Author's Note: And here, we divert from canon to introduce an A:AA universe enemy, since Gene isn't fighting the Tong/Mandarin/Maggia etc. Also, things go wrong. But that's a given in the super hero world.
Well, if the episode starts with one of our heroes getting shot through the chest with a shotgun, that's probably a good indicator of how the story's gonna go. – A TV Tropes editor, in reference to an episode of Supernatural.
No good deed goes unpunished! No act of charity goes unresented! No good deed goes unpunished, that's my new creed! – Elphaba, from the musical Wicked
Gene's legs were killing him.
He wasn't sure if he meant that literally or not as he collapsed onto his bed, the telltale white light of teleportation fading behind him. Pulling down his face mask so he could breathe, he lay flat on his back gasping for air for several long, agonizing minutes as the pain worked its way out of his system, his legs shaking uncontrollably underneath him. His white gloved hands clutched the sheets to keep him from screaming as he lay there burning with fever and immobile with pain. Whoever had decided to put a hood on this outfit was completely insane; he could feel sweat drenching his undershirt – and why, he thought through the dull haze of agony, was there layers on this thing? He struggled to remember how to recall the power back into the Rings, and once he managed it the force of the strength retreating from his body made him collapse entirely. He blacked out for a few seconds, awaking to a spinning room and a headache.
"I hate lasers," he muttered to himself. "And I hate psitanium. Energy sucking nightmare fuel…"
His grumbling was interrupted by Rhodey bursting in via the front door. The Mongolian boy heard his footsteps, followed quickly by his voice. "Gene? Gene, tell me you're here. You weren't at school all day, I was worried, tell me you're-"
"In our room!" Gene yelled at him, to get him to stop panicking. He looked at the wall clock. It turned out what he thought had been several minutes had been hours; he must've passed out without realizing it. Oh, great, just great, he scowled as Rhodey threw open the door, looking terrified. "Calm down, Mommy dearest, I'm okay."
Rhodey looked him over. Gene was sweaty, pale, his legs were shaking, and he had a nasty bruise forming on his forehead, though Rhodey couldn't see underneath the boy's messy hair. "You're not fine. You look like you got hit by a truck."
"Love you too, Rhodes," he shot back dryly. "Where's Tony?"
"In his lab, for right now," Rhodey explained, shifting uneasily. "I don't think he realized that was you we saw on TV. No one at school did, actually, although I'm pretty sure Pepper has founded the Altanbaatar fan club by now."
Gene scrunched up his nose at the thought. Sitting up, he was unable to hide the involuntary flinch at the pain still in his stiff muscles. Teleporting meant a lot of rough impacts and his muscles still hadn't gotten used to not being able to bend at the knees for that. They might never be strong enough for this. Human beings weren't meant to walk that way. Gene met Rhodey's worried gaze and fought the urge to groan. Normally Rhodey would be yelling at him for skipping school. That he wasn't meant he was in full on maternal mode, and though Gene knew he meant well, some part of him resented being taken care of and pitied. Since when was Rhodey Gene's mom when Tony was so much more interesting? No one ever chose to spend time with the normal Stark sibling when the genius was around. Then again, Tony was hidden away in his nerd hole. No rescue in the form of his bumbling brother was forthcoming.
"So," Gene sighed, "Give me the lecture on how I screwed up. It's what you do best, Tony can attest to that, and I'm sure you've got a good speech on the reasons why I suck ready for delivery."
"Actually, you were pretty good out there today. Skipping school is a really bad idea because my mom will have a fit if she finds out, but…" Rhodey looked at him thoughtfully. "You saved a lot of people's lives out there today. Your dad would be really proud."
The Mongolian stared at him, looking genuinely moved. "Rhodey…" He shook his head slightly, clearing away his more emotional thoughts. "There were people down there. Psitanium is toxic and that red guy didn't seem to care who got exposed to it. I couldn't let him hurt anyone. Even if that meant rushing in without even a half assed plan behind me and no clue what my own powers were," he added, a note of self deprecation in his voice. "Did it at least look like I knew what I was doing out there?"
"Since we couldn't see your face under that thing, yeah, actually." Rhodey gave him a solemn look. "I just don't understand the outfit change."
"The Rings did it. We talked. Kind of." Rubbing the back of his neck, a habit Howard Stark had passed on to both his children, Gene sighed. "And now I sound schizophrenic."
"Worthy child, do not speak ill of yourself. It is most unbecoming and unearned."
"Oh my God, I am schizophrenic," he groaned, standing. "Well, this has been a fun year, hasn't it? Maybe next I can find out the Hulk is my father and your dad's a drug dealer, because those are the only two ways my life could get any weirder."
"Enbish, don't you think we owe the boy an explanation? You can't just intrude on people's conversations like this. It's rude." The second voice seemed, Gene thought, to be coming from the green ring Howard had found. "Child of Narangerel, I am Terbish, part of the clan Khan."
"My Rings are talking to me," Gene said, looking horrified. He gave the black boy a solemn look, even through the rising panic in his mind. "Rhodes, I've gone crazy. Take the Rings and make sure I don't do anything psychotic and destructive with them, okay? You're the only one I can trust with this, so promise me you won't use these to cut class or anything else Tony and I would use them for-"
"Temugin! You are not going crazy, we're right here!"The purple Ring flashed powerfully as Gene froze in the middle of taking it off. He looked at Rhodey and mouthed, 'did you see that?' to which Rhodey nodded. "We are the guardians of the Rings you now possess. We are the judges of who is worthy and who is not. We-"
"Are over dramatic and full of ourselves," Terbish finished dryly. Gene chuckled at the green Ring. "We are, however, indeed the judges of how much power you have access to from the Makluan Rings. Since your intentions are to stop the man who puts so many lives in danger, we granted you the form of the protector. It is yours to use so long as you keep your intents pure and your heart free from corruption."
Rhodey stared at the suddenly silent Mongolian boy. "What are they saying?"
"As long as I'm not evil I get to keep the cool clothes and the power. They're just here to pull the plug on me if I go all Johnny the Homicidal Maniac on you." Stretching, Gene shook his head slightly. "Worst job ever if you ask me, but I guess somebody has to do it. Even if it makes me look like a raving lunatic from now on."
"Gene?" Rhodey gently took his arm as the boy swayed on his feet. "You feeling okay?"
"I got my butt handed to me by a man with dual laser blasters and my jewelry is talking to me. I'm as okay as I can possibly be under these circumstances, Rhodes." Gene snorted at the mental image. "I think there's a me-shaped hole in the bakery by the park. We should totally go check that out tomorrow before they fix it."
And to his amusement, both Enbish and Rhodey groaned.
Voices were in his head.
Life, Gene was learning, was a series of things going wrong. Now his last ounce of privacy had been handed over to two people who resided inside Rings. His mother was right when she said life was never dull, but he was rapidly beginning to miss the days where his biggest issue was finding his missing socks. Presently it was seven in the morning and he was having a mental conversation that was steadily making him more and more convinced he'd never be normal again as long he lived. The clan Khan was not a very mentally stable one, not if these two were any indication. As he got dressed they gave him something akin to a crash course on ancient history. It boiled down to, stripped of Terbish's constant snarky commentary and Enbish's dramatic embellishments, the Mandarin wanting to give the Rings to worthy successors. But they were all unworthy, vicious, backstabbing underhanded power hungry liars. The only person who wasn't like that was Temujin, grandson of the Mandarin… at least until his father was murdered, at which point he became a very different person – Genghis Khan, the original Mongolian badass. He'd had too much on his plate to take on being Mandarin as well.
So now all the Rings were hidden throughout the world with tests of character guarding them. On top of that, there were also spirits guarding them from being used by the wrong people. They were the spirits of the children of the original Mandarin, noble warriors. Fantastic, that meant he would one day know the joy of having five voices in his head at all times. Gene snorted, shaking his head to himself. And he used to think Rhodey's nagging was bad! This situation was, however, a small price to pay for keeping one of the most heavily populated cities in the world safe. Not that New York City had any shortage of super heroes. He'd seen Spider-Man once and he knew Daredevil had the gritty and poor parts of the city covered pretty thoroughly. The problem was that neither of them were laser proof or capable of taking on the villain the media had dubbed Iron Man. Gene had super powers and he barely kept himself from being killed. Iron Man entering the fray was like bringing a laser cannon to a fist fight. And someone who'd mess with psitanium wasn't exactly brimming with concern for everyone else's safety. Gene shuddered at the thought of what those blasts could do to human flesh.
School was awkward. Tony was more shy and socially awkward in the presence of other students than he had been at home. It was almost like he was a different person. Not that Gene himself was any better on that front, having gone from a flirty smart aleck to a more confrontational snarker. He couldn't help it. He was annoyed at the shallow and stupid people around him who spent their days whining about not having the latest shoes or having curfews. At their parents were alive and they hadn't had to switch schools mid semester. Tony's newfound aptitude for talking to teachers even outside of class made sense if this was how stupid their peers were. Gene had thought that perhaps private school might have meant an increase in people's intelligence, not a decrease, but he had never been more wrong.
Entering the kitchen, Gene only half listened to Tony and Rhodey's conversation as he went through the motions of making toast. Enbish was already proving himself a tremendous annoyance, nagging Gene about the nutritional value of what he was eating, and Gene was already learning to tune him out just like everybody else in his life. The only people who he'd ever listened to were gone. Everyone else who gave out advice felt like cheap substitutes for his parents. It was easier to just not listen to anyone and keep doing the few normal things he could do in this life.
"You call her Nami?" Rhodey's voice was incredulous, knocking Gene out of his reflective thoughts. "Tony, she's your teacher!"
Tony was oblivious as always. "So?"
The black boy put his face in his hands for a moment. "Tony, people are going to think you like her."
Gene watched in amusement as his brother naively tilted his head and responded, "But I do like her. If I didn't, we wouldn't be friends."
"I meant…" Rhodey sighed deeply. "People are going to think you like like her. Especially since Ms. Asaji is so young and she's not married. Get it?"
The brunette looked completely confused. "No."
"Look," Gene cut in, trying to come to his brother's rescue, "We need to get going if we're going to make it on time. Can you two argue on the way?"
"We're not arguing, Tony is just being dense, as per usual," Rhodey shot back, shaking his head slightly. "I swear it's like he's got all the nice qualities of your dad without any of the social awareness and you got all the social awareness and none of the genius."
Gene couldn't comment on that. He was too busy trying not to gape at Tony, who was cheerfully texting Ms. Asaji about something. In his head, he groaned. Tony was the champion of obliviousness and innocent nerds everywhere, and he wasn't exactly helping his case with Rhodes, either. But Gene had long ago learned that trying to bail Tony out of these situations was beyond hopeless. It wasn't that Tony thought Rhodey was blowing things out of proportion, it was that Tony didn't understand there was anything to blow out of proportion. He'd leave the whole mess to Pepper and Rhodey, who had the needed bluntness and patience respectively to deal with it. He had Iron Man to worry about.
And quite frankly, that was an easier problem to solve than Tony Stark was.
Iron Man was after psitanium.
Gene was about ready to kill him. Had he not been the son of Howard Stark, sworn pacifist and peace maker honored the world over, Gene would have. Had he not been so thoroughly trounced every time they fought he'd have done it anyway, son of Howard or not. The Rings spirits certainly wanted him to, but the situation was rapidly becoming too complicated for that to be an option. Firstly, psitanium was explosive and toxic, which were two words that did not go well together. Secondly, it was far too easy for Iron Man to grab hostages mid fight and Gene was not about to get a civilian killed with the deaths of his own parents so fresh in his mind. Thirdly he was doing good to balance school and this madness as it was. Teachers were beginning to 'I have to use the bathroom' was code for 'I'm cutting class, be back soon'. Iron Man, however, was active all day every day, and quickly becoming the bane of both SHIELD and the police in general.
All the robberies were weird, all connected to varying minerals of different kinds and technology. Gene freely admitted to Rhodey he didn't have a clue what Iron Man was going after. Normally they'd ask Tony, but that would mean revealing his secret identity to him, something Gene didn't want to have to do unless necessary. The last thing he needed was to get his family involved. It was best for his sake and the Rhodes that Altanbaatar came out of nowhere and was untraceable, and not having the truth known was easier than having people lie. Paranoid as that train of thought was Gene couldn't help fearing for the people around him. Under the circumstances, he explained once to Rhodey, there was such a thing as being properly paranoid.
The saving grace of Altanbaatar was that he wasn't the only super hero working against Iron Man. Not that he knew who the strange black clad shadowy figure that kept going after the man of iron was, but the enemy of his enemy couldn't be all bad. Said person tended to glitch out the cameras and electronic devices of the world around them when they were present, preventing any real photos being taken. Had Gene not known that there was magic to that effect he'd have expected some kind of technology behind it, like the invisibility Iron Man was capable of. Not that he knew which possibility he was dealing with; everything was unclear when it came to New York City. Every weird thing that could happen in the United States always did in NYC. For all he knew it was an unknown third option.
"I hate my life," he told Rhodey one day as they walked home from school. "I wish it involved more normal problems like embarrassing parents and who to ask to the dance and all that crap."
"Although we both know who Tony's taking," Rhodey muttered, shooting the brunette a glare he didn't see because he was texting Ms. Asaji. "Are you two just incapable of being normal?"
"Rhodes, this is the most normal the two of us have ever been. Think about that the next time you complain: it could be worse." Gene smiled as he groaned. "I still think you're over reacting to the whole Ms. Asaji thing. You're just jealous because you're not smart enough to hold a conversation with her for more than a minute and a half."
"Oh, yeah, that's it. I'm jealous of Tony's being a social outcast. Yeah, you've got me there," Rhodey rolled his eyes sarcastically. "Please, like I want to spend twenty minutes after class talking about the pros and cons of free market capitalism? I didn't even think that was Tony's thing." He turned to Tony. "Speaking of which, when did that become your thing?"
"Hmm? What?" Tony looked up from his phone, then stopped walking. "Uh, me and Nami are gonna hang out, so, uh…" he rubbed the back of his neck, awkwardly. "I'll catch up with you guys later, I guess." He winced slightly as Rhodey gave him a disapproving scowl, but didn't say anything else.
Gene grabbed Rhodey's arm, looking stern. "Leave him alone, Rhodes. It's better than having him holed up in the lab all weekend."
"Yeah, but-"
In reflection upon that moment, Gene would wonder how anyone managed to sneak up on two of the most paranoid teenagers in New York. He would fail to recall who was attacked first or which one of them went down earliest. All he'd remember was the horrific smell of chloroform, sharp and biting, and then the world swirling into darkness. He was fairly sure he swore, something vulgar and incoherent, though it could've been Rhodes, or one of the Rings…
The Rings.
Gene woke up with a start and looked around. There were concrete walls, boxes and shipment containers. Low lights blurred his vision as he fought for coherency, not understanding the voices and words around him. Still dizzy from the knock out, it took him a minute to realize that his hands were bound behind his back. That wouldn't have been a problem – he could've teleported out of that – had there not been other people tied to him. He could see Rhodey and a random stranger on the left and right of him respectively, both still unconscious. Looking around carefully, he felt his heart sink when he realized there weren't any exits he could get to even if he did teleport out of here. And let's say he got out of the room, what was waiting for him out there? What was on the roof? What would happen to the people he was tied to? There were too many unknowns for him to make a decision.
Twisting in his bonds when he heard footsteps, he managed to make out both the figure of a fourth bound person and a man he presumed to be their captor. His eyes were cold and evil. His very presence made Gene feel like an alarm inside him had been tripped. He had dark brown hair slicked back, sharp pointed features and tanned skin. Though he couldn't have been any older than Gene himself, there was something very intimidating about him, about the way he eyed the four captives in turn. His eyes locked with Gene's and his lips turned upward in a cruel smile.
"So you're awake." His voice was smooth and silky, his accented English clear and articulate. "I didn't realize when I grabbed you how important you are. Even if everything else falls through, I'm sure I'll get a fantastic ransom for you."
All the Starks had gifts. Howard's was love and generosity. Narangerel had been a fierce and loyal woman. Tony was kind if a little clueless. Gene was an asshole. It was his gift. It could also buy them time for the police to figure out what was going on and get them help. Normally talking back to kidnappers was a very bad idea. Then again, normal people didn't have an inheritance nine digits long. Flicking his head to move his unruly hair out of his face, Gene put on his best nonchalant face and tried to pretend his heart wasn't hammering in his chest and his legs weren't on fire with pain.
"You're an idiot, you know," the Mongolian boy informed him point blank. "Kidnapping has the lowest success rate of any type of crime. Robbery, arson, even murder in broad daylight in front of multiple witnesses would've had a better shot of working than this. That's not even mentioning the abandoned warehouse shtick, which is such a cliché it's the first place police are trained to look in these cases. I give this an hour, two hours tops before I'm back home watching TV and doing my homework."
His captor knelt down to Gene's level, smirking faintly. "Oh, you rich people and your alpha-male showmanship. It never fails to amuse me how your kind tries to pretend that you're on top of everything when you're just trying to buy time. Sad, isn't it, that your private education didn't afford you any real intelligence or originality, hmm?" He stood, his dark blue eyes looking distinctly bright in the dim lighting. "Well, I'm off to make my fortune. Feel free to keep the false bravado going if it helps your fragile self esteem."
"The guy who's walking away the second anyone dares to critique him is making fun of my self esteem? You're the one whose fragile ego couldn't take the solid statistical fact that this wasn't the easiest route to choose," Gene retorted dryly, feeling the ropes that bound him to three other people shift. "Ten bucks says you cry when the police catch you." That made his captor freeze mid-step, fists tightening into balls. "Aww, did the mean captives make fun of your plan? Does baby want his bottle? Does he? Yes he does."
Gene realized he'd gone too far when the boy's hands burst into bright blue flames, the heat so intense that he could feel it from ten feet away. Eyes glowing a sharp electric blue that seemed freakishly inhuman, he rounded on his captive with utter fury written all over his features. The whole room began to grow hot. Then, as quickly as it had come, it stopped, his eyes shutting as he inhaled deeply. He gave Gene one last furious, lingering look as he turned and walked away, out of the other boy's line of sight. Someone had called for him in a language Gene did not understand and whatever the message was took priority over a mouthy captive. Which was good, since Gene could now feel his heartbeat in his entire body.
"That was a very bad idea," a muffled voice from directly behind him said. It wasn't Rhodey, and it wasn't the other person tied to him , since they were both unconscious. The fourth captive had apparently been woken by the fire. "You should not taunt those with greater power than you. What were you hoping to accomplish?"
"Seeing how rational and restrained he was, mostly," Gene explained quietly. "It's like testing the water to see if there are sharks in it. Bad idea, in retrospect." He craned his neck backwards to whisper, "Who are these people and what do they want?"
She moved her head back to try to keep the conversation private, for whatever that was worth. "They talked about luring someone here. We're bait. I couldn't understand anything more than that. It's complicated and my English is not good enough."
Well, welcome to America, Gene thought with a small sigh. What a fantastic day she must be having. Out loud, he said softly, "Listen to me, and listen carefully. What's your name?"
"Fadeelah," she whispered back, leaning so that the back of her head just touched Gene's.
"Fadeelah, I'm Altanbaatar." She inhaled sharply, so he knew she recognized the name. "I can get us out of here, but I need your help."
There was a pause as she considered her options, knowing that helping him would be extremely dangerous given that she didn't have any significance to her captors and was therefore expendable. He wouldn't have blamed her for backing out then and there.
"What would you have me do?"
He smiled in spite of the situation. Who said nobility was dead?
As a kidnapper, there are two stages when things go wrong that one must be aware of.
The kidnapping itself is often the most botched stage of things. After all, detaining someone against their will is harder than it looks. When locked in prison, people could make weapons out of newspaper and burn through the bars of their windows with chili. Human beings are at the core creative and desperation made geniuses out of idiots. Even with a safe place set up to keep them, making sure they didn't escape en route to that place usually took a lot more effort than people thought. The sheer number of ways it could go wrong meant that once the holding area was reached, the kidnappers had a tendency to relax, assuming the worst was over.
It was then that things had the greatest chance of going wrong. The pick up of the money and getting away was actually fairly easy for experienced and dedicated criminals. Their biggest problem was making sure captives didn't go missing, leave the premises, or go completely insane. You will imagine, then, the horror that the pyrokinetic teenager felt when he realized all three of these things had happened simultaneously in under ten minutes.
Rhodey was, to his credit, doing a magnificent job of playing the captive gone mad. This was not exceptionally hard for him; he was ranting at the walls about teachers and respect and boundaries and choco-taco night while blaming all the above on the Illuminati. Gene had vanished. Not escaped, he'd literally vanished and now the last to wake up of the captives was babbling on to her captors about how he was probably an angel of some kind. Said captors weren't sure whether she was just religious, crazy, or both. Meanwhile two of the hired thugs had the unpleasant task of telling their fiery boss that the Muslim girl they'd nabbed off the street had managed to escape by – and their boss made them repeat this to make sure he wasn't hearing things – kicking a guard in the groin, taking off her head scarf and tying his hands together before throwing dirt in the eyes of two others and running off. He stared at them incredulously.
"I don't know what we're paying you, but it's too much," he snapped, giving them a glare as the room began to grow hot again. "Go after her. You lost her, so it's your heads if she goes to the police. Get moving or so help me God I will roast you both alive!"
"Papaya causes cancer!" Rhodey was insisting to a piece of wood as his captor approached. "You don't understand – the world doesn't understand – but it's going to be proven and then you'll all be sorry! You'll see!"
A fireball flickered by Rhodey's head. The next thing he knew improbably hot hands were on his neck, pinning him to a wall and lifting him off his feet. Glowing eyes that seemed to lack pupils bore into him. "Look, you aren't fooling anyone with your pathetic little act, so why don't you start acting like you have the tiniest shred of self preservation before I set you on fire for my own amusement?"
Rhodey nodded, too out of breath to speak.
"Good. Now, listen, little nigger," and he grinned as Rhodey's eyes went wide at the word. "You are expendable cannon fodder. I have no reason to keep you alive. None. You would hardly be my first kill and incineration leaves no evidence behind. The pain of being burned is like nothing else a human being can experience, pure agony so intense you will not even be able to scream. The pain is enough to make your body want to shut down, and yet it also prevents your body from being capable of it, making you one of few human beings who will know what it is like to cross the conscious pain threshold and not pass out. You'll wish you had, however. You will beg me for another dose of flame to end the pain, little nigger, and I will laugh and provide it knowing how much it hurts to beg a man for death. The only reason you are not halfway through this process as we speak is because I think you know how this happened, I want that information so I know who to blame and I enjoy seeing you scared. Keep in mind, though, that there is nothing stopping me from killing everyone in this building and getting away with it, so it is in your best interest not be a smart aleck and lying would be signing your own death warrant. Are we clear on that?"
Rhodey nodded again and the death grip on his neck was released. Heat and pain were all throughout his neck now, making the room spin, but he was given no time to recover as the pyrokinetic reached down, grabbed him by the front of his shirt and hauled him to his feet, eyes blazing. "I thought – I came up with – the plan, well it wasn't really a plan, just some ideas – once I got the ropes undone they were all interwoven like a system, so we all got free more or less at the same time – the guards needed to be distracted-"
"You arrogant little fool, you're twice as stupid as your friend and three times as reckless! I am going to burn off your arms just to watch you scream!" he turned a wicked, heartless grin onto the religious old woman huddling in the corner, who eyes were wide. "And you're going to watch as punishment for helping this pathetic plan along!"
She began to cry, shaking her head as flames emerged from his hands, blue-hot like welders torches. "Oh, God, no, take me instead, please, I'll do anything, let the boy go, it was all my idea-" But he wasn't listening.
Rhodey would never recall, later on, who had saved him. He knew from police reports that there had been two super heroes present, Altanbaatar and the being made of darkness known as Shadow Wisp. He knew that he'd been thinking at the time that Gene wouldn't let this happen, that Gene was going to rescue him, but he remembered clearly the indescribable shock of flame against his chest. He knew he screamed. Then there was light, and on the other side of the room, darkness, and the pyrokinetic dropped the black boy to the floor, a forgotten nameless victim in a sea of them, too unimportant to be finished off. There was a woman's voice telling him it would be alright. He heard Gene say something about taking care of Rhodey, heard someone reply they'd chase Talahamir.
As everything faded to black, Rhodey felt the name etch itself into his memory. Talahamir.
He would never forget.
Gene had never felt panic like this before.
He'd taken off his deel and wrapped it around Rhodey as the boy's body went into shock, spasming against Gene's grip. Holding him close and feeling like no amount of screaming would ever show his fear, he teleported away. The nearest hospital was too crowded and notoriously bad at service. Gene had a different place in mind, one with a lot better resources: SHIELD's Helicarrier. The floating fortress of doom was staffed with the best doctors and technology in the world, and Gene didn't trust magic for this. Not his own, not when it was so unstable. He didn't even hear Terbish and Enbish screaming at him that it was a bad idea, that he was in over his head as he gathered up all his strength and felt himself vanish and reappear, hitting the metal of the Helicarrier with a dull thud and startling several SHIELD agents into drawing their weapons.
All he could think was, "Please, don't let Rhodey die."
And for all their suspicions and paranoia, SHIELD didn't.
