Author's Note: We return to a terrible world that our hero has found himself in. Learning
The duo of vigilantes dropped their captive on a rooftop more than a mile away from the warehouse that the fight had taken place. Matt stood up breathing heavily, having found the pace that the Blueman had set for them to be a bit much when they had managed to leave well before the authorities arrived.
Blueman was still mesmerized by the glowing blue reactor in his hand. There was something about this Arc Reactor that just grabbed his attention in a way that no other device had since arriving in this world, the energy it gave off resonated with him so deeply that he found that all his thoughts soon became embroiled in what he could do with the power this item could grant to the world or what it could allow him to do. That was when he looked at the lady in their grasp putting it away and facing the other two people on the roof.
"What are we going to do to her?" Pat asked his counterpart, his curiosity forcing him to do so.
"I can deal with her," The blind one of the two answered.
"Deal with her?"
"Look once I get the info I need about Fisk I'll let her go"
"The thing is that," Pat sighed. "She has definitely attacked me before, not personally but she sent some people after me"
"Then I will have to get that from her too"
"The people she sent had strength enhancement and fire powers"
"Ah," Understanding now filled Matt's posture. "You're worried that she's the same and will overpower me when she wakes up"
"I know she's at least faster than the people sent after me, so I better stick around for until we're sure"
"Then-" The dark-colored of the two pointed at the vigilante. "You should wake her"
The Blueman complied with the suggestion, gently smacking the woman in the face, causing her to faceplant into the ground. She spat out a wad of blood, crimson liquid pouring from her lips like water from a tap, rolling over until she smiled with pink teeth forming a smirk that reminded the duo of a snake about to eat a mouse.
"Seems that our two little would be Superheroes have caught me," Her eyes showed a great level of amusement at the situation. "Do you even know what you'll do with me"
"Oh, I have an idea." Matt slammed his foot down on her leg. There was no reaction from this, so he repeated the action twice. After the second time, she flipped onto her feet, what visible skin that could be seen then started to glow as she took in a visible breath.
That was when Blueman struck, having already taken in his own breath, he let an icy cold breath out instantly robbing her of the heat she was about to use. He grabbed her now frosty bound waists and threw her back to the ground. The force of this banging her head on the ground.
"So who do you work?" Blueman asked her with a strange amount of the gentleness for someone that had just savagely slammed another person into the ground.
"You haven't figured it out yet?" Wilton seemed almost confused by his lack of knowledge. She had a cruel smirk that seemed to display her "A quick google of superpowered pyros would have given you that answer"
"AIM?" Matt exclaimed surprise showing in the tone of voice. "I had thought that you guys were taken down by Stark years ago"
Pat thought about what he knew about AIM, he was sure that at some point in the comics they were lead by a floating head creature known as MODOK. Which didn't comply with what he read here, where they started out as a think tank and were eventually turned into a terrorist organization by Killian Jones. So not a group started as a Hydra research group.
"Why have AIM been targeting me?"
"Haha," Wilton laughed dryly at the blue vigilante's. "I'm not telling you that, what do you take me for?"
This was when Matt smacked her in the face with the tip of his shoe, shocking Blue and breaking Wilton's nose. The formerly plain black shoe of the Mask was now splattered in crimson as if someone had flicked red paint on it. She bent forward still on the ground but now properly looking at her capturers, her smile was still in place but now had a more maniac bent to it.
"Do you really think that I haven't been trained to withstand torture," At Blue's unsubtle shifting she laughed and turned to look more closely at him. "That's right this is torture, I wonder how a big blue superhero like you feels about that?"
There was a silence from the Blueman. It was one that told the other two just how uncomfortable he was with this experience. Pat didn't believe that torture even produced accurate results, he had been threatened into saying too many things as a child that he didn't do or mean that he believed that as a fundamental truth that the practice it could only produce information that is concurrent with whatever the integrator thinks in the first place.
"I think I'll just freeze you and leave you there," He eventually spoke up, walking to the side Matt with his arms leveled behind his back. "I imagine that as an AIM member you'd have some warrants for your arrest, all I would have to do is leave in front a station"
"I'd be free in a matter of hours"
"Sure but I imagine that Tony Stark has eyes out for AIM members, you only need to be in the system for one second," Pat snapped his fingers off in her face. "I don't think he'd be as kind as I am"
There was a moment where she looked from one vigilante to the next, trying to see if either one would break eye contact with her. It wasn't an empty silence for the sounds of traffic below them and sirens in the distance could be heard, this created an atmosphere of tension where Matt could hear her heart race. It went faster and faster as the tension rose to levels that Matt hadn't thought they would have without more violent actions.
"Well, I suppose that I'll leave you at-"
"WAIT!" She yelled stopping him from advancing any further. "What do you want to know? I'll tell you what I can but there are things that I can't tell you or I'd forfeit my life"
"Why are you guys after me?"
"What do you know about a man named Wilson Fisk?" There was a sly look on her face, the look of someone with an amazing idea.
Tony Stark looked over the scraps the government had handed over to him, well whatever they felt like handing to him. It was a shoddy but good work, it definitely looked like whoever made this knew what they were doing but they also hadn't come as far along as even the second Iron Man suit. In a way this work was embarrassing but there were several things that he couldn't figure out. Whether it was because the suits had taken parts that were too important or because it had been damaged in the fight that disabled it, but he couldn't figure it out.
"What did they use for a power source?" He whispered to himself.
Then he peered at the pieces of the arms that remained, a few smashed and cracked repulser pieces. There were a lot of improvements that could've been made here, he could see that with just regular visually inspection but he suspected that whoever made this suit didn't have access to the level of minimization for this type of tech that he had.
There were scratches and holes in the chest piece, to his experienced eye it looked like someone had just shoved their fingers into, he would have to look through the footage that one kid had given to them later to make sure. Either way that meant that the person who did it was definitely above what he'd seen from the former Captain America, he couldn't be sure but it definitely around what he had seen Thor do in the past, it was a freighting level of strength for some punk on the street to have.
"FRIDAY," Tony spoke catching the attention of his AI assistant. "Show me the footage that kid got of the fight"
The AI did so and Stark watched the brief amount of the fight with a growing concern, all the blasts that this Titanium Man suit sent at this Blueman just seem to shove him around, which while something repulsors are meant to do, it isn't what the unibeam is supposed to do. Soon the Blueman showcased another power, this time an Ice Breath, that explained how the vigilante disabled the suit so easily, the makers mustn't have dealt with the icing issue. Mightn't have assumed that the issue would come up, properly a bad design decision now with the value of hindsight. That was when he saw what the Blueman group member pulled from the chest of the Titanium Man.
An Arc Reactor
Then he saw that the Blue da guy peering at the reactor with the look of someone fascinated by its existence in the world. He twisted it from one hand to another, his look of amazement changed once he looked down the street, seemingly seeing his audience the vigilante walked off to where he came from leaving his powerless opponent on the floor. This news called for further investigating than he had prepared for.
Tony brought up a hologram of a few suits that he had in produced by waving his hand over a table, looking through them for the right one. Stark rubbed his chin in deep thought, compiling what he knew about this Blueman into a mental folder and comparing that to some of his suits. He needed one that had not only strength but also a higher range of ice resistance than his regular brute suits, it was a tough job but he was sure that this one was just the right suit for the occasion.
"Hey FRIDAY, give Rhodey a call," He told his AI. "I might need the back up if I want to keep this from getting messy"
Louise sat in the kitchen of the apartment, it was separate from the main part of the place by an island. She was on a silver high stool her feet reaching the floor with no difficulty whatsoever, waiting for her father to come home. Her Mother had already gone to bed as it was past midnight, leaving waiting for her Father's return. She wasn't sure what she was going to say to him once he arrived, was she going to confront or try to make him slip up and admit to whatever his new job was really about.
That was when Jim walked into the kitchen, his coat had dirty black and red smudges on it. He was wearing a hat that shaded his eyes away from view. He peered down at her setting position as if he was unsure of what he was seeing. Louise matched his stare with a better one that spoke of a anger she felt at Jim's eyes.
"Louise," He yelped in surprise as if he was in shock at his own daughter's appearance here in the kitchen. "What are you doing up this late?"
"Just waiting," She paused thinking about how to approach the subject. "How the job? It was late night?"
"Ya, Mr. Wesley wanted me to deal with some business and," He winced in thought. "It lasted longer than I thought would"
"That's too bad, what business was it?"
"Ehh," Her father lets out a deep breath in distress. "You know I just had to follow Mr. Wesley while he dealt with some construction deals, ensure that some of the seeder people didn't try to take advantage of him and ambush at the same time"
"Your time with the mafia must really help"
"Oh it did," He stopped realizing what he had said. "Look, let's just leave that kind of talk for the morning"
With that limited amount of interaction, he left his fuming little girl in the kitchen alone, stewing in her frustration. If her Dad wouldn't talk to her about this she would just have to force the situation to come to the surface. There would be a lot of disappointment emitting from this family in the future.
Author's Note: I am really under the weather right now, so I imagine that once I feel better I will revise this chapter a bit. Any suggestions are welcomed. Can you guess what Wilton's about to do?
I'll have a bigger author's then, so any questions?