om_main | Tony, Steve, Peter, Pietro, Clint and Philip, Saturday

Tony's armored adventures come back to bite him in the ass in a big way, but luckily there's a few folks on hand to help out with some Avenging.

Of all the things Tony had tried to prepare for, to make the armor ready for, being flat out bodychecked out of the air hadn't really been one of them. An oversight, apparently, though it hadn't been too much trouble to course correct and not end up plastered along the street. No, the real trouble was that while the red-and-gold of the new armor meant stronger materials and one hell of a statement, it also apparently made him a target. Someone was going to have a field day with that, when Tony got back.

Because he was going to get back, takedown or no. The figure in body armor in front of him made him wince in a way that the collision hadn't -- seriously, that was such a hack job on his design -- but it had been strong and fast enough to knock him out of the air and Tony wasn't about to start judging the fabrication now. Well. Mostly.

Tony dropped down to the sidewalk, flexing the shoulder joints of the armor, and doing his best to ignore the fact that they were in the middle of the street. They wanted armor? Tony would give them armor.

The SI/Oscorp mashup from hell may have had a suit wired into his goddamn nervous system, but Tony had better materials, better construction and a pretty damn good idea where exactly to hit where it would hurt. Not to mention a few very good reasons to take the guy down fast and hard.

Which he did a pretty good job of, he figured as he knocked the guy away again, calculating how long it would take him to get back up that time. He was slowing down every time, it wouldn't take that much more to put him down permanently. The fight had slowly been pushing them further uptown, but they hadn't hit too much traffic yet. With any luck, Tony could end this before it god too messy.

Which was, of course, when two more guys dropped down, cracking the pavement under them as they landed. This...could be trouble.

***

Steve has almost closed out of tumblr after finished updating his art journal, but luckily, the little notification for new posts taunted him enough for him to refresh. The first post hand him sitting straight up in his seat, a warning that Times Square was under attack, to stay indoors, along with an autoplaying Vine embedded, showing shakey phone video of Tony, in the suit, fighting some...thing. Two more came in to view right as the video cut off and looped, and Steve was already up out of his chair.

Tony would be pissed, he knew he would, but he also didn't care. He could yell at him later. Or break up with him, he thought with a slightly sick feeling as he pulled on his boots. But Tony was outnumbered (just like he'd told him, Goddammit) and those guys looked like bad news, so there was no way he'd sit it out, no matter the consequences.

And they'd need some backup, too. He'd get it for this too, and he did hate to tell Tony's secret, but it was an emergency. "Pietro," he started the moment the phone had picked up. "I don't have time to explain, but Tony's in trouble. There is a fight going on in Times Square, Tony is in the red and gold suit of armor. The other three are hostile. Get anyone willing to fight and send them down there."

Pietro had already brought up the news the second he figured out what Steve was trying to tell him. He grimaced and just said, "On it. JARVIS can you get everyone in the building some kinda feed on this?" And within a milisecond, he was knocking on Coulson's door. "We gotta go get Tony out of--whatever the hell this is!"

Why wait til the door opened?

It was lucky that Philip happened to be in. He startled when his tablet was suddenly hijacked and started swearing as soon as the image started making sense. A second later, he was up and headed to the door, eyes glued to the tablet. "In." he called out as soon as the door was open. "We need a plan, we need to coordinate, we need communications. And we need to get that idiot out of trouble immediately."

At the counter, Clint looked up from cleaning his bow. He eyed Maximoff and Coulson and hopped off of the stool, flipping the weapon in his hands. Stepping closer, he snagged the tablet out of his friend's hands, scanning the headlines. A little wrinkle appeared in his forehead as he tried to figure out why they were talking about Tony...until he remembered the warning about the drone testing. Which obviously had never been a drone at all, but Stark in that suit. "Well you're sure as hell not leaving me behind."

"The more the merrier, I say--at least, when it's competent people with a decent plan." Pietro let it go without saying that both of them were competent and more--and that he was more than willing to abide by whatever plan Phil had in mind. He was already pecking away on his phone to Steve: Coulson and Barton are in. Get here? "Steve's on his way I think. Uh, not sure where he is, though..."

"JARVIS, if you're listening, and if it's possible, please find Patriot's location via his phone. We're going to try to dig Stark out of trouble as quickly as possible. If he left anything more efficient than the phones for communication, we could use those too. Best case, Patriot will be able to transport Hawkeye and Quicksilver will follow along. If I can get access to cameras nearby, it'd be better for me to coordinate from here. Hawkeye, I know Stark has toys for you. Go get them." Coulson needed maps, he needed eyes, he needed... a hell of a lot of things.

"Captain Rogers is presently in the stairwell, and is headed in this direction," JARVIS replied, and it was only a few seconds longer before Steve burst into the room, arms full. He dumped it all on the floor, the metal shield Tony had made him for Halloween clattering as he started tugging on his boots. "The red and gold is Tony. He's been blowing up Stark Industries plants. I don't know why, I found out last weekend and he wasn't exactly forthcoming. I'm betting those things have something to do with it, though." He kept his eyes on his laces as he spoke- it hadn't been exactly a secret that he and Tony weren't speaking.

He tugged on his heavy leather jacket, slinging the shield over his shoulder and fastening the clasp before pulling on thick leather gloves. "Phil, I was thinking we send Quicksilver ahead. Hopefully it'll give them something to chase, and give Tony a chance to breathe until Hawkeye and I get there. Tell me if you disagree." He glanced at Clint. "I've got my bike in the lab, we'll take that."

His gloves went on, and he paused, standing up a little straighter. "Also, Clint...Think about whether you want to obscure your face. There are already camera phones. I want you to consider that, even if you cover up, there's still a chance you'll get outed." Steve was going to be, he'd accepted it already, but he wanted to make sure everyone else involved had thought about it, too.

Standing in the door to the bedroom, Clint fastened his quiver to his belt, Tony's prototype arrows mixed in with the precision alloy ones he was constantly draining his wallet on. In jeans and a purple t-shirt, he didn't look like much; just an ordinary American teen with a bow. With his smokey purple shooting glasses on, he'd be even more generic. He strapped on his bracer and tab, but glanced at Philip.

There were only two people in the world that might recognize him, aside from fellow students, and they weren't people he wanted knowing where he was...but he wasn't about to let any of them go out there without someone to watch their backs. Not again. He grabbed his glasses and the sleek retractable bow of Stark design, his hand closing about it in determination as a grin slid easily onto his lips. "With you around, Rogers, no one's gonna be lookin' at me."

Clint would deal with the fallout later.

Philip nodded at Rogers as he scooted his desk chair around. The wonderful thing about blank white walls? They made fantastic projection screens when need be. He'd have a much better view of the... altercation than he'd hoped he would. A little memo tab popped up on the bottom of his tablet screen and he just rolled his eyes before reaching in a desk drawer and pulling out the little box he'd half forgotten he had stashed there.

So he overprepared. Philip was pretty sure no one would be surprised. He flipped the box open and held it out. "Prototype comm gear, similar to the DR designs. Take one and go. Quicksilver, please try if you can to get civilians out of the way too. All we need is one idiot with a camera phone in the line of fire. There might be other people in those suits, try to disable only but retrieving Stark is the first priority. We can all discuss the utter idiocy of this when he's returned in one piece."

Pietro took a millisecond to realize he was wearing the rhinestoned lightning bolt shirt Laura had given him for Valentine's day--what felt like forever ago. He laughed at himself, but otherwise listened carefully to Steve and Phil... then started bouncing on the balls of his feet, waiting to be released. He nodded at Phil's orders, exchanged a brief look with Steve, accepted his comm unit, and was off. He'd see them all when they got there.

Steve tensed at Phil's final comment, but only said, "Let me try to talk to him first," as he inserted the comm unit. Though he realized immediately that, considering how their less talk went, it might be a horrible idea, he just let it be and clapped a hand on Clint's arm and took his keys out of his pocket. "Let's move out."

***

Of course they'd ended up in Times goddamn Square of all places, Tony thought, wincing behind his helmet as an armored body went crashing straight through The Lion King's giant poster. He was probably going to end up paying for that, if he got out of this. The armor was still in decent shape but these guys would not stay down, and he'd already learned the hard way that they packed a punch. Yeah he could fly and they couldn't but that wouldn't do any favors for anyone else on the ground.

Because it was Times Square, and the tourists were stopping to take pictures while the natives ignored the whole thing and went about their business. Sometimes people really made his head hurt.

He'd been doing his best to keep anyone out of the crossfire, but it was getting increasingly difficult to keep an eye on the ground and not get his head knocked in. Which, case in point as he just barely caught the fist that had been heading for his faceplate.

The moment Peter’s spidey-sense had started going haywire, he’d followed its pull and booked it toward Times Square. Something very not good was going down. He made it there just in time to see a...robot? go crashing into the poster for The Lion King. Man, someone was not feeling the love tonight. Cries went up from below him, shouts of “Look!” and “It’s Spiderman!”. He was suddenly very aware that they were waiting to see what he would do.

And he didn’t know what to do.

Normally, the who was who was mostly cut and dry. It was pretty easy to tell who the aggressor was and who the victim was, despite what certain right-wing media outlets would have you believe. But, these robots? People in suits? Their faces showed no emotion and they apparently had no motive apart from hitting each other. Fortunately, just as Peter was about to make his decision, it was made for him. The fighting had knocked loose scaffolding from a building and it was tumbling down toward an unsuspecting New Yorker.

Peter fired his webbing and dropped off his perch, swinging out toward the man. “Heeeeeere’s Spidey!” He caught the man without stopping and swung away with him seconds before metal crashed to the ground.

Tony hadn't even managed to see the thing fall, considering he was somewhat busy, but by the time he managed to break loose via an hefty application of repulsor to the face, it was to see a blue-and-red figure sweep in out of nowhere. Frankly, Tony couldn't figure out whether to be grateful or annoyed, so he went with neither. There wasn't time to think about it.

"Nice catch," he called, repulsors flaring as he darted over to hover next to Peter. "Where the hell did you come from?"

Was that...Tony? Hoooly crap.

“I was in the neighborhood,” Peter answered as he tried to decide which of his thousand questions to ask first. Apparently when you came upon your friend fighting in the hot rod equivalent of a super suit against other people in not-as-flashy suits there were a lot of them. “Uh, so, who are your friends?”

The sigh Tony let out thankfully wasn't audible through the helmet as he shifted a little to take in the scene below them. The guy he'd tossed into the building was starting to climb back out, the other two finding their feet again. Trying to convince Peter to go was probably the height of hypocrisy at that point, and honestly he wasn't sure he wanted to.

"They're human," he said finally. "Wired into the suits. They're strong, fast, and they will not stay down. If you're going to stick around, watch yourself."

Pietro zipped onto the scene, spotted Spidey up there with--well, the guy in the suit otherwise known as Tony-dumbass-Stark (though he wouldn't have said it in front of Steve--Phil was taking his life in his hands, there). But rather than dive in and say hello, he stuck to his directive, zooming up to the standard crowd that was now starting to clump around to find out what all the madness was. "Heyheyhey, split or I'll help you split, move along, plenty to see here but it could get you crushed, heyhey, whose kid is this, seriously, dude?! Ma'am if I have to pick you up and move you, I will, do not test me. Get out."

On the comms, the order went out from Patriot to clear a hole through the crowds as the motorcycle roared up Broadway, weaving through traffic and civilians alike. As soon as Pietro had an opening, an arrow shot through ahead of the bike, lodging in the armor of one of the assailant's legs, both piercing muscle and tissue and gumming up the mechanical works, effectively hobbling him.

"Oh yeah, take that, Cyborg Commando!" Clint taunted on the comms from the back of Steve's bike.

"Good shot," Steve called through the comms as he wove through people and cars, until they were as far as he was going to be able to get without it being counterproductive to drive. After killing the engine, he climbed off, and slipped his hand through the arm holds on his shield. "Hawkeye, get Iron Man or Spiderman's attention, get them to get you somewhere high. I'm going in."

He glanced up at Tony for a moment, then took off running towards one of the guys who'd started paying attention to their presence. He jumped, putting the shield in front of him and threw all his weight into it as the shield came down on his head.

Coulson had taken the transportation time to get things arranged, the blank wall was now a set of project screens, giving him the best view that city cameras could provide. "JARVIS," he said crisply. "Please sync Iron Man to the communication frequency we're using and bring him into the loop." They'd all be hearing everything he said now.

"Iron Man," he said, as soon as JARVIS had given him the affirmative and Quicksilver and Hawkeye both would recognize the tone, flat and entirely business. "You have backup inbound, Quicksilver is clearing civilians, Patriot and Hawkeye are your backup. I need a sit-rep."

"I noticed!" Tony just barely kept himself from shouting. Because of course there was Steve, leaping headlong into the fight with a goddamn halloween costume. Only the fact that they were in the middle of an increasingly larger clusterfuck kept him from swooping right down and asking what the fuck he thought he was doing.

But Coulson was right about the need for info, so Tony too a deep, steadying breath and rose higher in the air to get a better look at everything below him. "Three guys in experimental bodysuits," he said, fast and clipped, "and yes, they are people. Suits are wired into their central nervous system, don't know how they'll react to being shut down. Human as far as I can tell, but the suits are fast, strong, and either blocking pain receptors or have some kind of healing factor involved. And if we're going to be making this a party line, someone grab Spiderman."

"Quicksilver, get a comm for Spiderman. Iron Man, Hawkeye needs a lift," Steve grunted across the comm as he stumbled back, avoiding and deflecting a series of hits before getting knocked back, then rolling to the side to avoid getting stepped on.

"On it, Patriot," Pietro said. He pointed menacingly at a woman who looked like she was gonna linger when he'd told her to get moving, even as he said, "JARVIS, take care of all the doors between the front and Agent. I'm going in and out."

He blurred and disappeared, streaking back to the brownstone in a gust of wind, grabbing an extra comm without bothering to say hello to Philip, and then streaking out again to reappear just beside Peter. He held out the small, black comm unit. "'Sup, web-head? Stick this in your ear."

“This is turning into a real party,” Peter remarked as he accepted the earpiece. Wow, this was getting very official, wasn’t it? Slipping his hand under his mask, he popped the comm into his ear, and then tucked his mask back into place.

Peter grinned behind his mask, “See you out there, dude.” He fired his webshooter at a building, pulling up and into a swing, heading right for one of the robo-suit-wearing dudes.

"Hey RoboCop," Clint grinned as he released another shot. The arrows only managed to slow the armored assailants down, and then only until they managed to rip the shafts out of the systems and heal. He flicked a glance up at the air where he could see the shine of red and gold. "Wanna give me a lift up onto that American Eagle jumbo-sign up there? You can lift more than one person in that getup, right?"

Maybe then he could get a better look at how to bring them down.

"Spiderman, web as much as you think safe at building choke points. If we can capture them that way, so much the better. Barring that, if there's any capacity for high voltage tasers or local EMP, give that a try, with allowances for not frying Iron Man's suit please. Civilian safety and team safety come first. Hawkeye, if you fall off that roof, you won't like it. Call out any intel you see while you're up there. Patriot, Quicksilver, check in," Coulson said as he flicked through the displays. The maneuverability of these things was a problem and getting them without killing Stark in the process an even bigger problem.

"Do not fucking fry me," Tony muttered more to himself as he darted back down, twisting his way sharply around a loosed arrow to snag Clint by the back of his vest and pull him directly upwards. "Enjoy your tower, Rapunzel," he said almost distractedly as he dropped him onto the edge of the LCD screen, and immediately dived back down to hit one of the knock-off suits directly in the face with a repulsor blast.

"They won't stay down," Steve grunted between all but bludgeoning with the shield, making it bend and warp under the force. "We're going to have to do something about that if we want to win this."

"Crowd's keeping some distance now," Pietro reported additionally, back to rushing around the perimeter. "If we got tricks, now's the time to try 'em."

“If they’re going to run right into a giant web, I don’t think we really need to be worried about them,” Peter joked, even as he swung about, building said giant web. He was nearly finished, all that was left to tie off the end in his hand on a building, and then he got an idea. “Hey! Someone toss one my way!”

Clint eyed each of the players on the field, noting the webbing going up, and the way Pietro was managing to keep even the reporters in line. "We've got cops heading downtown on 7th Avenue. Looks like they're not quite sure what to do with this shitshow. Hey Iron Man, you think you're ready to put your money where your mouth is with my latest arrow prototype? It might take those guys down a notch..."

Then again, it might take Tony down a notch too, depending on the range.

"Iron Man, assist on Spiderman, it'll get you out of the way of Hawkeye." Coulson had no idea what Barton could possibly be carrying, but if he thought it was appropriate to the situation, he'd trust him on that. "Patriot, Quicksilver, be distracting with minimal risk."

It never actually hurt to spell that one out with this group.

Tony hissed out a string of curses and braced himself as the knock-off spun back around to rush at him, the pavement giving way slightly under his armored feet as he was forced back but managed to stay upright. "If I die, I'm haunting you forever," he said, fast and sharp, and caught the guy by the arm to physically chuck him in Peter's direction, repulsors flaring as he took off to follow.

It took Steve a moment to croak out a "Roger that," as his guy had knocked him back with a hard blow to his stomach. His shield was just a hunk of twisted metal in the street, so any hits he was now taking full on.

He glanced around, taking in the net Spiderman had built. He knew how strong it was from experience, and maybe, with the EMP, it could be the solution they needed. "Quicksilver, let's get these guys into the net. Clint will fire the EMP, while Spiderman, you make sure to keep up the webbing, add more if needed to hold these guys . Then Quicksilver and I will play backup to Spiderman as Clint picks them off while they're down. Iron Man, you get the hell out of here. I don't want to have to carrying your metal ass back to base in the likely event that this doesn't go off without a hitch."

With that, Steve headbutted his guy, and started to pin his arms back in order to drag him to the net.

Pietro shot one last dirty look at a reporter, complete with the "I got my eyes on you" gesture, then said, "On it, Patriot." He rubbed his hands together, surveying the situation with the three armored dudes. "I'll get a tornado under anyone who drops one of them--make sure they get thrown right into that pretty web." And he flashed into action.

The armored guy landed right in the center of the web. Peter let out a whoop, “Nothing but net!” and launched himself off the side of a building, a corner of the web in hand. He fired more webbing with his free hand, using it swing himself around the netted armored baddie. Another swing around and the guy was trapped like, well, like a insect in a spider’s web.

High up on the fancy moving billboard, Clint flicked a particular arrow from the quiver on his hip, spinning it in his fingers for a moment as he watched the three goons get thrown into the webbing and locked in place. Not that he really needed such an easy target, but it didn't hurt to have them all in one spot. He drew, keeping an eye on where Tony had flown back from the action. The EMP should take out the mechanics of their attackers' suits, but if he aimed right, shouldn't interfere with any of the businesses or nearby civilian equipment hemming them in.

"Here goes nothing," he muttered under his breath, then let the arrow fly straight into the webbed nest of irritated armored soldiers.

There should have been something seriously bizarre about a bunch of deactivated armors hanging in a spiderweb of all things in the middle of Times Square, but whatever freaking worked at that point. Tony eyed the insanity from where he was hovering high above, trying to gauge how much longer it would take the actual authorities to get there and how much of a clusterfuck that would be. He was reasonably sure the guys weren't dead, but he wasn't about to go in to find out. EMPs would dissipate quickly, but considering what they could conceivably do to him he was fine with playing that safe.

"All in favor of leaving them wrapped up for the cops," Tony said dryly, letting himself drift a bit closer down to the ground. Oscorp could claim them or not, but that was Harry's lookout.

Now that it was over, Steve was leaning heavily on a building near the web. He was exhausted in a way he hadn't been since he mutated, and his body felt like one giant bruise. He glanced up to Tony before surveying the mess. "I agree," he said regretfully, and pushed off the wall to limp over in the direction of his motorcycle. "Someone get Hawkeye down, and let's meet back at home base. I'm pretty sure none of us want to deal with the police before we have to." He glanced up at Peter, and gave him a little smile. "That means you too, Spiderman."

Peter grimaced behind his mask at the thought of a potential run-in with Captain Stacy. Those were never fun. He generally tried to have left the scene before the fuzz showed up anyway. “You got it, Patriot.” He saluted Steve and, yeah, even that ached. He was pretty sure he was sore in muscles he’d never even known he had. “See you guys around!” Firing his webbing at a building, he took off with a swing.

"Hey, I got my own way down," Clint sing-songed into his comm as he pulled out a grappling arrow and fired it into the side of the building behind him, swinging his way down to the next level of the sign. It was an easy climb from there, the archer whooping softly as he slid down the side of one LED screen. "Patriot, pick me up on 46th, and let's blow this joint."

Coulson, of course, had watched it all and was pretty damn pleased that the impromptu plan had worked. "All of you, good work," he said over the coms. "The police have gotten some anonymous information and video about our friends out there, it should muddy the water and keep them in custody for quite a while. And yes, Iron Man," he said dryly. "I didn't send it directly.

"Get back here as quickly and discretely as you can. It seems like we need to share a little information..." And there was definitely going to be some discussion with Stark that probably wouldn't be a while lot of fun.