New Avengers Tower

[worthallthis]

The press meeting takes way too long. Then they're all taken to a hospital, because most of them are injured in some way. Then Mel takes them back to that stupid tower. Avengers Tower. Watchtower. New Avengers Tower. Nobody knows what they're calling it.

They get a tour, even though they're exhausted and grouchy, and even though half the tower is clearly in some state of construction and clearly not ready to be shown off. The labs are complete, hastily so, but none of them are going to be going anywhere near those. The rooftop bar is still in shambles, and none of them want to linger there. The kitchen and restaurant-like eating areas spiraled out around it seem intact, and well-stocked, at least.

They each have their own floor. Stark had originally made a whole floor for each of his superhero buddies, which hadn't really been renovated at all even in the multiple years the Avengers had been toast, so now they're the cleanest and least disturbed of the whole tower.

Bucky gets Steve's, Walker gets Thor's, Ava gets Clint's.

Yelena gets the one meant for Natasha. Of course.

And Bob gets Banner's, with its combination of calming decor and Hulk-proof walls.

Then they're left alone to "rest" with the promise that Mel and Valentina will be in touch over the next few days, which sounds more like a threat than anything else.

Comments

[musicdied]

"That's how we ended up in a pile on the ground," Yelena confirms. "It's not the story the news is running with, but no one actually knows who you are, and it probably is safest to keep it that way for now."

Given the way the last man who'd stayed in this room had been hunted for years, for more destructive but far less disquieting incidents...

[makingitworse]

"How can they not know?" Bob asks, surprised and a little worried. "Didn't they see my face?" Everyone has their phone cameras out as soon as anything weird happens, surely someone got video of it, a picture, something. Did he do it all from inside a building?

No, she'd mentioned a helicopter, so he must have been outside. Maybe on the balcony?

[musicdied]

"No," Yelena says quietly. "No one saw your face. You were the first person the darkness swallowed up. All anyone saw was a human-shaped shadow with glowing eyes."

The image from the video Bucky had pulled up is still seared into her mind. Seeing that slice of darkness in the shape of a man she'd wanted to save had been disturbing; seeing the void actually consume him before he stood up again had been so much worse.

[makingitworse]

"That sounds... either really creepy, or really cheesy," he says, trying to imagine it. It seems more cheesy than anything else in his own head, but he also knows he's probably not imagining it right, and he doubts he could think of himself as actually frightening in any capacity.

But either way, it's a relief, because if no one saw him, he can't be arrested. Valentina must know, if she's the one who... made him like this? And Mel. It would explain why they looked at him like they did.