Tony followed closely behind him, towing T'Challa from where he clung with notable strength to his arm. The additional weight was unfamiliar, and Tony had to adjust his thrusters in order to compensate for the mass that pulled down at his right shoulder.
Flying deeper into the capital, they watched as explosions of flame that burst in the outer streets of the city grew larger and more real, though still some miles away. Military trucks were making slow progress as they advanced down the roads in the direction of the war zone, civilians weaving in between the vehicles and flooding the streets.
'FRIDAY,' Tony said, watching as people below them scurried into buildings or hauled cloth sacks packed with precious belongings out of homes. 'We need to find Commandant Sendegeya.'
'A squadron of Burundian troops has set up a temporary staging ground about 2 kilometers at your 11 o'clock. Your commandant is there.'
Tony blasted off in the direction of the location tag that FRIDAY had pulled up on the HUD. When they arrived at the staging ground, T'Challa released Tony's arm and sailed gracefully to the ground. Tony settled on the pavement next to him while Vision hovered just above their heads.
The people here were in even more of a frenzy. Civilians pressed against them, towing children or hurriedly packed bags, fighting to get away from the incoming onslaught of hellfire. Soldiers were positioned throughout the crowd, directing the people down the safest streets or clearing out the houses.
Tony and T'Challa waded against the flow of people, searching the sea of faces for Commandant Sendegeya. They remained generally unnoticed, the public too intent on retreat to pay them any attention. When they passed through the barricades that had been haphazardly pushed together in the middle of the street, they left the civilian mob behind and entered the military's unsteadily held territory.
True to the reports, the military's weapons were effectively useless against the shells that pounded the streets and buildings, sending debris and dust pluming into the air. The majority of Burundian troops held semiautomatic rifles and they milled around fearfully, unable to use their weapons that were designed for combat, not defense.
A heavily damaged tank was at a standstill a few dozen meters down the road, returning fire at the advancing insurgents. As they watched, the turret spat a single rocket into the air and it sailed into enemy lines, an abandoned building some distance down the wide, craterpocked street exploding into flame and chunks of concrete.
The terrorists answered with a salvo of mortar bursts. Tony knew exactly what had just been launched at them when he heard the distinct whine of the missiles as they screamed towards them (he had designed the damn things). Apparently the Burundi Army had experienced this particular attack multiple times before, because a cry rose up among their ranks and they dove for cover.
A trio of rockets, distinguishable by three individual trails of fire in the night sky, curved through the air. When they passed their apex and began descending onto them, the secondary engines sparked and roared and the projectiles gained velocity at a horrifically rapid rate, racing towards them. They rained down on the Burundi forces that cowered in dilapidated homes or behind barriers of hopelessly twisted metal. The already wounded tank didn't stand a chance against the attack, and it exploded in a ball of scorching flame.
Tony, T'Challa, and Vision, still far enough back that they weren't in danger of the missiles themselves, were drilled with fragments of smoking metal and gravel.
When the worst of the debris had settled and the flames extinguished, a ragged bunch of soldiers scurried to what remained of the tank, shouting for survivors. There were none.
'There.' T'Challa said suddenly, pointing to the soldiers that were stumbling away from the tank, pushed back by a spread of shelling in front of them. Among the group was Commandant Sendegeya, his dark skinned face caked in soot.
The commandant raised a whistle to his lips and blew a shrill signal to retreat further into the city. The soldiers wasted no time, abandoning the provisional staging ground with haste, putting the invading forces to their backs.
T'Challa raised his voice above the din produced by the flurry of movement and caught Sendegeya's attention. The Burundian's haggard face broke into instant relief when he saw them and he ran over, speaking rapidly to T'Challa in Kirundi.
Tony left them to discuss, he and Vision going ahead with the troops as they jogged down the street. They helped clear the last of the buildings, heard straggling civilians further into the city, and move heavy crates of guns and ammunition.
As they moved further from the line of defense they had just abandoned and deeper into Bujumbura, the noise of explosions and gunfire fell to the background only to be replaced by the sounds of a nation in hysteria.
The city, which had been sheltering the refugees from other provinces in neighboring villages, was packed beyond its limit. It was bursting at the seams, filled with people who either lived there or had been driven there.
The comms clicked and then T'Challa was speaking in his ear, 'The commandant feels it would be best to divide our efforts throughout the city. I will remain on foot, traveling with the military and directing the people. He would like Stark and Vision to do what they can to destroy the insurgents' arsenal. They have no means to fight against their missiles, but they have a chance if the militants were forced to face them in closer combat.'
'Done.' Tony said, internally relieved that T'Challa had briefly taken charge.
Contrary to popular belief, Tony did not always think that he knew best. He was not a strategist, he was a tactician. A pragmatist. He wasn't a planner, he ran the numbers in his head and used the tools he had in the moment to act on splitsecond decisions. He had willingly deferred to Steve when it came to defining a goal or laying out orders, content to be the instrument through which that goal could be achieved in the quickest, most efficient way.
When the situation called for it, he could lead with confidence and people would follow. But he wanted people to call him out on bullshit plans, because that's what most of his plans were. He wanted his team to exercise their individual strengths, because they could see things and do things that he couldn't. He would be their leader, but he didn't want to do it alone.
'Not to make things worse than they already are,' Rhodey started over the comms, 'but if you guys are going to get a stop, it has to be now. Bujumbura is at the border of Burundi, and it backs right up to Lake Tanganyika. This city is a strategic nightmare. There really is nowhere else for these people to go.'
'No pressure,' Tony said, lifting off from the ground with a simple command to his repulsion system. 'We have our jobs, let's do them right.'
And then they were diving into action.
The bitter taste of betrayal that had been lingering at the back of Tony's throat and the miserable anger that had driven itself like a hot stake into his mind fell away as he flew straight into enemy lines.
He skimmed close to the ground, drawing their attention and their fire. Vision soared above him and targeted with deadly precision the unused, short range missiles. The weapons exploded with ferocity that consumed many of the terrorists who were standing within range, and though he hated them, Tony watched them die with no sense of satisfaction.
Peter and Natasha were in his ear, using his geospatial imaging technology in New York to locate the next weapons depot or unit of militants as they converged on the city. Rhodey was in the sky, watching them all with tense care, calling out movements and points of weakness. T'Challa worked flawlessly with the Burundi Army, getting people to the best shelter available and engaging the enemy as they started breaking through the barricades in the streets on foot. Tony and Vision weaved intricate patterns in the sky, methodically reducing the weaponry of the insurgents to smoldering rubble.
Whatever divisions or doubts that had existed between them had dissipated entirely. The uncertainty about their future relationship with the UN and the state of the Accords that had been such a daunti
ng problem before was now an afterthought.
Tony would never have dreamed that they would be able to function so smoothly. He hadn't imagined that this team could really become a team. But they were.
Somehow, they were.
'Boss, I'm reading a heatseeker. It's locked onto our wavelength.' FRIDAY announced, 'I would recommend evasive maneuvers, but the missile would just follow.'
'I designed you to be helpful.' Tony snapped, checking the HUD to gauge the distance between him and the approaching groundtosky infrared homing device. He performed a sudden barrel roll, shooting off to the side at a sharp enough angle to make his joints protest under the pressure. The rocket followed. 'Ah, shit. We were having such a good time.'
He was out of flares and Vision was off in another sector. Tony thought about leading the missile into a building, but decided against it. However damaged and broken it already was, they were trying to protect the city, not put more holes in it.
'Rhodes?' he tried over the comms.
'I got you.' Rhodey answered immediately, reading the tone in his voice and understanding the unspoken request for backup.
Tony, who had been looping madly above the ground in an effort to maintain some distance between himself and the locked missile, spiraled upward, laying out a clear shot. The Quinjet dropped through the hazy, smoke filled sky and Rhodey intercepted the rocket with a spray of bullets. The weapon detonated below Tony in burst of fire. He cut the thrusters and let the aftershock push him through the air, flipping as he fell with practiced ease and pulling out smoothly once he was clear.
'Thanks, buddy.'
Together they turned on the site that the missile had been launched from, opening fire on the stocks of weaponry and terrorists as they fled madly in all directions. Crates and trucks full of his old weapons erupted in billowing clouds of intense flame. Tony watched it all burn, each explosion reverberating deep inside of him, sealing his past.
'That's the last one I think,' Peter informed him, 'Vision just took out the last depot on the other side of town. That should be all of them.'
'We could use your help in the streets. The insurgents have breached the barricades and they've launched a final assault on the ground. The military has engaged, but the people are defenseless.' T'Challa said, his message interrupted periodically as he grunted, fighting as he spoke.
'On our way.' Tony said, giving a thumbs up to where Rhodey sat in the cockpit of the nearby Quinjet before he shot off over the outer streets of Bujumbura, heading back to the center of the city.
The sky had grown lighter as the morning progressed, the sun a murky half disc of light through the dense smoke and dust as it rose over the horizon, and it became easier to spot the insurgents. They were the ones clad in black with squares of cloth wrapped around their faces, showing nothing but their dark, maliciously glittering eyes.
Tony dove closer to the ground as he neared the fighting, skimming above the streets. Vision joined him within seconds and they became a pair of deadly angels, firing energy and repulsor blasts and guided bullets from the sky. They tore through the enemy as they clawed their way into the heart of Bujumbura.
The number of people in the streets, terrorists and citizens alike, increased as they continued into the city. The bodies appeared more frequently too. Since they had arrived in Bujumbura FRIDAY had been keeping a silent tally of casualties in the bottom corner of the HUD, and Tony watched the number with heavy eyes as it rose quicker the further they flew into the capital.
Though the longrange attacks from the air had ceased, the people were in more danger now than they had been before. The close quarters fighting was messy, the two opposing forces sharing a bloody battleground with civilians. And the insurgents had no qualms about collateral damage. The people truly had nowhere else to go and they hid themselves in blind panic, seeking shelter in fractured buildings or simply throwing themselves to the ground in horrific resignation.
Some meters in front of him, one of the terrorists had cornered a family of three against a concrete wall and a burning military truck. The young mother shielded both of her children with her arms, tucking them close to her as she sagged to her knees, their backs pressed against the solid stone behind them. The children hid their faces against their mother's chest, while the woman stared up at the devilish man who towered above them, tears streaking down her grime coated cheeks.
The terrorist pulled a grenade from his belt and Tony blasted towards them. T'Challa got there first, pouncing onto the man and digging the dreadful Vibranium claws into his shoulder and tearing him away from the family.
The grenade dropped out of his grip and it rolled unevenly on the cracked pavement. Tony knew he had seconds. There was no time to get the mother and her children out of range so he landed roughly, hard enough to split the concrete underneath his boots, and kicked the grenade under the nearby truck, then whipping around to throw his arms over them.
They cowered against his chest plate as he screened them from the detonation. They were close, dangerously close, and Tony felt the heat of the blast that had been magnified by the gasoline that leaked from the abandoned vehicle even through the protective layer of his suit. The people curled even tighter into him, petrified with terror.
When the roar of the fire and the maelstrom of sintered metal at his back subsided, he unfolded from around the tiny family and ushered them to safety. He shielded them from behind as they stumbled away from the worst of the fighting, stray bullets pinging harmlessly off his shoulder plates.
At the end of the road, they merged with a crowd of heaving civilians and military personnel and a sturdy Burundian man surged from the mass of people, grabbing his family's individual faces with his hands, sobbing with relief. As they began to be engulfed by the churning mob of refugees and survivors, the woman reached to clasp one of his armored hands in both of her own. 'Urakoze,' she cried, 'Urakoze!'
Thank you, thank you
And then she was gone, swallowed by the crowd. Although she hadn't actually touched him, Tony's hand glowed with warmth and he looked over the Burundian people with a flood of intense protectiveness.
He turned back to where the terrorists and military were locked together in a vehement game of whatever the opposite of tugofwar was, thrusting into the air to hover above them and firing shots that held strong and true into the enemy's steadily dwindling ranks.
The insurgents were being held back by the Burundian forces now, their numbers fading as quickly as their resolve. Some turned and fled when they realized that they were losing, bullets biting at their heels. The soldiers cheered as they were inundated with fresh vigor and they drove the militants back.
Tony, sensing that it was time for the country's own military to take over and finish this war for themselves, let himself drift to the ground. He landed in the center of the street and watched the last of the terrorists flee before the attacking military. T'Challa joined him shortly, an utterly wrecked Commandant Sendegeya just behind him from where he was absorbed in an indistinctly frantic conversation on a military grade satellite phone.
Tony's confidence in their victory was shortlived and fizzled out weakly when the commandant dropped the phone from his ear and stared up at them, his entire face exuding renewed horror. 'Il y a une bombe dans le bâtiment capital. Notre président… on ne peut pas arriver à temps.'
There is a bomb in the capital building. Our president… we can't get there in time.
'Je peux.' Tony said immediately and he fired his boot jets and spiraled into the sky, ignoring T'Challa as he called his name.
Where was I? Home, curled around the toilet, trying to hold in my chicken noodle soup.
I wasn't exactly clear on the details, but I was there when the phone rang, and heard maybe 37% of the actual conversation. I could hear Mom's gasps, her 'No! Peter? Really? ' in that way mother's do when they hear atrocious news about good people. Then, when that was over, she came over and told me that Peter ha
d detention for, like, two weeks; he was lucky it wasn't worse (whatever it was that he did), since his record so far had shown that this behavior was so unlike him that the principal decided to let him off just this once with detention.
I didn't have a cell phone, so I couldn't keep updated through texts — otherwise I would've asked Ned to fill me in. Surprisingly, he came by shortly after two to see how I was doing, with a pot of his mom's chicken noodle soup as an offering to my good health (Ned's Mom was really nice like that. Didn't help that Ned told her everything about my life). It was convincing enough for Mom, who left to put it away long enough for Ned to fill me in on the dirty details.
'Peter went completely AWOL!' Ned whispered, leaning against the doorframe. Mom didn't allow visitors past the Quarantine Zone, as I liked to call it; the entire perimeter of our apartment in which my disease was to be contained. Not even Ned was safe enough to come in. 'He snuck into Mr. Strickland's office, tried to get his camera back.'
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