Shadowplay | Tony Stark

TWENTY FIVE - AN ALLIANCE

"Move another inch and I'll blow your head off."

Tony spun round with his palm raised at the sudden sound of footsteps echoing across the desolate cement walls and floors, any noise being impossible to conceal.

The face he was met with as his eyes locked onto the man stood just five feet away from him, however, was not one that he was expecting. He didn't recognise the stealthy gentleman at first, though his mind traced back as quickly as it could after knowing he recognised those eyes from somewhere.

"It's cool, I-I won't, I swear."

Standing with his hands raised and blue eyes wide with a swallowed sense of fear at his life being in the hands of Iron Man, Joss Miller inhaled a shaky breath and kept his feet planted firmly on the ground.

"Hold on a second," Tony said, retracting his helmet to lock eyes with him, "I know you. You're the sheriff."

Joss nodded once, feeling tense at the strength of Tony Stark's heavily narrowed gaze and clenched jaw, intimidation clear in his face.

"Yeah, the one you knocked out on Mila's porch. That one."

Tony remained silent for a moment, his palm still raised in the direction of Joss' chest without the intention of lowering it anytime soon, his instincts not trusting the officer in the slightest.

"I remember. What the hell are you doing down here?"

Joss let out a sigh, letting his hands drop to his sides slowly. He had a gun in his holster that Tony kept a firm eye on, making sure that his fingers didn't so much as flinch in the direction of the weapon.

"I want to find out what's going on in my town. I want to make it safe again, for everyone. I got caught up on the wrong side of things, I know that now. I just want to make things right."

There was a humble sincerity in Joss' tone of voice and in his pale eyes, something that would've made any normal person believe every word he said. Tony, however, was far too smart to start to believe a man that once upon a time was part of an organisation that wanted to wipe out an entire town.

"And I'm supposed to believe you? You know your sheriff's department would've locked Mila away in a cell and thrown away the key once they got their hands on her, right? Tortured her for information and used her son as leverage? You're aware of all of this?"

Tony and the Avengers knew exactly what had been going on in the small town just outside of Chicago, finding out everything they needed to know from the information they'd successfully retrieved on their last raid of the police HQ.

And although all of the officers discovered to be working for HYDRA had since been remanded by SHIELD, the ordeal was far from over. There were nests of HYDRA agents and sympathisers all across the country, making it impossible and incredibly naïve to think that the town was now safe just because some arrests had been made.

"I wouldn't have let that happen," Joss shook his head, "I would never have put them in harms way, I would never-"

"Well you did. You knew damn well that HYDRA knew about me staying at their home and you knew that they were - and maybe still are - planning to overrun this town and everyone in it."

Tony was growing angrier by the second, his own words forcing his blood to boil hotter and heart to beat faster, a surge of aggression pulsating through his veins at the thought of any harm coming to Mila and Tristan.

"No, it wasn't like that. I worked with them, for them, but I knew nothing. I did what I was told, but I never had any questions answered and I never got told that was actually going on. It was only once all the arrests were made and the news broke that I found out it was HYDRA. If I'd have known about it, about any of it, I would never have been involved, I swear."