IRON MAN VERSUS THE WAR MACHINE
Author's note.
I have developed this story from several ideas I have seen in the Marvel Studio's films, several comics, fanfics I have read (and yes, I have permission, you will see disclaimers in any chapters that use something thats not mine) and TV shows such as Armoured Adventures, and Earth's Mightiest Heroes.
The Tony you see I have tried to copy from the films, but this story is using the very same actors from the films as well, so Robert Downey Jr as Tony, Don Cheadle as Rhodey, Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper and Samuel L/ Jackson as Nick Fury.
I feel I should explain some of the ideas that I put into this story to make it original and one of my own creations…but that would ruin the story, wouldn't it?
**DISCLAIMER #1**
Obviously, I dont own Iron Man...but it would be a perfect world if I did...or, y'know, WAS Iron Man...Everything Iron Man, Tony Stark, War Machine and Jimmy Rhodes is all owned by Stan Lee and the Marvel Comics genius.
Chapter 1, Pollution, 2005
Lieutenant James Rhodes ran across the sand, firing his machine gun as a group followed behind him. He drove behind the cover of a blown-out car, and checked his gun.
"Damnit!" He yelled when he realised he was out of ammo. He tossed the gun uselessly to the side.
"Sir? Should we be leaving Stark weapons layin' around like that?" A Texan guy asked him, firing over the side of the car.
"No," Rhodey muttered, and looked up into the sky.
The Texan looked up and saw a large cargo plane flying overhead, quite low, with gunners on the wings firing down at the men they couldn't reach.
"Is…is that it, sir?" the Texan asked.
Rhodey looked at the Texan with a glint in his eye. He picked out an ear piece from a pocket on his uniform and slid it onto his ear.
"You took your time, Tony, but it's perfect," he said.
On the plane, Tony Stark was typing away at a computer, initialising the run program for the package. He smirked slightly at his best friends words and shook his head.
"You do know that the US Army likes to be dramatic." Stark pointed out, and finalised the run program. He sat back in the chair, which was bolted to the floor. "Try not to break this one."
"If you hurried up with those upgrades then you wouldn't have to keep fixing it, Tony," Rhodey said, "Just drop the thing already!" he yelled as a barrage of gunfire hit the car.
Tony rolled his eyes and got up. He went to the box near the rear door of the cargo plan, hanging onto a rope that hung from the roof of the plane. "It's got a minor systems upgrade from last time, the targeting system is more accurate…sorry about that," Tony said with another smirk.
"…Are you smirking?" Rhodey asked.
Tony's smirk faltered slightly, "No." he lied and pulled the lever that dropped the large metal box out of the plane, crashing down to the desert floor.
Rhodey pulled the earpiece out, not even thanking his best friend as the plane flew away. He got up and yelled to his troops to cover him as he made his way to the box.
"Access code." J.A.R.V.I.S.' voice said.
"Eighteen, nine, thirty-one, B-B-I-T-H." Rhodey yelled over the noise of an explosion.
There was a loud hiss and as the airtight box was opened, and a loud sucking noise as air rushed in, and the lid slid back in two halves.
A few moments later the War Machine climbed out of the box and was immediately hit was a wall of machine gun fire. The armour whirred as he turned and the large minigun on his shoulder started to whirl quickly, a constant buzz droning as it did so, before bullet shells began dropping across the metal armour beneath the gun and into the sand.
Iraqi insurgents yelled out as bullets tore through their legs while they tried to run.
"Okay, Rhodey, back it off!" Tony's voice came through the audio link. Back on the plane, Tony had a multi-screen interface set up with what Rhodey could see on the main screen, Rhodey's face on the screen to his right, with Rhodey's vital signs above that. On the screen to his left showed the suit's composition and vital signs, which would show damaged sections, giving Tony a detailed overview of the damage, and the screen above that showed a constantly-updating map of the battle-zone.
"Why?" Rhodey asked, his voice had turned slightly dark now. The heads-up-display showed the Iraqi residents in red; some cowering behind walls and burnout cars, others writhing around in the dirt clutching their bloody legs. "They're scum, Tony, they deserve this," Rhodey continued, walking towards the terrorists.
"Listen t' me, Rhodes," said a new voice, General Nicholas Fury, "If you don't stand down right now, I'm goin' to strip you of your rank and have you cleanin' out toilets back in boot camp quicker than you can blink."
Rhodey grimaced, "Yes, sir," he grumbled and the helmet slid back, "Congratulations," he said to the groaning enemies.
He then looked up when he heard engines and saw several H1 Hummers driving away.
"General, multiple targets fleeing to the west," Rhodey said, "Permission to follow?"
There was a pause, in which Rhodey's heads-up-display zoomed in to see the Hummers driving away.
"Okay Rhodes, no funny business." Fury's voice said after a few more seconds.
Rhodey didn't hesitate, and proceeded to turn, and bark orders at his troops to tie up the injured Iraqi's and call for collection, before taking off into the air after the Hummers. He pinpointed each of the 3 trucks as they drove across the desert, and highlighted them in red on his HUD.
"Tony, are the mini-missile's online yet?"
"5 more minutes boss," Tony's voice responded.
Rhodey cursed silently.
"Good." Came Fury's voice faintly, then more loudly, "I told you Rhodes, no kills. S.H.I.E.L.D. has questions."
Rhodey rolled his eyes and began a steady dive, calculating the stopping time and location of the hummers, and where he should land.
He thudded into the ground and looked up, the eyes on the mask glowed slightly red as he stared through the sand at the Hummers as the occupants yelled and slid across the sand to a halt.
Rhodey straightened and lifted his hands, aiming the repulsors at the wheels, and firing off a few quick bursts, immobilising each Hummer in turn. There were several yells and bullets started to thud into the War Machine, so hard that Rhodey had to take a few steps back.
"What the hell, Tony?" he asked.
"Two seconds," Tony said and Rhodey could hear him thudding down keys on the keyboard, "Can you get closer to their guns? I need to see a make or model,"
Rhodey gritted his teeth, "Not a chance, these bullets are like getting hit with the rubber practice bullets in the barracks."
"They'll have to reload soonLieutenant", Tony retorted.
He had a point.
Rhodey lifted his arms to protect his helmet and grunted with each hit, then felt a tear as a bullet impacted near his stomach, but luckily didn't injure him.
He tried moving forward but there was a yell, and a couple of the terrorists started to run as Rhodey jumped towards them, but was thrown backwards by a large explosion. He rolled backwards in the dirt, and came to a rest facing the sky.
There was a loud buzzing in his ears and his eyes couldn't focus. His arms and legs felt heavy and he realised the War Machine armor's power source had failed.
The HUD crackled back to life and he could faintly hear Tony in his ears.
Back on the US soil, Fury was yelling at Rhodey, asking him a lot of rhetorical questions, and Rhodey was just watching Fury's feet as he walked back and forth.
"What did you think you were doing?" Fury asked, "Do you think you're judge, jury and executioner when you put on that suit?"
Rhodey looked up briefly, "I thought our job was to neutralise any threat against the USA?"
"You did that by getting them to the ground," Fury told him, "You were about to kill them!"
Rhodey flashed him a dark look, "Cleaning toilets back in boot camp seems better than this, maybe I should have killed them." He muttered.
Fury blinked, and shook his head.
"You're being given a warning, it's going on your record. You've got one more chance." Fury told Rhodey. "You're dismissed."
Rhodey gave him a half-hearted salute and went back to his room.
In a hanger, Tony was sitting inside the War Machine armour, fixing some broken wires in the joints over the stomach, where some bullets had punctured between them and ripped the wires.
"Stark." Fury's voice came from the doorway.
Tony looked up, but then straight back down and carried on with his work. "What, General?"
"I'm just wondering when you're going to supply us with those much-needed upgrades that the War Machine project needs."
Without looking up Tony replied, "I'm just a civilian contractor for you Nick, I have a company to run."
"I do believe that the US Army is Stark Global's highest source of income." Fury replied, "And it's General Fury, to you."
Tony gave Fury an empathetic look, "I'm busy fixing the suit, I need to be fixed before I can upgrade it…" he trailed off.
"But?"
"I left the upgrades at home." Tony said, flicking down a lens on his headgear and zooming in to look at the frayed wires.
Fury's lip curled but he simply chewed it, then turned around and left. Tony stopped working and looked up at the door. Something was up with Rhodey, he'd never seen his friend like that.
Tony initialised the start-up sequence on the War Machine armour again, with Rhodey inside it this time. He was feeling apprehensive towards Rhodey's continued use of the suit, but was under orders from S.H.I.E.L.D. to help with the suit, until he could train someone else.
"Feeling hot?" Tony asked Rhodey as the suit locked into place, bolts tightening and panels sliding into place.
"Like I could take on the world," Rhodey replied, before the helmet slid into place around his head and locked shut, but the faceplate remained open.
"Locked and loaded," Tony said. He hated that saying. "Good luck, friend," he added.
Rhodey saluted him and Tony turned back to the computer, typing quickly across 3 keyboards.
Fury stepped forward from behind Rhodey and cleared his throat.
"From the intel we managed to get from the guys you tore in half," he began, "We found several sights in a disused industrial yard in downtown Basra. Most seem to be centred around an abandoned auto factory, which has started emitting polluted gases." Fury said, as Tony brought up a map onto the screen. "We believe that the terrorist cell the Ten Rings is operating out of the industrial estate and the locations we got from the half-a-terrorists are outposts."
Fury didn't see it, but when he mentioned the Ten Rings, Tony flinched and his hand went to his chest, but as quick as a blink, he was back to typing.
Rhodey nodded, "So I'm to go in and get the bad guy, right?" he asked.
Now Fury nodded, "No funny business. I'll be watching you."
Once he was in the air, Rhodey opened a secure line to Tony.
"How you doing, Tony?" he asked, he'd seen his friend flinch.
"I'm fine, Rhodey, just…"
"Just what?" Rhodey prompted.
"I wish it was me, going up against the Ten Rings," Tony said, glancing down at the glowing chest plate under his shirt.
Tony sat back, watching the screens for Rhodey's reaction.
"You know it's really weird when you do that." Rhodey said, changing the subject.
Tony smirked, "You're coming up on them already, take it lower. We'll have to keep quiet if you don't wanna get caught," he said. "Good luck."
Rhodey nodded a little, to be honest, he preferred silence. He piloted the armour down and under the radar, picking up speed as he came down, so a trail of dirt flew along behind him.
"Target lock." J.A.R.V.I.S.' voice said.
"What! How!" Rhodey said before the missile impacted, launching Rhodey off of his path and into the side of a soda factory, bouncing off the ground repeatedly before puncturing the side of a rusting soda chamber, still full of soda, which had long since gone off and stank to high-heaven.
Rhodey activated thermal vision, and through the luke-warm soda he was now surrounded in, could faintly make our bright red blobs coming towards him.
"Total systems failure in T-minus 20 seconds." J.A.R.V.I.S. said.
Rhodey brought up his hands and fired at the wall in front of him, a few hundred gallons of decade old soda and a 195 pound guy in a 2 tonne suit of armour came crashing out of the soda.
"Drain the suit of all unneeded liquids," Rhodey said as he blasted into the air and readied his repulsors, "Activate external speakers."
There was a buzzing and the suit began to leak as it pushed out the soda.
"Stand down!" Rhodey's voice was amplified by the suit, and translated into Iraqi.
All of the Iraqi's yelled in their native language and Rhodey rolled his eyes, fired a shot at each of them, which Tony had pre-set to stun.
Rhodey broke through the roof and looked around.
"15 target's picked up. 8 anti-air launcher signatures picked up and several vehicle traces. J.A.R.V.I.S. informed him.
"Great, where should we start?" Rhodey asked, but their targets had already been locked on him. "Time to go." He said and took off high into the sky to evade the missiles.
"5 targeting missiles locked onto the War Machine armour. Suggest activating flares and taking out anti-air turrets."
"I'll get right on that J.A.R.V.I.S." Rhodey snapped and followed J.A.R.V.I.S.' orders, and dropped back past the missiles, which all exploded in the air.
Rhodey guided himself down, lazily, as if he'd been hit by the missiles. It seemed to fool the Ten Rings, and he managed to land on a tank, destroying it.
"That hurt," he grunted.
Back on the S.H.I.E.L.D. Hellicarier, Tony frowned as the damage readings for War Machine updated.
"Hey, take it easy," he told Rhodey, sounding rather agitated.
"Listen Tony, when you're staring down the barrel of several anti-aircraft turrets,thenyou can tell me what to do!" Rhodey snapped angrily.
Tony frowned and started to run the remote-repair program and parts of the armour which can be damaged started to click back into place.
Rhodey lifted the tank and hurled it at the anti-air turret near to him, causing that to roll and hit the other.
"3 down." Rhodey checked them off and turned to the others. He launched some flares and dove out of the way of two more missles. "Missiles!" he yelled and launced two tiny ones at the next two launchers. "Tony, I need a clear path to the factory!" he said.
He could hear Tony clicking some keys and suddenly a map appeared on his HUD, with a throbbing red line to the factory. "I love you, man."
"Keep it clean," Fury's voice snapped.
Rhodey took off, rolling through the air and towards the factory.
Inside the factory, it was empty. There were traces of vehicle fumes left in the air, but anything Rhodey was sent for, was long gone.
