Disclaimer: Yup. The Heavy again. As much as I love them I don't own them. I also don't own Iron Man. I just put both of them in a bowl with some chocolate chips and decided to try out a muffin recipe. They're more like scones really. *Chucks one and accidentally sends it through a window.* Now excuse me while I buy a new window.
Chapter 21: Passion or Justice
The Heavy- What Makes a Good Man
Even though the suit could lock into position for prolonged flight, and really needed little input from her while doing so, Angela couldn't relax. They were almost to their destination when Tony decided to start another conversation.
"I'm not comfortable with this," he commented.
Angela glanced to the side and the HUD obligingly pulled up a magnified image of Tony flying not far from her on her left "What? Is it still pinching?" She doubted his suit was, but hoped it would divert him.
"No," he said shortly, "This." He couldn't gesture but Angela got what he meant. "You, out here, doing more than flying."
And he could have chosen to only weaponize his suit. They'd already had the argument twice, once while putting on the suits, once over the Atlantic. She grasped her patience with both hands and imagined swinging to her left and body slamming him out of the sky. No, she couldn't do that; Happy would be angry.
"If something happens to you I'm going to be beaten to death by a ginger Andre the Giant. That's on you," he grumbled.
She rolled her eyes dismissively. "You've never met my brother."
"Happy told me," was the muttered reply. "Big, and red haired, and overprotective."
Her brows furrowed. "Why was Happy telling you about Mike?"
The silence from his end of the com was suspicious.
"Tony?" She prompted. And wasn't she getting used to saying his name in that tone of voice? When she got back she was going to interrogate Happy. She'd give the bodyguard five minutes to crack before she involved his wife.
"Are you sure you don't want to swing back to Dubai?" Tony asked in lieu of answering. "JARVIS could take you to the house there, just don't use the bedroom with the round bed. JARVIS knows which one."
Ignoring his over share babbling she asked, "Are you going, too?" After a few beats of dead air she hummed in satisfaction, "Didn't think so."
They continued toward their destination and she'd begun trying to mentally prepare herself for actual combat - which was insane - when he spoke again. "Never should have dragged you into this." His gruff words were almost unintelligible, and not meant for her to hear. Unfortunately for him, the connection between their coms were meant to pick up any signs of distress, even altered breathing patterns.
Angela smothered her first instinct, which was to be indignant, and instead chose to crisply throw a variation of his own words back at him. "Do I seem like someone who does things when I don't want to do them?"
He was quiet for so long that they got close enough to their target to drop out of the cloud cover.
"No, you don't," he finally replied.
Damn right.
"Alright," he conceded. "When we're down there, stay with me."
"That I can do." At last, reasonable compromise without the conversation degrading into insults. And she'd only wanted to knock him out of the sky twice. They were getting better at working together.
Her snide train of thought was abruptly derailed by the white streaks of several vapor trails arcing across the sky. A thundering pulse rippled the air before a swell of dirt and smoke crested the nearby hills. Her heart clenched and all levity left her when she recognized the distinctive detonation of the Jericho. On the HUD she could pick out the small town far below and the chaos of people running for their lives. The wrath that had been simmering in the back of her mind since before they left Malibu forcefully boiled over.
"Ready?" Tony asked lowly. She hoped he was as focused as she suddenly was.
"Ready." The word came out half snarled and her fingers involuntarily curled into claws as the autopilot disengaged.
Tony dove headfirst toward the ground and Angela followed, flipping her hands to bring herself into a landing position. Her altimeter screaming red, she watched the packed earth beneath her rush up faster than anticipated. A final, brief, burst from her thrusters took the edge off the impact, but the landing still forced her to one knee. Winded, she gasped, and in the moment it took her to gain her feet, weapons fire began pinging off her armor.
She shoved herself upright, spinning into a crouch and facing the men behind her. With two quick repulsor blasts they flew back into the wall, a crunching thud reverberating from their impacts.
Anything extraneous to the situation before her was forced from her mind. She had only the desire to take down her opponent, and then the next. Vibrations from multiple impacts rattled down her right arm and Angela turned, intent on finding the source.
It only took a moment for her HUD to highlight the man perched atop a nearby building. With a glare, she aimed a double repulsor blast at him and the building crumbled beneath his feet. Dust rained down on the street, the man's cry of surprise abruptly cutting off. She swung back to the front, ready for the next, and froze.
Several men were holding hostages in front of them and shouting. The women and children cried in fear, cowering away from the men with their weapons. Angela lowered her arms and bared her teeth in a snarl of hatred. Before she could even bring up the targeting mechanism, Tony dropped them all with his mini guns.
Across from her the people gazed around in shock, glancing down at the bodies of their fallen captors still bleeding into the dirt. Finally a boy broke from the hold of his mother. He crossed the span between him and an older man huddled off to the side with the kind of speed only the young or terrified could produce.
Angela's breath stuttered as the two hugged. She had a hand in that. She may have built the weapons that caused the destruction to their towns, but she had done this as well.
From the corner of her eye she saw Tony prowl across the street to a half standing building. He thrust his fist through the wall and pulled out a stout bearded man in a shower of cement. Carefully, Angela threaded herself through the murmuring crowd to Tony's side as he threw the heavy man to the ground.
"He's all yours," Tony growled to the mob, firing up his thrusters.
Angela's eyes swept around the village, taking in the people closing in around the man, before she followed Tony back into the sky. She didn't feel an ounce of remorse for the bearded man's fate.
"Target the weapons," Tony called over the coms. "Get them all."
He hadn't needed to specify. With a flick of her eyes, her HUD highlighted several Jericho missiles stashed in the surrounding mountains. Her jaw flexed in determination.
"You're doing that thing we talked about again," she reminded distantly.
Her only response was a huff.
Zeroing in on the first of her chosen sites, Angela narrowed her eyes and kicked her repulsors higher. She broke off from Tony in a swift downward bank, relishing the way her body streamlined through the air in a way a jet never could.
With a few flicks of her eyes she targeted the highlighted areas. Angela calculated angle and airspeed, then dropped her arms to aim at two of the marks at once. She had just enough time to get the missiles off before she had to bring her stabilizers back into play.
For a moment the world spun as she lost all aerodynamics and tumbled. JARVIS calculated the repulsor bursts to get her steady, and once she was out of it, Angela found herself lower than she wanted to be. She immediately spun higher into the sky, barrel rolling over into another firing position.
Momentarily she was grateful she'd never had motion sickness problems. The mountains below her were a monochrome in shades of beige and all the flipping threatened to discombobulated her.
"Incoming anti-aircraft fire," the AI informed her. On her HUD the images of three fifty caliber machine gun set ups were shown.
Angela cut her repulsors and dropped like an arcing stone. The strafe of bullets hit the air above her before she re-engaged the thrusters and swung tightly to her left. Selecting to wire frame the topography, Angela was getting ready for a strafing run when a boom and thud came from Tony's side of the com.
"You alright?" She asked absently, concentration on her line of attack.
Coming in low and fast, she navigated through the craggy landscape, hitting each gun set up with a quick burst from her repulsors. Below her men dove out of the way of the explosions in panic. One blast knocked loose a small rock slide from further up the mountain. An alarm flashed in her HUD and Angela swung herself sideways, the debris passing inches in front of her chest. Sweat beaded on her forehead and upper lip.
Upon coming across a weapon filled valley covered in camo tarps she burned it out mercilessly.
Tony's side of the com had been silent for long enough that she was starting to worry. The sound of an explosion not caused by her came through their connection before he replied, "Peachy."
After the last fifty caliber she wheeled off and gained altitude, glad to be out of the lower terrain. Without wasting time she shot off another missile. In her HUD she watched the projectile connect and explode. A fountain of fire rose from below her.
"Any others, JARVIS?" She asked.
"Sir has just eliminated the last Jericho missile in range." The AI announced.
"Good." She did a quick sweep of the surrounding area.
"We're done here," Tony announced. "Let's go."
Taking a moment to appreciate the burning rubble of what had been illicitly gained weapons, Angela steadied her breathing and then picked Tony's position out. With a twist, she swung to follow his heading. They were going home.
…...
When they came across the detonation of a Jericho, Tony looked down in horror at the people in the village below him, his conversation from moments before completely wiped from his mind.
"Ready?" He asked the woman next to him.
"Ready," she replied. The raspy, feminine, growl was like nothing he'd ever heard from her. It made the hair on his arms raise.
Pulling up an enhanced image of the village below him, he realized they were forcibly separating people for transport. An explosion went off from one of the houses, coating the street in even more debris.
Tony gritted his teeth. They were both as ready as they were ever going to be.
Picking a spot in the center of the chaos, Tony deployed his flaps and flipped his hands to stabilize his decent. He came in too fast, folding his body into a hard three point landing. Dust rose around him. For a brief moment the people, armed and unarmed alike, stilled, and the only sound he could hear was that of his repulsors powering down.
Raising his head, he had a second to notice that Angela's own landing had knocked the breath from her. When she gasped, he stood. Machine gun fire ripped across his chest, easily deflected by the titanium alloy. Stepping forward, Tony slugged the culprit in the gut, launching the man into the top of a two story building like he was wearing wires.
Behind him Angela entered the fight, her repulsor fire countered by the renewed rattle of automatic weaponry. Tony forced the worry down and left the woman to take care of herself.
Another man fired from behind him and he spun, aiming and blasting with quick precision. Satisfaction grimly curled the corner of his lips as the insurgents began to flee. To his right a building collapsed into a roll of dust and the annoying rain of bullets stopped. Tony turned back toward the truck holding civilians.
He raised his hands, prepared to fire on their captors, only to find that several of the armed men were holding innocent people hostage. Peeking out from behind the terrified faces of women and children the men shouted at him in a language he didn't understand.
For a moment Tony was back in the cave. It was dark and Yinsen had his cheek pressed to the anvil. The echo of helplessness inside of him whipped into a giddy wrath and he lowered his arms, disengaging the repulsors.
With his eyes, he picked out each of the hostile men, allowing JARVIS to label the rest as civilians. Once that was done, he selected the mini guns and fired. The men dropped almost in unison.
In the aftermath a hush pervaded the area, the people who had been held at gunpoint realizing that their would-be murders were dead. From the crowd, a boy in a blue coat broke ranks.
"Papa," he cried, running toward a man on the ground near Tony.
The man raised from his spot in the dirt and caught his son in his arms. Tony didn't need to understand the language to understand the man's sentiment.
A familiar bearded face peering out from around a broken wall grabbed his attention. Blinking a bead of sweat from his eye, he glowered behind his mask. Without thought Tony stalked across the ground, shoved his fist through the wall, and pulled the man out through the unforgiving masonry.
Tossing the man on the ground, he considered shooting him, but a swift glance around showed him a crowd of people who deserved their vengeance and the svelte metallic form of Angela approaching. Tony decided it was time to move on to more important matters.
Kicking on his thrusters, he drawled, "He's all yours."
Next to him Angela rose into the sky. "Target the weapons. Get them all," he ordered.
A voice, as dry as the place they were in, quipped back to him, "You're doing that thing we talked about again."
Tony scoffed.
Angela rolled into a banking turn and Tony refocused his attention to the identified Jericho missile site on his HUD.
A burst of noise came from Angela's side of the com and Tony wondered if she was alright. Before he could ask his HUD lit up with incoming, JARVIS' warning coming too late for him to dodge. The round knocked the wind out of him and him out of the sky.
The ground spun up below him, the impact jarring through his back, up his arms and legs. An involuntary grunt pushed from his chest and debris flew up around him. For a moment he lay there listening to the little pings and light rattle of dirt falling back to coat him. When the air cleared, he cautiously stretched his limbs inside the suit, glad that everything was still intact.
Angela's voice came over the com. "You alright?"
Crawling his way out of the crater, Tony glared at the tank responsible for introducing him to the ground. A hollow whomp came from the machine in front of him, his HUD lit up with trajectory, and Tony dodged to the side. In return he selected his anti-tank missile and aimed. The round connected with a light plink and Tony turned around to walk away. Behind him the heavy vehicle exploded in a loud, concussive blast.
"Peachy," he belatedly drawled.
More automatic weapons fire hit him from the front and he engaged his thrusters to gain some vantage. On his display a brace of Jericho missiles were shown. Tony sneered, targeting his repulsors on one. In a gush of fire it exploded, triggering the other and incinerating the insurgents around it.
Tony took off into the sky. He did a quick sweep of the surrounding area and when nothing troubling came back, he announced, "We're done here. Let's go." On his HUD the little dot labeled call sign Panda fell in behind him and he smiled.
…...
They'd been flying away from the area of their attack in silence when Tony's phone rang.
"Seriously?" Angela asked.
The corner of his lip curled up in to a smirk. "You want me to connect yours?" He asked cheekily.
"No," she clipped. He was glad to hear she seemed alright after what they had just done.
"Okay. Quiet, Panda," he ordered. Tony selected to answer the call. "Hello? Who's this?"
"It's Rhodes."
Tony looked up to see the caller ID for Rhodey in the corner of his cracked HUD. He turned his attention back to where he was flying. "Sorry, hello?"
"I said it's Rhodes," the man on the other end repeated.
"Speak up, please," Tony requested. The deformation of his suit from his ground impact was letting in some of the flight noise and the call was getting lost in it.
"What in the hell is that noise?" Rhodey asked.
Ransacking his mind for a lie, Tony quipped, "Oh, yeah, I'm driving with the top down."
"Yeah," Rhodey murmured skeptically. "Well, I need your help right now."
"It's funny how that works, huh?"
"Yeah. Speaking of funny," the military man continued. "We've got a weapons depot that was just blown up a few clicks from where you were being held captive."
Yeah, it was. "Well, that's a hot spot," he prevaricated, feeling the strain of talking on the phone after his recent fight. "Sounds like someone stepped in and did your job for you, huh?"
"Why do you sound out of breath, Tony?" Rhodey asked suspiciously.
"I'm not, I was just jogging in the canyon." From the corner of his HUD he saw Angela shoot ahead of him.
"I thought you were driving." Rhodey continued.
Tony winced. "Right, I was driving to the canyon, where I'm going to jog," he tried to explain.
Rhodey paused in disbelief, then asked, "You sure you don't have any tech in that area I should know about?"
"Nope!" Tony chirped.
"Okay, good, 'cause I'm staring at some right now, and it's about to be blown to kingdom come." Apparently they could see him on radar, not good. His HUD flashed the images of two jets settling behind them.
"That's my exit," Tony called and twisted to the left. He cut the connection with Rhodey in favor of talking to Angela. She was still ahead of him, having performed her own turn. "Go supersonic," he commanded.
Before he could finish his order Tony could see Angela's suit rocket forward.
"This isn't going to work," she warned.
Tony selected the option on the HUD and then called, "Hit it."
"Inbound missiles," JARVIS announced.
Angela's harried voice came back over the com, "Flares!"
Tony deployed his own but the explosion shot him forward with a grunt. Over the com he could hear Angela's own cry. In a slight panic, Tony commanded, "JARVIS, get a lock on her." He struggled to pull himself out of his tumble.
Far below him Angela regained control. She had dropped behind them all in her own fall. Tony was somewhat relieved the two jets continued to focus on him, until a spray of bullets came from the plane trailing him, and Tony had to jerk to the side again.
"Do you want me to help?" Angela asked.
"No," Tony called because he had no idea how the woman could help. He grunted as he was hit a few times. On the HUD he saw that the Mark III was actually damaged. That shit went through his armor.
Fear raked his spine and Tony ordered, "Deploy flaps." He brought his palms up in front of him to further aid his drop in speed. When the planes passed on either side of him, one of them banked and Tony caught the undercarriage. He grunted in pain.
"You sure you don't want me to run interference?" Angela asked again.
Tony took a moment to pinpoint her position on the HUD. She was very low to the ground, weaving through the mountains and staying off the radar. "Nope," he grunted again.
With some difficulty, Tony pulled up the option to call Rhodey back.
"Hello?" The man answered.
"Hi, Rhodey, it's me," Tony admitted.
"It's who?"
"I'm sorry, it is me." He knew his voice sounded strained. "You asked. What you were asking about is me."
On the other end of the line Rhodey drew in a breath. "No, see, this isn't a game. You do not send civilian equipment into my active war zone. You understand that?"
"This is not a piece of equipment," Tony pressed urgently. "I'm in it. It's a suit. It's me!"
The jet above him suddenly started to roll and Tony lost his grip with a cry. He flew off the underbelly of the plane and within seconds felt an impact along his back. Metal flew by in his peripheral vision and JARVIS announced, "You have just collided with the second Raptor."
Angela cursed.
When Tony got his bearings about him, he noticed that the pilot of the jet he'd collided with had punched out, but hadn't opened his chute. "Get the pilot," he ordered and started to dive.
"You've been re-engaged. Execute evasive maneuvers," JARVIS advised.
From below him he saw Angela climbing in altitude toward him, but Tony continued to dive. He got to the man first and punched his fist through the mechanism to release the chute. Tony rolled over onto his back in time to see the chute open and Angela shoot passed him. She banked away in a sharp arc.
Tony turned toward the ground and kicked his thrusters back on. He spiraled down and called out to Angela. "Get back down here."
On his HUD he saw the woman pull some kind of backflip roll that ended with her pulling alongside on his right. And the woman got mad at him for pulling stunts.
"Tony, you still there?" Rhodey called out.
He took a breath through his nose in relief. "Hey, thanks."
"Oh, my God, you crazy son of a bitch." Tony could hear the man chuckle. "You owe me a plane. You know that, right?" Rhodey paused. "Who's up there with you? I saw that S-split."
Tony laughed in relief then defended, "Yeah, well, technically, he hit me." He ignored his friend's question about Angela. "Now are you going to come by and see what I'm working on?"
"Fine don't say. And no. No, no, no, the less I know, the better." Rhodey admitted. "Now, what am I supposed to tell the press?" His friend wondered aloud.
"Training exercise," Tony quipped. "Isn't that the usual BS?"
"It's not that simple," Rhodey protested.
There was an exasperated sound and Angela's voice broke into the call. "Jim, just use it," she ordered.
"Angela?" Rhodey's voice went high and incredulous.
Tony sighed. "Panda," he drawled. "Quiet? You know what quiet means, right?"
"I am not listening to another second of you two arguing when we almost got shot down by F-22s," she half growled.
Rhodey's voice was still high. "He roped you into this?"
"No," she drew out the word. "I got myself into this. I am a grown woman and capable of making my own decisions and you would both do well to remember that," she clipped.
"Jesus," Rhodey breathed.
"Look," Angela continued. "It's been a long day."
"Right, right," Tony chimed in. "Catch you later Rhodey."
"Yeah," the man answered.
When the phone call disconnected Tony took a glance at the estimated flight time left until they reached his home in Malibu. "You alright?" He asked.
Angela sighed. "Perfect." After a moment she added brightly, "Next time, let's not paint the suits bright red. I think they might stand out."
Next time? Tony couldn't help but laugh.
…...
When they got back to the house Angela got out of her suit fairly easily. Tony, on the other hand, had some deformation from his collision with the ground. It was compounded by his inability to hold still.
Instead of heading upstairs to shower, Angela chose to park herself on a nearby desk and settle in to watch.
"It is a tight fit, sir," JARVIS commented.
Angela snickered as Tony wavered on one foot.
"Sir, the more you struggle the more this is going to hurt." The AI commented.
Tony turned his head towards her and asked, "Enjoying the show?"
She gave him her 'my department's budget has run over but you're going to like it' smile. "Absolutely."
The sound of rattling glass drew her attention toward the defunct security door. Pepper's head bobbed comically between watching where she placed her feet and the floor show that was Tony Stark.
"Hey Pepper," Angela greeted. "Pull up a chair."
"Be gentle. This is my first time," Tony joked obligingly. "I designed this to come off, so," he broke off on a cry. "Hey," he protested. "I really should be able to…" He hissed in discomfort.
"Please try not to move, sir," JARVIS requested.
"What's going on here?" Pepper asked worriedly.
Tony glanced over at the red head. "Let's face it. This is not the worst thing you've caught me doing."
Angela felt her eyebrows raise and couldn't help but wonder. It was probably better not to know, though.
She glanced back at Pepper's face, taking in the concern etched in her furrowed brow and down turned lips. "Are those bullet holes?" The red head asked.
"Well," Angela scooted herself off the desk. "I think I'm going to go take a shower. Goodnight, Pepper." She headed for the stairs.
Behind her Tony sputtered and protested. Unrepentantly, Angela left the man to his fate.
…...
Notes:
Homeland security officer: Why were you looking up flights to Afghanistan, anti-tank missiles, and fighter jet maneuvers?
Me: Uh… I know it looks suspicious.
Homeland security: Your internet history includes searches for missile schematics, how much a brick of palladium costs, what to do if someone has a gun to your head, the difference between industrial espionage and corporate spying, Los Angeles County jail pictures, how to make explosives from household chemicals, apartments in Santa Monica, what constitutes a felony, jail times for assault, multiple pages about illegal arms trafficking, and a recipe for coleslaw.
Me: …. Would you believe me if I said I write Iron Man fan fiction? Also I was hungry?
If I am not on a government watch list somewhere the system is broken.