Disclaimer: I don't own Adam Jones and I don't own Iron Man. I just put them both in the microwave together to see what would happen. Forgot that Iron Man was metal. It was a definite fail.
Chapter 25: The Monger
Adam Jones- You Can Run
As they flew the lights of LA sprawled out below them in grids and twisting arteries. Angela dismissed the view, attention locked on her target and the information the HUD fed her to the point she had to remind herself to blink.
Stane had a suit. He'd tried to kill Tony, again. He'd also tried to kill her.
"You find Pepper and get her out of there." Tony's voice was an odd mixture of emotions she couldn't parse.
A tremor started up in her once broken pinky. Pepper was in so much danger and they had put her there - her friend who smelled like vanilla, and didn't like their last restaurants' herb aioli, and teased her about her violent tendencies with handheld objects. God, had anyone called Happy?
Angela glanced to her left, seeing both the visual of Tony and his radar tag. "Once she's clear I'll meet up with you." She hoped her tone conveyed there was no room for argument.
Tony grunted, matter closed.
"How's your arc?" She worried.
"JARVIS? How do you think the Mark One chest piece is going to hold up?" He sounded like he already knew the answer.
The AI confirmed both of their suspicions. "The suit's at 48% power and falling, sir. That chest piece was never designed for sustained flight."
A grimace tightened her mouth and pulled down the skin at the corners of her eyes. She was at full power. Logically, it should be she who went after Stane and Tony who evacuated Pepper, but there would be no profit in raising the issue. If things started to fail on Tony's suit she'd just have to step in and pick up the slack.
"Keep me posted," Tony ordered.
Below and ahead of them a cluster of familiar buildings broken up by large seas of blacktop slowly became recognizable.
Through the synced coms Angela could hear a phone ringing. When the call connected the first thing out of Tony's mouth was, "Pepper!"
"Tony!" Pepper's voice was tight and breathy. "Tony, are you okay?"
"I'm fine." He dismissed. "How are..?"
Pepper cut him off. "Obadiah, he's gone insane!"
Angela vehemently disagreed. Stane knew exactly what he was doing. He'd ripped Tony's heart out in his own home.
"I know," Tony informed her shortly. "Listen, you'd better get out of there," he advised.
From the other end of the line there was a cracking sound. Angela's focus, which she had thought was as concentrated as it could be, abruptly tapered down to a needle point before flaring wide.
"He built a suit," Pepper rambled. The mic on her end picked up a crumbling sound.
"Get out of there right now!" Tony agitated breathing sounded as if he was inside the suit with her.
Far below, visible only through the enhanced view on Angela's HUD, the speck of white that was Pepper seemed to glow against the blacktop. A bare two meters in front of her a metallic glint flashed. Angela felt everything inside of her still as she watched a giant silver suit pull itself from beneath the lot like some kind of mechanical zombie.
Without even realizing she'd intended to do it, she twisted into a dive. Tony was already ahead of her.
Pepper's horrified scream vibrated through the com connection and raked down her nerves. The red head reflexively stumbled backwards in a futile attempt to flee. Angela strained forward in the suit, chaffing against the physics of the situation. Every fiber of her being reached forward in a desperate bid to get between the Gatling style gun Stane had and the red head it was pointed at. Light glinted off the barrels as they began to rotate and Pepper looked so small next to the behemoth. They weren't going to make it in time.
"Stane!" Tony bellowed, pelting downward with all the care of a meteor. The muzzle of Stane's gun changed directions, bullets flying toward them instead of the fatally vulnerable Pepper. In a fraction of a second Tony crashed into the silver suit, and with a violent clang they both disappeared into the fissure in the pavement.
Almost too late to do anything but follow them, Angela deployed her flaps, flipping her palms down. Like a base runner, she landed in a long, sparking, skid across the asphalt. Thankfully, she overshot Pepper.
Once she stopped, she gave a brief, thruster enhanced leap back toward the red head and opened her faceplate. "Pepper!"
Her friend turned wide eyes from the hole to Angela. She pointed at it as if the brunette didn't have half her focus on it already.
"Come on," Angela stepped forward and wrapped her arms under the PA's. "We need to get you out of here. Hold on."
"Tony. He," Pepper stuttered.
"Yeah," Angela clipped and flipped her visor back down. "And I need to get back to help him, so grab on. I can't hold you."
To Pepper's credit she immediately wrapped her arms around Angela's neck. As gently as she could, Angela took off. She only flew a few blocks over before depositing Pepper in front of a coffee shop. Almost immediately people started pointing.
Angela could hear Tony talking through the com but it wasn't to her. She itched to get back to him but tried to tune out the commotion and focus on her mission.
Without wasting the time to flip her faceplate up, Angela spoke through the speaker of the suit. "Call Happy."
She kicked power back to the thrusters, already rising above the rooftop. Over the dull roar she barely caught Pepper's fading plea of, "Help him."
Gaze sweeping the area for Tony's call sign, Angela vowed she would.
…...
Tony slammed into Stane. They smashed through the ground, bounced off the factory floor, and careened out through the side into the street. His vision filled with metal as the two of them blasted through a tractor trailer and landed in the middle of the road, pavement peeling up around them. Dazed, Tony lay still. Through the com he could hear Angela talking to Pepper.
The half a breath of reprieve was broken by blaring horns and the crash of cars. He pulled himself to his feet, the ground vibrating in impact as, across from him, Stane pulled himself upright as well. Great mechanical hands picked up a black SUV as if it were a toy, hoisting it above Stane's head threateningly. "I love this suit!" The older man called.
Tony took in the frightened mother and children still inside and demanded, "Put them down!"
"Collateral damage, Tony," Stane growled and lifted the vehicle higher over his head.
Disgust rolled through him. That was just one difference between him and Stane. Tony didn't think collateral damage was something to shrug off. He powered down his repulsors and commanded, "Divert power to chest RT." He felt the draw of the suit move up to his chest and aimed. In a beam of blue white light energy shot from his arc and impacted Stane.
The car flew into the air as Stane was blasted backwards and Tony braced himself to catch it. The grill of the SUV impacted his chest and he grunted. His back muscles strained as he tried not to overbalance.
"Power reduced to 19%," JARVIS informed.
Tony lost the fight to keep himself on his feet and fell to one knee heavily. Above him the engine of the vehicle roared. Apparently, in her fear, the woman in the car had hit the gas. When the wheels touched down, Tony was pushed along, clutching the hood.
"Lady!" He called, the legs of his suit already sparking as they were drug under the car. "No, no, no, no, no, no!" With a squeal his grip slipped from the hood and Tony was suddenly being dragged under the car. More sparks flew around him and a horrific grinding noise filled his ears. With a cry of effort he hefted the back end off of him and tumbled free.
When he came to a rest, he saw Stane take a few heavy steps, launching over a car with a burst of thrusters. He plucked a motorcycle from between them, the rider yelling in surprise as he was unseated. Stane swung the bike at Tony.
Arms raised in an attempt to hit Stane with a repulsor blast, the impact sent him careening into a parked car and then the blacktop. Before he could get up Stane rushed forward and kicked him. Tony's back hit the side of a bus, a cry of surprise escaping him.
"For 30 years, I've been holding you up!" Stane reached down and picked him up, then tossed him back to the ground with force. When Tony rolled onto his back, a giant silver boot landed on his chest. He grunted in pain.
"I built this company from nothing!" Obadiah claimed, grinding his boot into him again.
From the side of his HUD a blinking light labeled 'Panda' entered.
…...
She found them on the street, Tony pinned on his back under one massive grey boot.
Stane lifted the leg of the suit, once, then twice, driving the heel down like a hammer aimed at Tony's arc. Angela's brain short circuited. She didn't think to use a weapon and she didn't slow down, diving straight toward her enemy, a meter above the blacktop, with the single-minded determination to get him off of Tony.
With a resonant clang, her shoulder collided with the midsection of the giant silver suit. Her arms wrapped around a thick waist, picking Stane bodily off the ground and propelling them both several yards down the road. Angela grunted and dropped him, fighting to control her descent. She skipped across the ground like a stone, rolling wildly and sheering off a streetlight before smacking into a parked car. The pole fell, sending glass and sparks raining down on the street. Screaming people ran through the wreckage in panic. God, they needed to get the fight away from the bystanders.
Pain lanced through her. Her maneuver had not been smart. Already she could see Stane getting to his feet from his spot further back up the road. Ignoring her discomfort, she pushed until she was standing, took aim, and blasted him with a repulsor. An angry howl ripped from Stane as he flew back towards Tony.
Unfortunately after he landed he took the opportunity to grab a still struggling Tony and toss him into a bus. Angela kicked her repulsors on and arrowed toward them. She was too low to the ground to aim a missile or repulsor without crashing, but if she could get close enough she could rip that stolen arc reactor out of his suit.
Angela twisted herself into as tight a flight maneuver as she could, barrel rolling to the left at the last moment, but Stane was ready for her. The edges of her metal fingers scraped across the faceplate of the arc when pressure along her thigh alerted her to the giant mechanical hand that had a hold of her.
With a squeal of metal she was flung up into the air, an integrity alarm sounding in her suit. The world spun around her; night sky, then buildings, and then grey asphalt. Before she could gain her bearings something hit her side and exploded. Angela cried out in pain as fire filled her vision.
In a teeth rattling thud she landed, wheezing. Her display was spider webbed with cracks. Angela slowly rolled to her side with a grunt, dimly aware of the new warnings flashing in her vision. Around her the ground swelled into the edges of an impact crater. Her ribs burned with each breath and a long groan escaped her.
"Chest armor at forty five percent," JAVRIS informed.
…...
Tony's heart stalled in his chest when, with a rush of movement and a loud clang, Angela plowed into Stane. They both flew down the street, smashing into cars along the way. He heard Angela grunt, a rolling series of bangs coming from her com. Down the road a streetlight toppled and sparked.
He forced himself to his elbows, struggling to get a knee under him when the whine of a repulsor made him snap his head back up. Stane came flying back down the street and before Tony could stand, made use of his proximity to snatch Tony and fling him into a city bus. The metal peeled around him and he was lodged in the seat. Tony spared a brief thanks for the bus being empty before he pried a hand rail away from him. Outside a plume of fire erupted in the sky.
There was a wheeze and groan from Angela's end before Tony heard JARVIS inform her about her armors integrity.
"Nothing is going to stand in my way." Stane claimed from outside the bus. "Least of all you two!"
An explosion ripped through the bus and Tony was suddenly flipping skyward heels over head. With a quick flick his repulsors came on to stop his fall.
"Impressive!" Stane called from below him. "You've upgraded your armor!"
He had to get them away from the city and away from Angela. The woman still hadn't gotten herself out of her crater and there was a panicked horde pushing away from the fight in either direction.
"I've made some upgrades of my own!" Stane claimed.
Tony doubted those upgrades would be able to keep up with the combined brain power of him and Panda. Slowly the silver suit started to raise into the sky. The billow of exhaust was excessive, but Tony still caught himself gazing down at the rising suit in horrified shock.
"Sir, it appears that his suit can fly," JARVIS helpfully piped in.
"Duly noted," Tony clipped. "Take me to maximum altitude." There was sure to be one thing Stane missed.
"With only 15% power, the odds of reaching that," JARVIS started.
Tony cut his AI off in exasperation, "I know the math! Do it!"
With a burst of noise and wind, the city shrank below him.
…...
Angela let out a breathless gasp. Pushing her arm underneath her she rolled to her knees in time to see Tony and Stane climbing into the sky. She heard Tony's command for maximum altitude and immediately put together what the man was thinking. JARVIS's rebuttal made up her mind.
By the time she peeled herself out of her hole the two men were specks on her HUD. Angela kicked power to her repulsors and shot into the sky. The buildings rapidly shrunk behind, the sounds of the street fading away below. All of her focus was on the lights from the sets of thrusters she could see through Stane's exhaust plume. First one set winked out, then the other.
Her chest seemed to collapse in on itself in her fear. "JARVIS, pinpoint Tony," she ordered.
…...
"Thirteen percent power, sir."
"Climb!" Tony ordered tensely. Stane was still on his tail.
JARVIS broke back in, "Eleven percent."
"Keep going!" Several red alerts were going off in his HUD.
"Seven percent power." JARVIS was starting to sound nervous.
"Just leave it on the screen! Stop telling me!" Tony said irritably. Something clamped around his right ankle and pulled him back. Tony flailed, looking down to see that Stane had a hold of him. The silver suit wrapped a hand around his neck and Tony pushed an arm out to try to break free. It did nothing.
Stane pulled him closer. "You had a great idea, Tony, but my suit is more advanced in every way!"
Tony's eyes ran over the ice build up on Stane's suit. Yeah, he thought sardonically, except it wasn't. "How'd you solve the icing problem?" He asked smugly.
"Icing problem?" Stane asked confused.
The lights from the silver suits eyes flicker and went out. "Might want to look into it," Tony drawled. He pulled his fist back and banged Stane on the head to break himself free. Tony watched in satisfaction as the elder man fell toward the ground in a dead suit. A second later his own repulsors sputtered and he dropped.
…...
A spot lit in her display. Intermittently she could see one or two thrusters firing but they dropped altitude rapidly. Her HUD flashed red and she swerved right, avoiding the screaming form of a falling Stane. She didn't give the man a backward glance.
Angela calculated their speeds, and before reaching Tony, cut her own thrusters. Her math was good and Tony basically fell into her arms before she reengaged her repulsors.
"Hi," she greeted lamely, gently lowering them toward the Stark Industries rooftop. "After some real world testing I can concede you may have a point about the stabilizers. We should fix that."
"That hurt you, didn't it?" Tony chuckled as they landed on the roof. "We'll go back to design later. I'm almost out of power. I've gotta get out of this thing," he told her.
Angela popped her face mask open and watched Tony, feeling her shoulders slowly relax. With a swift twist his gauntlet disengaged and he tossed it down. He yanked the manual release for his face plate, popping it open. A thud sounded behind them and, before Angela could look, something clamped around her waist. She was suddenly airborne.
The air rushed passed her unprotected face and she only had a moment to see the asphalt coming toward her. With a jolting clang the breath left her. A fist of agony slammed through her ribs and her forehead cracked into the front of her helmet. Abruptly the world went black.
…...
"JARVIS, pinpoint Tony." Angela's voice had never sounded so nice.
"Two percent," JARVIS informed as the thrusters flickered out. Tony's stomach rose into his throat as he plummeted. The repulsors caught him again for a moment. "We are now running on emergency backup power."
Below him Tony could pick out a streak of light headed in his direction. For a moment he worried that Stane had freed his suit from the ice, instead his display identified Angela. He gave a chuff of amusement as the woman cut her thrusters and wrapped her arms under his. She was getting better at that maneuver. Angela kicked her repulsors back on to slow their descent.
A quiet little, "Hi," reached his ears and Tony grinned. Of course then she had to make a pithy remark about a design feature she had insisted on. Of course she had to do it while admitting he was right. He'd fallen for a smart ass. Of course he had.
Together they landed on the roof of Stark Industries power plant. She popped open her mask revealing messy hair and a busted lip.
A rough chuckle escaped him. "We'll go back to design later. I'm almost out of power. I've gotta get out of this thing." He released his left gauntlet, tossing it to the side and flipping up his face mask. While he was distracted going for the next clasp Stane landed behind Angela with a heavy thud. Tony's mouth opened to call out a warning, but before he could make a sound Stane's hand wrapped around Angela and pitched her over the side of the roof. Her yelp of surprise rang in his ears.
"Nice try!" The man growled. He pulled a fist back then drove it at Tony's head. Tony ducked, raising a hand to blast him. Unfortunately, it was the hand he had already taken the gauntlet off of. He glanced down dumbly, realizing his error too late to avoid being decked across the roof.
Scrabbling for a moment, he righted himself and lunged forward. A short blast of his repulsors gave him added momentum to the hit, but it wasn't enough to stop Stane from grabbing him around the waist. Both hands of the larger silver suit squeezed and Tony's eyes widened as the metal of his own suit began to fail.
"Weapons status?" He demanded.
"Repulsors offline. Missiles offline," JARVIS intoned.
His HUD cracked and a gush of hydraulic fluid squirted. "Flares!" Tony shouted. He pushed off of Stane, sparking red trails erupting around him like fireworks. With a final shove he slipped out of the metal hands and quickly landed on another part of the roof. His breath left him in shallow gasps.
Over the com Angela groaned, "Tony?" He let out a sigh of relief at her voice.
"Very clever, Tony," Stane drawled.
"Angela," Tony whispered.
He heard a clank and then, "I'm here."
"This isn't working," he advised, peering around a corner at Stane. "We're going to have to overload the reactor and blast the roof."
"Blow the roof?" she asked incredulously. "No. I can get up there and finish Stane."
Tony gritted his teeth in frustration. "How badly damaged is your suit?" After a moment of silence he hummed, "Thought so. Go to the central console, open up all the circuits," he ordered. "When I get clear of the roof, I'll let you know. You're going to hit the master bypass button. It's going to fry everything up here."
Stane was still searching the rooftop for him.
"Including you," she snapped back.
"Which is why you're going to wait to push the button until I'm off the roof," he hissed.
Angela cursed. "Fine. Just remember you told me to do this. This is on you."
He rolled his eyes. "Make sure you get yourself out. It'll fry you too. I'll buy you some time." Tony ducked further around his corner just as Stane's metal hand clamped on the edge he'd been pressed up against. Angela's murmured complaint about his micromanaging was ignored.
Tony circled around the roof, coming up behind Stane. He leapt on the back of the metal suit with a cry. His display highlighted an area in Stane's neck. "This looks important!" He taunted and jammed his hand into the joint to rip the area out. In the end he had to brace his foot against the man's shoulder to get enough leverage.
Below him Stane bucked and reached for him. The elder man finally got a hand on Tony's head and yanked him off. Tony's nose and chin stung as his whole helmet was ripped free from the suit. He flew across the roof and slid to a stop in the middle of the skylight with a grunt. Below him he caught a glimpse of Angela working franticly.
With a hiss, Stane opened his suit. "I never had a taste for this sort of thing, but I must admit, I'm deeply enjoying the suit!" The man jeered as he crushed Tony's helmet in his hand. He tossed the ruined metal across the roof. It slid to a stop in front of Tony and he raised his head to glare angrily at his once mentor, a man he had trusted.
"You finally outdid yourself, Tony! You'd have made your father proud!" The words were bitter in Tony's ears. Stane took several steps across the rooftop towards him. Tony struggled and finally got one knee beneath him.
"It's ready, Tony! Get off the roof!" Angela called. Below him an alarm started to go off.
Stane pointed his minigun at Tony and opened fire. To protect his head Tony deployed all his control surfaces on his right arm and angled his body away from Stane. He gritted his teeth as several bullets pinged off his armor. The glass he was standing on abruptly dropped out from under him. With a grunt, Tony managed to grab on to a steel support. He dangled above the reactor by his elbows.
"Tony!" Angela shouted in alarm.
"How ironic, Tony! Trying to rid the world of weapons, you gave it its best one ever!" Stane enthused. He shifted to bring up his left arm, which was armed with missiles. "And now I'm going to kill you with it!" The man claimed. He fired, but the shot went wide. "You ripped out my targeting system!" He concluded.
"Angela, time to hit the button!" Tony yelled down to the brunette.
She swore. "You're not off the roof."
"Hold still, you little prick!" Stane growled and took another firing stance. He fired again.
"Just do it!" Tony demanded. If the woman could not argue with him this one time, that would be fantastic.
"Damn it Anthony Stark, don't you move," Angela ordered, urgency thick in her voice.
Stane fired off a closer round and Tony lost his grip a bit. He dangled from one arm. "Push it!" He cried.
For less than a second there was the rising whine of an overload coming from beneath him. It mixed with the sound of repulsors. Then the wind was knocked out of him and he was headed upward. He had a moment to see Stane's surprised face before he was half tumbling over the side of the building.
Angela grunted from in front of him and their downward movement was checked. There was a clang and an abrupt impact that made Tony's head jerk. When he managed to see a clear picture of his surroundings again they were both on their knees. Her shoulder was still braced against his chest and they were on the pavement in front of his factory.
He thought he heard Stane scream before a blue pillar of light shot into the sky. There was a zapping crackle of electrical discharge and Angela hunched towards him. Tony wrapped an arm around her back and craned his neck back to see the lightning like show in the clouds. Pushing himself to his feet, he dragged Angela to hers. She moaned in discomfort, stumbling.
Tony took several swift backwards steps, pulling the woman with him for a few feet before she regained her balance. A cascading blackout spiraled out into the city around them. From the roof there was a series of crashes before a fireball erupted from the arc reactor. The glass in the portico shattered and scattered out onto the pavement.
Angela gave a cry and clumsily staggered across the parking lot with him. Sparks rained down around them and he could hear her rapid breathing. A great plume of smoke rolled out the front doors and the orange light illuminated Angela's battered face.
He looked at the bruise blooming on her forehead and the cut along her left eye. Her mask was missing and her hair was sticking to the blood on her face. He took a moment to tuck some of the strands back with his bare left hand. She had one arm wrapped protectively around her ribs.
"We should probably get out of here," he advised.
She groaned lowly, sagging into him in a way that spoke of total exhaustion. "Yeah? How are we going to do that?" she asked snippily.
"Carry me?" He joked.
Angela shot him a filthy look and Tony wanted to kiss her all over again. "Really?"
"No," he shook his head. "Lets call Happy."
"And how are we going to do that?" She drooped further against him and he let himself rest some of his weight against her. Propped against each other in the parking lot they watched the main power plant of Stark Industries go up in flames. "Your helmet is gone and so is my HUD."
Tony blinked. She had a point. He glanced around the empty lot. "Think there's a payphone around here?"
Angela gave a wordless groan.