Child of Silence

And the Masks Falls Away

Chapter 18 "And the Mask Fades Away."

"Well that was a waste of time" Tony huffed as he removed his Iron Man suit allowing it to return to its case form.

"It wasn't a waste, Tony. We were able to arrest a lot of Mandarin operatives." Steve countered.

"But the leader got away. We didn't even get a good look at their face, it was all covered with a hood and they were surrounded armed guards." Tony griped. He had hoped that this was the final battle with Mandarin so he could go back to focusing on Harry and the Crazy Old Man out to get him.

"Rogers' is right though we didn't get the whole organization, but we did get some major players and a large stock of that 'Regeneration Serum'. I'm sure once we question them we'll find where the Leader is hiding out." Fury stated from his place at the War Table.

"That maybe good enough for you but it's not for me. He went after my son and traumatized him. I want this guy caught if not dead. My son already has a mad man after him he doesn't need to worry about this shit when he comes home next week." Tony snarled as stood opposite the SHIELD Director with the war table between them.

"Look Stark, I understand this is personal for you but we're all working hard to end this. You got to be patient even in the face of some failures." Nick stared at the Genius turned Father.

"He's right Tony. What happened today was no one's fault as they were better prepared than we expected. Plus there was just the three of us down in the raid with SHIELD as back up. It was supposed a simple take down but it went sideways and we were out manned and out gunned. We were lucky that there were only a few injuries on our side and that we were able to capture almost half of their forces." Steve tried to reason. He, Tony and Bucky went on the mission to take down the Mandarin Group and what they hoped was a small group turned out to be bigger and more protected than intel lead them to believe. Bruce had hung back at the tower because the Hulk would be more hindrance than help and Natasha and Clint were on there own mission half way around the world. So it was Three Avengers or none at all. Mandarin was waiting for them and had at least two hundred meta-humans ready for a fight.

"Whatever; what's a next move?" Tony conceded.

"We send out fresh faces to gather more intel and track down the rest of the group. Until then I suggest you go back to StarkTower and get ready for Harry's return. Oh and here you go, his semester grades were posted online and he got all 'A's'." Fury stated sliding a file over to the two Avengers.

"Wait, are you tell me that Harry is still taking his College courses along with his Magical school work?" Steve asked reading the file over Tony's shoulder.

"Yeah, Eye Patch, I thought he put those studies on hold." Tony scanned the file taking note of the six classes and the grades on all assignments were at eighty-five percent or higher.

"I was going to withdrawal him but he insisted not wanting to fall behind and wanting to catch up to Stark Standards." Fury shrugged. He knew the little wizard was pushing himself a bit hard but it wasn't his place to tell him that. He would leave it for the boy's parents.

"I swear if Howard is haunting my tower I'm going to kill his dead ass." Tony swore. This was exactly what he didn't want to happen when had children. He didn't want his father's quest for perfection be the sole focus of his kid's life. He wanted Harry to have fun and carefree life just being a child. It looks like Howard still got his way despite his effort to raise Harry differently.

"Tony, I doubt your dad's haunting anything, and even if he was he would have shown up long before now." Steve rolled his eyes. "When Harry gets home, we'll all have a talk with him about his study habits. Until then just be proud at what he has managed to accomplish while still at Magic school."