Chapter 15 – Iron Man Verses War Machine (Part 2), 2011

Inside the factory of the disused Stark Global headquarters, War Machine was waiting. He'd picked up Iron Man on his scanners when the red-and-gold idiot had blasted through the sound barrier and gone supersonic. Tony Stark was a scientist, not a military man; he'd been flying too high, and War Machine had picked up the rogue man-shaped missile. Rookie mistake.
He turned his attention back to the machinery in front of him and continued fixing together wires and bolts according to the blueprints on his HUD.
His plan was to get the factory operating again to fix new weapons to the armour. He'd already managed to get the machinery working in other parts of the factory; new armour plates were being manufactured, stronger weapons, upgrading artillery...all the things Tony never gave him. He was now taking it for himself.

He wanted to crush Tony Stark with the very weapons the genius' mind had created. Of course, there was the question of what after that? He could take on the country, even the world. James Rhodes, War Machine and ruler of the world. He liked the sound of that.
In the helmet an incessant beeping began, and a section of the wall towards the North of the factory caved in. War Machine whipped his head around and switched through various infrared spectrums, though none of them gave him much of a different view of the surrounding area due to the steam coming from the machinery.
He put down the large wire he was holding and began to walk over to the hole in the wall, minigun pointed directly at it.
War Machine felt none of the fear that he might have a few years ago. Why should he? He was wearing an invincible suit of armour, armed to the teeth. He had no reason to feel fear again. And he was ready for anything that Stark would throw at him.
He neared the hole and peered out, switching to thermal imaging, he couldn't see anything.

There was the faint sound of hissing, which he shrugged off as being from the machinery behind him, when suddenly there was an explosion from above him and the rest of the wall caved in on top of him.
"That'll leave a mark." A voice said, and Iron Man's fist punched through the rubble to pull War Machine out. "Where's my daughter?" he growled.
War Machine stayed silent and ignited his thrusters, pulling a shocked Tony up from the ground when War Machine's hand gripped Iron Man's wrist. Tony yelled out when he was thrown into the air, not igniting his own thrusters in time to stop himself crashing through the ceiling.
Tony found himself crashing into the tower, stopping short of the elevator shaft before catching himself and landing in an awkward crouch. He ran towards the hole in the wall and launched himself down at a waiting War Machine with a yell.
They slammed into some machinery, halting production of the new, higher-fire rate minigun that War Machine had been trying to add to his suit. They pounded their fists into each other, bouncing off the floor and off of the machinery and even each other while they fought.

"Where's my daughter!" Tony roared as he brought a heavy-handed fist down onto War Machine's faceplate, leaving faintly noticeable scratch marks on the metal. Tony hadn't seen the missile launcher on War Machine's right shoulder power up.
If the Iron Man faceplate had noticeable reactions and expressions, the eyes would've widened with Tony's seconds before a missile impacted against Iron Man, sending him flipping backwards into the factory.
War Machine's thrusters sparked into life and he lifted into the air, hovering over the wreck machinery, searching around for Iron Man. After a few seconds he turned and headed back towards the finished parts to start applying them as quickly as possible, only he was tackled at the last moment.
The two armoured men crashed into the wall, and with a mechanic grunt, War Machine launched another missile at Tony, causing him to hurl backwards, except this time he balanced himself out and landed on his feet, glaring right at War Machine.
"You're a fool, Tony," Rhodey's mechanical voice spat, "You could have kept this power for yourself, but instead you offered it to the government as a product of peace, but instead let them turn it into another weapon. One they give to me instead."

Tony slowly straightened up and looked at his original creation.
"I have to admit; I like your new suit, nice choice of colours. Is it meant to signify positivity? Something that the American people can look to for hope?"
"Well I wanted to go with red and blue with white stars, but I felt that Captain America would've sued the pants off me," Tony replied sarcastically, then mentally shook himself because of engaging Rhodey in banter. "Where is Maria?" he asked.
With those words, Rhodey began to laugh, "Closer than you think."
The sentence confused Tony, but the answer to his unasked question came a few seconds later when the War Machine suit straightened up and the faceplate opened.
"DAD!" Maria screamed at Tony as his own faceplate rose.
"Maria!" Tony yelled and started to move towards her, but was slapped by an unseen enemy.

Iron Man crashed through yet-more machinery, and into the wall, carrying on through it and into the next room, a storage area.
"J.A.R.V.I.S.?" Tony grunted, "Can you get her out of that thing?"
"Negative, sir, it seems that a manual override has locked me out of its systems, and has initiated the lock-down sequence."
Tony gritted his teeth and looked back towards the factory floor when a large shape covered the hole in the wall. Loud mechanical whirring was going on, and all around Tony everything started to shake.
"Let me introduce you to my design!" Rhodey's voice came, considerably more intimidating than the previous suit.
Large hands came through the hole and gripped the wall and pulled, ripping it away. Tony gawked at the monstrous metal ogre before him. "Meet War Monger." Rhodey's voice said.
Tony looked past him and saw Maria's scared face looked at him when suddenly there was a ruckus from outside. The three of them looked up and saw the Hellicarrier bearing down on them from above.

"You brought them!" Rhodey roared, and with that, the War Machine faceplate snapped shut, then the body straightened and took off through the hole in the roof.
"Don't!" Tony yelled and launched himself, literally, at War Monger, tackling the bigger suit across the factory, with Rhodey beating the huge metal fists down on Tony's back.
Tony reared back and sneered under his faceplate as he rained fists and repulsor bolts down onto the War Monger helmet. Rhodey didn't feel a thing, and only laughed at Tony's feeble attempts to subdue him.
"Bring her back! Let –" he yelled, stopping each time to bring his fist down, "her-" another fist, down on War Monger's face "GO!"
With that, Rhodey let fly a repulsor bolt that sent Iron Man back, rolling to a stop, resting on his feet and a hand.

Outside, Maria was engaging the War Machine armour in combat with S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, the majority of them were on the deck of the Hellicarrier.
Inside the suit Maria was screaming, fighting to control the armour every time it moved; it raised it's right arm to fire at some Agents, forcing Maria's arm to rise with it, which she desperately tried to stop. Only to fail.
She hoped the tears spilling from her eyes would interfere with the suit somehow, cause it to short out, but she figured her father would have thought about that. She cried uncontrollably as the armour around her fired against her will.

"Stark! Where the hell are you? I've got every single available Agent out here fighting Rhodes and you're slacking off!" Fury yelled through the communication in Tony's helmet.
"It's not Rhodey! I'm fighting Rhodey down here, in the factory," Tony yelled as he flew around the factory, dodging bullets and missiles from the War Monger that was bearing down on him.
"What are you talking about?"
"It's my daughter in that suit! Rhodey's got it on remote control" Tony yelled in response. "Do not fire on my daughter, Fury!"
Fury frowned indignantly, but called off the attack and inside the suit Maria's eyes widened when the Agents in front of her stopped firing.
War Monger stopped firing at Tony and turned to look up; inside the helmet, Rhodey grimaced.
Tony took this moment to tackle War Monger again, with a grunt they both went to the floor, nearer to the glowing Arc Reactor in the centre of the factory floor.

Rhodey grunted as Tony managed to rip the faceplate off his armour and looked into the repulsor gun of the Iron Man gauntlet.
"Yield." Tony growled threateningly.
Above them, Maria tried to force the War Machine armour to stop it's movements as it straightened again and shot away from the battle, up into the sky, further and further.
Tony was thrown from Rhodey's armour and landed, once again, on his feet and hand. He took one look up into the sky and gritted his teeth as his HUD zoomed to focus on a blue glow of the War Machine boot thrusters. He looked back down towards Rhodey as the huge suit straightened, Tony saw that the helmet was empty, and quickly realised that the suit was large enough for Rhodey to sit inside the torso alone.
Rhodey laughed, "Bet you didn't think of this. You see, Tony, you're obsolete." Rhodey said, and fired a missile at Tony, which he brought his arms up to shield him.

On the Iron Man HUD, the power-percentage flashed up onto the screen, marking only fifteen percent power remaining; and although J.A.R.V.I.S.' voice didn't say it, Tony knew he should stop and recharge his miniature Arc Reactor.
However, he simply could not sit by and let his former best friend destroy all he knew, or let his daughter freeze in the upper-reaches of the Earth's atmosphere.
Tony blinked, instantly formulating a plan; with a mental command, turned off the exterior speakers. "J.A.R.V.I.S.?" he found himself whispering, "Divert all power equally between shields and thrusters; fuck the life support."
He dared J.A.R.V.I.S. to argue, which is just what the A.I. did.
"Sir, power is down to under fifteen-percent, using this power could force it to drop considerably under ten."
"I know, just do it!"

In only a few seconds, J.A.R.V.I.S. did as commanded, and Tony launched forward, once again bringing up his arms to shield himself from the impact as he thudded into the War Monger armour; the force of the impact over-balanced the huge armour into the Arc Reactor shell. The resulting electrical shockwave immediately knocked out Rhodey, and completely shut down the War Monger armour, and also sent Iron Man back a few feet.
Tony blinked, forcing his eyes to focus beyond the huge red flashing "6%" that flashed on the HUD.
He was on his back, staring up through the hole in the roof at the faint blue dot in the sky, and was up in an instant.
On the S.H.I.E.L.D. flight-deck, Fury was among the personnel looking over the side of the Hellicarrier at the electrical explosion below, attempting to see through the clouds of smoke and steam that rose from the old factory.
Many of them were blown back when the red-and-gold blur shot past, already breaking the sound barrier into Mach 1. Tony only hoped it would be quick enough to catch up with Maria.

Fury landed in a heap and glared up at the quickly-disappearing Iron Man.
"Stark, what's going on?" Tony heard his voice, a hint of concern in his voice.
"Rhodey's down, get down there and pull him out of that armour, I'm going after Maria. War Monger is down, but the commands are locked...I...I'm running low on power, down to five-percent...four percent..." Tony said. "Fury i-if I don't make it through this..."
"Shut up, Stark," Fury interrupted, his words sharp, but his tone quiet. "Focus on Maria. I'll get Rhodes into custody."
"Yessir, General Fury," Tony said with a grim tone before focusing once again. "All remaining power to thrusters, J.A.R.V.I.S.; see if you can get that suit back under control."

Maria was on the verge of giving up. The suits systems were crackling, her eyes unfocused, staring out ahead of her at the stars. She couldn't move, and as such didn't notice the suit icing up around her.
She forced herself to close her eyes and prayed that her father would come for her.
Tony was gritting his teeth, the strain finally hitting him; down to two-point-five-percent power and falling, rapidly. But he was quickly gaining on Maria, desperately forcing, willing himself to continue on. He reached out, just as his suit packed up, and managed to grip Maria as his vision swam into shadows.
Now he had a physical grip, signals from Iron Man crossed over with the signals from War Machine, and J.A.R.V.I.S. was able to flush out Y.A.R.V.I.S. from the suit with a reboot.

Maria gasped when she felt the suit jolt and then everything went black, save for the stars ahead of her. The next thing she knew, she was being pulled; then tumbling, back towards the Earth.
After a few quick seconds, the suit powered back up, and J.A.R.V.I.S. addressed Maria;
"Good evening, Miss Stark."
"J.A.R.V.I.S.!" Maria cried out in joy. "Wh-where's dad?"
"Mister Stark, your father, is temporarily unavailable." J.A.R.V.I.S. informed her with a regretful tone as he moved the armour to grip Iron Man in it's arms, and activated the jet thrusters. "I am unlocking the suit as we speak, this means that when we reach the ground, I need you to get out of the suit. Do you understand?"
"Y-yes!" Maria said, realising she still couldn't move, and therefore, couldn't nod.

J.A.R.V.I.S. angled them down to the Hellicarrier deck, but (for the first time) miscalculated and overshot it, impacting hard with the tarmac below. Maria gasped when the suit dropped away from her, clattering to the ground around her as cars skidded to a halt around them. Maria stayed beside Iron Man, and helped pull the helmet off her father so he could breathe, if he was even still alive.
Her father jolted awake, "Maria," he gasped, his eyes turning, as his head couldn't, to look at his daughter, "The...The arc reactor..." he said, lazily lifting a heavy arm to point to the War Machine suit, "The power...battery inside it," he gasped for air, "Replace...mine," he gasped as the Arc Reactor in his chest died, the glow fading.
Maria moved fast, twisting the Arc Reactor from the grey chest plate and then carefully, but quickly, twisting her fathers out. He gave a dull grunt, and then cried out in joy as the working Reactor was fitted. "Dad...are you okay?" the girl asked.
Tony stared at the dark sky, and nodded, "Thank you..."


Pepper and Happy were waiting nervously, watching while the Hellicarrier docked at the Triskelion in New York. The sun shone brightly, but Pepper couldn't feel the happiness that a cloudless sky usually brought her. Fury had personally reported to her all that he knew had gone on.
Maria had even spoken to Pepper herself, and Pepper was thankful that her daughter was safe; but whenever she asked, no one would tell her of her husband.
As soon as they were allowed, Pepper boarded the Hellicarrier and was shown straight to the medical wing.
Before her, her daughter sat in a chair next to a bed, within which her husband lay unconscious. He was breathing regularly, hooked up to some fancy machinery with a Richards Corporation logo on it. There was a noise from behind her, and she turned to see Reed Richards himself, smiling kindly at Pepper. Besides Rhodey, Reed was among the few people Tony could, and would, call his friends, but Reed was the only one Tony would consider his intellectual equal.

"Hello again, Missus Stark," Reed said politely.
"Hello, Mister Richards,"
"As I've already told Maria," Reed said, stepping past Pepper towards her husband and daughter, "Call me Reed."
"Then you can call me Pepper,"
Reed smile and nodded, "I've checked Tony over, he's going to be fine, he just needs some rest." He said, putting the clipboard he was holding back at the end of Tony's bed.
"What...what happened?"

Reed cleared his throat again, "I'm a little hazy on the details; different stories from different news agencies trying to put a different spin on it. Several claim to have quotes from an interview with Tony Stark on the destruction of his old factory when I know for a fact that he's been right here since it happened. He put too much strain on his mini Arc Reactor and it ran down on power. However, it keeps running, even with no power, so it can recharge, but this process is slow, if I hadn't been contacted and met the Hellicarrier as he came into the Manhattan airspace, the charge on his heart wouldn't be nearly as far as it is. I have him hooked up to several machines that will help him get back on his feet, though I have a feeling that at full-charge, Tony won't feel a thing from that fight."
Pepper had tears in her eyes, while Maria came around to hug her mother.
"He's going to be fine, Pepper," Reed said with a smile.