THINKING OUT LOUD || Avengers

-)Fourteen: Puns May Cause Mild Discomfort and Death(-

Captain America was so done with bullshit.

Specifically Tony Stark shaped bullshit.

Even more descriptively, bullshit shaped like a tiny man-child wrapped in aluminium, snark, a general lack of respect for whoever was supposedly in charge and armed with an eBook of puns.

Unfortunately, the perpetrator in question seemed to have no concept of his irritation at all.

"Hey guys! How do NASA organise a party? They planet."

Steve may have taken down the nearest assassin with slightly too much aggression, "Stark, coms are for if you have something helpful to say."

"And Super Serum is for GM tomatoes, but here you are."

Nat had an almost accusatory tone as she added, "This is all your fault, Barton."

"Why?" Clint had nestled himself in the metal beams above Steve's head, so the captain had no problem hearing him without the use of coms, "Puns are great. My kids love puns. Well, one of them does. One of them, sometimes. One time. But it was a great pun."

"If you tell the pun," Steve hissed through his teeth, "Your Nerf bow gets confiscated."

The building that Tony Stark had found was supposedly owned by a company called 'Midland Circle', although a quick background check had showed this particular business to be a front. A front for what, they weren't entirely sure, although the information Tony had decrypted pointed to it being HYDRA.

Tony had scanned the building and reported no occupants, which was part of the reason Steve was so pissed. Because, as evidenced by the battle they were currently waging against the force of stealth ninjas, there were freaking occupants.

So now they were working their way down a metallic corridor, facing off against these weird-ass, silent, no-pulse having ninjas. So that was fun.

"Shit!" Nat's voice broke through the com.

Steve spun to see her head kicked by a man with a red sash around his head. She immediately went down. Shoving the guy in front of him to the side, Steve vaulted a crate in an attempt to reach his friend faster as the ninja man raised what looked to be a samurai sword over her head.

But Steve needn't have bothered. Nat's legs were there, sweeping under the ninja man's knees and locking his sword arm between her ankles. She used the pull to propel her body into the air, landing on her feet and giving Mr Ninja a nasty throat punch.

As Mr Ninja grasped at his neck instinctively, Natasha Romanoff brought her knee up between his legs. The guy's eyes bulged. He fell to his knees. Nat kicked him in the head and sent him straight through the wall behind him with a gut-wrenching scream of metal.

It was only then that Steve reached her.

Nat looked up at him, wiped away the blood dripping from her mouth, and shrugged, "Oops."

They peered through the opening together. On the other side was a hole. No, it wasn't a hole at all, but a pit. A pit with no end. Maybe thirty feet wide. Even the noise of the man falling was mute. He didn't scream, and there was no noise of bone-crushing body on floor.

"Woah." The sound felt more like an acknowledgement than an expression of surprise as it left Steve's body. Here was this huge, consuming thing, and he hadn't known that it was here before, but now he did, and he felt like it deserved his respect. Even though it was just a hole in the floor.

Nat's voice was just as weak, "Yeah."

Steve raised a hand to his ear, "Hey, Tony, you busy?"

"You mean am I busy fighting the battle you just wandered away from to play tourist?" Stark sounded strained, "Not at all."