Oooh, a crossover? Steve Rogers and Eliot?
“Goddamn it, Hardison,” Eliot hisses when the robots descend from the sky.
“How is this my fault?” Hardison yells back. His voice is about ten octaves higher and he’s got a boatload of panic coming through. “Like I made the robots. Like I sent them to—blow up buses full of innocent people, oh my god. I think I’m going to pass out.”
Eliot tosses himself at Parker and Hardison, folding himself over them at the cafe table when a bot explodes nearby. “I told you New York was a bad idea!”
Eliot’s busy thinking about the best way to get them the fuck out of Dodge when Parker says, “We need to do something. People are getting hurt.”
"Goddamn it, Parker,” Eliot says, but it’s less exasperated and more resigned. When the dust settles, Eliot stands upright again and eyes the bots. They’re about the size of his head and there’s dozens of them zipping around the street. The police have arrived but aren’t making much headway, not against the lasers.
“Eliot, go deal with them,” Parker says. She looks around, a brief glance, and nods. “I’m going to get the civilians underground. Hardison—they’re computers right? Hack them. Shut them down. Go!”
She’s gone, after pressing quick kisses onto each of their cheeks. Hardison is still looking a bit shell-shocked, so Eliot takes his face in both hands and shakes him lightly. “Get yourself in the cafe freezer. Get this shit shut down.”
Hardison swallows and then nods. “Okay.” He kisses Eliot, fast and hard. “Be careful. Stay on comms.”
Eliot’s got himself armed with guns that some rookie NYPD officers dropped in their haste to run the fuck away from the laser bots. It’s not ideal, given how much he hates guns, but it’s not like he can take these things out with punches. He takes cover, aims, brings down as many as he can, and then moves to a new location.
It’s slow going. Almost as soon as he destroys a batch, a new one show ups. “Hardison, why aren’t these things shut down yet?”
“I’m working on it! They’ve got some complex algorithms running them.”
Eliot shoots another one down with his last bullet. “How long?”
Eliot closes his eyes. “Not a minute longer, you hear me?”
More bots show up and Eliot dives for an abandoned SWAT van. It only takes him a moment to duck inside and come out with more artillary, but during that time things have changed. Iron Man is zipping around, taking care of the bots up high. Thor is using his hammer to direct small lightning bolts with frightening accuracy. Eliot doesn’t see Hawkeye, but he damn well notices the arrows that take out a handful of bots in seconds.
And then there’s Captain America, who rolls to a landing not far from Eliot. “Get to safety, sir.”
Eliot cocks the shotgun in one hand with a practiced motion, and brandishes the grenade launcher with the other. “I can help. Just tell me where you want me.”
Captain America stares at him, eyes narrowed behind the mask, and Eliot doesn’t look away even as he takes out two bots with one blast of the shotgun.
“Iron Man has everything below a hundred and fifty feet,” Captain America says with a nod. “You cover up to fifty feet. I’ll take care of the next hundred. There’s a woman leading the civilians away, so they’re clear.”
“Ready when you are, Captain,” Eliot says.
Eliot ducks out from behind the open door of the SWAT van, shotgun and grenade launcher at the ready, and works back to back with Captain Fucking America. The Captain’s damn good with his shield, sending it up and up, making it ricochet off four and five places and take out as many as ten bots in one shot, before plucking it out of thin air again.
Eliot is less efficient objectively, but as efficient as possible relatively speaking. He takes careful aim, hits a sing drone over the center of the street with a grenade, and takes out a cluster of fifteen at once, but mostly he’s getting two or three at a time with the shotgun.
At the five minute mark, Eliot takes a split second in the midst of reloading to tap his comm. on. “Still on schedule?” he asks Hardison.
There’s no answer, even when he repeats the question. Parker doesn’t answer, either, when he addresses her. That’s not good, but Eliot can’t go track them down. There are too many bots, boxing him and Captain America in, and he’s trying like Hell to keep them away from the cafe and the subway entrance Parker was shoving people at a few minutes ago.
Eliot tries to clear a path while his brain ticks down seconds and minutes like a stopwatch. His mental clock is at twelve minutes when there’s a high pitched screeching noise and the bots drop from the sky without warning.
Eliot drops the shotgun and launcher and punches at the air with both fists. “Yeah!”
He stands there, in between two parked cars, breathing heavily, and taps his comm. over and over. “Parker? Hardison? I swear to god, one of you better fucking answer me!”
He’s still muttering increasingly angry and panicked threats at both his partners when Captain America strides over, his mouth grimly downturned. “You need medical attention, son.”
Eliot stares at him and then follows his gaze. Oh. Eliot’s bleeding—kind of a lot—from a wound on his side. It could probably be because of the hunk of metal sticking out of him. Shit. He shakes his head at the Captain and toggles his comm. again. “God damn it, Hardison, answer me! Parker!”
The wound might be worse than Eliot was willing to admit, because one second he’s on the street ignoring the Captain’s insistence that he get medical treatment, while simultaneously poking at his ear bud, and the next he’s on a gurney with two paramedics hovering over him.
“Pull it out,” Eliot says. Or, tries to say. It comes out slurred and incomprehensible, which means the paramedics ignore him. Eliot is losing blood and possibly has a concussion from getting whacked in the head by a bot, but he still moves fast. Before even the Captain—hovering next to him—can react, Eliot has yanked the metal out of his side.
The paramedics freak. Eliot rolls his eyes. He knows it didn’t hit anything vital, just tore through muscle and missed his organs. His lifts a hand to his ear again. “Parker. Hardison. Someone answer me!”
Eliot gets into a fight with the paramedics then because one of them tries to run a line of painkillers into his arm and Eliot protests. Strongly. Captain America steps in and bars the paramedics with his arm.
“What do you need, soldier?” he asks.
Without even thinking, Eliot says, “For my damn comms. to work.” He pauses and considers the paramedics and his bloody side. “And to get stitched up.”
The Captain looks at him for a long moment, then taps his own comm. “Releast the comms. you blocked and intercepted.” He narrows his eyes. “Now.”
It takes a few seconds for Eliot’s comm. to kick in with a high pitched whine. Then Parker’s in his ear, saying, “—you hurt if you don’t give him back!” and Hardison’s saying, “—hack your damn company until it depreciates like a mofo!”
Eliot feels lightheaded from relief. “Hey. I’m here.”
“Do we need to break someone because—”
It’s in that odd kind of stereo that means Hardison and Parker are right up on each other. Eliot laughs. “It’s okay. Come out to the street. I’m at the ambulance.”
Eliot blacks out before answering again. When he wakes up, they’re on either side of the gurney, and Parker is ignoring something that Captain America is saying, and Hardison is glaring at Tony Stark, and Eliot’s side is stitched up.
He uses their hands to lever himself upright. “Let’s get out of here.”
A month later, Eliot goes out for a drink at some dive bar in Memphis, and he’s completely unsurprised when a tall, broad guy with a familiar jaw line takes the seat next to him.
“If you’re here with an offer to work for the government, the answer is no.”
Captain America looks about twelve years old when he’s grinning outside of the cowl. “I just wanted to see you and say thank you. Your friends caused quite the diversion and I didn’t get a chance to say thank you for the assist.”
Eliot tips his drink at the Captain in acknowledgment. “No problem.”
The bartender sets a beer in front the Captain. He lifts it and touches it to the rim of Eliot’s tumblr of bourbon. “Besides, I think you’re right where you need to be.” He drains his drink in one sip and then sets an envelope on the bar. “Natasha was on another assignment when we met. She said to tell you hello, and she thinks this might be helpful.”
Eliot sits up straight and gives Captain America a sharp salute. “Thank you, sir.”
The Captain nods and quirks a grin at Eliot. “I wrote a number on the back. Call if you need something.”
When Hardison and Parker show up five minutes after the Captain leaves, Eliot taps the unopened envelope on the bar. “Got our next target from the Black Book.”
“Not until you’re healed,” Parker says, snatching the envelope from him.
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