Age of Darkness | Pietro Maximoff

Chapter Ten: No Gentle Way To Destroy

Music is "Lockdown" by Steve Jablonsky from the Transformers: Age of Extinction OST.

Picture is "Well, Hello There, Tall, Green, and Handsome" by unknown.

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"There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war except it's ending."

- Abraham Lincoln

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CHAPTER TEN

{Third Person P.O.V.}

It's late at night, and the Tower has done anything but settle down. Erik Selvig, Professor Mortimer from Glory's world, and Jane Foster are looking over data, the Next Gen. Mutants are training in the gymnasium, and the super spies, Bucky, Nat, and Clint, are trying to decipher encrypted lines from a new HYDRA base in Canada as the bustling ground of dozens of scientists and S.H.I.E.L.D. agents hurry along their nightly tasks.

Clint Barton props his feet up on the desk, despite Nat's constant swatting his feet down. "I'm bored. Can't we take out some Russian mobsters or something? I do that on my downtime."

"You need a hobby, Clint," Nat replies, not taking her eyes off the screen.

"Or a girlfriend," Bucky whispers.

"Oh, you didn't hear? I'm married."

"Lucky you. A dog then."

Clint purses his lips, thinking. "That's a great idea, Barnes. The kids will love that. Laura, not so much." Clint turns to glance at his empty coffee cup. "Aww, coffee."

"Go fill us up," Nat asks, handing him the coffee pitcher. "We all know how you get without your coffee."

Bucky laughs as Clint scowls at the redhead and walks over to the small coffee dispenser. While refilling it, he sees a small red light on the back of Erik Selvig's head. Without thinking, a natural reflex, Clint yells, "Sniper!" He tackles Selvig to the ground.

Crack.

Crack.

Crack.

Three bullets pierce the glass of the Avenger's Tower at once, none of them finding their intended target. "Everyone, to the bunker!" Natasha shouts, waving people around her to the basement. The bunker was intended to survive an atomic bomb if need be. "Avengers, with me!"

"Where's Steve? And the others?" Clint asks, pulling his bow from the table and loading it with a boomerang arrow.

"Steve is in his office, Wanda is with Vision on the next floor, Strange is with Clea at the Sanctum Sanctorum, the Next Gen. Mutants are training in the gym, and Scott is with Hope and his little girl, Cassie," Bucky replies, dodging more enemy fire. "Where the hell are Glory and Pietro?"

"They're out of town," Clint says, firing back at the unknown assailants. "At Glory's parent's house."

"Thank God they're out of harms way," Bucky says, fearing for his new friends.

"Sure wish the little bastard was here," Clint says under his breath.

The firing stops, much to the spies surprise. As the room clears out, and the quietness settles in, a deep and carnal fear starts to find it's way through the trio. "Anyone else have a really bad feeling about this?" Bucky asks to no one in particular.

"This isn't over yet," Nat says, cocking her guns with more rounds. "Of that you can be damn sure."

"We need backup," Clint whispers.