A/n: back with another rubbishy, unchecked chapter. It'll probably have some glaring, totally embarrassing mistake (I have a tendency to fill blanks with capitals, for example the AIM guy who was, until ten minutes ago, named BALD GUY) which I really hope you'll just quickly point out if you notice, then I can correct it and we can all pretend it never happened.
Anyway, here it is, sorry for the wait and all.
Trevor - not the Mandarin, just a disappointing drug addict way in over his head - was happy to give out the location of his lovely speedboat. It seemed that, high as he was, he could still tell that losing it was better than dying by - well, numerous methods, at once, really. Chiefly, burning to death. Dragons were useful like that.
With dragons, it took even less long to reach the boat. Once on it, Tony immediately hooked the suits up to a battery, and Hiccup started trying to piece together a temporary tailfin for his downed dragon.
"So," Rhodey looked over the assorted superheroes, seemingly unimpressed, or at least unsurprised, at their involvement in the events. "looks like it's going to take us a while to get to Pepper. But what are we going to do about the vice president?"
Snotlout shrugged. "Why can't we just leave him?" he asked carelessly. "He looks really boring."
Rhodey looked irritated at the Viking's blasé views, but Hiccup realised what he was doing. The mood was lighter now, and there was a motivation to prove that both people could be saved.
"We can essentially do that." Tony agreed, just as casual. He was now holding out his 'borrowed' phone. "Oh, look at that, I'm calling the vice president."
"Hello, yeah - this is Tony Stark." Tony started nodding at whatever the vice president was saying, tapping his foot.
"It's good to be back. Listen, we've got a bit of a problem." Hiccup was fairly certain that Tony was now interrupting the man on the other end of the phone, though he couldn't hear what he was saying.
"Yeah, that's not Rhodes. He's right here." Tony glanced over at Rhodey.
"It's true, sir." Rhodey inputted. Tony gave him a quick thumbs up.
"Ah, okay. Thanks." Tony smiled at the vice president's response, then ended the call.
"Well, that was easy." Eret neatly summed up everyone's thoughts. "Now what?"
Clint shrugged. "We go get Pepper, I guess. Then get drunk off our asses."
"None of the latter before we've finished the former though." Natasha chided, grinning. At Clint's pout, she amended, "Not quite off our asses. You've got to be able to see straight."
Clint shrugged. A crisp hiss alerted Hiccup to the beer in his hand - when had that got there? More to the point, where did it come from?
As though he'd read Hiccup's mind - or, probably, Hiccup admitted to himself, his features (he'd never quite mastered the whole 'poker face' thing) - Clint gestured behind him, where a cooler sat.
"You know the guy who owns this was, like, the highest person I've ever met, right?" Tony checked, giving Clint's can an untrusting look. Clint shrugged again, and offered another can - again, Hiccup never saw his hand reach into the box - out to Tony. "Hell no." Tony batted Clint's hand away. "I swear, if you get high, I'm videoing the whole thing."
Clint smirked, then downed the drink. "Yeah, whatever." he said casually.
"The Iron Patriot armour has flown off." JARVIS chimed in, calling everyone's attention back to the two charging suits. "It seems to be on course for the president's plane."
"Shit." Tony cursed, flicking out his wrists to call the suit to himself. "What happened to the vice president sorting everything out?"
"Ah, Iron Patriot."
Savin gave a smirk, that went unseen under the armour. Idiots. Didn't even check they've got the right guy in the suit. He'd arrived a few minutes ago, finalised the plan with Killian, then made his official, much more visible, entrance. Now, he was stood at the bottom of the steps up to the plane, looking up at his target.
He didn't speak - that would give the game away too soon - but nobody questioned it, idiots as they were.
"With you here, I feel safer already."
Savin's position was nearly compromised; he couldn't help but snigger at the irony. He nodded, saluted, and followed his target on board.
Savin was in the air. On a plane, though with the commandeered armour being thrown off wouldn't exactly be a problem, with exactly the person he needed.
Best of all, there was no escaping him when they were in the air. Chuckling at the incompetency being shown - a chuckle which was hidden by the robotic sound of the armour moving, Savin moved himself into position to begin.
He smirked as he shoved the guards into their room, and opened the armour slightly so he could weld the doorknob into place. That done, he continued on into the meeting room.
"Everything alright, colonel?" the president asked, looking up and oh-so conveniently alerting Savin to his position. He took a nearby decoration - suitably sharp and pointed - and tossed it in his hand for a second before flicking it out, where it came to an abrupt stop in one of the men's chests.
After that, all hell broke loose.
Trigger happy guards jumped into action, firing ineffective - and they should've known it, having been given briefings on the armour's capabilities, albeit brief ones. Savin continued on, undeterred and unconcerned as he marched over to the president.
He had to shove a few people out of the way as they threw themselves at him, but it still took under a minute to walk over to the desk he knew the president was cowering behind, and rip it apart to give him clear access to the man.
"If you're gonna do it, do it!" Trying to sound brave but failing, the president growled at Savin.
Giving a smirk and an appropriate comeback - "that that's not how the Mandarin works" - Savin exited the suit fully and tossed the president into it.
No longer wearing the suit, all that remained was to find a parachute - or not; extremis really opened up one's options in last-minute plane escapes - and make the small drop of only a few thousand feet to the boat awaiting him. He took a parachute anyway, and one of the crew's uniforms. Never hurt to be prepared.
The sound of the people still trapped in the other room made him smile as he strolled down the plane, checking the emergency systems - useless oxygen masks and not much else - that his fight had prompted.
The whirring sound that he'd been getting used to hearing gave him a second's notice before the Iron Man armour came barrelling into him. It knocked him over, but did little else.
Savin stood up slowly, unable to see the suit. Looked like Mr Stark had expertly underestimated him, or was off trying to rescue the passengers. Either way was fine for Savin, and he stood up with a smirk.
Only to be knocked down again a moment later, another bodily shove from the metal man revealing that nether of Savin's expectations had been a reality.
"The president!" Stark demanded, holding Savin to the wall with one hand and firing up a blast in the other - one that both parties knew would only create superficial damage.
"He's not here." Savin revealed, firing up an attack of his own with his free hand. It was one that Tony failed to noticed, and Savin took pleasure in hearing the man audibly wince at the new burning pain in his wrist. "He's on his own private jet," he continued, producing a remote - his failsafe - from his other, now free, hand. "speaking of which, go fish."
Both men heard the explosion, and if that didn't cue Stark in on what was happening, the screams of the passengers, now holding on for dear life as the air pressure tried to suck them out, sure did.
Stark was now struggling to get out of his grasp, and Savin knew he'd won. Tony would go get the passengers, and leave him to make a neat escape -
Suddenly, there was a gaping hole where his chest should've been, and Savin wasn't so sure about his assumption of victory.
"Walk away from that, you son of a bitch." Stark muttered, stalking off and leaving Savin to sink back in shock as he started to feel his wound.
Astrid watched from a few feet away as another hole exploded into existence on the plane's side, bringing a plume of smoke up with it. She glanced over to Hiccup, wearing the suit and receiving a constant stream of information courtesy of JARVIS, and awaited his command.
She wasn't waiting for long. The smoke hadn't even begun clearing, and Hiccup was already giving the signal, nodding to Astrid before he announced it to the group: "We've got some people coming out of this one. Get ready to catch them!"
The group nodded, tense in anticipation despite how routine an operation it was. This had the potential to be harder than it had to be, Astrid realised: it all depended on the reaction the people falling had to the dragons. Hopefully it wasn't a particularly violent one; that could complicate matters slightly.
Lost in playing out the scenarios, Astrid nearly missed the first glimpse of a woman darting out of the smoke. She tapped Stormfly slightly with her foot, and the dragon dove after their first target.
Stormfly easily got the woman in her usual claw-grip method, then tossed her up for Astrid to steady.
"Hey." Astrid greeted, keeping an eye out for any other people falling - Eret had made his first catch, and the twins were darting after two people falling close to each other. "You okay?"
Still shocked, the woman nodded shakily, making an unsuccessful attempt to sweep her hair out of her face as the wind buffeted it.
"We've got another coming your way Astrid!" Hiccup's voice came through the comm.
"Got it." Astrid replied, still in English - it wouldn't do to have her passenger panicking because she was speaking in a strange language, on top of the shock of being on a dragon. Her eyes flitted upwards just in time to see her next passenger, a man this time, shoot past. Looking down after him, Astrid pointed downwards and called out 'Stormfly, fetch!'
The woman behind her didn't get the chance to process the use of an unfamiliar tongue as she was suddenly plunged into a stomach-churning drop. She screamed, drowning out the sound of Astrid's laughter as they sped towards the next target.
Again, Stormfly's grab was accurate, and the man, who had previously been falling quite quickly through the air, came to a sudden halt, and then started moving upwards. Before he could fully recognise what was going on, he was sat down, clinging on to another of the plane passengers.
Her two passengers starting to chat amongst themselves, and Hiccup informing her that all those who had been ejected had been caught, Astrid tapped Stormfly again, and the dragon flew back up to the group.
Everyone was holding two passengers, save for Hiccup, who was giving an awkward piggy-back to one person.
"I'll take that guy, if you want." Eret offered, Skullcrusher swinging over to Hiccup's side to retrieve the man. Hiccup shrugged - as best he could, with a man clinging onto his back in terror - and shook the man off. One short scream later, Eret caught and positioned his new guest.
"Have you got them all?" Steve asked over the comm.
"Yeah." Fishlegs reported. "Thirteen of them. Where are they going?"
"Just dump 'em in the ocean or something." Clint suggested. "Good thing you were there then, though." he pointed out. "Otherwise Tony would've had a hell of a time trying to get all those guys caught."
"Excuse me!" Tony butted in, "I would've done excellently, thanks very much!"
"So, are we dumping them or what?" Snotlout asked, lazily examining his nails.
"I guess we are." Hiccup shrugged. "Take them down gently though." he warned, and Astrid didn't need to be able to see through the faceplate to know that he was glaring at the twins.
The twins knew too. Unfortunately for their passengers, neither did they care, so the six of them jetted down at the top speed Barf and Belch could manage, screams of both fear and joy being left in their wake.
"Don't worry," Astrid assured her own guests, "we won't be going down that fast."
Both nodded, still shaking - though by now more from the cold (Astrid took a moment to marvel at their inability to deal with the cool air) - and clung to her slightly more tightly, impossible as it seemed for their death-grip to get any tighter, as Stormfly started her controlled descent.
Two sets of armour followed the Vikings down. A slightly disappointing result, but two out of three was workable.
"Put them on the pavement somewhere." Hiccup suggested, turning back to the other suit. "So, what now?"
"Just have to get back to the boat, and then we can -" Tony was cut off as a truck slammed quite suddenly into the armour's side, breaking it into pieces and leaving it scattered along the floor.
"Damn." Tony, safely back on the boat and controlling the armour with his mind - or not, anymore, since it had just been run over. "How inconvenient."
"Everything okay?"
Tony nodded in response to Rhodey's question. "Just got hit by a truck."
Hawkeye, who was now on his third beer - thankfully, his earlier bragging about having a high alcohol tolerance were standing firm - popped his head around the door. "That's great!" he laughed. "But how are you gonna put it together again?"
Rhodey nodded his agreement. "The suit was pretty much wrecked before. Is it useable?"
"Nope!" Tony popped the 'p', fully removing the headgear that had been connecting him to the suit.
"So how are you planning on saving Pepper?"
Tony answered by turning to the headset. "Hey, JARVIS?"
"Yes, sir?"
"Initiate 'House Party' Protocol."
Stan grumbled slightly as he shuffled a bit more rubble off to the side. In fairness, his job was quite a rubbish one: clearing up the debris of destroyed houses.
It had meant that the battle of New York had been, for him, a brilliant source of income, but it didn't take long for some other idiot to smash their mansion.
Specifically, Tony Stark. Stan actually didn't mind that aspect of the job - Stark had a plethora of insanely good tech stashed around, and quite a bit of it had survived the explosions. A few phones wouldn't go amiss, and could be sold for a lot of money, if one knew the right people. That and the fact that Stan didn't like Stark - and he'd really been asking for it that time, giving a terrorist his home address - made this job one of the best he'd had in a while.
The ground shifted slightly. It was a regular occurrence on properties like this, embedded in the side of a cliff and not really all that sturdy once the support beams had been destroyed, so Stan back off a bit and prepared to warn the rest of the crew to move away for a bit.
What wasn't normal was that it took just those few steps for the ground to stop moving.
More than slightly confused and a tad concerned, Stan stepped forwards again. The ground was moving. He looked down, and immediately saw the reason why.
What the - the floor was opening, rendering the last hour's work useless as all the debris he'd swept fell into the appearing hole.
Stan stepped forwards, peering into the drop created. It was too dark to see in properly, but with no way to gage the depth, he wasn't taking any chances with moving forwards for a closer look.
The opening to the hole stopped spinning, but there was still the sound of movement. It sounded just like the whatever-it-was that powered the Iron Man armour.
It was the Iron Man armour. Stan watched in astonishment as countless suits jetted out of the hole. The variety of them was staggering - not just the colours, either: some of them were massive, others clearly a lot faster. The last, and slowest, of the lot trundled out at a comparatively low speed probably still faster than any car Stan had ever driven, then there was silence.
Clint remained unimpressed. "What's a house party protocol?" he asked, giving the headset a prod as though it'd give him the answers.
"JARVIS just let loose all the suits."
"How many of them are there?" Steve asked, sounding mildly concerned, as Natasha provided her own scathing "Where're they going?"
"Lost count somewhere around thirty," Tony lied, "and... that's a good point, actually. Hey J, where've you sent these bad boys?"
There was a pause just long enough for Clint and Natasha to snicker over the use of 'bad boys', in which JARVIS checked the suits.
"They are currently on their way over here, sir."
Under the assumption that 'here' was the boat, Tony nodded. "Change course to the Mandarin hideout." Not that it was much of a hideout, really, if Trevor was to believed regarding the boats.
"Where is 'here'?" Hiccup's voice rang out over the comm.
JARVIS answered, speaking Norse. Tony frowned at the words - still gibberish to him, but hey, he'd been busy.
"He just said he'd give directions." Clint translated.
Damn! Tony cursed inwardly. One-upped by bird brain... Sure, he was at a bit of a disadvantage, but that was just ridiculous!
"Whatever." Tony replied - score one for totally not showing his irritation (what're you talking about you're irritated) - testily. "See you Vikingy guys in a bit, then."
Pepper jolted back into awareness to meet Killian in her face.
"Hello." the man - she'd known he was creepy, but somehow that wasn't making her feel any better about her current situation - said, speaking with a soft overconfidence that she just couldn't wait to see get beaten out of him.
"He's not going to help you." Pepper told him, because she didn't need telling why she was there - why go to the effort of convincing Tony Stark to join your cause when you can just get his damsel-in-distress girlfriend and make everything far easier for yourself? Pepper was no damsel in distress, not really, but a superhero she also was not, and she was willing to admit to herself that she probably didn't have a chance against Killian.
Again, the knowledge wasn't making her feel any better.
Killian laughed. "Actually, that isn't the only reason I have you here..." he said, getting closer to her face, "it's a little more embarrassing than that..."
"I'm here as your trophy." Pepper guessed, correctly, forcing herself to sound utterly unimpressed rather than completely creeped out.
Killian nodded. He looked about to say something else, but Pepper was saved from the rancid smell of his breath with the arrival of... Rhodey?
Not Rhodey. She amended, knowing the man too well to think him a traitor. This thought was confirmed not long after, as the suit opened and the president fell out.
It was nice to know that her importance as a hostage was on par with the leader of the United States himself. Nice, but utterly useless.
"Welcome aboard, Mr President."
"You ever heard of an elephant graveyard?" Killian hopped up the stairs with an uncanny energy, and the president followed him doggedly. It had been a long day, and he really, really wanted to go home. "Well, two years ago, the elephant in the room was this gal."
It was a shame that wasn't going to happen.
"This is the Roxxon Norco." the president recognised, taking a cautious glance over to his captor. He'd never suspected Killian to be the Mandarin - who would? - but now that he thought about it, the man was perfect terrorist material.
"And of course you'll remember that when she spilled a million gallons of crude, not one fat cat saw a day in court.
"What do you want from me?" the president asked. The United States may not negotiate with terrorists, but if it meant not being killed by a madman, he was willing to ignore that little detail.
"Oh, nothing." Killian said conversationally. "I just need an excuse to kill you. You see, I've got my own man waiting to slide into position once you're gone."
Ruffnut and Tuffnut were bored. They were stuck on a weird boat, they hadn't destroyed anything in weeks, and Hiccup was doing his serious-mode planning again.
"I'm bored." they both said simultaneously, sharing a moment of easily-impressed amusement as they noticed that fact.
"We know." Snotlout all but groaned, "You've said. Ten times in the last minute."
"Oh." Ruffnut shrugged. "Tuffnut started it."
As a small slap-fight broke out between the twins, the rest of the group returned to ignoring them. Over on the other side of the room, Astrid - who had been invited to the strategizing meeting, on account of the fact that she was able to create a plan more complex than 'kick ass' - noticed the bickering and wandered over to resolve the conflict.
"Any updates on how long Hiccup's gonna take?" Snotlout asked hopefully.
"Nope." Astrid sighed and sat down. "Sure, we need to have a plan and all, but does it really have to take this long? I'm starting to agree with your 'rush in and smash' strategy." she admitted.
Snotlout grinned. "That's 'cause it's the true Viking way!" he announced proudly, thumping his chest with one hand. "Me and Hookfang could've sorted this all out hours ago, couldn't we?"
Hookfang snorted good-naturedly, but otherwise ignored the comment.
Undeterred, Snotlout continued: "You know what, I'm gonna go tell 'em. This 'scary' guy's gonna have, like, taken over the world or whatever before we've even made our plan!"
Just as Snotlout drew himself up to march over, Tony clasped his hands together. "Right!" he said with a tone of finality, "let's get going, then."
Not one to be put off by something as small as already having what he wanted, Snotlout cut in with a pointed "about time!"
"So," Snotlout said, this time louder, "what's the plan?"
"We get in, we kick ass." Clint supplied. He looked thoughtful for a moment, then added: "We leave."
"And that took you how long?" Tuffnut asked, "Three years?"
"It's somewhat simplified." Hiccup explained, cutting off five separate scathing remarks. "The longer version is like this..."
'Why aren't we fighting?' Toothless asked, as quietly as he could. It wasn't all that quiet, but since he was sat on the speedboat, and not trying to sneak into a terrorist hideout, it wasn't that much of a problem.
'We're sitting this one out. Unless there's an emergency or something.' Hiccup explained soothingly, rubbing at the scales on the dragon's head.
'This is an emergency!' Toothless moaned, 'I'm bored! And no one else has to sit out...'
'No one else has a broken tail.' Hiccup explained, a little less patient. 'Or a "possible concussion". And anyway, Bruce is still here.'
Toothless huffed. Bruce looked between the two, fascinated and confused, and Hiccup filled him in a bit.
"Big baby boo here's just whining." Bruce's expression cleared, and he nodded.
'So what does constitute as an emergency?' Since Toothless wasn't technically complaining, Hiccup decided to humour him.
'I don't know.' he admitted. 'I think they just said that to placate us. Not like we could even do anything to help.'
'Well that's rubbish!' Hiccup sighed at Toothless's dismissal. 'Nobody's gonna need us, we'll be bored out of our minds!'
'Better us useless than them actually needing help.' Hiccup reasoned, unsuccessfully. When Toothless didn't reply, he added: 'It'll probably take them about twenty minutes, half an hour tops. If they're not back by then, we'll go help.'
Toothless nodded, placated, and the two lapsed back into silence.
Over on the Mandarin's aquatic headquarters, the rest of the group were sneaking in.
Sneaking in, it should be noted, is nigh on impossible when being tailed by a group of brightly coloured dragons.
"Right, you ready?" Natasha glanced back at the Vikings, clasping her gun. The Vikings themselves had no such weaponry, though they were armed with the best axes and swords Berk had to offer. Natasha had proposed that they use a gun - taking a knife to a gun fight, however glorified, was never going to end well, after all - but they'd refused; their weapons, and dragons, would more than suffice. Since Clint also preferred his ancient weaponry, Natasha didn't protest.
"I found the president." Tony, slightly further ahead and now holding his gun up, thanks to some last-minute prompting from Rhodey, whispered harshly, stealing glances around the box he hid behind.
Natasha nodded to Clint, who responded in kind before moving over to take a look. He peered over, then turned back instantly.
"Bunch of guys near here." he reported. "Two in the immediate vicinity, haven't seen us yet. President's strung up, looks like this Mandarin guy has some serious dramatic flair.
Natasha nodded, not questioning his ability to take in all that with less than a second's view at the scene.
"I think he's gonna go up in flames." Tony expanded. "Viking funeral style - a burial on a burning ship at sea."
"How symbolic." Astrid remarked dryly.
"What's symbolic?" Hiccup interrupted them. "And how long is this gonna take? I have a bored dragon over here."
The Vikings winced. A bored dragon meant fire, and fire meant being caught. "I'll send Stormfly over." Astrid said, patting the dragon as she did.
"Thanks." Hiccup said gratefully.
Stormfly took off, then immediately landed. She crooned nervously.
Astrid realised what was wrong before she had to ask. Two men jumped down, holding their guns up and signalling to some men behind them who were standing by.
"Toothless is gonna have to wait. We have a bit of a situation."
Yep, that all just happened. Cue a (probably) empty promise for the next chapter to take less long (it's the final battle, how could I lose motivation?), a quick reminder to review please and thank your input is loved and taken into account, and we're done here!