Man Out of Time - A Captain America / Avengers Fanfiction

Chapter 62

Chapter 62

"Blue Boys, this is the Hilltop," Maria Hills voice came over the comms unit. "You boys ready to bust down the door?"

"Roger, Hilltop," the state police SWAT team said. "Boys in blue are ready to swarm."

"PD, how are the evacuations going in the surrounding buildings?"

"We're slipping them out through the parking garage," the NYPD sergeant called. "All traffic in and out of West 40th has been rerouted."

"Make sure no pedestrians get through," Maria Hill called. "Undercover PD only. I don't care what their excuse is. Keep them out of there."

"We got the DPW here spraying water all over the place," NYPD called. "It looks pretty convincing."

"Blue Boys," Maria Hill called. "NYPD is ready to roll. Iron Man? You ready to rock and roll?"

"Just tell me when to land, Hilltop." Tony Stark's voice came over the comms unit. "I've got a line of sight from a rooftop on 38th Street."

"Hawkeye?" Maria Hill called.

"Got a birds-eye view into the penthouse from building 41," Hawkeye called. "Snipers in position on 39, 42, 38."

"God of Thunder?" Maria Hill called.

"The men of water have loaned me a most unattractive orange suit to place over my armor," Thor complained. "They say I must bind back my hair. Is it a punishment, to require such attire for your waterbearers?"

It was an almost hysterical laugh which escaped Steve's throat. He just wanted to smash down the front doors of the American Radiator Building and find his wife. But he wasn't in charge of this mission, too emotionally compromised to be an impartial leader. An action, no doubt, designed to undermine his normally cool-headed deliberation and entice him to lead his men into an ambush. He was glad Maria Hill had come back to take charge. Having herself been nearly killed by human drones during the attempt to assassinate Count Rugen, Hill wouldn't take any chances.

Steve looked down at his own ungodly yellow Department of Public Works uniform. A water main break. That was the scenario Maria Hill had dreamed up to cordon off the building and reduce the likelihood of civilian injuries. That way, if the building ended up being no more than the workplace of the man they were after, the Avengers wouldn't take unnecessary heat. It was funny how quickly the public forgot to be grateful when a subsequent mission to root out an alien threat turned out to be bad intelligence.

"Are you ready to go, Commander Rogers?" the head DPW guy asked.

The DPW workers coached the six SHIELD agents under his command. They were borrowing DPW uniforms and equipment to infiltrate the building. Thor was doing the same thing, only his group would be impersonating orange-clad electrical workers. As they geared up, the real DPW workers were fiddling with the electricity to create rolling brownouts to the other buildings so they had an excuse to evacuate them. The DPW was creating fake water main breaks so the police had an excuse to cordon off the streets. The goal was to reroute the pressure so they could redirect it to create a phenomenon called 'water hammer' which would cause the pipes within the American Radiator Building to shudder and moan every time a faucet was opened or toilet flushed. With a building built in 1924, some of the pipes might blow gaskets, adding to the special effects.

"How's your guy doing down in the tunnels?" Steve asked.

The DPW chief called into a small two-way radio clipped to his orange suspenders at his shoulder. A voice came from the other end. A DPW worker had crept into the basement through an access tunnel, a single SHIELD agent sent to act as a bodyguard. Sending in an entire unit would arouse too much attention, but they'd located a worker recently discharged from the military after three tours of duty in Afghanistan.