This chapter has a to of Amy. I DON'T WANT TO MAKE HER A MARY SUE! Which is why she's going to be struggling throughout this, scared and not really sure what to do. She doesn't do anything major besides ordering and remotely controlling an iron man suit, and managing to track a radio signal, but she does what she can to help in the crisis, which, to me, makes her a true hero.
I think this is decently realistic, as well, since- Tony's paranoid. In Iron Man 3, he had a hidden bunker filled with suit. So it's not unreasonable to think he taught Amy some semblance of a contingency plan. Anyways, please review and tell me what you think!
She stood in the penthouse of Avengers tower, staring down at the streets. They'd been crowded at first, but she'd seen people begin to run and jog, and now, the streets were more deserted than she'd ever seen them. Only two or three people stayed on the streets, the only ones brave enough to stand, staring up at the sky, waiting for the end that they'd been told was coming to fall upon them and send them into the oblivion that was death.
She sighed, resting her hand on the glass. The only thing that separated her from a thousand foot drop to the pavement below. She leaned her forehead against it. Where was Tony? God, she couldn't do this...
"Jarvis." she spoke quietly, listening to how muffled and distorted her voice sounded through the helmet. Silence was her only response. Of course it would be, though- she'd disabled Jarvis from speaking. That didn't mean he wouldn't obey every command like he was programmed to.
"I want screens pulled up of NYC airspace."
The holographic screens filled the room- at least a dozen of them, now, with sectors around them.
The phone rang to her left. "Jarvis- shut that down." she was staring intently at the screens, anxiously cycling through. "Get the mark VI ready. Order it to alert me of anything that isn't registered to be in US airspace."
Even though Jarvis didn't respond, she knew he'd obeyed. She remained there, standing, for two tense hours, studying every screen, waiting. Then the first one came. It looked almost like a small shuttle, the round top becoming a sharp edge at the bottom.
"Blow it out of the sky." she ordered calmly. She watched the speck that was no doubt the Mark VI in the distance approaching, saw the pinpoint that was the blue glow of the ionizing glove. And with a deafening blast, there were burning pieces of wreckage raining from the sky. She let out a relieved sigh- the explosives onboard with the drone had managed to blow it to pieces, with minimal aid from the mark VI.
She watched, perplexed, then, as something else approached...
It didn't look like a drone. That was what prompted her to turn on her microphone. Her voice crackled through the static.
"You have ten seconds to identify yourself before I blow you out of the sky."
And she started counting in her head. One. Two. Three. Four...
"Tony?" the voice responded to her transmission.
It was human. That alone wasn't enough to make her trust him. But he'd called for Tony. That was enough for her to quietly press the abort button on screen and order the Mark IV to stay stationary as the other craft approached.
She froze when she saw it. War machine.
"Tony?" the voice she realized must've belonged to James Rhodes asked her father's name again, and he reached out and tapped the suit, concerned.
She flipped on her microphone again. "No. Not Tony. This is Amy."
"The girl he adopted?"
"Yeah."
There was a beat of silence, punctuated by the static that boasted the lack of communication, before Rhodes spoke.
"Please tell me you aren't in the suit."
"No. I'm controlling it remotely. Tony's in Boston."
"Right. You know what you're doing? I mean, can you..."
"I live with Tony. I know what I'm doing."
"Good." Rhodes sounded far too preoccupied, though, and she swallowed. That had too be bad.
"Can you do me a favor- do whatever you can to keep the airspace clear, understood? And whatever you do- stay safe."
"Right."
And then, as soon as he'd come, he was gone.
And she was left staring at the once again blank monitors. She found it harder and harder to think, the thoughts pounding through her skull with every beat of her heart. Three hours. Maybe- mabye Tony wasn't coming back... Maybe he COULDN'T... Maybe he was dead.
She snapped upright, biting her lip until she tasted blood. Focus. Focus. Four drones destroyed. But who knew how many more these sick bastards had? Who knew- their base could be anywhere, they could be doing anything...
"How're you holding up, kid?" Rhode's voice crackled across the comm.
"Fine." she lied. She was anything BUT fine. But she was better off than Tony...
"Good. You're doing great, kid, just keep the airspace clear..."
"Where is it?"
Rhodes laused, obviously confused. "Where's what?"
"These assholes have to be launching these drones from somewhere, They have to have a hangar, someplace to keep them..."
Rhodes sighed. "We're working on it, kid. Hang in there."
"Right."
And the line went back to static. She forced her mind off of Tony, off of Pepper, who had no doubt screamed her throat raw from where she was downstairs, stuck in the suit. Keep everyone safe. Keep everyone alive. Wait for Rhodes to kill the terrorists before they killed her.
She found herself wondering, though, and she let her mind wander, grateful for the distraction from thoughts of Tony. How the hell did terrorists manage to get a base and store drones? More importantly, how the hell did the governement not know where the hel, the base was? Homeland security had to have something on these bastards, and even if they didn't, the drones were being controlled from somewhere. Probably by a radio transmitter, and even then, radio signals could be tracked...
She stared. Why hadn't she through of this earlier? It made sense- a radio signal could be tracked to its exact locatiom of origin. The government was so busy freaking out about possible drone strikes, they couldn't see the obvious...
The screen to her left started flashing red, and she stared. Another drone. She smiled, for once, hopeful. "Disable and down. I repeat, disable and down. Do not destroy."
She watched as, onscreen, numerous targets appeared on the drone. She chose her best bet for a non-lethal shot and watched the Mark VI fired, grinning as the drone lost altitude...
It'd crashed a few blocks from here. She could make it. There was hope.
She grinned. "Jarvis- keep the airspace clear. Destroy anything but Rhodes."
And she was gone, running towards the elevator. She had a drone to visit.
He was sweating. That was the understatement if the year, he realized. Sweat was pouring down his face as he moved, using the enhanced strength the suit provided to lift flaming beams and shift inhuman amounts of wreckage.
The suit was temperature controlled, of course, but there were certain variables he hadn't accounted for... Like the heat of a raging, jet fuel filled blaze transferring and accumulating onto the metal of his suit.
He and the Hulk, since radiation was apparently some sort of uber-barrier between extreme temperatures, were working to clear a path through the hellish inferno, so the others to escort out trapped civilians.
They'd been at it for hours, now, and he'd reached the point of collapse a few minutes ago. The heat was driving him mad, scorching him, making his blood literally BOIL... But then he'd remember the faces of the victims, the ones holed up in the buildings, that the others were working with. Those people were trapped, and they'd die if he didn't do this. But that wasn't the thought that really helped him push through the hell. It was the thought of the girls at home- his girls, Pepper and Amy.
What if they were trapped in this inferno of a hell?
That one, incredibly implausible hypothetical situation was what kept him going.
She ducked to the left, heading down the alley quietly. It'd landed six blocks away- only six. The streets were deserted, had been, since the echoing explosions earlier. She hurried down the sidewalk, annoyed by how heavy her boots were. If she had the entire suit, she wouldn't have to bear as much weight...
But she ignored the difficulty the moving, focusing on getting to the location where the downed drone was. She caught sight of it and her breath hitched for a moment- it was lying, singed and dented, on the ground. This was an old district, on a not-so-nice part of town, but thankfully, the apartment the drone rested in front of was condemned.
Wordlessly, she strode over to it, falling to her knees beside it and withdrawing the screwdriver, prying off the first panel and staring at the tangle of wires. And explosives. Not good.
"Highlight anything emitting or receiving radio waves." she muttered. instantly the screen highlighted various panels.
She got to work, prying the dented metal away. Monutes ticked by, one, five... She tried not to let her eyes wander back to the explosives. Who knew when they'd go off? Time was a finite resource here, and she forced the screwdriver's head beneath another panel, prying it upwards.
She caught a glance of a familiar circuit and smiled. The transmitter. Finally. She continued to pry at the panel, before she seized the transmitter calmly, pulling it loose after cutting the wires.
The explosives started blinking. Wait, why the hell were they blinking!?
She reacted. Sure, the rocket boots weren't made for sustained flight, but she was only thinking about getting AWAY from the blinking...
She punched the thrusters and flew a good twenty feet off the ground, before the deafening blast and fire ball erupted below her.
The force of the blast sent her flying, and for a moment she lost all perception of which direction she was going, until her back was scraping against something, and she was still.
She gasped, trying to catch her breath, before she clawed at the helmet, tearing it off and throwing it to the side, sitting bolt upright and catching her breath, just trying to breathe.
She was on the roof. Somehow, she'd been thrown onto the cement roof. She sat, panting. She'd been lucky. The radio reciever was still in her hand, and she quietly opened the pannel on her ionizing glove, carefully attaching the wires and reactivating the transmitter.
She could feel something trickling down her cheek, and realized it was blood. But that could wait.
She seized her helmet from where she'd discarded it, pulling it back on and fumbling to reconnect it with the battery, waiting for it to come back online.
A moment later, Rhode's voice crackled over the comm. "What the hell just happened!?"
"Jarvis, trace the radio signal I'm receiving." she muttered.
"Amy! What the fuck happened!?"
"You know the coordinates of the launch point yet?" she asked idly.
"That doesn't matter. Are you alright? Is anybody hurt?" Rhode's voice took on a more concerned tone, the anger fading from his tone.
"Yeah. Everyone's fine. I got some intel for you off the drone. Jarvis is transmitting you their coordinates."
There was stunned silence on the other end for a moment, and she grew tird of waiting for Rhodes to respond.
"You're welcome. Have fun blowing them up." she said, slightly annoyed he couldn't even say anything.
"I... right. Right. You sure you're alright, kid?"
She smiled despite the fact she was going to be sore as hell in the morning. "I'm fine, Rhodes. Everybody's fine."