Duty (An Armorer/Paladin Story)

Interrogation techniques

Steve and Tony stood in the hall. "What do you want?" I ask expressionlessly.

"Can we come in?" Steve asks. I think about it.

"No," I decide. "I'm getting ready for bed. What do you want?"

"Tony has a confession to make," Steve says, taking Tony by the arm.

"What now?" I wonder. Tony scowls at both of us.

"The guys with the needles? That's on me. That was my idea," he snaps.

"But Fury ok'ed it," I stated, and Tony shook his head.

"No, he didn't know about it til after." We all look over as the door to the outside opens and Bucky slips through. He halts and takes in the tableau, lingering on my new robe.

"That's a good color on you," he says to me.

"Bucky," Steve remonstrates. "Now is not the time to flirt."

"What are you doing?"

Steve sighs, but Tony cuts in.  "Having a threesome, obviously." I roll my eyes.

"Feel free," I say, waving my hand at the hall. "I'll watch."

Bucky grins. His eyes travel the group again. "If you want to conduct an interrogation, a hallway is not the best place for it if you're after more than just a single answer and termination of the target," he tells me. I look at him with interest.

"I didn't think you did any interrogation, just assassination," I say, and he nods.

"I picked up a few things," he said.

Without warning, he slammed Tony into the wall, and Tony's eyes popped wide and rolled between Bucky and me. "Physical intimidation works best," he tells me.

"You can be intimidating. Plus you have that whole reputation," I say, depressed. Tony begins to wiggle. "That's my problem. Nobody's scared of me."

"If you had a weapon..." I reached into the pocket of the robe and took out the switchblade I'd made and carried everywhere. I flicked it open.

"Guys..." Tony's voice began to rise.

"Give it a shot," Bucky said approvingly. Steve just leaned against the wall, probably wondering how he got messed up in all of this. Bucky kept Tony pinned to the wall but moved aside for me. I studied Tony. He'd lost weight from his sickness too and hadn't bothered to shave yet.

I stepped up to him and twisted the knife in front of his face. "This is the same type of blade I made for Odin. Not the same style, obviously, he likes things all big and masculine, but the same metal and the same edge. He says it cuts the wind. It's an obvious exaggeration, but skin is a whole different matter. It even cuts mine." I let him take a good look as the light glints along the blade. "So why would you want to kidnap me? I'd already agreed to come work for the Avengers.  What was in that hypodermic?"  When Tony didn't answer immediately, I stroked his face with the blade.

"It was just a mild sedative, I swear. It was just so coincidental. Rogers just happens to stumble across you in the middle of the jungle, you just happen to make him his perfect shield,  Thor just happens to rescue you, you get in good with the ruling class, you host the Avengers reunion tour. You ingratiated yourself awfully fast, is all." I slit my eyes at him and switch cheeks. "After that lunch, I just wanted to make sure you didn't have an outside agenda. You'd have been questioned and taken back, I promise. But after that, Fury agreed with me that you needed to be checked out and we did an investigation. Didn't find anything, obviously, you're pretty boring," he babbled. I heard Steve sigh.