A/N - written for the Earth's Mightiest phase of the Marvel Reverse Big Bang. Beautiful art done by MassiveSpaceWren, which can be found either in the fic at AO3, or at Wren's tumblr. Beta'd by ZeroMonster.

The view from the window was one of the best in the city – since it overlooked the city – but it was only spectacular if someone was actually looking at it and, right now, Tony Stark was rather concerned that if he went close enough to the window to look out of it, he'd do something regrettable that he wouldn't be able to take back.

Such as throw himself out of it.

Resting his elbows on his desk and burying his face in his hands, he allowed himself one long groan. Things had already been moving faster than he would have liked but, after the events of yesterday, it was now officially out of his control. He'd have to make some attempt at damage control fairly soon, but it rather felt like he'd just be trying to plug a dam with his finger – essentially useless.

A small, almost soundless, click echoed through the office, and Tony barely bit back another groan. "Not now," he wearily told whichever secretary it was that had just entered his office. So many of them had resigned or requested transfers over the last day or so that he'd lost track of whose turn it was to step up.

"Oh, I think now works just fine, Stark," an unexpected harsh voice said, and Tony's head jerked up. This wasn't one of his secretaries.

It was the Winter Soldier. Ex-brainwashed Hydra assassin, longest prisoner of war in history, ghost story of the intelligence community, and long-time best friend of Captain America, Steve Rogers… Who had been murdered just yesterday outside the courthouse where he was due to argue against the Super Humans Registration Act.

Tony hadn't had anything to do with it – first reports trickling in actually suggested it had been Rogers' girlfriend Sharon Carter who had pulled the trigger – but he'd been the leader of the team who were fighting for some kind of legislation, and thus every finger had been quick to swing in his direction. It didn't matter that Tony had also been arguing against the SHRA; the mere fact that he insisted that superheroes needed someone to oversee them was enough to damn him for ever and ever, amen.

"Oh, fuck," he sighed now. The Winter Soldier was pointing a machine gun at him, but Tony had no doubt there were many more hidden away in the Soldier's uniform.

And, suddenly, he just… couldn't take it anymore.

"Well? What are you waiting for?" he asked, leaning back in his chair so as to give the Soldier a clear, unimpeded view of his chest. "Go right ahead."

The Soldier cocked his head to the side. Tony couldn't see his expression due to the goggles the other man wore, but he wouldn't be surprised to learn the Soldier was frowning. "You aren't going to stop me?" he enquired. "Or beg for your life?"

Tony scoffed. "As if that's going to change your mind," he retorted. "Besides, this means that I won't have to suffer through any more meetings with General Ross." He couldn't help the way his nose wrinkled as he said the name. Honestly, he wanted to spit to remove the bad taste it left on his tongue.

"Oh! Those are for you," he added, abruptly remembering, and nodded to the corner just behind the Soldier. "So make sure you take 'em with you."

The Soldier turned and – somehow – froze even further. Propped in the corner, which Tony had made as dark as possible so he wouldn't have to look at it, was Captain America's famous – or infamous, depending on how you looked at it – shield. It was pinning an envelope to the wall.

Tony couldn't see that, even with the lights on full blast, but he knew it was there and he knew what it said. In an act of uncanny premonition, Rogers had made a point of coming to see Tony just two weeks before, forcing Tony to promise that if anything ever happened to Captain America, he'd ensure the shield and the letter found their way to the Winter Soldier.

Not that Rogers had called him that.

"What is this?" the Soldier growled, spinning to face Tony again. "A trophy for your collection?"

Tony scoffed at him, again. "Do those goggles limit your vision?" he asked, well aware that he really was pulling a tiger's tail taking that tone of voice with the Winter Soldier. "That letter there with it is addressed to you. Just in case you didn't notice," he added, unable to help the sarcasm.

"And no doubt you know exactly what it says."

"As it happens, no, I don't," Tony corrected. "But if you could wait until you've finished our business to read it, I'd appreciate it." He gestured at the Soldier's gun, which had been slowly drifting down towards the floor. "You were about to shoot me?" he added, helpfully.

There was a long, long pause, until Tony thought he might expire from the tension alone. Stress-induced heart attack when faced with the Winter Soldier wasn't the worst cause of death he could have.

And then the Soldier finally moved.

Except, instead of bringing the gun up to finally shoot Tony – or racing ahead with a sharp butcher's knife drawn – the Soldier spun on his heel yet again and reached for the shield and Rogers' letter.

And then he tore it open and began reading. In the middle of Tony's office! Tony scowled at the man's back. What the hell? Since when did the Winter Soldier take time out of an assassination to read a letter? God damn it, did he have to do everything himself around here?

He was just opening his mouth to remind the Soldier of what he was supposed to be doing here when the other man let out a quiet, choked noise and turned back to Tony, waving the letter in the air. "Was Steve insane?" the man choked out. "What was he thinking? There's no way—" His own incredulity cut him off.

Sighing, Tony reached up to press his fingers against his eyes. "I don't know what he said, so I can't say anything regarding his sanity or lack thereof," he said, tiredly. "But he's probably serious about it, whatever it is."

"He wants me to be Captain America!" the Winter Soldier protested, waving the letter around in even wilder circles. "I can't do that! Steve is Captain America! I'm the Winter Soldier! I can't just… pick up the shield like that."

Ah. Well, that wasn't… entirely unexpected, although Tony had had the vague thought that Rogers would have passed the mantle on to Falcon, if to anyone at all. But then again, this was Rogers' bestest best friend all the way from back in the forties, never mind the intervening decades when one was doing a great popsicle impression and the other was also doing a great popsicle impression, in between being sent out to murder people.

"Well, if Rogers thought you were the best person to become Captain America, then who are we mere peons to argue?" Tony asked, rhetorically. "Shield's right there, it's all yours, no charge for storage as a goodwill gesture, just no slinging it through any windows on your way back out, okay? Those things are a bitch to replace – do you know how much that kind of bullet-, arrow-, missile-, everything-proof glass costs?"

The Soldier frowned hard enough this time that even his forehead wrinkled. "I can't be Captain America," he repeated, as though Tony had missed an important point somewhere. "I've done too much – the amount of people I've killed… No, that's not the kind of Captain America the world wants to see. You can keep it; give it to someone else."

"Nope," said Tony, perhaps more cheerfully than warranted. "Last bequest and all. It's yours now." He gave a lazy salute. "All hail the new Cap!"

He wasn't that surprised when the Winter Soldier threw down the letter and stormed out of his office, leaving the shield propped in the corner. He sighed as he watched the piece of paper float lazily to the ground.

Bastard didn't even have the courtesy to remember he was supposed to be killing me…

James Barnes stormed out of the new SHIELD headquarters, not paying the least bit of attention to any of the agents who variously squeaked, shrieked, and scattered from in front of him. His mind was too busy churning over the letter that punk Steve had left for him.

Had Steve known that he'd blame the new Director of SHIELD and decide to even the scales by wiping the weak-willed, evil bastard from the world? Or had he just thought that Stark was his friend and left the shield and letter with him to pass on?

It didn't really matter either way. The new Captain America – him? Don't make him laugh! Steve had obviously had a screw loose when he'd written that. And blinders on while he was writing that whole "you can trust Tony, Bucky, honest you can, no matter what it looks like. He's a good man, him and Iron Man."

Tony Stark, a good man? Hah! He was one of the core proponents of this new registration act the government was trying to force on everyone who wasn't quite normal. And then he'd had the cheek to turn around and act all butt-hurt when everyone else had said no to putting a leash on themselves.

Iron Man, though… The metallic suit of armour and its pilot, whoever that was, hadn't been seen for a while. He'd originally been backing Stark, but it looked as though there'd been some kind of falling out in the ranks, and the hero had vanished from public view.

Or possibly even been forcibly vanished. Stark didn't seem like the kind of person who'd take someone telling him 'no' very well.

Either way, Iron Man hadn't even appeared again after Steve had… died. He'd been friends with the man, and the general public were beginning to notice that their skies didn't hold a flashy red and gold superhero anymore.

Perhaps it was time he went looking…

"Director Stark, if you don't sit your ass down in one of those chairs and shut the hell up, I will quite happily throw you off the roof of this building!" Maria Hill, his second-in-command, glared at him. Wincing, Tony obediently sank into a nearby chair. She was certainly capable of carrying out her threat, even though Tony was both taller and heavier than her. She wouldn't even need to borrow his armour to do it, either.

"Look, I just want to know how they are, that's all," he informed her. "They're my agents, I sent them out on that mission. Just… how badly are they hurt?"

Maria studied him for a moment and then sighed. "Stark – Tony," she began. "Both Agent Barton and Agent Morse are perfectly fine—"

"The people they were after collapsed a building on top of them!" Tony objected.

"And they both walked away with only a scratch on Agent Barton, and even that was only because he wasn't watching where he was going and tripped over a crack in the sidewalk," Maria said. "I repeat – both agents are fine! They didn't even need to visit Medical."

Tony bounced to his feet. "If you're sure," he said, then paused and frowned. "You are sure?" he checked. "Really, absolutely sure?"

Maria closed her eyes, no doubt praying for patience. "I am absolutely sure," she confirmed, opening her eyes again and narrowing them at Tony. "Just as I am absolutely sure that you will not be fine if you keep harping at me about this point."

Realising that the woman was at the end of her patience with him – which wasn't new; most people ran out of patience extremely quickly around him – Tony made a hasty exit from her office while he still had all his body parts attached.

Still unable to settle, he swung by the medical division as he meandered his way back to his own office. Who cared if Medical was three floors down and on the opposite side of the building? He could meander anywhere he wanted!

Maria had apparently been telling him the truth; Medical was empty except for the doctors doing research. Agents Barton and Morse had clearly not been here.

Relieved, Tony finally made his official way back to his office. But it wasn't long before the relief gave way to anxiety again. Agents had been put in jeopardy because of him. He had given them the mission that had put them in the line of fire. SHIELD agents might have received the best training any agency had ever gotten, but they were still distressingly human. They had no way of protecting themselves from cuts and bruises and broken bones and concussions.

Or from bullets to the head.

Tony staggered against the wall, his stomach lurching. God, not even Captain America had been impervious to bullets. How was he supposed to keep all of the agents under his command safe? They had body armour, the best body armour he could create for them, but it wouldn't protect them against a collapsing building…

But my armour would.

Now that was a thought. Iron Man still wasn't entirely impervious to bullets, but they had to be a hell of a lot stronger than your usual bad-guy bullets to destroy the armour badly enough to take him out. Tony had stopped going out as Iron Man a few weeks before, mainly because he just didn't have the time, what with having to fight General Ross and the entire US government over the SHRA.

Maybe it was time he started up again. Just a few missions, here and there. Just ones where his SHIELD agents would be in the most danger – where he could stand in their stead.

Yes, he thought, straightening up and beginning to stride towards his office with purpose now. Yes, who better to protect my agents than Iron Man? He won't let them end up like Rogers did.

Of all the places that James had thought he might run into Iron Man, hovering on the outskirts of a settlement that wasn't quite big enough to rate being called a village on the edges of the Gobi Desert hadn't even made the list.

Concealed behind a small rock and buried under half a ton of sand, he watched the armour do its best to project 'just casually lounging here'. Unsurprisingly – considering the armour was metal painted bright red and gold – its best was entirely inadequate, and a small huddle of the village children were edging their way out towards it, pointing and calling in excitement.

"What on earth is he doing?" he murmured to himself. He'd thought the pilot of Iron Man cleverer than this, but perhaps Stark had had more of an input than he'd thought.

Abruptly, with no warning whatsoever, the sand between the village and Iron Man erupted upwards into a virtual sand tornado. The children's squeals of excitement turned to screams of horror, as they turned and dashed back to the dubious safety of the village buildings. There was a brief flash of light and, just as abruptly, he found himself flying through the air, hanging upside down.

The rifle he'd been using the scope of to watch through slid through his fingers, despite his best attempts to grab it, and he growled in annoyance as he watched it land halfway down a sand dune. With the sandstorm that had blown up, he'd never manage to find that rifle again, and he'd liked it, damn it!

"That was my favourite gun, asshole!" he growled out loud, tilting his head down – or maybe up was the better phrase – to see who had hold of him.

Iron Man's gold mask tilted towards him, showing that the pilot was actually paying attention to him. "Don't worry, I'll ensure you get a new one," the armour said, its voice metallic and distorted.

"That's not the point!" he snapped and folded his arms over his chest. "What the hell are you even doing here?"

"Collecting intel – until you disturbed me," the armour's pilot snapped in return.

Even more surprised, he blinked at the armour, his posture loosening from its tense anger. "Intel?" he repeated. "Like a spy? In that?"

Iron Man huffed. "The armour does have stealth capabilities, you know," he said. "Plus, I don't have to get in as close to get as much information, and I'm better protected on the incredibly low chance that I happen to get made."

"The people you're trying to get information on aren't idiots, you know," the Soldier pointed out. "And they're not barbarians. They know what tech looks like and does."

The armour made a noise that he suspected was actually the pilot grinding his teeth. "Stark tech is the best in the world right now," Iron Man gritted out. "Believe me, they won't notice it."

"But they'll notice you and start to wonder just what on earth a superhero is doing hanging around these parts." Honestly, maybe Stark really was the brains of the outfit. Had nobody even thought to mention Spycraft 101 to Iron Man?

Iron Man abruptly swooped down towards some spot that in his current position he couldn't see, and no matter how much emotion was supposed to have been trained out of him, his stomach still lurched with nerves at the movement. What if he'd annoyed the armour's pilot enough so that Iron Man just… dropped him? He might be enhanced, but even he'd have trouble recuperating from that.

"Stealth capabilities," Iron Man repeated, still through gritted teeth. His annoyance came through loud and clear, despite the voice modulator. "The armour wasn't actually visible to anybody."

"Except the children in that village," he pointed out, and then, "WALL!" as Iron Man's movement caused him to twist enough to see at least part of where he was going.

Which just so happened to include a wall rushing straight towards him.

"Oh, relax," Iron Man grumbled, swerving around the corner in a way that ensured the Soldier swung outwards away from it. "And those children only saw an illusion of me; one that would have waved and taken off if you hadn't been there."

Absently, the Soldier wondered if he could get airsick. He never had done before, but all this swaying might actually do it. "What did me being there have to do with it?" he wondered to distract himself as Iron Man dodged around a ruined pillar.

"Two of the men in that village were part of the Ten Rings terrorist group," said Iron Man. "Well, they were originally, when the Ten Rings was most active. After I—" He cleared his throat. "—After Afghanistan, when I was sent after all the stolen Stark weapons, they switched their allegiance to Hydra. And someone in that village is a mutant, too. No idea what their actual power is, but the results of it…" He shook his head. "Nasty. Didn't want to risk them finding you out."

He scowled at this maligning of his skills. He was the goddamn Winter Soldier, the literal ghost story of the intelligence community for seventy years, and Iron Man thought that a measly mutant would have sniffed him out?

He didn't get a chance to say this, though, as – just as abruptly as he'd been doing everything else – Iron Man let go of him, sending him tumbling through the air to land on a canvas awning attached to a large metal trailer.

"Special delivery! You're welcome!" the armour's pilot called out, before shooting back up into the sky.

The Soldier rolled off the awning and came face to reluctant face with a SHIELD agent.

Tony was starting to wonder if the Winter Soldier had somehow managed to slip a tracker onto him when he'd appeared in the SHIELD Director's office. He'd done nine missions in the three weeks since Rogers' death, and the Winter Soldier had appeared in the vicinity of seven of them.

Seven!

The first time, Tony had thought it was just a fluke. The Winter Soldier was a law unto himself – nobody told him what to do anymore. It wasn't out of the realm of possibility that he'd stumbled across the same thing SHIELD had regarding the mutants and had gone to check it out himself.

But after the third mission, that excuse had worn a bit thin. And after the fifth one? Forget it. The Winter Soldier had become fixated on Iron Man for some reason and appeared to be a master at tracking him, even when Tony didn't want him to.

Especially when Tony didn't want him to.

Tony was beginning to wonder just what exactly the hell else Rogers had said in that letter to the Soldier. Had he expressed concerns of Iron Man's actions and warned the Soldier that he needed to watch out for Iron Man? Had he outright told the Soldier that Iron Man was their most formidable enemy and needed to be quietly taken out if possible? Had he implied that the SHRA would disappear if Iron Man did the same?

Okay, Tony could admit that that last one didn't even make sense to him. Everybody and their dog knew that Tony Stark had been the 'leader' of those heroes who were willing to put themselves under the government's thumb. Never mind that Tony had been fighting precisely against that, and that he'd agreed to the will of the people in the first place.

It shouldn't have surprised Captain America that much that the government paid more attention to their own interests than that of the average Joe Public on the streets.

But still, he couldn't fathom any non-Iron Man reason for the Winter Soldier to keep turning up on all the SHIELD missions that he'd taken. The last few he hadn't even obviously been there on a mission of his own – he'd flat out spied on Iron Man until the job was done and the armour left the area.

It was enough to make a SHIELD Director paranoid.

Tony had gone over his office with a fine-tooth comb before he'd taken out the files relating to the latest mission he thought Iron Man would be best suited for. He'd even had his AI JARVIS go over the area, too, and they'd both come up blank. It didn't stop the back of his neck from prickling, though. The Winter Soldier was watching him, Tony knew it.

"Came to collect th' paperweight," said an unexpected voice.

"Shit!" Tony flailed, knocking his file of papers to the floor. "I have a heart condition, you know," he snapped, glaring at the Winter Soldier, standing in all his armed glory in front of Tony's window. He had no idea how on earth the Soldier had gotten in, nor how long he'd actually been standing there. It was a shocking breach of security.

The Winter Soldier didn't look the least bit repentant for scaring Tony like that. Although it was rather hard to tell, given that he wore his ubiquitous goggles, but his stance screamed unapologetic.

"Paperweight," he repeated.

"What paperweight?" Tony wondered, clutching tightly at his chest where his arc reactor hummed comfortingly.

The Soldier tilted his head towards the corner where Tony had left Rogers' shield. The shield was still there, the corner still dark. Tony couldn't bring himself to look at the thing yet.

"Thought you might have gotten rid of it," the Soldier said.

Tony frowned at him. "I might be a dick," he said, offended, "but I'm not that big a dick that I'd just arbitrarily give away someone else's bequest. Rogers left it to you so—" He waved a hand, inviting the Soldier to go ahead and pick it up. "—there it is. Signed, sealed and delivered, although not with a kiss. And I repeat my request from last time – no slinging it through any windows on your way out." A thought struck him. "Er, just what is your way out? And in?"

Without answering, the Soldier turned and strode towards the corner, in what Tony called in the privacy of his own head 'the murder strut'. To be honest, Tony would have been more surprised if the Soldier had actually answered him. On the other hand… what a novel way to kill him off without leaving any pesky evidence behind.

Deliberately not looking as the Soldier hesitated before reaching forward to finally pick up Captain America's shield, Tony busied himself with picking up all the papers he'd dropped when the Soldier had announced himself and trying to organise them back into their relevant piles. It was surprisingly difficult, and he suspected he'd have to return the files to one of his secretaries for them to deal with it.

Ah well, not like they don't have a low enough opinion of me already.

"Oh, and also," he said, before the Soldier had a chance to ninja his way out of the office without Tony seeing him, "stop following Iron Man on his missions. You're cramping his style."

"I am not following," the Soldier objected in a growl. "Tell Iron Man to stop getting in my way."

Tony threw his hands in the air in exasperation. "And just what is your interest in those places?" he demanded.

When there was no response, he looked over to the corner, and then slowly leant forward and began to bang his head against the desk.

The Winter Soldier had already gone.

Sitting at the top of a hundred-foot palm tree had not been one of James' top things to do in life, and yet, here he sat. Nearly a goddamn hundred feet up in the air, just so that he could keep an eye on Iron Man without giving himself away.

Not that Iron Man needed an eye kept on him, but something about the way he kept finding the armour on all these ridiculously low-level missions kept pinging something in the back of his brain that gave him nebulous memories of something small and brunette and much too feisty for her own good.

Then again, perhaps the one he should be keeping an eye on was Tony Stark. The SHIELD Director was the one passing out these missions, after all. And he'd been studying the details for this particular one on the day that the Soldier had appeared in his office to collect the shield that Captain America had stupidly left to him.

Stark had knocked his papers flying when he'd appeared in the office, and he'd walked over a page detailing this location without Stark noticing that it stuck to his boot. He hadn't even noticed the page himself until after he'd left the building, and he wasn't going back in again just to return one piece of paper. That was not the Soldier's style.

He also wasn't going to bother listening to Stark tell him to stop following Iron Man. If Iron Man objected to his presence, he could damn well say so himself.

What he didn't understand, though, was why Stark had only sent Iron Man for this mission. It looked like a small compound on a mostly deserted island in the Caribbean, but appearances could be – and were – deceptive.

This was a Hydra base, and the compound stretched down, down, down deep under the ocean and stretched out to at least half the distance to the US mainland. No matter how good he was, there was no way Iron Man could clear this base on his own. His fancy tech wouldn't help him here.

He frowned as he considered this and brushed away a palm frond that was tickling the back of his neck. Stark did know this was a Hydra base… didn't he? He was certain he'd made a list and passed it on to Natalia to give to Stark. This base should have been near the top of that list.

He was just beginning to wonder whether he needed to go and mount a rescue for Iron Man when the entire island shook. Internally cursing, he hastily tightened his grip on the palm tree. He certainly wouldn't be helping Iron Man if an earthquake tossed him out of his vantage point before he was ready.

"Told you, you're cramping my style," a voice whispered in his ear, and he almost fell out of the damn tree anyway. Whipping his head around, he discovered that Iron Man's armour had more stealth capabilities than he'd ever expected of it.

The armour was stretched out in the air beside him as though the man inside it was relaxing at the beach or on a couch somewhere. Quite how the armour was staying up when his propulsion systems were in his hands and feet, he didn't know and didn't really feel like asking.

He narrowed his eyes at Iron Man. "Who says I'm here for you?" he grumbled.

"Because there was a page missing from the mission file after you visited Stark," said Iron Man. "It wasn't that hard to connect the dots once I realised you were here. Following me. Again."

It would be futile to argue any further, so he didn't.

"Thought you might need the help," he grunted. "This is a Hydra base after all. Wasn't expecting Stark to send you out alone, though."

"Aww, were you worried about little ol' me?" Iron Man pressed his hand to his chest in a parody of surprise. "You needn't have been; didn't even break a sweat dealing with these guys." Even as he spoke, the island trembled again, and an ominous crack echoed round the building above ground. "But you might want to find another perch rather sharpish," Iron Man continued, flipping himself upright. "Half the island's about to sink." He held out a hand. "Suppose I can serve as a taxi just this once," he sighed, but even through the voice modulator his tone was more amused than resigned.

Taking a very tight grip on his gun this time – this was his second-favourite gun and he didn't want to lose that, too – he reached out to grip Iron Man's forearm just as the entire island shook violently and the topmost part of the Hydra base abruptly imploded.

Startled, he almost missed his grip and plummeted to the ground, but apparently Iron Man had been expecting something of the sort to happen, as he was barely freefalling through the air for a split second before he landed against something cold and hard.

"Fancy meeting you here," said Iron Man, wrapping his other metal arm tightly around him. "Out for a casual stroll?"

He gave that ridiculous question the silence it deserved, merely wrapped his own metal arm around Iron Man's neck and locked it into place. Hopefully Iron Man wouldn't have to do the kind of aerial acrobatics that would cause him to lose his grip.

Hydra, though, appeared to be more concerned with the fact that their base was disintegrating than with the picture they must be painting, holding onto each other like that. And so Iron Man remained hovering unmolested in the air above the island, allowing them both a front row, bird's-eye view of the visible building disappearing into a sink hole and, as Iron Man had predicted, taking half of the island with it.

"Another ship for the rats to desert, another base crossed off the list," remarked Iron Man as the island finally seemed to settle down. The ocean, right above where the underwater part of the base had been, was getting a little choppy, no doubt as the aforementioned base also collapsed. "And not even a scratch on my paint job." He turned them in mid-air and started moving them towards, presumably, the nearest inhabited landmass.

It occurred to him, as he took a last glance over his shoulder at the much smaller island, that had a full team gone in there like he'd first thought they should, then it was very likely that not all of them would have managed to get back out again in time.

And drowning – the last time he'd killed someone that way – had looked like a horrible way to die.

With that thought, several pieces of the puzzle that he'd been missing clicked into place, abruptly showing him the bigger picture. Iron Man had been doing all those missions by himself because he was worried other agents would be injured, perhaps fatally.

And there was only one reason that the armour's pilot would be so unwilling to put anyone but himself in danger.

Because Iron Man was Tony Stark.

He considered this as the approaching landmass got nearer. Steve had to have known – his letter had very specifically told him that Tony was a good man. And he'd left the letter in Stark's care in the first place, along with the shield.

Maybe Iron Man and Captain America could work together again after all.

"Well, here we are, end of the line," Stark said as he came to a hover over something that could be called a road if you were three sheets to the wind drunk. "Thank you for flying Iron Man Airlines, we hope you enjoyed the flight."

"It was passable," he conceded. "No in-flight snack, though. Terrible service," he added, as Stark spluttered in some mix of amusement and indignation, and unlocked his arm from Stark's neck, preparing to drop to the ground. "Oh, yes; next time, as I told you," he continued, patting Iron Man's cheek with his flesh hand, "don't get in my way."

And he dropped to the ground.

The loud crash of the armour falling out of the sky made him smile as he walked away.