Give him back to me, or so help me god

Chapter 8: The Rescue

"Why would he need private security?" Sam asked. His arms were folded so tightly across his chest that it had to be hard to even draw in a breath. "He has an entire army at his fingertips."

"Perhaps it has finally dawned on him just who he has ruined." Bruce murmured from his place at the window. He, too, looked exhausted. Like every minute this went on was draining more and more from him. "And the kind of reach that he might have." All eyes fell of Tony again.

Another thud echoed through the hall as Clint's foot collided with the wall. The concrete cracked – just a little – and Steve suspected Clint's foot did as well if the grimace of pain that stretched across the man's face was anything to go off.

"He shouldn't bother either – if Pete's dead, Ross will be joining him."

The fear that had been steadily building in his chest – fear of loosing each and every one of them if this ended badly – bubbled over.

"Clint-"

"You can spew whatever platitudes you want, Cap. That is not up for debate." Clint shot across the room – his voice so hard that Steve was almost surprised it didn't leave a dent in the concrete wall beside him, just as his foot had. "If he has murdered a child – Tony's child – there is nothing on this goddamn planet that will save him."

Steve closed his eyes.

"We cannot kill the Secretary of Defence."

The words were barely a whisper. They were true. Killing Ross would end them. End all that they were trying to build – but it barely mattered, and Steve knew it.

Knew that his hands would be the first around the man's neck if they found a body.

"We won't." Clint argued. "Nobody will." He added smoothly, rising to a sitting position on the step, his eyes deepening. The knowledge that Natasha was not the only one among them to kill in cold-blood hit Steve like a slap. "Not technically."

"What-" Steve started – but there was no fight in his voice. Not really. He was cut off before he could even really pretend to argue against the idea.

Natasha voice was almost lulling – a murmur that spread across the room and settled in the chest of everyone who heard it.

"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

The weight of the words – and their meaning – was almost unbearable.

"Or, more accurately," Clint added, "if a body is dissolved so perfectly – with an assorted cocktail of hydrofluoric and sulphuric acids - in a titanium bathtub, was there even a murder?"

Steve knew he should argue. Should be the voice of reason – but reason had abandoned him when it had abandoned a child to drown. So Steve abandoned it.

Steve's eyes fell back down to the tablet.

"This is all that's left?" He asked, flipping through the picture again.

Rhodey, whose forehead had tilted forward to rest against the glass that separated him from Tony, answered without looking over.

"Yeah – the whole thing's split open like a 'banana-split' in a gun barrel."

"Jesus." Steve breathed as he swiped from one photo to the next. "What could do this?"

Vision – who had been silent and still in the very corner of the room for so long that Steve had almost forgotten he was there – answered.

"Wanda."

That was enough to drag even Rhodey's eyes away from the lab. Six pairs of eyes swivelled to met Vision's.