Iron Attitude

Their hearts both sink and rise at the sound of metal footsteps on stone. Steve groans to himself out of a hefty concussion and defeat. The cold muzzle of a gun presses into his temple and clicks to signify that the barrel has been re-loaded. It's a warning and a way for him to surrender.

Two minutes later, the Man of Iron steps into view, a dazzling figure of support and hope. But the state of both himself and the suit makes the relatively unscathed Avengers swallow heavily. He smokes and steams in the cool air of the cave, the scalding metal of his suit of armour burning and melting together as it rapidly cools. Pockmarked with holes and lacerations, he stands before them stiffly, eyes heavily dilated and chewing absently on the thick rag of material jammed into his mouth. Blood runs heavily down his forehead and into the suit, unabated.

"I believe you are well acquainted with our current base, Mister Stark?" a voice asks, swiftly followed by a body that steps out of the shadows. The Avengers are startled by the sudden snarl that escapes Tony's mouth. They shiver heavily.

"Leave ... leaveim 'lone" Steve slurs from his secluded corner where he's tied to a makeshift cot, the covers damp and mouldy. One pistol whip later and he's unconscious. The attention then moves back to the Man of Iron who's staring glassily into the distance, breathing unsteadily.

"Take his armour off," the man says without hesitation. Clint watches as the men surrounding Tony proceed to remove the plates of armour manually and shifts in his bonds. What do they plan to do to him?

No-one knows why but he's taken away once the armour is removed, leaving the smell of burning metal and blood in his wake.

They were there just to get him to remove his protection; they were there just to remind him that they would die if he refused.

The scream that pierces the air two hours later is sudden and terrifying.

It breaks their hearts into fragments, crushes their souls.

But it renews their attempts to escape, ignites the passionate fury to kill these motherfucking bastards.

And they resist.

A week later, rescue finally comes. But it's not the sort they were anticipating. It's a quiet sort of help wherein there is no yelling, no bellowing and no gunfire.

There is a key in the lock and the men in the room with the Avengers stiffen, ready to stand up and salute to their superior.

The door swings open, revealing the darkness of the cave outside. The foreign soldiers that have been keeping them captive and force-feeding them frown, looking at each other.

They step forwards into the gloom and what follows is a series of strangled and muffled squeaks followed by the clattering of abandoned guns.

"The fuck?" Clint asks hoarsely.

Tony hesitantly steps out of the darkness.

He was a mess – there wasn't any other pleasant word to describe him. Pale, malnourished and unbelievably beaten up he stood before them looking shaken, sick and disturbed. Blood ran down his skin in numerous places and colourful bruises blossomed about his arms, face, neck and chest.

Water ran down his face and soaked his shirt, revealing a stark obvious problem.

The arc reactor wasn't there, replaced by a car battery and wires.

"Tony ..." Bruce says quietly. He's been drugged up ever since their capture with a special Hulk-suppressant. The billionaire went to say something but then shut his mouth abruptly and threw a knife towards the closest Avenger.

This happened to be Natasha who managed to clench it between her knees and saw through her bindings. It's only when she's finished that she realised the blade didn't have any blood on it.

She looks up, only to find Tony in the grasp of a lone soldier.

"Put him down," Bruce snarled, trying to break through the last, hazy remnants of the Hulk suppressant.

"But I'm not holding him in the air," the soldier replied smoothly, very clearly an English spoken gentleman. If holding a man at knifepoint was gentleman-ly.

"Don't get fucking smarmy with us," Clint snarled. The knife at Tony's throat slipped under the skin and blood dribbled down his neck, causing his breath to hitch. The soldier laughed softly.

"He's still dripping," he murmured. Bruce suddenly felt incredibly sick. But at closer inspection, the water running down Tony's temples, the sheen in his dark hair, the violent trembling of his body and the terrified expression present in his heavily dilated eyes was enough to tell him that there had been an excursion with water. No sexual involvement, thankfully.

But wait ... did his file say anything about disliking water?

"Such a funny sight," the soldier suddenly said, snapping Bruce out of his wonderment. The doctor noticed that the knife had drawn out a bloody, scarlet line to the side of Tony's right eye, allowing a fresh smear of crimson to cover the heavy bruising on his cheek and temple.

"Don't," Steve murmured, watching Tony blink furiously. One more move of that knife and Tony could be permanently blind in one eye.

"But wouldn't it so lovely, so delicious, to see him squirm again?" the soldier purred, leaning round and then digging the tip of the blade into the bone at the side of Tony's eye socket. If it hurt, Tony made no sound to signify it. Only the sweat running down his forehead was any indication of trauma and the closure of his dark eyes as it grooved into bone.

"I'm warning you," Bruce hissed, feeling the Hulk claw through the suppressant.

"Oh, but if any of you make a move then dear Anthony here will be-" he ran the knife back down the initial trail, deepening the cut. Tony clenched his eyes shut for a moment before breathing out heavily "-dead,"

Everything went red.

When Bruce calmed down, pleased for once that he'd killed the motherfucking bastard, he heard a gentle sob from behind him. Whipping round whilst pulling up his torn jeans as best he could, his heart clenched.

Tony lay in a pool of his own blood. It stained the floor, mingled with the dust, let off a rich coppery stench.

His eyes were glazed and unseeing and the blade that had carved the ugly disfigurement in his face lay in his neck.

He had to pull himself together and brush the initial fear aside, rushing to his choking best friend's side as he struggled to breathe through the severe lung puncture. The Avengers hadn't taken the knife out fully but in the soldier's anger he had started too before Bruce had slammed him up against a wall. This was why there was a river of steadily flowing blood running from Tony's lips, staining his bruised cheeks.

It all passed in a blur after that.

He sat with the others in a small room off the main medical department of S.H.I.E.L.D. When the quinjet had arrived they had been forced to slip the knife back into Tony's lung to prevent any further bleeding – apparently it blocked off the major route of bloodflow into his lungs: this assumption was made after some quick assessing. Usually they wouldn't have done it but in this instance it was better to cause more pain than instant death.

When Tony had been taken away ASAP, Bruce and Clint had stayed behind to salvage what they could. In one room, behind a thready piece of fabric, numerous televisions were set up and old tapes that were covered in dust and crumbled wall lay stacked up in one corner. They took them all, including the new ones that had been recording the CCTV footage of their cells.

They watched the old ones first.

And everyone understood why Tony had not wanted to go there, go to Afghanistan to kill these bastards who had been too conniving and clever.

It was where he had first been captured all those years ago.

They saw everything, every detail of his three month confinement.

Every conversation he'd ever had with Yinsen.

The crafty construction of the Iron Man suit.

The creation of the first arc reactor prototype.

The open-heart, un-anesthetized surgery.

And after the last dusty tape had been watched, they left it at that and waited until Tony was out of surgery to continue. The new knowledge had shaken them to their very cores.

Three hours later, Tony was out of surgery. The list was extensive.

Three heart attacks from a prolonged period without the arc reactor whilst in captivity.

Major puncture wound to the lower part of his left lung.

A bullet wound to his left leg.

Excess water in his lungs.

Severe vocal implications.

Seven different breakages in the skeleton, including three shatterings.

To name a few.

They sat by his bedside at different intervals, watching over him as he slept off his exhaustion. Pepper arrived an hour after he had been let out of surgery and kept a constant vigil by his side, never leaving him, faithfully supporting them all throughout all they'd been through.

About two weeks later, he was allowed to leave the helicarrier. Apart from the ugly wounds smattering his body, stiff and healing bones, a sting on his face whenever he smiled or frowned and the inability to speak, he was alright.

They would support him, despite still suffering their own consequences of being captured. Steve was still disturbed about the fact that a supersoldier, gamma-ray induced mutant, amour covered hero and two assassins had been caught and drugged simultaneously by men with primitive weapons.

Thor, unfortunately for them, had been in Asgard. How inconvenient of him.

They didn't know why they had targeted Tony exactly and he couldn't tell them. His exhaustion was still too great and the first thing he did when he got back to the tower was to curl up in bed with Pepper and sleep.

So they let him.

Two days after, Bruce dared to watch one of the CCTV footage's from the first day of Tony's arrival.

He got three minutes into the water-boarding footage with the muffled cries and screams before he had to shut it down and throw up.

There was nothing worse than seeing your best friend suffer and know that you could have helped him.

He vowed from that day forth to destroy any Hulk- suppressing drugs so as to use his 'terrible privilege' to his full advantage.

Hulk quietly agreed.

After a night out on Steve's part and a polite, mute turned down offer from Tony, the Avengers returned to the tower feeling quite eager to see him.

Natasha put it on their ordeal. She said that 'even small things can bring the unlikeliest of people closer together'.

They found Tony and Pepper in the cinema room two floors down near their own master bedroom, sat on the large settee's and swathed in god knows how many blankets pilfered from the cupboards in the tower.

They all blamed Clint for this.

After a silent request and a soft smile from the billionaire resting his head on Pepper's lap, they joined the couple. The movie was light hearted and the Avengers welcomed it. There was something that made you smile when watching Jackass 3 and knowing at least two of your teammates had tried half of the adventures they had.

Not naming any names. *cough*tonyandclint*cough*

And they all fell asleep there, protectively surrounding their Iron Avenger. Because even though his suit and attitude may be made out of metal, he was most vulnerable of them all.

Another crap ending. I really need to work on them.

So tell me what you thought!;-)

All mistakes are my own, whether grammatical or content-ticle. Hey, new word. Hope you liked it! Struggling along with 'Fear' but I hope to get another chapter up some time.

Thank you for reading them both, by the way! You all may me smile:D

Kermit x