Rhodey climbed gratefully out of his armor, allowing the heavy metal shell to go into stasis mode as he limped over to the common room couch and collapsed onto it in heap with a slightly inappropriate groan of relief.
"Very nice," said an amused Wanda from halfway across the room, sitting alone with an iced tea glass pressed against her flushed cheek, bringing relief to her burning skin.
Rhodey barely responded, just flapped an arm in the air in her general direction.
They were both breathing quickly and deeply, grateful to actually be allowed the chance to fill their lungs.
Even Vision, left without their physical ailments, seemed immensely relieved to be back inside instead of on the base grounds working out.
Well.
'Working out' was a bit tame. 'Being put through hell' seemed slightly more accurate.
It wasn't often that the newest Avenger recruits were left with only one 'instructor' – if they could be called that – to train them, but a rumored Winter Soldier sighting had dragged both Steve and Sam away to check it out, leaving the remaining trio at Natasha's mercy.
And the Black Widow showed no mercy, not even to her drained and heat-exhausted allies.
"She is mad," murmured a distraught Wanda, glaring out the windows to see their glorified teacher going through the training course she had set up herself earlier that day. The redhead hadn't even broken a sweat. "Insane. She cannot expect us to keep up this sort of regiment the entire time Falcon and the Captain are gone. We won't survive-"
"Which is ridiculous," groaned Rhodey, attempting to sit up while his sore muscles quivered like jelly, "She's the normal human here. How the hell is she still standing?"
"Agent Romanoff has shown feats of amazing physical prowess before, Colonel Rhodes, but I must agree. Her levels of strength and endurance almost appear superhuman," agreed Vision, and hell, when Vision agreed that the woman was too unreal, then it had to be true.
With a relieved sigh, Rhodey sank into the cushions, carelessly groping about for the remote as Wanda relaxed not far from him, cold glass pressed to her forehead and hair threatening to come out of the ponytail she'd put it up in. Vision didn't sit, but he hovered nearby, cape noticeably absent and face perhaps even redder than usual; though, that probably had more to do with the sight Wanda made than physical exertion. Rhodey tried not to snicker at the thought, but he did make a satisfied 'Ah-ha!' sound when his hand grasped the remote.
He turned the television on and began flipping through channels, letting his mind numb with the mundane task and feeling himself begin to fall towards sleep as the comforting hum of noise filled his ears.
Of course, because the universe just loved to hate him, it was just as he was going to lala-land when it happened.
The speakers played the familiar jingle of a special news bulletin and a harried reporter's voice spoke.
"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to this special report. If you're just joining us, an explosion at Cross Technological Enterprises has brought with it the tragic information of over a dozen deaths of employee and passerby alike. While the source of the explosion has not yet been found-"
Rhodey's eyes snapped open, and he struggled to make his way into a sitting position.
A pair of friendly hands helped him up, and he spared Vision a grateful glance before refocusing on the screen with a fierce intensity.
Wanda, having let the glass drop from her head at the announcement, looked over at her teammate. "Trouble?" she asked, eyes darting to the TV curiously.
"Most likely," Rhodey muttered, eyes narrowing as an image of a building with smoke pouring out of the entrance was shone with terrified civilians fleeing from the scene. "Cross Technological Enterprises isn't much for weaponry, but they dabbled. They weren't one of the big competitors, not quite up there with Stark and Hammer, but one of the more noteworthy names. Tony always had a bad feeling about their CEO Darren, but so far all of their experiments have been legal and government sanctioned. I don't know, it was probably an accident-"
He was cut off by another series of explosions ripping across the building, the on-scene firefighters and policemen ducking and drawing backward and the news cameraman nearly dropping his cargo as he retreated from the fire's intense heat.
Rhodey clambered to his feet. "It doesn't matter if it was an accident or not; people might still be trapped inside. That's only fifteen minutes away by quinjet; let's suit up!"
He stepped back into his suit, letting it close around him with a click. Wanda set her glass down and stood, eyes already shining red. Vision let his cape grow out without a word.
"I shall fetch Agent Romanoff," offered Vision.
"Fetch me for what?" asked a barely winded Natasha as she finally appeared in the entrance, eyebrow raised at the group's battle readiness.
"Explosion at Cross Tech. Some civilians were caught in the blaze. May I carry you, Natasha?" offered Wanda, holding her arms out invitingly, a slightly devious smirk on her face.
The Black Widow cast her pupil a suspicious glance, not at all fooled. "I'll have Vision take me, thanks. The jets are all pretty useless when all of you can fly; let's go!"
Wanda pouted a bit, but Rhodey didn't stick around to poke fun at her this time; there were people to save.
Sixteen minutes later, Rhodey was staring in bafflement at the large crowd of frightened but alive Cross Tech employees as they milled around the fire trucks and ambulances, being treated for smoke inhalation and minor burns, but for the most part completely fine.
Behind them, the Cross Tech facility was totally trashed, and not because of the fire; the place was demolished, walls flattened, gaping holes in the rubble, cracks running all across the pavement where something heavy had impacted with the ground.
If he'd been asked, Rhodey would've said the Hulk had been here throwing a fit instead of an explosion going off; it certainly looked like his sort of destruction.
As he landed on the scene, reporters – who had, of course, gotten closer to the inflamed building instead of running away from it once they saw the Avengers heading toward it – immediately swarmed him, cameras flashing and microphones being shoved into his faceplate.
"Could you please step back?" he asked, silently baffled at how Tony could live with this twenty-four/seven. "We'll find any other survivors, but we need-"
"Sir! Could we get any word on the mysterious giant-man?"
"When did the Avengers gain such an ally, and where?!"
"Is the giant-man another alien species newly arrived on Earth? A science experiment gone wrong?"
"Is there any way we could get an interview with the Giant-Man?"
'Giant-Man?' Rhodey thought dumbly.
He managed to fight his way through the vultures, nearly tripping over his own heavy steel toes in his haste to escape, and quickly clunked over to stand side-by-side with Black Widow who stood before the building's remains, expressionless. No reporter quite had the balls to question her, so Rhodey gained a reprieve as he pulled up beside her.
"Having fun?" she asked, clearly amused though her tone was deadpan.
She was watching Scarlet Witch and Vision work on scanning through the rubble, trying to weed out any remaining trapped survivors.
"Loads. What 'Giant-Man' are they talking about?"
"No idea. One of the firefighters said the second explosion just started going off when some humongous guy as tall as the Avengers Tower just appeared and started breaking the building apart, fishing the employees out. He saved nearly a hundred people and just… disappeared."
"What? How does a man that huge just disappear?" asked Rhodey, immediately skeptical.
Natasha shrugged. "No clue. It just… happened."
"Ma'am?"
Both heroes turned toward the timid voice. A taller man, sporting a camera bag and a flipped open laptop, offered the device to Natasha. "The footage you asked for," he explained needlessly.
Natasha clicked play, and both she and Rhodey watched in silence as the second series of explosions went off. Rhodey couldn't quite contain an impressed whistle as the Giant-Man – and hell he was a giant – appeared out of literally nowhere and began digging people out, immune or ignorant to the scorching flames burning all around him.
The guy was wearing a red spandex-looking suit with a shiny metal helmet, and he moved clumsily, like a toddler still getting used to its now fully-functioning limbs. There were several moments where the man very nearly crushed a firetruck or kicked an M.E. as he carried the people to safety, cradling them in on hand like a bug and setting them carefully to the side.
"Who is the new one?" asked Wanda as she landed nearby, a reluctantly impressed look on her face as she watched the footage too.
"No idea. He's not one of Stark's, is he?" asked Natasha, looking over her shoulder at Vision as he set down.
"Not to my knowledge, Agent Romanoff, and if he is then Mr. Stark hid him rather well. Either way, Mr. Stark's expertise lies with mechanics, not chemical engineering such as this."
"Wait, you're saying this is chemicals?" asked a confused Rhodey, pointing in disbelief at the Giant-Man. "You sure this isn't some sort of… growth ray?"
All three of his teammates gave him a blank look, making him grateful they couldn't see the embarrassed flush in his cheeks.
"No sir. It appears to be the work of some sort of chemical, distributed throughout the poor man's body through these," explained Vision, pointing at a video close-up of the suit, where thin, barely perceptible tubes of some sort ran underneath the material.
"Was there any sign of a guy wearing a weirdo outfit like this after the giant guy disappeared?" Natasha asked the cameraman, who grew flustered rather quickly.
"No, ma'am, he just-"
"Shrank," finished Wanda triumphantly, rewinding the last bit of the clip, where the Giant-Man seemed to vanish; slowing the video down showed the man's afterimage as his body began to descend, growing smaller and smaller with every frame until he seemingly vanished into thin air.
All four Avengers and the cameraman blinked soundlessly at the clip as it played back again, showing the anonymous hero's escape.
"What the hell," Rhodey deadpanned.
"Fascinating," murmured Vision.
"Who the hell is this guy?" muttered Wanda.
"That," said Natasha, slamming the laptop closed and shoving it into the camera guy's clumsy arms, "Is what we're going to find out."
A/N: I haven't seen Ant-Man yet, but I can already guess that there's no Giant-Man scene in it. However, this is fanfiction and therefore anything is possible, eyyy!
~Persephone