Chapter Text
Rumlow sighs. “I didn’t know SHIELD had such an interest in you, Stark.”
“Oh, they don’t. They’re interested in Iron Man.”
“I thought you and the suit were one? ” He remarks sarcastically.
He rolls his eyes. That’s exactly why he’s here. It was either him or add another half-dozen brainless lackeys. They have the barest conception of what strategy is. They get one goal, and they get it done in the loudest and most violent way possible. They’re just a black-ops team, and this mission requires more care than any of them have.
Along with the STRIKE team, there’s another 4 agents onboard just in case it goes south. Since the team and he will be heading in, there would be no one to guard those on the jet. At least, not if Agent Malik wasn’t here. She’s not going with them. Her orders detail that she’s to guard the jet and those on it. Anyone inside will have to go without her help.
Those she’s been tasked with protecting are certainly grateful for it. A medic, pilot, and tech aren’t usually considered the most combat-ready roles. Their brains are more important, and without them, they won’t be getting out of here. In one piece, anyway.
The plane sets down gently, the contents and passengers lurching slightly as they touch the ground. The group that functions as a sort of rebranded SWAT team rises without waiting for an all clear from their pilot-in-command.
She isn’t in the mood to argue with any of those meatheads at the moment, so she gets on with her job. Flicking a switch to lower the ramp and let them into the field.
It’s a wordless process as the team gathers their gear, paying no mind to those they’ll be leaving onboard. They hardly look at their assigned tech for the mission as he steps out with them. It’s chilly, but not nearly as cold as it gets in the winter. They’ve all come well prepared, but that doesn’t make it any more pleasant with the night breeze blowing against them.
Klein was the most highly recommended when SHIELD was putting together a team to come here. Not the most field-ready, but then, he wasn’t going to be doing much in the actual field. Just opening a door and providing any remote support if someone called him.
The security system for the main door is incredibly old. At least 50 years old by now. He’s better with more modern systems, but he likes a challenge. He gets to work, starting by removing the outer panel of the keypad. It leaves the keys exposed, able to pull out the board and get to the wires within.
No one knows exactly what he’s doing, but they aren’t going to question it. A few wires are cut, a few connected to different ones, one even plugged into a port on a handheld device. Its tiny screen shows several scrolling columns of numbers. It loads for a few moments before rolling to a stop, one by one. With his free hand, he punches the numbers into the original keypad, barely connected to the wall.
The door unlocks with a heavy thud that reverberates through the frame as it creaks open. Klein exhales, disconnecting his device from the mess of wires he’s created. He doesn’t bother to tidy them up right now. There’s no need to.
He heads back up the ramp, making it inside before she flips the switch again to close it. With an air of finality, their pilot waves at them with a pained smile. “Good luck!”
It seals four individuals inside. Safe and warm for the time being. Agents Roux, Malik, Guzman, and Klein. They know what to do if no one reports back in an hour. It’s supposed to be a quick mission, in and out for some brief reconnaissance.
Despite everything he’s studied for this, Tony gets the feeling it won’t go the way anyone’s planned. They know nothing about the interior of this bunker, or any of its inhabitants. They have no idea what they’re up against.
The projected period of inactivity is sketchy at best. Even with some concrete evidence, he wouldn’t trust it entirely.
He’s left to his musings as they make their way inside. Taking one very long elevator ride to the main floor in a wire-grated box. There’s no posted weight limit on the wall of it, so they take their chances as they all ride down together.
The group splits when they exit, the team sticking together while Tony strikes out on his own. He can hear snippets of conversation as he passes out of earshot.
“Can you read Russian?” one of the men asks. Rollins, if his memory is correct.
“Why do you think I’m here?”
They might not be SHIELD’s brightest, but they know how to avoid the common fuck-ups that can happen during an infiltration.
He thinks he can trust them not to set off any alarms if he leaves them alone for a few minutes. He wants to look around, but he doesn’t want to have to put up with them rifling through everything here like a pack of hungry bears.
Stark wanders down a corridor, picking the first open door he sees. He heads in cautiously, casting a light on the room. It’s not very small. An office of some kind. A heavy metal desk sits near the back wall, only a few feet of clearance between the two. Pens and papers still strewn across the top.
A table sits almost directly across the room from it, on the same wall as the door. A case lies on its side, a wire from the back disappearing behind the table. He steps closer to examine it. The latch is undone, enough dust settled over it to know no one’s touched this in a very long time. He cautiously lifts the lid. A note greets him, pasted to the inside of the cover. In Russian it provides the instructions do not use when the soldier is awake. Ominous and vague. Perfect.
It’s a record player. A single is placed on the turntable, needle still sitting in the outer groove. A label around the center names it Тёмная ночь, Dark Night. It’s still switched on. The last person to use it must’ve forgotten.
There’s something oddly depressing about all of this. So many things are left out, the previous occupants of the bunker likely having left in a hurry. It begs the question of what could possibly have happened to cause such a sudden abandonment.
He moves on, walking down a hallway that only looks familiar, designed exactly the same as the rest of this place. As he passes an open door, a translation pops up in the right edge of his vision, catching words he can’t even hear.
>RUSSIAN
>>Tovarnyy vagon.
>>Freight car.
He stops, backing up a few steps. The rest of the team has taken a different route through the bunker. They’re gathered in a jumbled huddle. Between them, he can spot a man lying in a tangled heap on the floor. A sharp kick in the ribs does little to rouse him. His mind seems to be elsewhere, staring off at nothing. It isn’t until his eyes sweep the edges of the room that he catches sight of the armored man in the shadows. He looks confused rather than worried. A mask covering the lower half of his face disguises any other emotion that might be there.
>RUSSIAN
>>Dobroye utro, soldat.
>>Good morning, soldier.
Neither he nor JARVIS know if this ‘soldier’ says anything in response. That changes after another kick.
>RUSSIAN
>>Ya gotov otvechat.
>>Ready to comply.
He realizes what he’s seeing far too late. This man is clearly not with SHIELD, but he’s also clearly not about to fight them. An obvious assumption can be made.
“Kill him.” He demands simply, having spotted Tony in the shadows.
The order hits him like whiplash. By the time he’s processed it, so has the man who received the order. He’s already on his feet, sprinting towards him.
The very human instinct to run takes over. He might be in a suit of armor, but six trained agents is intimidating at first glance, not to mention the metal-armed soldier that’s now a member of their company. He just needs to take this fight somewhere else. It gives him some time to think along the way.
The four agents he left in the jet didn’t seem to be onboard with this. None of them strike him as someone who would be involved in a plot to kill a billionaire, however convoluted the plot. Klein would probably cry if he accidentally stepped on a dog’s tail. Malik wouldn’t be able to stand someone else doing the deed. Guzman gets pissed if someone gets injured. And Roux just doesn’t care enough about him.
But the more pressing matter is the seemingly literal sleeper agent that was tucked away in a Soviet Hydra bunker that hasn’t been on anyone’s radar since long before the fall of the USSR. Everyone quickly decided that he wasn’t real. How anyone managed to have the tech to keep someone in suspended animation for so long is both impressive and worrying.
A bullet pings against the side of his helmet. A huge mistake. He turns immediately, seeing a pair of blank eyes quickly fill with terror. The flicker of emotion disappears in the blink of an eye as he lunges forward. Leading with his left as he goes straight for the arc reactor in his chest.
Stark feints to the left, but the hit still lands. A dent is registered in his right shoulder, knocking him off balance just long enough to repeat the move with greater precision. He manages to dig his fingers into the metal before Tony can catch his arm, prying it away with some difficulty.
The one disadvantage to his metal upgrade is how easy it is to use his own weight against him like this. As his arm is twisted aside, the plates refuse to move any farther, pulling him back instead.
The STRIKE team doesn’t make it into the room fast enough to make a difference. Only entering at the moment he slings him across the room, knocking into a table leg as he slides to a halt under a table. It jostles the items on the surface, needle falling onto the old vinyl.
>RUSSIAN
>>Tyomnaya noch', tol'ko puli svistyat po stepi,
>>Dark night, only bullets are whistling in the steppe,
Translations pop up unhelpfully in his peripheral vision, clouding the edges with English and romanized Russian text. Lyrics to a song he can’t afford to pay attention to right now. He dismisses the notification. Noticing briefly that the man he’s just thrown across the room is still very much conscious. He’s smart enough to stay down while his comrades make an unsuccessful attempt to kill Iron Man. Content to lie on the concrete even when one of them becomes a corpse next to him as another line crackles out above them.
The team holds their own. No one else goes down, but they’re sustaining enough injuries that one of them should’ve died by now. They’re getting slower. Clumsier. Much easier to deal with when they can’t get their strategy right.
Just when he thinks he’s won this fight, he makes out the sound of their backup approaching. Today just can’t get any worse.
They weren’t just trying to stay alive. They were stalling.
At least he thought they were the STRIKE team’s backup. They make it obvious very quickly that they hate everyone they come across. One going to start their fight against Stark, a few others sticking around to finish off the team. The agents look just as surprised as he is that they aren’t getting any help from them.
In the chaos, one of them goes down with a gaping wound in the side of their skull. Only for one of the agents to quickly follow after with a snapped neck. It’s all happening so quickly, it’s hard to keep track of it. Luckily for him, though, everyone here hates him, so he doesn’t have to worry too much about hitting the wrong person.
He stays back far enough to try and mitigate the chance of being sucked into the melee, but it doesn’t last very long. The newcomers are ruthlessly efficient. Even if they’re down to 4, they’re still a force to be reckoned with.
One takes notice of the soldier still lying underneath a table. Moving fast enough that for a moment he thinks that he might be the next one to die. That assumption is misplaced.
As soon as the attacker stoops down to reach him, he lashes out with a knife. Quickly dragging it across their throat and finishing by planting the blade in the man’s heart.
While the soldier and Stark both do their part to thin the ranks of their shared enemy, it’s ironically becoming harder now that they’re down to 3. A pair beelines for Iron Man while the remaining one aims for revenge for their fallen friend.
The man drags him out from under the table, picking him up briefly before pushing him to the ground. He doesn’t put up much of a fight. There’s obvious hesitation in the way he moves. He’s outnumbered and outmatched. Stark is only a ‘friend’ for the moment, but it’s his only chance of getting out of here alive.
He shakes off the assault long enough to take a few steps towards the intruder. But as soon as he gets within an arm’s reach, he’s quickly wrestled to the ground. Hands wrapping around his neck in an attempt to strangle him.
Tony’s mind goes over the possible ways to rid themselves of these pesky assailants. He considers the lasers in his wrists, but a quick scan reveals that he’d forgotten to put in a new cartridge since the last time he used them. So that’s not an option. Other than blunt force, not much is left.
With the relocation of their little wrestling match, they’ve got Stark surrounded. One on each side, forming a ring around him. The moment Tony pushes one back, another one lashes out. It’s a never-ending cycle. And he’s not the only one in danger.
Stark can’t spare much attention to his unfortunate ally. All of his attempts to repel the soldiers only hold them off a little longer. They’re both running out of time. He catches a glint of metal in the corner of his eye. Glancing over periodically as the stranger does his best to get the man off of him. It’s worked only partially. While he’s no longer being suffocated, one hand is pinned to the ground, the metal one trying to return the gesture to his assailant.
He knows what he needs to do to get out of here, but he finds himself questioning it. If he waits a second longer, he might not get a better chance. Bracing himself for the consequences of his actions for one of the few times in his life so far, he fires.
Screams mingle as multiple bodies hit the floor. He doesn’t feel any guilt for the pain he’s caused them. The repulsors did practically nothing, and his life was on the line.
Looks like he might not have been as accurate as he’d hoped.
The man in black looks dazed. Staring up at the ceiling yards above them. His breathing is deep and measured, which is impressive considering his left arm is almost entirely gone. The points of the star on his shoulder just a few fingers’ breadth above a line of newly exposed wires and laser-charred metal. He appears to be in that narrow window of time when the body hasn’t yet realized it’s been injured.
A familiar voice pulls his attention away from the wounded would-be killer. “He’ll find you.” Rumlow clutches a wound in his side as he rests his weight against the wall.
“Who?” His patience has run out. Normally he’d have a few witty comebacks lined up, but it’s been a long day.
“His work isn’t done yet.” Somehow, Tony gets the feeling that Rumlow is talking about two separate people. “You’re going to regret this.”
“Don’t count on it.”
Behind him, the assassin forces himself into a sitting position, dragging himself a few feet over to reach a discarded pistol. Despite clearly shaking, he still doesn’t hesitate as he raises it and fires a string of shots at the one remaining enemy. One, two, three… not deeming a single bullet enough. Stomach, heart, head.
Stark turns around as both the gun and its wielder fall to the ground.