Summary: The founders of S.H.I.E.L.D. academy created the Hydra Games to train their field agents, but it's a deadly different challenge when the REAL Hydra infiltrates them. Featuring Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Bruce Banner, Clint Barton, Natasha Romanoff, and Thor. Hurt / comfort, angst, bromance.

The Hydra Games

PenPatronus

Chapter 1

Rules of the Game

Steve Rogers tasted blood on his teeth. He coughed, and one of his ribs went from cracked to broken. Swallowing a scream made his eyes water, so the image of Bruce Banner crawling past him rippled like a mirage. "Tony!" Bruce shouted. "Tony!" Steve rolled onto his stomach and waited for the world to stop swaying. Gradually the scene came into focus.

Five feet away, a red-faced Stark was writhing on the ground with one hand plastered to his black t-shirt and the other gripping Bruce's arm. "What's wrong with him?" Steve asked with a slur in his words. He crawled over and knelt beside Stark. "Doc?"

"Must be a localized EMP," Banner reported. "An electromagnetic pulse. It disables any technology in the blast radius." Steve couldn't understand the scientist's technobabble even when he didn't have a headache, but he knew one thing for sure: Tony's chest was supposed to be glowing, and it was dark. "It deactivated the arc reactor." Bruce's face turned red as Tony's started to go white. "The m-magnet isn't holding back the shrapnel in his chest anymore."

"What do we do?" Steve grasped Tony's trembling hand.

"I don't – we can't – there's n-nothing we can do! It'll take five minutes, minimum, for the reactor to automatically reboot."

"S-six and a half," Tony stuttered.

Bruce combed his fingers through his hair and gripped the ends. "Oh my god…"

"Is that enough time?" Steve demanded. Banner didn't answer. He didn't have to.

Tony shuddered. His eyes bulged. Sweat soaked his hairline. "H-hammer," he whispered.

Bruce and Steve put their ears to Tony's lips so quickly that their heads bumped. "Stark, we can't hear you."

Tony's body bucked and he almost broke their noses with his forehead. "Hammer."

"What?"

Stark opened his mouth to elaborate, but suddenly went limp. Butterfly eyelashes fluttered. Steve squeezed his cold fingers. "Tony? Tony!"

"Too late…" Tony wheezed. "Bruce… Steve… God, just hold me, p-please."

5 Hours Earlier

Clint Barton raised his hand but didn't wait for permission to speak. "The last time I played the Hydra Games I broke my arm."

On the other side of the Helicarrier's conference table, Nick Fury leaned back in his seat and propped his fingers into a steeple under his chin. "You also broke the Academy record by 2 hours. I lost a ten dollar bet to Coulson."

"You bet against me—? Not the point." Clint kept his arm in the air and indicated his head. "This is the point: I already took this test."

"Not with them." Fury gestured at the table of Avengers.

On Fury's left, Natasha leaned towards Bruce and whispered, "I heard that's the only reason why he graduated from the Academy."

Bruce gave Barton a kind smile, then whispered, "His grades were that bad?"

"Agent Hill had S.H.I.E.L.D. History with him. After two years he still didn't know the difference between Howard Stark and Steve Rogers."

"As I was saying." Fury sat up straight and cleared his throat. "As I was saying, every S.H.I.E.L.D. academy field agent had to beat the Hydra Games to graduate. For a new team you performed satisfactorily in New York—"

"Satisfactorily?" On Fury's right, past a pensive Captain America, on the left of a bored Thor, Tony Stark looked flabbergasted. "Saving the world from an alien invasion is only satisfactory?"

"What I'm saying," Fury growled through clenched teeth, "is that you can do better. The Hydra Games have been training teams for decades and I want you to take the tests, too."

"I'm almost afraid to ask," said Steve, "but why are they called the Hydra games?"

"It's a series of tests, the ultimate obstacle course. Howard Stark created it. He was Tony's father," Fury explained for Thor's benefit. "And if you know Red Skull you know the Greek myth of the hydra."

"If you cut off one head of the snake, two more will grow in its place," Clint recited.

"Hercules defeated it by burning the necks so that the heads couldn't regrow," said Bruce.

"Ah. Clever," said Thor.

"It's just a myth."

"So was he." Romanoff pointed her thumb at Thor.

"Howard called these trials the Hydra Games," Fury continued, "because if you fail one test you have to do two more."

"Two harder tests," said Clint.

"Please, our team has a Hulk and a demi-god and, well, me," Tony said with faux modesty. "We'll pass the first test in two minutes and be done."

Steve shook his head. "Nobody passes the first test."

"How do you know?"

"A guess. Am I right?" Steve cocked an eyebrow at Fury, who nodded.

Stark swiveled in his chair to face Barton. "What's the first test?"

Fury interrupted before Clint could answer. "I'm not making this easy for you. This will be a different game than Barton played. It's been… upgraded. And, you're going in with nothing but your boots. No supplies, no communications, no shield, no Iron Man suit, no magic hammer, no guns, no arrows."

"No Iron Man. No Iron Man?" Tony demanded. "I thought this was supposed to train Avengers."

Fury fixed his eye on Tony. "That's half the point, Stark. You need to learn how to be the Avengers with or without your weapons."

Steve nodded his approval. "Because there's no guarantee we'll have them in hand the next time we're attacked."

Romanoff snorted. "I can't sleep without a knife – preferably one in my hand."

"No weapons," Fury repeated. "And you won't be able to contact us or the S.H.I.E.L.D. staff running the simulations."

"Fine." Tony looked at his watch on his left wrist. "When do we start?"

"Right now." Fury swiveled his chair, raised a remote and summoned a map onto a flat screen. With two clicks he highlighted a small island on the screen. "Right there."

To Be Continued