The Seventh Avenger: Playing With Fire

Chapter 16: Retaliation

     "The absolute moron has lost his damn mind."

Despite the more than chaotic past several hours, Lydia can't help but let out a dry snort at the more than blunt comment that echoes from her phone on the king-sized bed in the guest room she's been staying in. Too preoccupied with folding clothes and packing her belongings back into the suitcase that she had pulled them from days prior, she had opted to put her call with Ava Quill on speaker so that she could talk and organise simultaneously.

Tony's threat to the Mandarin hadn't taken too long to circulate on every television station known to mankind, and the video taken outside of the hospital has already found its way online and taken the world by storm. He's on the news, he's trending on Twitter – and there are more than dozens of helicopters flying around the mansion at a distance that borderlines respectful, with the press wanting nothing more than to try and get the inside scoop to Tony's home.

All this attention is making Lydia nervous. If the Mandarin gets wind of this threat...

She packs faster at the thought.

The moment that Ava had seen the video for herself, she had called Lydia and demanded answers, which the blonde tiredly gave. Over the course of half an hour, she had explained the events of the past forty-eight hours to her friend – including Tony's first suggestion that they work together to find the Mandarin – and it's safe to say that the redhead is anything but impressed by the billionaire's latest antics.

"I mean, he's supposedly a genius –"

"Supposedly?"

"Fine, technically. He's technically a genius, but it's things like this that make me think otherwise. Seriously. What was he thinking?"

"I think he was thinking that someone he cared about was attacked and almost killed by this guy," Lydia says, not wanting to leave Tony entirely defenceless here. Ultimately, she hates what he did and she wishes that he had never responded to that idiot with the phone in the first place, but she understands why he did it. If their roles had been reversed and it was someone that she cared deeply about laying in the hospital bed with a strong possibility of never waking up, she knows that she would have reacted just as badly.

Still. He didn't have to threaten a terrorist for God's sake. Or reveal his home address to the entire world, leaving him, Pepper and even herself vulnerable to a possible attack. It was practically inviting the fox into the henhouse, which is why she needs to get herself and the other two out of there as soon as possible.

She lets out a sigh, flapping out one of her shirts with more force than necessary. "He's not in the right headspace at the moment, Aves. He's unpredictable at the best of times, but when he's got all this baggage weighing him down..."

"It's not pretty," Ava finishes for her. "Yeah. I got that and I love the guy – which stays between us, by the way."

"Of course."

"But he needs to step back and think about the consequences of his actions. He's not just putting himself in danger, but he's also putting targets on yours and Pepper's back as well. Especially if the Mandarin gets wind that you guys are trying to find him."

"I'm pretty sure that he's already figured that out," Lydia cautions, the memory of Tony's angry face and heated words flashing behind her eyes. If the Mandarin wasn't aware that the two avengers were searching for him beforehand, then he definitely knows now. Or, at the very least, that Tony is.