as he made his way down the ramp, coat moving behind him. “I want to know exactly what they radioed in before Banner’s over-muscled ass turned them to soup and I want it in ninety seconds.”

A loudspeaker went over the top of him as he finished speaking, tactical reports from hangars four through nine, as half the room got louder beneath it. Armorers on the deck below were already breaking through crates and opening up lockers. One by one, weaponry rated a solid 3 on the Hazard Index was pulled out of long gray cases, almost none of them approved for use in any active situation — apart from training drills, at least.

“Director.”

Fury’s attention snapped to the speaker, an agent with a hairline he’d be better off making a final decision on. “Go.”

“We have tracking on Banner.”

Well, now… Three months of clean bloodwork, that little man sitting in briefings with hands folded in his lap like a good little boy. He’d read through every single one of those panels himself, double-checking numbers he didn’t have the training or education for because he didn’t take a scientist’s word about a scientist for granted. “Put it up on-screen, s-”

Fury paused, a hand raised. “Actually…”

“Sir.”

“Where’s his lab?”

“Sir?”

“Somebody go up to nine and find out exactly what he took out of the biologics freezer tonight and when I say somebody, I mean anybody.” Fury turned with a scowl, both arms going behind his back. “Nothing tidied up and I want photos taken for review. And get me whoever was on the desk when he badged out.”

“Yes, sir!”

He already knew what went down and didn’t need much confirmation past that, but every little bit still helped in a situation like this. Genius took another shot of green in the middle of Manhattan. Just accepting that fact was enough to raise his blood pressure, enhanced lungs keeping his breathing calm before a vein could threaten to rise on his forehead. I guess demolishing Chelsea Pier wasn’t enough for you, Banner.

Already eighty years old and Fury knew he was somehow at least another forty from getting too old for this shit. He’d been through a red-faced man in a bunker trying to end the world with a wall map and an ugly mustache, three separate Commanders-In-Chief looking him in the eye as they lied about things they’d already signed and Fury was going to go to his grave convinced that the single most dangerous animal on this planet was a smart man with an oversized insecurity complex. God save me from insecure little nerds.

“Where’s my casualty estimates?”

“Thirty-six confirmed, Director Fury, sir, but—!”

“Repeat the estimates for me in one-twenty seconds, soldier.”

“…yes, sir.”

It’d be higher in two minutes, of course. It was higher already — Fury barely biting back a scoff at thirty-six — and the flames filling the streets made that more than clear. Confirmed only meant someone had gotten close enough to count, and nobody was getting close to that demon tearing up Manhattan.

He walked forward, feeds updating and catching up to the chaos; a traffic camera on Fifth showed an entire intersection with a bus — thankfully empty — standing on its nose crumpled up like a beer can. Affiliate chopper footage played on loop for nine seconds, a blur of gray crossing four lanes without appearing to be at all hurried.

“He’s drinking, sir!”

Fury blinked over at a female agent, her short black hair styled in a way that wasn’t doing her sexual orientation any favors. “Say that again?”

“Witnesses say he’s been drinking, sir.”

Drinking? The simple burning question of how much died as just a thought as the agent aimed a hand at another console, the battered and broken front of a liquor store on Forty-Fourth shown there with what looked like the remains of a beer tanker sitting just outside.

Overturned, the thing was gouged open, fingerprints the size of beer bottles visible as indents in the side of the metal as it leaked left-over gallons onto the street. “Well, damn…”

Whatever’s in the sewer is gonna drink good, at least.

Another order sat on his tongue, Fury’s mouth already open to deliver it wh—

“Ol’ One Eye, you there?”

—when his favorite battle-ready billionaire chose that moment to make his presence known across one of the larger consoles. Stark stood in the frame, arms out with four techs working the shoulder seams of his rounded battle-suit he called the Iron Man; a fifth one focused intently on his leg at the knees. The man had a drink somewhere, Fury knew for a damn fact with Tony wearing that look of near-constant inebriation that should have done something to his level of genius by this point.

Two birds turned on the pad in the back of the hangar behind Stark, lights strobing off into the night as the crew chief waved his arms at somebody who clearly wasn’t moving fast enough for his taste.

“Nicholas J. Fury.” The helmet settled over his head, faceplate opening up immediately after. “I want you to know that I was, as of forty minutes ago, knee deep in some piping hot American Pie. I wish I could have brought you a slice but it doesn’t really keep.”

“Shut up and suit up, Stark.”

“I am suited.” If his arms could stretch out any wider, someone might have called him the Jesus of Excess and Engineering — an American demigod to join a pantheon of them. “This is the suiting. The shutting up part… you don’t pay me enough for that.”

“I don’t pay you at all.”

“So you can handle some chatter from someone as charitable as moi.”

Fury nearly grumbled something back before a short-haired figure walked across the screen just behind Stark, the comms on her suit feeding the conversation right back to the spymaster-in-chief.

“-ou started it, Hank. You just had to start it and now here we—”

“Jan…” An oversized knee was visible at the edge of the screen, the voice of Hank Pym sounding out with a depth and volume worthy of THX. “Jan, don’t even t—”

“Try what?” A finger pointed up past the giant leg all in maroon. “This is all you, you know you’re the whole reason Banner decided to pull a Gumby on us again.”

“I know I’m the last one to police anyone’s conversation but assigning blame is so passe. So, would the lovely wedded couple stop behaving like children and join the rest of the class in working on a solution.” Stark’s face-plate came down a final time, his voice coming out flatter and louder. “Now, I say this with genuine affection for the both of you, how about we shelve the marriage counseling until Brucey Boy is dealt with. Does that make sense?”

“Go fuck yourself, Stark.”

“Not my type, Hank.”

“Go fuck yourself, Tony.”

“Wow, two offers. Aren’t I the luckiest boy?” The Iron Man suit stepped forward finally, free from its moorings, a gasp leaving that armor that didn’t fit the look of it. “Ordinarily, I’d never turn down Chinese but — unfortunately — we’re on a clock.”

…not bad. Sometimes, Tony Stark made it a pleasure to be in his presence.

Some times.

A final figure stepped in front of the camera, Rogers in his brand-new-blue with his newly-designed shield sitting pretty on his arm and a helmet under the other.

“Captain.”

“Sir.” The salute wasn’t necessary but Fury would never turn one down. “How many so far?”

“Thirty-six confirmed. It’s not thirty-six.”

“No.” Roger’s jaw worked around that single syllable like he was chewing at it. “It won’t be, that’s for certain.”

Fury leaned forward, staring right at his current star player. “…you ready for this, Rogers?”

“Wouldn’t matter a whit if I wasn’t.” Rogers glanced over at the doors, the black water staring back at him with only a few lights breaking up the darkness. “He’s raising hell and hurting people and we have a job to do.”

Alright. Fury certainly couldn’t fault that. “You got a plan for me, Captain?”

“Always.”

“Well, I’ve still got two ears. Hit me.”

“We hit him.” Rogers put the helmet on, straps secured with just one arm. “And we keep hitting him until he ain’t standing.”

Stark’s head turned in that armor, servos audible as those flashlight eyes seemed to blink at the war hero.

“God, you’re a fossil.”