Is everyone in position?"
Tony drew his attention away from the status updates on his HUD and back towards the decrepit building below him. Cap, who had been the one to drag his attention back to the matter at hand, was standing just outside a service entrance into the old apartment building. Nat, Clint, and Daredevil each had moved in through the parking garage and were currently inside, ready to breach the Red Room hideout at a moments notice. The rest of the Avengers were scattered in a loose perimeter around the target building. The wonder twins were hiding out in dark alleys while Rhodey, Vision, Sam, and himself all took up places on the surrounding buildings.
The decision to split the team in two for this op had been made earlier that day, after the spies had updated the rest of them on their discovery the previous night. Tony had been more than a little concerned to see how shaken up Nat was at the confirmation that not only was the Red Room still operational, but that Dreykov himself was seemingly still alive. Naturally, she had been focused on that most of the day, and the team was happy to pick up the slack in gathering the rest of the necessary intel.
Clint had taken charge of getting in touch with old contacts of his within different intelligence agencies in hopes of gathering information on 'Taskmaster'. None of his contacts had been able to give much, but what information they did have all said the same thing. Taskmaster was extremely dangerous, potentially enhanced, and a complete mystery as to his origins. The first reports of the mercenary started shortly after the fall of SHIELD, which at first led to suspicions of the man being HYDRA, but a quick dip into the files Natasha had released to the public revealed that HYDRA had been as unaware of the merc as they were. Which meant there were a few options. Taskmaster could've been an ex-SHIELD or HYDRA agent, which most of the team suspected of being the case, and was viewed as the most likely option, or he had once been a small-time mercenary who took advantage of the chaos to make a name for himself. Either way, he was a threat that the team would take seriously.
Besides Taskmaster, the Avengers, with the help of Daredevil, had been able to count fifteen Red Room soldiers, and a single Black Widow. The confined space of the building would help mitigate the numbers advantage their opponents had, and if any of them tried to slip out, well, the rest of the Avengers were waiting. They couldn't let anyone escape, as this mission was their best shot at finding the missing girl, as well as gathering intel on the Red Room.
"We're all good out here Capsicle."
"Infiltration team is ready."
From his vantage point, Tony could see Cap nod, before using his strength to force the overhead door up. "Move in."
Cap disappeared into the building, and the next couple of minutes were silent as the four heroes who were inside made their way to the sublevels of the tower. Those on the outside were forced to wait for any news, but Tony couldn't help the uncomfortable feeling that began to rise within him with each passing moment. THey should have heard word that they were fighting now, or at the very least heard the gunshots that would have been inevitable. But everything was silent.
"What's going on in there?" Rhodey was the first to crack, asking the question that was on everybody's mind.
Natasha was the one who answered, Tony could immediately tell that she was pissed. "There is nobody here! The damn place is completely empty! Tony! I thought you were watching this place!"
"FRIDAY was!" He protested, shooting into the sky to have a look around, to see if any suspicious vehicles were fleeing the area. There was nothing. "Fri baby?"
"There was no abnormal activity throughout the day, boss." The AI supplied, sounding as confused as was possible for her.
"Daredevil is reporting a tunnel, one that wasn't on the building plans. Dammit we should have thought of that!" Clint swore,
"Boss, the NYPD channels are all being jammed." FRIDAY reported to the team, causing nearly a dozen people to voice their confusion simultaneously. Before any single voice could make itself heard above the others, a bright flash, followed by a resounding BOOM rattled through Tony's helmet.
Snapping over to face the direction where the blast came from, Tony could see a smoke cloud billowing over Hell's Kitchen. Immediately afterwards, explosions lit up the night sky across the entire city, stretching through Tony's field of view like fireworks. Sirens began to echo through the streets as officers began to realize that the city was under attack but, as FRIDAY had said, their channels were down. Tony had tried flipping to one to only receive static, and he knew that meant any response would be incredibly disorganized.
"Figure out whatever you can Fri! Guys we've got bombs being set off across the city!" He called out, trying to get the attention of the assault team that was currently inside. No response was forthcoming however, as another explosion sent Tony cartwheeling through the air. The apartment complex, a long standing skeleton from the Invasion of New York, began to collapse in on itself as a bomb bisected the building. "Shit! Nat, Steve, Clint! Can any of you hear me!"
The other members of the perimeter team were also calling for a response, but with each passing moment they began to grow more and more worried. Pietro and Wanda were already at the rubble, with the latter using her powers to clear dust from the area, and Pietro was doing his best to clear any of the smaller debris that he could, appearing as little more than a blur as a small pile of concrete and other debris began to build up in a clear area. Tony himself had just reached the building with the other fliers on the team when a coughing fit broke out of their earpieces.
"We're alright." Steve reported. "Daredevil warned us of the bomb in time for us to get into the tunnel. You said there are other bombs going off?"
"That is correct Captain." FRIDAY confirmed. "Emergency services are still in disarray due to the jamming, they are attempting to unify on a different channel but are struggling to get the message out."
"What's all been hit?" Rhodey asked, throwing aside a piece of rubble that he'd picked up.
"Reports are disorganized, but the primary targets have been emergency services. Police precincts, fire stations, and multiple hospitals have all been hit."
"Bring them up on the display Fri." Tony requested, watching as a map of the city popped up and began to highlight the different areas that had been attacked. Sirens were now screaming through the entire city as everyone was now aware and responding to the threat.
"We've got to help! Who knows if there are more bombs, and people could be trapped." Sam said, looking between those in the team who were present.
"No! This is a distraction. The Red Room knows we are onto them, and they are going to use this as a chance to escape!" Natasha argued, her voice hoarse, likey from coughing up dust.
"We can't just ignore this! If people see us running around the city and not helping they'll crucify us! I know what this means to you Nat, but we can't just let people die just so we can chase people who are likely long gone." Sam shot back, wings already spreading from his back as he prepared to take flight.
"Sam's right. We have to help the city before things get worse." Rhodey gave his two cents in the matter.
She wasn't speaking, but Tony could tell Nat was seething. Not at them of course, but at the situation as a whole. So close to answers, and all of them could feel them slipping from their grasp, he didn't want that to happen any more than anyone else on the team did. "Nat, you and Clint can keep tracking them, the rest of us have to go help out wherever we can." He said, offering a partial solution to the spy, to which she agreed.
As a team, with some of their members only present over the comms, they made a plan of action. Nat and Clint would try and figure out where the Red Room agents and Taskmaster went, Steve would go to Hell's Kitchen with Daredevil, the latter wanting to make sure people didn't take advantage of the chaos, and the former wishing to make his presence known at the precinct that got bombed. Pietro was assigned to the unenviable task of finding the jammer that was messing with the ability of EMS to organize against the threat. The rest of them would split up between the boroughs to offer assistance wherever they could. Rhodey and Wanda planned to head north to the Bronx and Harlem, while he and Sam would take Queens and Brooklyn. Manhattan had, for the most part, been left alone besides the bombs in Harlem and Hell's Kitchen. From what they could tell, Staten Island was also in the clear.
With the plan made, the team split up, Pietro taking off in a blur while the rest of them took to the skies. Tony flew side by side with Sam for a minute before his fellow Avenger banked off to redirect towards Brooklyn. "Alright Friday, who needs help the most?" He asked, eyes taking in the half a dozen smoke clouds that hung over Queens.
"Boss, the Queens Hospital Center is reporting total power loss to the facility. They are attempting to kick start back up generators but are having trouble doing so. They have multiple patients in mortal danger as a result of losing life support. Back-up batteries have not kicked in."
"Right, send a suit or two from the Legion there with the miniature arc generators, that should be enough to get life support back online at the least. Anywhere in Queens need rubble cleared or help evacuating wounded?"
The AI paused. "Boss, the Queens Hospital Center is the only hospital reporting power loss."
"Okay? Once the Legion gets there that will be rectified." He repeated, not quite sure where FRIDAY was going.
"May Parker is currently a patient at the hospital." The AI reminded him, causing his brow to furrow before he realized the problem.
Payton Parker might be the primary target for the group, but they wouldn't want to leave any loose ends. What better way to commit a targeted murder than to mix it in as collateral damage to a terrorist attack? Banking violently, Tony oriented himself towards the hospital. From his height he could see the dark block in the middle of the borough which marked the blacked-out facility. It was currently surrounded by emergency vehicles.
Moments later, Tony hit the ground hard, his suit cracking the pavement as he landed, and the sudden arrival sent multiple people scampering. Ignoring shouts of his name as people cheered the arrival of an Avenger, Tony marched into the hospital's main entrance, and entered a complete shitshow.
Doctors, hospital support staff, and visitors all rushed around, using phones as flashlights as they tried to navigate the darkened halls. The light from his armor helped illuminate the immediate area in a blue glow, and drew the attention of dozens of pairs of eyes towards him all at once. Finding the nearest Doctor, Tony grabbed the woman's arm to get her attention.
"May Parker, where is she!" He demanded, but only received a look of confusion in response.
"I don't know! I know she's here but I'm not in charge of her care!"
"Well which floor houses long-term coma patients?"
"Uh, Floor six! But what about our power? We need to get life support back for the whole building!" The Doctor answered, and protested, in the same breath.
He shook his head. "I've got generators coming from the Tower, but I need to get to Parker, I believe someone is going to use this blackout to finish the job!"
The Doctor's eyes widened, but by then Tony was already out of the building, and flying back into the air. Offering a silent apology to the hospital, Tony flew towards the sixth floor and sent two repulsor blasts into the walls, blowing a hole wide enough for him to enter. The commotion drew the attention of a nearby security guard, who pulled out a sidearm before he realized who he was aiming at.
"Iron man! What are you doing!?"
"I need to find May Parker's room. Do you know where her Doctor is?"
The guard shook his head. "No sir, but the nurse's station has a list of rooms and their patients! Follow me!" The guard led him further down the hall, his flashlight supplemented by the lights from Tony's armor. Luckily, this floor was less occupied than the lobby had been, and they didn't have to fight through any crowds. "Right here!" The guard mentioned as they pulled up next to a desk that was being manned by a single panicked nurse. "We need May Parker's room!"
Looking up from her notepad, the nurse gawked at Tony, but quickly snapped back into business mode, pushing papers and clipboards around until she found what she was looking for, and ran her finger down the list until she came across the name they were looking for. "Room 611, it's just down the hall and to the left!" She told them, and Tony was already moving, forcing whoever was in the hallway to get out of his way or else they would be run over. The guard, and the nurse, both followed closely beside him, the nurse asking what this was all about, and only receiving a shrug from the guard, who said something about just doing what Iron Man told him. Tony was too busy focusing on the passing room numbers to listen more closely.
Turning the corner to the left, Room 611 was right in front of him, and Tony slammed the door open. The strength of his armor cracking the door's hinges as it slammed violently into the wall. His eyes took in the room quickly, and widened at what they found. May Parker was spasming on the bed, seemingly choking and growing paler by the second while next to her, a brunette woman wearing scrubs was just dropping a syringe and raising her arm in his direction.
Following suit, Tony aimed his repulsor towards the woman, but she fired first, a furious red arc shooting from her wrist and scorching against his armor. He had worked alongside Nat enough to recognize Widow Bites when he saw them. The assassin's face was stone cold, not even reacting to the ineffectual attack she had just launched. Instead, the Widow threw herself to the side just as Tony fired, dodging the repulsor blast and pulling a sidearm out from beneath her waistband.
Instead of shooting at him, she turned her attention towards the window, firing a couple shots to break it open before running to leap out of it. About to take off, Tony saw as the Widow aimed her gun towards Parker as she ran, and instead directed himself to the woman's bedside, taking the shots against the armor to save her life, even as she fought against whatever poison was injected into her. The sound of a grapple signified the Widow's safe descent to the ground, but his attention was completely on the dying woman in front of him.
With the danger mostly past, the nurse ran in next to him, and paled at the sight of May's choking spasms. "I don't know what to do!" She admitted. "Without knowing the poison and without power…" She trailed off.
Tony knew what he had to do though. "I'll take her to the Tower. Whatever paperwork needs to be signed I'll make sure is done later, but for now we need to save her, and I've got the best Doctors on call."
The nurse nodded. "I can't make that call, but we don't have time to find the Doctor, and I can't stop you.
He was already moving, detaching all the currently inoperable monitors and IVs before picking the dying woman up into his arms. "Sorry about this, but tell your bosses to send me the bill." Tony remarked to the nurse, before blasting his second wall of the night open with his repulsors before taking off into the sky. May Parker continued to convulse in his arms,making a stable flight across the city remarkably difficult, but not impossible. Especially with FRIDAY's help.
"Fri, tell Helen to be prepared, I'm coming in hot with a patient who is in need of urgent care."
"I have already informed Doctor Cho. She is on her way to the landing pad with an emergency team. She will be there when you arrive."
Not for the first time, Tony silently thanked his past self for giving his AIs the freedom to act, rather than just wait for orders. It'd saved his ass multiple times throughout the years, and tonight it might just save someone else's. His tower grew larger and larger with each passing moment, the Avengers "A" shining as a blue beacon in the sky. His decision to rebrand from Stark Tower to Avengers Tower after Loki's invasion had been with the idea that such a visual symbol of their presence would give hope to a city that had been in chaos, and in a small way, it had. Now, he hoped that despite the bombings, people still found comfort in knowing the Avengers were there to help.
When he finally touched down on the landing pad of the tower, right next to the currently unused Quinjet, Parker's movements were far weaker, and her face far paler than it had been when he first left the hospital. Luckily, Helen Cho and her team were there, just as FRIDAY said they would. Tony quickly laid the dying woman down on the stretcher, watching silently as the team got to work attaching IVs and checking her vitals even as they pushed her back towards the interior. Oddly, Helen remained behind, looking at him with an odd look on her face.
"Shouldn't you be going with them?"
The Doctor nodded "Yes, I will be, but Tony. After the mission, come find me. We need to speak in private."
His visor slid open as he gave Helen a friendly grin. "What about Doc?"
"Payton Parker. I found something important, but I don't want to share it with the whole team just yet."
Tony nodded. He didn't quite understand why the team wasn't to be involved to start, but he would figure that out later. "Alright. I'll find you once we put some order to this chaos." He told her, before blasting off once more. It was going to be a long night.
A Few Minutes Before The Bombings
Payton's back landed roughly on the old mats, her breath being forced out of her lungs with the impact as Frank Castle, for the umpteenth time, threw her over his shoulder. Since he had started teaching her self defense, the lessons had slowly been growing more and more intense, leading to today where much of the past few hours had been sparring lessons. She had yet to win. Despite her advantages in strength and reflexes, Castle was just that much better than she was. Her only solace was the fact that she hadn't gone down easily at all today, putting in a fight each and every time until the Punisher got the upperhand and ended it.
Blowing a few strands of hair out of her face, Payton accepted the hand Frank offered to her with a groan, allowing the man to pull her back to her feet. Her muscles were incredibly sore, the night before having been far more exercise than she'd ever had before, and today was certainly not helping. "So. What went wrong that time?" She asked, waiting for the inevitable critique of her form.
"You're holding back." Frank replied after screwing the cap back onto his water.
Payton looked at the man in confusion "Isn't that the point? We are only sparring. I'm not actually trying to hurt you."
"Yeah. But you are taking that to the extreme. You aren't just trying to avoid hurting me, you are afraid of it. It makes you hesitate, and that opens you up to a counterattack." The vigilante explained, and Payton couldn't help but shrug, realizing that he was right, but that she really wasn't confident in holding back her strength enough to not accidentally snap one of his bones
The two of them went to the opposite sides of the gym mats (Payton still wasn't sure where Frank had gotten them from) and prepared for another round. As she got into position, a flicker in the corner of her eye caught her attention, leading to Payton's eyes panning over to David's computers. One of the monitors that normally displayed exterior camera footage was nothing but static.
"Uh, David? One of the cameras is dark." She announced, drawing the man in question's attention away from his phone.
All three of them now had their attention on the computer monitors as David walked over to investigate. As they watched, another exterior camera went dark. And then another, and another. Goosebumps began to crawl all over Payton's skin as David typed frantically onto his keyboard, and Frank rushed over to his armory.
Danger
Payton's head snapped towards the direction of the front entrance, despite it being multiple rooms away. Moments later, the building shook as an explosion rocked it. Dust rained from the ceiling as it shook loose from its resting place, and the lights above their head flickered, and then died. The only light left in the room was from the computers that had been hooked up to a separate power source since long before Payton was ever here. Taking a page out of Frank's book, Payton ran over to her own little corner and snapped her web shooters onto her wrists.
"David! Get the kid out of here!" Frank ordered, vest already pulled over his chest, and weapons slung over his back and chest. Payton could count at least four firearms on the vigilante's person. And that was just the big stuff. Who knew what else the man would have hidden away. Despite the fact that the Punisher was a one man army, she wasn't eager to leave him to his own devices. This was her fight, and a small part of her knew that she was probably responsible for them finding this place.
"I can help!" She protested, taking a few steps towards the man before he rounded on her and pointed right into her face.
"No you aren't. I won't let you just hand yourself over to them on a fucking plate. Go with David and get out of here. I'll meet up with the two of you at the secondary safehouse."
She wanted to protest again, but ultimately she knew he was right. His training had been enough for her to beat the average street thief so far, but the people hunting her were true professionals. She may have powers, but those wouldn't save her if she chose to be stupid now. Instead of rushing off to join the Punisher as he ran towards the attackers whose footsteps began to echo through the building as they stomped on metal catwalks, Payton turned the other way and saw David already waiting by the hallway that would lead to the emergency exit and ran over to join him. Together, the two of them began to rush through the halls, even as gunfire erupted behind them, echoing through the building like thunder. Through it all, Payton's sensitive ears could hear, for just a moment, the furious roar of Castle as he fought before it was drowned out by even more automatic fire.
Each step they took away from the fighting did nothing to ease the warning sirens coming from her spider sense. Instead, it seemed to be getting worse, and her discomfort grew with each step before reaching a crescendo as they turned the final corner. The exit was right in front of them, but as they approached, Payton's senses screamed at her, an unintelligible warning, but one that physically stopped her in her tracks. Wordlessly, Payton shot a web towards David, who'd hadn't realized she'd stopped, and pulled him backwards just as an explosion launched the exit door into the hallway. The thick metal door was practically folded in half by the force of the detonation, and had she not dragged David back towards her, the door would have hit the man with more than likely lethal force. Instead, it just created a crater in the concrete wall where it impacted.
Payton's eyes stung as the dirt and debris hung in the air as a cloud, lowering her visibility. Shaking off the ringing in her head, she pulled David back to his feet, and dragged him back the way they came, even as a pair of flashlights cut through the haze. They'd been surrounded.
"Wait here." She whispered before leaping up to the ceiling.
Holding herself tight to the ceiling, Payton crawled back into the dust cloud, making sure each movement was as silent as could be. It was a struggle to move as she choked down the cough that tried to force its way out with every breath and squinted her eyes against the dust but eventually she made it. A short ways away from her were two individuals wearing pitch-black armor with smaller reddish-orange highlights. The primary color on each set of armor though was the red hourglass that she had seen on their fatigues the night before. Each man's helmet was a smooth black, with two lenses for their eyes, and sunken in cheeks, giving the appearance of a gaunt, featureless face.
As the two men started to walk beneath her, Payton could hear the muffled Russian coming from within the confines of their helmets. She clearly couldn't understand the words, but their meaning was clear as they swept their weapons over the hallway, the flashlights illuminating the darker nooks and crannies. Once the two men were directly beneath her, she acted.
Dropping from her place on the ceiling, Payton landed feet first onto the shoulders of the first man. Unprepared for her weight to suddenly land on him, the man dropped to the ground. However, Payton had underestimated their training; instead of quickly webbing the man to the floor and turning her attention to the other enemy, the man she landed on rolled away, one hand latching onto her leg and pulling her to the side. The moment he got a look at her face, he yelled something in Russian, and quickly got responses from what had to have been an earpiece within the helmet.
The man who was still standing had dropped his rifle in favor of drawing what Payton could only compare to a cattle prod. The small black stick was sparking electricity at its tip, and she really did not want to be touched by that. Thankfully her spider-sense warned her right as the man lunged, and she quickly rolled to the side, letting the metal rod impact the ground rather than her torso.
Rolling a few more feet, Payton quickly pushed herself back upright, just in time to dodge another swing. The first enemy (Mercenary? Terrorist? She wasn't sure which was more applicable) had gotten back to his feet by this point, and had his own cattle prod out. Behind them both, Payton could see David's head poking around the corner, his eyes wide as he took in the situation. Her distraction at looking towards David had nearly cost her, as once again she dodged a swing by the skin of her teeth. The narrow confines of the hallway didn't give her much room to maneuver, and any attempt she made to web them down was dodged.
Thus began an awkward dance as neither of her opponents were able to get a hit on her (the confines of the hallway also played against them, as their numerical advantage meant nothing when they couldn't stand side by side and attack her at the same time.) but she was also unable to hit them. Every attempt she made to get closer and take advantage of the lessons Castle gave her was met by another swing of the electric prods, and she couldn't waste webs when the guys would just see where she was pointing at and dance around each other to avoid it.
The fight continued this way until Payton had been forced to back up enough that she was nearing the destroyed exit. Moonlight was seeping in through the hole, and if she really wanted to she could run, but that would mean leaving David to whatever fate awaited him, which she would never do. Luckily, her eyes caught on something that would break the stalemate.
Aiming her wrists towards the man on her right, Payton fired two lines of webbing, both of which were dodged of course as the man ducked to the left and got behind his buddy. But she had hit what she wanted to. With a sharp tug, Payton pulled the heap of metal that was once the exit door out of its resting place in the wall and into the backs of her would-be kidnappers. The force of the door sent both men stumbling forwards, one of them tripping over a piece of debris and falling to the ground, while the other got within her reach.
Releasing her webs, Payton sent an uppercut into the closest guy's chin, the force of the blow cracking the helmet and sending the man into the air. A few quick webs had the man adhered to the ceiling and out of the fight for the time being. She had no time to celebrate however, as the other man recovered from his trip and sent his own punch towards her. She dodged that one easily but, despite the warning from her spider-sense, she was unable to avoid the second blow, and was met with the bad end of a cattle prod straight into her abdomen.
Payton screamed. She couldn't help it. The electricity spread through her body like fire and caused her to collapse into a spasming heap on the floor, tears streaming from her eyes. A second jab from the prod had her screaming anew, thrashing on the floor as some of her muscles convulsed, and others forcibly locked up due to the energy arcing through them. Cruelly, the man held the prod against her, laughing as she cried out in pain.
She never even heard the footsteps, but Payton definitely felt as the offending weapon was forced away from her body as David tackled her assailant to the ground. Weakly, Payton tried to get herself up but her muscles screamed at her. Instead of standing like she meant to, Payton instead flopped around on the ground attempting to get her body to listen to her, forced to watch as David struggled against the armored man. David's fight wasn't much of a contest, as the man he had tackled began to regain the upper hand quickly, throwing David onto the ground and planting a boot onto the analyst's back, pressing him into the ground as his other hand drew a sidearm from its holster.
Her heart leapt into her throat and her desperation finally allowed her to gain enough control over her own body that she could raise her arm and web the pistol, and the arm that wielded it, to the wall. Payton used the man's futile efforts to free his arm as an opportunity to pick herself up off the ground before she shoved him off David and against the wall. Another couple shots from her web shooters and the man was thoroughly cocooned, shouting muffled curses that she couldn't even hope to understand.
"Well done. Castle's been teaching you well."
His voice came from the exit, the one Payton had finally thought was clear for them to escape through. Knowing what she would find, Payton slowly turned towards the source of the voice, and saw the silhouette of Taskmaster. The man was leaning nonchalantly against the doorframe, twirling a knife through his fingers. The pose sent Payton back to the night she met him, when he had been leaning in the exact same way against a van before killing her Uncle and nearly killing her Aunt.
"You bet he has. Why don't you back off so I don't have to make another example?" She shot back. There was little weight behind her words, crippled by fear as she was, she could barely get the words out.
Taskmaster laughed, righting himself before slowly stalking towards her. "He could've been training you for years and it wouldn't be enough girly. Might as well give up now, no need for you to hurt anymore than you already are."
Gulping, Payton backed up, keeping herself between David and the mercenary, though that did very little thanks to her being shorter than either of them. Payton knew that if they could just get back to the intersection of the hallways, they could sneak around to a different exit. Something must have shown on her face however, as Taskmaster began to tsk at her, shaking his head.
"I wouldn't try that. Dreykov's men have all the exits covered, and they aren't happy about being stuck in this city for as long as they were." The merc threatened.
"What are we going to do?" David whispered next to her, and unfortunately, Payton only had one idea.
"I'll distract him, you run by him and get out of here." She replied just as quietly, the two of them still taking a step back for every step Taskmaster took towards them. From further into the building, Payton could hear the sound of more footsteps running through the halls, closer than the gunshots were. With Taskmaster on one side, and more of his soldiers coming from the other, they didn't have time to argue. Seeing David open his mouth again, Payton decided to act, and charged towards the mercenary.
In a move that was so quick Payton almost missed it, Taskmaster threw the knife that was in his hand towards her. Ducking to the side, Payton let the weapon soar harmlessly past her and collide with the wall moments later. Of course in doing so, she had been distracted, and only a warning from her spider-sense had her halting in her tracks and bending backwards fast enough to avoid the fist that had been launched towards her face. Eyes wide, Payton threw a punch of her own, which was knocked to the side, throwing her off balance enough for an elbow to be driven into her gut.
Hunching over her injured stomach, one of her hands flew to her stomach in response to the pain while the other attempted to web Taskmaster's foot to the ground. The man saw it coming, much like the soldiers earlier had, and moved his foot out of the way, and brought his knee up in an attempt to drive it into her face. Payton threw herself backwards, back slamming into the wall to avoid the blow. Her abdomen ached, her muscles were all still sore from electrocution, and she had yet to even land a blow.
Taskmaster laughed, ignoring the fact that during the scuffle David had run past them, and was now calling for her from the exit door, telling her to run. "You aren't going to win. I know every move you'll make before you even try it."
Payton's brow furrowed as she stared at the mercenary. His words made sense, she realized quickly. Frank Castle, for all his skills, was trained by the military. He'd only been passing well known lessons onto her, and if Taskmaster had ever served, or even did the barest amount of research, he'd know how Castle was trained, and thus how he'd been training her. To a lesser extent, it had been the same way with the two soldiers she'd taken out a few minutes previously. She'd only ended up beating them by using her own moves, not the ones that she'd been taught by Frank.
Pressing herself harder against the wall, Payton then used all her strength to push away from it, launching towards Taskmaster like a rocket. The force she impacted the mercenary with sent him stumbling back into the opposite wall. Through his helmet she heard as breath was forced out of his lungs with the blow. Acting before he could recover, Payton sent two webs into the man's helmet, pulling his head down to meet her knee as she lifted it.
A sharp crack echoed through the hall as face-met-knee, and Taskmaster once again stumbled away from her, a knife slicing through the webs before she could attempt to utilize them again. Knowing that she had the advantage for a moment, Payton jumped up towards the ceiling, sticking with her two hands and swinging her legs in a pendulum, kicking Taskmaster back into the wall. Unfortunately, one of his hands shot up and grabbed onto her leg.
Before Payton could use her strength to pull her leg back towards her, Taskmaster's glove lit up with electricity, and once again her body convulsed due to the energy and she dropped back down to the floor. The attack didn't last as her thrashing had been enough to rip her leg out of his grasp. Forcing herself to stand, Payton was then met with a pair of boots slamming into her own chest and sending her back into the wall.
Confused, she managed to focus her eyes and blink away the tears of pain enough to see Taskmaster dangling from the ceiling as well. Unlike her, he wasn't sticking though, he had just grabbed onto an exposed pipe and used that to copy the attack she had just used against him. This was quickly followed by Taskmaster dropping from the ceiling and throwing a cord over her head until it rested against the back of her neck. Dazed as she was, Payton couldn't react fast enough to prevent the mercenary from once again copying her and using the cord to drag her head down towards his incoming knee.
The impact had her seeing stars and falling to the ground. She was in so much pain she could hardly move now. Multiple bouts of electrocution, and getting beat up by an armored mercenary were too much. In desperation, Payton tried to start crawling for the exit (she could no longer see David at the door. She wasn't sure if she was relieved or saddened by that) but was stopped by a boot landing on her back and forcing her into the dirty floor.
"I told you kid. There was no scenario where you came out on top. Everything you do, I can do better." Taskmaster bragged, grinding his heel into her spine, causing her to let out a pitiful whine.
She was barely able to turn her head enough to see the Taskmaster before one of his rip-off Widow Bites was fired, and everything went dark.
As she raced through the New York City streets, Natasha could only hear two things: the roar of her motorcycle, and the pounding of her heart. A short ways behind her, Clint was on his own bike and trying to follow her as she weaved in between emergency vehicles and abandoned civilian cars. The bombings across the city had sent people scrambling in a panic. With each borough getting hit nobody felt safe anywhere, and responded by ditching their vehicles to avoid traffic as they ran to hopefully get somewhere safe. Unfortunately, that meant that the city had become a maze for EMS units to navigate, as there was nobody available to move cars out of the way.
The bombings also meant that the criminal element of the city was taking advantage of the chaos. Looters were hitting all the vehicles they could, and were being completely ignored by the police who were too busy responding to the bombings at their own stations to pay any real attention to the chaos that gripped the city. Their radio channels being jammed only exacerbated the issue. Different precincts had been attempting to organize on other channels, but that just led to more confusion due to the different channels being utilized.
Luckily for the Avengers, their channel wasn't attacked, or if it was then Stark's security did its job. The team had been communicating for a while about their individual operations across the city, mostly disaster relief with the occasional crime stopping mixed in. It was Tony's update about the Widow who attempted (and as of yet may have succeeded) to assassinate May Parker that had been the most relevant news to their mission, but his detour to the Tower to save the woman's life meant that the assassin, and the answers she may have been able to provide, were out of their reach for now.
Ultimately, it was up to her and Clint to figure out where in the city Taskmaster and the Red Room relocated to, but they hadn't left any clues behind that she and her partner had been able to find. If anything had been left, it was destroyed when the bombs took down the building they had once used as a headquarters. It had taken longer than she liked, but Clint, as he usually did, saw the pattern that everyone else had been missing in the chaos.
If the bombs were meant to split up and distract the team from whatever the Red Room was doing, it had worked, the team of superheroes was scattered across the entire city, but Clint had noticed that the Jersey side of the Hudson had not been hit whatsoever. Most of the bombings happened in every direction of the tower except for the west, where the only bombing had happened in Hell's Kitchen. Nat would bet that in the after mission debriefing most of the team would be frustrated that they missed it. Hell, Nat was already pissed that she hadn't noticed the one area in the relative vicinity of Avengers Tower that was completely clear of any attack.
As such, she and Clint were now racing to reach Jersey City as quickly as possible. They were already far behind the Red Room's agents tonight, and they had to make up for lost time before the nightmares of her past managed to slip away. Again. They'd tried the Lincoln Tunnel first, but the structure was closed as a sea of emergency personnel from New Jersey crossed state boundaries to assist from one direction, and crashes clogged the other. The NYPD officers who were in the area apologized to the Avengers, but had redirected them to the Holland Tunnel instead. They apparently had enough information to tell them the southernmost tunnel was clear enough for them to cross through to the other side of the river.
Soon enough, the night sky and reflected red and blue lights that bounced between buildings turned into a harsh yellow light and white tiled walls as they drove beneath the ground. The roar of their bikes increased in volume now that there was no open air for the sound to travel through. The deep sounds rattled through her, but still wasn't enough to help her ignore the stress that squeezed her to her core.
She should have been more thorough all those years ago, but the feeling of actually being free made her sloppy. If she'd been smart, she would have confirmed the kill on Dreykov, rather than simply believing the bomb was enough. If she'd been smart she wouldn't have rested until she knew the job was done and demanded to go on every possible mission against the Red Room. Instead she left it to the STRIKE team… to HYDRA , and look where it got her now. Dreykov is alive, the Red Room is still running, and yet another young girl is paying the price for her mistakes. For a moment, a flash of blonde hair, blue eyes, and a house in Ohio appeared in her mind before she shook the images away. Nat couldn't afford to be distracted. Not again.
"FRIDAY, any updates?" Natasha asked, working to get her mind back on track.
"Quicksilver has found multiple of the jamming devices used to block EMS communications. Currently Lower and Central Manhattan have had communications restored as well as a small section of Brooklyn. Based on previous locations, I have designated a dozen potential locations for further devices, which are being investigated now."
That was good. The faster things got organized in the city, the faster the rest of the team could refocus on the Red Room.
"Anything popping up in Jersey yet?" Clint asked, his voice only heard over her earpiece thanks to the distance between them, and the noise of their bikes.
"EMS units from all municipalities along the Hudson River have been dispatched to assist in relief efforts, but there are no reports of any activity that deviates from the average night." The AI answered.
"What about social media? Any civilians making posts about suspicious individuals? Gunshots? Anything? We know they'd paid off a few NYPD officers, it's possible they did the same on this side of the river." The archer continued. By now the two of them were rising up towards the surface again. One more bend and they would be able to see the night sky.
"Standby."
The young AI was silent for a few minutes, giving her and Clint enough time to exit the tunnels and take stock of the immediate area at the very least. As expected though, nothing really stood out, and they couldn't take the time to just drive around the city in the hope that they might run into something. Luckily FRIDAY came back shortly with workable intel.
"Multiple people have posted online about shots fired in a nearby industrial complex. According to some of the posts, police units don't seem to be responding to the situation despite calls to 9-1-1."
"Get us there Fri, that has to be them." Natasha demanded, kicking the stand for her bike up and taking off down the street, burning rubber behind her. She didn't even have to look to know Clint was close behind, the two Avengers operating with the same mind.
With the chaos across the river, Natasha couldn't help but notice how much calmer it appeared over here. There was still the occasional emergency vehicle racing past with sirens blaring, but for the most part, she and Clint just had to weave between the average nighttime traffic as FRIDAY directed them to the industrial district of the city. The minutes flew by quickly, and the clean buildings of the commercial district no longer lined the road. Instead there were warehouses and factories.
"Three more blocks Agent Romanoff." The AI alerted.
Before she could respond, she was forced to pull hard on the brake handles, the rear end of her bike leaving the ground as she skidded a ways down the road before righting herself. Clint had fared no better as the squad car that randomly pulled out in front of them cut off the road, its lights flashing and lighting up the street in red and blue. Two officers immediately exited the SUV, weapons drawn, but pointed at the road.
"Get off the bikes!" One of them ordered, causing Natasha to release a frustrated growl. They didn't have time for this bullshit!
"Avengers business! Let us through!" She shot back. From the angle her bike had stopped at, she wouldn't be able to easily get around them without them being able to take a shot first.
"Avengers? Yeah right! And I'm Thor!" The second officer mocked, laughing at his own cliche joke.
Sighing, Natasha pulled the helmet off her head, noticing from the corner of her eye as Clint followed suit. "We are the Avengers!"
At the sight of her and Clint, both officer's backs straightened and they shared a nervous glance. Natasha narrowed her eyes as she saw one of their hands tighten on their pistol, rather than relax. They were nervous.
"What's with the roadblock?" Clint asked, his voice jovial, but from the way his eyes raked over them, it was clear he saw the same thing she did. His left hand began to signal her subtly, telling her to get ready.
The two officers shared another look before answering. "Bomb threat. What with everything going on across the river, we need to make sure the area is secure."
"Yeah well, we're professionals and we are here to help." Clint replied with a shrug.
The sound of a couple gunshots echoed down the street, far enough away to be their ultimate objective. Both cops flinched at the noise.
"That doesn't sound like a bomb." She remarked, flexing the tendons in her wrist enough to turn on the Widow Bites, the low whine as the electric weapons activated was barely heard by her own ears, so the two people blocking them didn't stand a chance of hearing it.
"Some officers must have ran into the bombers!" One cop lied.
"So why aren't you rushing to help?" Clint called their bluff, and she could see how pale they were. The two men were grasping at straws in hopes of getting them to go away, but her patience had run out.
"I don't care how much they are paying you. You really want to get hit with an aiding and abetting terrorists charge? The feds might go so far as to call treason. Move now and we can put in a good word to make sure it's just bribery." She gave them one last chance. The offer was a good one, but she was willing to bet the Red Room hadn't told them the full plan and only paid them to keep people out of this area. For two beat cops, no amount of money was probably worth a fight with two Avengers and getting charged with treason.
Both officers holstered their weapons, and raised their hands in the air just as she expected. "The money was too good to pass up on, but we never thought they were going to bomb New York." One of them admitted with a dejected sigh.
Clint laughed beside her humorlessly "Shouldn't have taken the money in the first place.". Immediately after he finished speaking, Clint drew an arrow and loosed it, the projectile crossing the distance between the two groups in the blink of an eye before latching onto the first officer's chest and injecting a large enough dose of sedative to knock the man out for at least a few hours.
Before the other one could react, Natasha raised her own weapon and fired an electric charge that knocked him out as well, leaving the two Avengers alone.
"Friday, try and get in contact with someone to pick these two up." She ordered before revving her engine and heading down the street again.
The last few blocks led them to a large industrial complex. The largest building had multiple SUVs parked in front of it, the doors left open and the engines still running. If that wasn't evidence enough of her objective, the scattering of rubble that used to be the front entrance would have been the nail in the coffin. The dust had long since settled from whatever explosion had blown the doors outwards, leaving only the debris and a red smear that ended behind one of the vehicles.
She looked towards Clint who'd just pulled up behind her, and motioned towards the building. Together, the two of them cautiously approached, passing by the SUVs until the first body appeared. Her breath hitched as she laid eyes on a Red Room Enforcer for the first time in over a decade. Their armor was the same, the grays, blacks, and red hourglass. This enforcer's armor had a bit more red on it though, clearly the result of whatever trap was detonated when they breached the building. A shard of rebar was impaled through his gut, slowing the loss of blood to a trickle rather than the stream it could have been. The pool that had grown underneath his body acted as a testimony for how long he'd been lying there.
Forcing herself to bring her focus back to her objective, Natasha stepped over the rubble and entered the complex, pointedly ignoring the concerned glance her partner gave her while she was inspecting the corpse. As soon as she stepped inside, the visibility decreased drastically. Without the open air or breeze to disperse it, dust continued to hang in the air, a dull gray haze against the yellow industrial lights in the ceiling.
Automatic gunfire echoed through the halls, far louder to her ears now that she was in the immediate vicinity. Whoever the Red Room was here to kill, they hadn't succeeded just yet. Wordlessly, Natasha picked up the pace, Clint right behind her as they cleared rooms and corridors, gunshots getting louder with each step they took.
They found the next corpses a few rooms in. Two enforcers had been eviscerated by an anti-personnel mine, a claymore by the looks of it. A third had lost the lower half of his left leg, and had been finished off with a bullet to the side of his head. Likely fired from the end of the hallway that was riddled in bullet holes. The ambush had been quick against the Red Room agents, but the four total deaths meant there were still eleven unaccounted for, and the amount of return fire they sent towards the defender or defenders of this complex showed just how dangerous they could be.
Continuing on, the next few hallways and rooms only had bullet-ridden walls and floors, and brass casings that glittered in the light. But Natasha knew they were getting close. As they turned another corner, they came face to face with another demolished doorway. This one was clearly blown to pieces with a breaching charge of some kind; all the debris was blasted inwards towards the room beyond. It was from that room that the sounds of fighting reached her ears. Quickly singling for Clint to cover her, Natasha moved quickly through the destroyed wall and took stock of the area.
It had clearly been a well provisioned facility at some point. A small kitchenette was tucked against one wall alongside a multitude of cots, two of which had clothes piled up next to them. The center of the room had once been dominated by a large computer station, but that was now nothing more than a collection of scrapped electronics as the monitors were torn apart by gunfire and the computers sparked with damaged wired and shrapnel embedded into their components. A larger open area was taken up by what seemed to be an old wrestling mat. Finally there was a parking area which contained a small brown sedan, and a larger matte black van, both of which had popped tires and, much like the rest of this place, were covered in bullet holes.
Natasha's eyes took stock of the area quickly, even as she counted the remaining enforcers that she could see. She got to five, all spread out throughout the room with their backs to Clint and her, instead facing the dark van, and whoever was hidden behind it. The stalemate was clear. The enforcers had numbers, but they couldn't approach due to the open area that separates the kitchen and computers from the van. They also had to be cautious in case there were more traps. The defender for their part couldn't move or even attempt to fire back easily without having five guns shooting back at them. Luckily for them, reinforcements had just arrived.
Silently, she pointed out to her fellow Avenger the targets she planned to take out. They needed to clear them quickly and couldn't afford wasting time shooting the same targets. Clint's pistol rose in response, his bow still secured tightly on his back until they were back outside. After a quick countdown with her fingers, the two of them opened fire. Five pulls of the trigger, two for her, three for Clint, and the room was clear. It was quick and simple, and the Red Room's agents never stood a chance against the threat they never saw coming.
"Rooms clear! You still alive over there?" Clint called out, standing slowly with his arms out to be as non-threatening as possible. Natasha followed suit a few moments later.
"Who the fuck are you?!" A gruff, pained voice called back from the other side of the room, still hiding from view.
"Avengers! Hawkeye and Black Widow!" The archer answered easily.
"You're shittin' me." The voice snarked, not sounding any more pleased. But they did stand, limping out from behind the van to allow her witness Frank Castle in all his bloody glory.
The Punisher… that makes sense. Natasha mused humorously as her eyes panned over the mess again.
"Are we good to approach or are we going to run into a trap? Or get shot?" She requested.
"Nah you're good." The Punisher answered, reloading his guns before limping towards a different door. "We have to get moving, this wasn't all of them."
Clint nodded next to her. "There should be another six, not including Taskmaster." Her partner eyed the vigilante's wound on his leg "Are you good to keep going?".
"I've had far worse than this." Castle scoffed, somewhat answering the question. Rather than wait for them however, the murderous vigilante went off on his own, forcing them to catch up with the man. Not that it was that difficult due to the wound she'd noticed on his calf.
BANG!
BANG!
Two shots broke the eerie silence that had spread throughout the compound, jolting the three of them into moving faster as they wandered through the halls. After a few more turns they found themselves in a long emergency hallway, the door at the very end of it was blown open, and two enforcers lay dead. One was adhered to the ceiling and the other the wall by what appeared to be webs, and each was leaking blood and brain matter through a single hole in each of their skulls.
"Look out!" Clint warned, his pistol already pointing downrange as two enforcers appeared in the destroyed exit. From her position in the back of the group, Natasha didn't have a clear shot, but the combined skills of the Punisher and Hawkeye were enough to take care of the threat anyway. The enforcers barely got a few shots off before they each went down, one with a bullet to the brain, and another to the abdomen. Castle took two shots to the vest, which had sent the man back a step, but he wasn't more injured than he had been previously. Seeing as the last shooters were down, Natasha ran ahead, squeezing between the other two to get passed. One of the two enforcers was still alive, and she had some questions for him.
The man in question was groaning on the ground, his lifeblood leaking out of the gap in his armor and slowly forming a pool beneath him. He weakly tried to draw his sidearm, but his injury made him too slow, allowing for her to grab the weapon herself and throw it to the side before pulling his helmet off his head, revealing a relatively plain looking man with a buzz cut and some rough black stubble growing on his chin. His eyes stared at her in recognition and raw hatred. She felt the latter of the two for him as well, though she didn't personally recognize her.
"Na-Natalia Romanova…" The man coughed, blood spilling from his lips "The filth-filthy t-traitor herself" He wheezed.
Natasha stared right back at him as she pressed her hand into his wound. The more sadistic side of her, the one fed by the hatred of the Red Room, and of the red in her ledger, smiled. This man's death would not weigh on her, that much she knew. "Where's Taskmaster?!" She pressed harder, forcing the man to wheeze in pain "Where is Payton Parker."
Despite the torment she knew he would be under from her actions, the man gave a bloody smile and a gurgling, wet laugh. "The answers… are one… and the same." He taunted her.
Natasha refused to let it show on her face, but her heart dropped. She'd been holding out hope that they weren't too late, that they would still be able to find the poor girl before she was lost. That was not to be, and it stung.
"Where are they going!" She demanded, her hand now covered in the enforcer's blood.
He dared to laugh again, growing ever weaker. "Y-ou…alr-eady k-know. Home. The… the girl belongs to Dreykov n-now." The light faded from his eyes with the final mocking words, and Natasha slammed her fist to the ground in frustration and rounded on the Punisher who stood a few steps behind her.
"You had Payton with you the whole time and didn't tell anyone!?" She accused, knowing that the situation had her compromised, but not caring in the slightest. The nightmare of her past had returned, and she failed to save someone from it.
Castle's own scowl deepened as he stared right back "Damn right I did, and things had been going fine until tonight."
"Why didn't you turn her over to the police? Or ask for help from one of the other vigilantes? Or even us?" Clint asked, arms crossed over his chest.
Castle huffed mirthlessly "The cops? These bastards paid 'em off. Moment I turned her over she would've been in the wind. And Red and his little group of 'heroes'? None of them would've been willing to do what needed to be done. At least you two understood that." He replied, gesturing to the corpses at their feet.
Clint scoffed "And you didn't think about asking us for help?"
At that Castle did laugh, even if it was a rough, mocking thing "Even if I knew how to reach you big shot heroes, I bet it would've been under your paygrade until tonight. You handle the big shit. Aliens, robots, HYDRA, whatever. Far as I knew originally, it was likely just some corrupt assholes from Oscorp, or some random trafficking ring trying to make a name for themselves in the underground."
"He's got a point." Natasha admitted. While it wasn't true that they would've ignored it, mostly because of the postcard she had gotten from her sister, there was no way for Castle to have known that. He'd worked with what he had, and unfortunately that didn't include the fact that the Avengers were looking for the girl.
As the three of them stood around awkwardly, the sound of approaching sirens began to be heard. Seems the police who weren't paid off finally got wind of what was happening here, which made the situation more awkward. Two Avengers were right next to one of the most wanted men in the city, and they all knew it. But Natasha didn't care. Castle defended himself against her mess, and she had no intention of making the man pay for it.
"Go. Clint and I can't pretend that you weren't here, but we can say that you were gone before we got here." She offered, and received a grateful nod in turn before the Punisher turned to leave, but stopped after a few steps.
"Make sure they get the bomb squad here. Plenty of mines left in there that those assholes didn't set off." He warned, before continuing back into the night.
"Well, the police will be happy to confiscate Castle's armory. Should keep him off the streets for a few weeks at least." Clint remarked after Castle was long gone, and the first squad cars were pulling up to the building.
Natasha allowed herself a small smile at her partner's words, his upbeat view enough to help raise her spirits slightly, though her heart was still heavy. She wanted to continue the chase, but after a quick chat with FRIDAY she found that Taskmaster and whatever surviving enforcers he had with him were long gone. As such, she and Clint would have to stay here to assist with cleaning up… It was going to be a long night.
When the sun finally rose over New York City, a sense of peace came with it. Most of the city had been in fear of more bombings throughout the night, but they never came. As soon as Quicksilver had finished with the jammers it became far easier for the city to organize relief efforts. By the time the fires that started were put out, and power was turned back on for the buildings that lost it, they also had a total casualty list. Luckily, the fatalities were low, only about two dozen, which was far better than it could have been. Injuries were far more numerous, numbering at nearly two-hundred. Most of which were minor. It was clear the main purpose of the bombs was to serve as a distraction for the Avengers, as well as the city as a whole.
After Natasha and Clint reported in regarding their own situation the picture became clear for the team as a whole. Taskmaster couldn't risk a response to his attack on the Punisher's home, and attacking the Punisher meant that plenty of noise would be made, thus the distraction. According to Steve it was 'tactically sound'. According to himself it was 'annoying' and 'cheap'. Of course, Tony never liked being made to look like a fool, and he couldn't help but feel like one. Sure he saved May Parker's life, but he failed to catch her would-be assassin, and the team failed to save the woman's niece. Needless to say, it sucked .
Something that made Tony feel somewhat better was that the morning news cycle was singing the Avengers' praises, thanking them for their quick response times to a 'random terrorist attack' and it just so happened to be the most positive news regarding them since before Sokovia. Pictures and videos of them helping out across the city took over the internet (with a little help from FRIDAY, though Tony would never admit it out loud).
Now though, after a night full of hard work Tony was working on his third, no fourth , cup of coffee. The caffeine kept him going through the debriefings with the city, the FBI, and the team, each one ended up as a different meeting, rather than just going all at once which was a huge waste of time in his own opinion. Now though, he was going to one final meeting before he planned to crash for at least ten hours. Helen had asked him to speak as soon as he had the opportunity, and that time had finally come.
With a quiet ding , the elevator doors opened to the medical floor that was reserved specifically for the Avengers. Helen Cho was in charge of course, but she wasn't the only person on staff, as was shown as Tony walked through the floor and saw through a window into the only occupied patient room on the floor. The medical team had also worked through the night to get the toxins out of May Parker's system, but they had done it. The poison had made the woman weaker, but from the last report Helen sent, they expected her to get back on track for full recovery shortly. Best estimates had her waking up within a week or two. Though the woman wouldn't like the world she woke up to.
A few more turns had Tony standing outside Helen's office, and after knocking, he opened the door. The doctor looked almost as tired as he felt, her lab coat thrown haphazardly over a random chair, and a random assortment of tablets and papers were spread across all the surfaces in the room. At his entry the woman looked up at him, and looked nervous.
"Tony. Thank you for coming."
He gave her a tired smile. "You said you had something important to tell me before the rest of the team, and you know how much I love having things to hold over them." He joked, though it was a tired, humorless thing.
"Yes. Well. I had hoped for better news from last night before I shared this, but it wouldn't be right to keep it secret."
"What else is there to know about Parker? Did you get details on whatever her enhancements are?"
Helen turned, and didn't meet his eyes. He'd never seen her so nervous before, and that was beginning to make him nervous.
"When I was running the DNA tests I noticed something…familiar." She admitted, grabbing one of the tablets and swiping to something he couldn't see from his perspective.
His mind immediately went to the Sokovian twins who were sleeping just a few floors away. They'd received their powers through Loki's scepter, though apparently the two of them did have the X-gene, it had just been activated and enhanced by Struker's experiments, but that wasn't the point. The scepter had left evidence of its tampering in their DNA, and if the same thing was found in Parker's DNA, then it meant bad news for the experiments Oscorp was running.
"So I ran the tests again, just with some… comparable DNA. There was a match."
"To the DNA changes in Wanda and Pietro?" He asked, interrupting the doctor.
"No. To you."
He swore his heart stopped "What?".
"The test I ran was a paternity test, Tony. Biologically speaking, Payton Parker is your daughter." The bombshell she dropped seemed to lower the temperature in the office by a few degrees, if the chills running up and down his body said anything about it.
When Helen passed him the tablet, it was turned to the results, and he immediately recognized his own DNA test, back before Sokovia, when Bruce was still around, the two of them taught each other a lot about the fields that they were better in. One of the fields that Tony had lessons from Banner from was genetics, and they'd looked at his DNA sequence enough for him to have essentially memorized it. Next to it on the screen though, was Payton Parker's DNA, and the bold green word "MATCH" blinked at the bottom of the screen.
Swallowing harshly, Tony didn't even notice when his right arm went up to massage the left, the tingling numbness returning to the arm as it often did when he was stressed. His mind immediately started racing trying to do the math based on her age and where he was fourteen years ago. Of course, those years were often spent mostly drunk, high, or both, and much of his memory was blurry. He'd always thought it was possible, though unlikely as nobody had tried to approach him for money or anything else. But, then again, Parker's biological mother died when she was a toddler, maybe the woman never had the chance to ask. Maybe, maybe maybe. The thoughts tumbled through his head like a landslide until he was pulled back to reality by Helen's hand on his shoulder.
At some point he had sat down in one of the chairs and he hadn't even noticed. His chest heaved as it often did after he was done hyperventilating. Dragged back to reality, Tony looked down at the tablet again, before looking at Helen. "This… This is…"
The doctor nodded her head. "I know, it's a shock. It surprised me too, but well, the evidence is right there."
Tony laughed. It was a stressed, strangled sound, borne of the absurdity of the situation. "FRIDAY? Bring up the files on Payton Parker again." He requested, and moments later the tablet he held switched over to the requested information.
The very first page had a large picture of the girl (his daughter), taken straight from her school ID. Looking at her again, he could begin to see the resemblance. Not really to himself, but to his mother.
"Look into the old archives FRI, see if we have a picture of Mom when she was around Payton's age." He asked
This request took slightly longer, but soon enough a black and white photo of Maria Stark, at the time Maria Carbonell, at the age of 18 displayed next to the picture of Payton. The similarities were obvious now in this context. It seemed the main trait that Payton got from the male-line of Starks was the hair color. Much of her facial structure matched his mom's from her youth. Only her eyes didn't match anything from his bloodline. The pale blue iris weren't a feature his family had, which meant they likely came from Payton's mother's side.
"You alright Tony?" Helen asked, her eyes displaying her concern.
Truthfully, he felt like a horse kicked him in the chest while he was falling down a cliff, but he wasn't going to tell her that. He would be fine, he just had to do what he did best and find answers. Who was Payton's mother? Why didn't she approach him about her? What did this mean if, no when , they found her? Too many questions needed answers, which meant he had work to do.
Standing abruptly, he passed the tablet back to Helen. "I'll be fine Doc, just, keep this between us for now? I want to figure this out myself."
Doctor Cho nodded her head. "Of course Tony. Doctor-Patient Confidentiality."
When Tony left her office a minute later it was with a new mission in mind. First he would find whatever answers he could from the past. Once that was done he would do everything in his power to find where the Red Room took Payton and get her back. He still didn't know what he wanted from the future once they got her back, but there was no way in hell he was going to sit on the sidelines when his own daughter was in danger.
Time to get to work.