𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐊 𝐈𝐍𝐃𝐔𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐒

𝐋𝐎𝐒 𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐋𝐄𝐒, 𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐀

TONY

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Four hiding places. Four corners of the world. 

Tony had strategized a textbook lockdown on all offices, not formally announcing his arrival on any of the facilities instead, performing a full-throttle evacuation. The crowds seemed to move out like a well-oiled machine, slow but steady. He couldn't help but doubt that he wasn't being active enough. Maybe Los Angeles wasn't the first place to visit but something told him it was—it was the newly opened headquarters and celebrating its first anniversary this year.  

'JARVIS, stream progress monitors to the suit,' he ordered as he soared above the familiar assemblage of skyscrapers in LA. He watched the civilians all as equals, sauntering out the front like armies of ants and safely being escorted to the nearest exits. He spared himself a moment of gratitude before hovering a safe distance away from the atrium. 'And get Maria on the line while you're at it.'

'Certainly, sir. Scans initiating. Contacting Maria Hill.'

Before her name even popped on his screen, her voice rang through like an alarm. 'Mr. Stark. We're monitoring the four faculties for repulsor pulses or uncanny energy signatures—'

'It's not going to work like that,' he mused. He narrowed his gaze on some struggling families, scantily asking for direction but only being shoved back to the exit as if to fulfil the highest orders first.  'How come there are no first response teams on-site? And where in the hell is Miss Potts—'

'Evac looks smooth in Tokyo and still got a red-light in Long Island. Cleaning up in Spain still in progress.'

'SHIELD's enroute in position?'

'Underway, sir,' she said curtly. 'We have an evaluated ETA in—'

He heard her shocked gasp, a short clacking of fingers over a keyboard. He heard scrambled orders to a nearby agent, Tony's senses clambering to heightened anxiety. He tried escaping the choking thoughts, striving to withstand the loud heaves that were leaving his mouth.

'JARVIS, talk to me, buddy.'

'It's Valencia, sir,' his AI replied in the most solemn tone possible. It was too late, they were dead in his name - they were dead because of Stane. Because of him. 'There was a cellular burst over the city to a newspaper company. SHIELD debrief teams are falling in.'

'Get me the stories. Codeword: Valencia.'

When the news reports on the word 'Valencia' came up, all he saw was fire, smoke and screams over the camera. He was too late; his conscious burned at the aftermath cavalcade.

'How many?'

'Fifty-eight and counting, sir,' he heard, his breaths faltering at the mortality count. Stanes, those bald rats, he found himself internally grunting out in a threat. 'Mostly first responders, evac employees—they're being handled safely.'

'Director Stark,' Maria said in a small voice, different from her usual commanding tone. 'If Stane lights up another, we might be looking at substantial casualties. Stakes are looking high in the States soil—'

'Issue a code-black to the rest. Tokyo's on lockdown so Stane's definitely not looking out there,' he formulated in his head. 'I'm on my way to LA. Get Rhodes on it, too.'

'That's the thing,' Maria said suspiciously her voice drawling. 'Someone has already issued the orders in your name to all facilities.'

Tony knew who it was without mention. 'Pepper.'

'I've got eyes on her,' Maria responded instantly. A moment later, she answered with pride in her voice. 'She's in Long Island's zero-point energy lab and—hold on. Wait, is that—Oh, hell no.'

'Maria? JARVIS, what's the choke up—'

'Someone get me a rundown of this ship! And, a damned tequila before I lose it!' He heard Maria's chilling yell emanate from the call before her line was lost for a quick moment. He let out a soft sigh of exhaustion.

'Sir, I believe Miss Preece is with Miss Potts at the moment. My security recognition scans have picked up their structures.'

His face felt tight, knowing had paled in an instant. Only a woman like her could put him into cardiac arrest by not following simplistic rules. The plan was to keep her away from Stane but she had to mess it up. How hard was it to stay on the helicarrier?

Maria groaned on the other end. 'Preece, you tough little shit.'

∞

𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐊 𝐈𝐍𝐃𝐔𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐒

𝐋𝐎𝐍𝐆 𝐈𝐒𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐃, 𝐍𝐄𝐖 𝐘𝐎𝐑𝐊

ELEANOR

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At the facility, the evacuation seemed to be a critical procession. As soon as Pepper's guidance reached the first response teams, immediate instructions were serviced into the channels and alerting the civilians on the ground. I had to fight past rushing passersby, to pass through the floor and get to the laboratories which led to the basement.

'So you're telling me that if someone wants to blow this place up, he'd plant the bombs in the foundation of the facility,' Pepper repeated my sentences from a while before and I nodded along with her. 

'You think his goons will be down there.'

'Modded goons,' I corrected. 'Zeke fixes bombs into civilians. He's a psycho like that.'

'A psycho you dated,' she snickered, unbelieving. 'You're one of the smartest females I know and yet you fell for a dumbass.'

'I cannot believe myself either.'

The basement that Pepper and I were looking for was apparently a little past the Stark quantum-server array labs, leading down into the gas and electricity maintenance units. When the door was slid open with an alphanumeric passkey by the favour of Pepper, the choking smell of fumes and slight condensation of acid steam streamed past us. The room was darker than the night, the reddish glow from the nearby emergency lights the only source of lights to guide us in. Pepper coughed up when she ducked past a vaporous emission, her palms clamping over her nostrils and mouth. I supported her shoulders as she straightened up.

We found ourselves quickly jogging down a flight of openly-planned stairs. 

I looked down from the rails, trying to gauge the height and a low whistle leaving me. The stairs must have been going down for almost twenty stories—most of the pipes and connections obstructed by the build.  

'Tony has got some solid foundations around here. Must be at least a hundred feet deep.'

'How are you even breathing properly?' Pepper choked out when she saw me unaffected and recuperating. She had an awed look on her face when I shrugged.

'I believe this,' I pointed to the energy core in my chest, 'screws with your being. Lucky me, huh?'

'Lucky you, indeed.'

Pepper jump-squealed from her spot when the third voice broke through, scrambling up from her keeled over stance to my side. I turned behind us to see two pairs of brightly-lit eyes staring down at us as they lowered themselves on the metal bridge with a clang. The haze added to the atmosphere as Iron Man and War Machine straightened from their landing posture with a heavy whirring. The energy core on Iron Man's chest glowed brilliantly, providing sufficient light to illuminate our pathway ahead.

I sighed. 'You've got us.'

'I thought we established precepts, Elle,' Tony said in an irritated, mechatronic voice, walking forward and making the scaffold shake dangerously with the weight of his metal suit. 'Stay on board and keep your distance. And you,' he fastened his gaze on Pepper who was still masking coughs, kneading her neck to control her airflow. 'Do you have a death wish, Pep? To choke and die?'

 'Excuse you, Tony,' Pepper snapped, prepared to stand up for herself. Even in the minimal lighting, her face glowed red with anger. 'If it weren't for me, Long Island would've never seen the light of day. If anything you should be thanking Elle and I.'

'Hey, Poprocks,' Rhodey called out to Pepper who rolled her eyes at the nickname. 'You're done here, okay? Thanks.'

'Yes, thank you for putting your lives at stake,' he drawled out sarcastically. 'And yeah, thanks again for taking up the hero-part of my duty.'

I started to speak up, too. 'That's a low blow—'

'You,' he pointed at me, efficiently shutting me up, 'you're in for it when this is over. What were you thinking when coming down here?'

'Because I know how he works, Tony,' I defended. 'I know he's going to be down here if he wants this place under rubble.'

'Many regrets, Preece,' he replied, stepping aside and stuck his hand out to the pathway that led to the entrance. 'We can take it from here. Get Pepper an oxygen tank while you're at it.'

'Very funny,' Pepper protested as she coughed once again, making her way up the long two levels of stairs we had successfully crossed and nodded once at me. Whereas I stayed put, folding my arms and planting my feet. I knew more things about Stane than both of them combined so if they had to take him down, I was their only chance against him.

'You're not getting special treatment,' he said with austerity. 'Leave before I get handsy.'

'I'm coming with.'

'Uh, no, you're not.'

'Uh, yes, I am.'

'Elle, please—'

'No.'

'I cannot handle her right now,' he murmured to Rhodey, exhausted. 'You do it.'

Rhodey moved past Tony before he could throw a fit, his mask slipping up to showcase the grimness in his dark face. I almost fell for it. 'We don't have time, Elle. This dude can be anywhere.'

'And that's why I'm here,' I enunciated my syllables so that I could get into the thick brains of theirs. 'I've seen him in his new guard. He is not that easy to catch but with me, he has got an opening.'

In the half-light, Rhodey looked like the obscuration he had become. I gave him every reason to stay back and he liked that I was right. I could see it in his eyes, the bitterness, and unwanting approval as he let out a large exhale. His mask snapped back into position and he looked at Tony.

'She's right,' Rhodey said in a snippy tone. 'As long as she stays out of Stane's sight, she's safe.'

'You're siding with her?' Tony blew out. 'Rhodey, what the fu—'

'We gotta go, man. Elle,' his armour-eyes strained on me, 'stay connected. Anything, you buzz in.'

Tony was obviously troubled as he shifted slightly to face me while Rhodey started to radially scan the area for heat signatures. The Iron Man mask was still on and underneath it, I knew how much disapproval endured. I chewed the inside of my cheeks anxiously until he spoke again. 

'Okay, whizkid. State his game.'

'...what?'

'What's his deal,' he transcribed with a rustle. 'His MO—'

'Firstly, that isn't going to work,' I thumbed at Rhodey's scanning rays with a scrunched nose. 'Zeke's biology is not human anymore. And he has probably got technology that cloaks him and men.'

'So?'

'You have to wait for him to make his move,' I suggested. 'Presume his revenge on you trumps everything else. Sure as a pickle.'

'I'm getting nothing from Stinkerbell, here. Wait for that son of a bitch,' he scoffed at my sentence, 'you can damn well wish I will.'

'Oh, stop it. You've been narky with me all day.'

'No, don't Brit out on me. Don't do—'

I gasped. 'You absolute dickhead, I am trying to protect you!'

'Well, I don't need protecting. I'm the freaking Iron Man!'

'Guys,' Rhodey called out, looking up to the several other flights of stairs that led up to different entrances. I saw several other connections of baseline vessels, a few lit up with the travel of some sort of energy through them. 

'I cannot be the least bit arsed about that stupid suit or your insane ability to—'

Tony paid him a deaf ear. 'See, you're speaking but all I hear is, "blah, blah, tea, tea, English Breakfast"!'

'Tony, watch out!'

In a flash, a burst of golden had rammed into his suit from above and keeled him over the railing with a massive blow. It was a hundred feet drop to reach the ground. It all happened so suddenly, the force of the repulsor hit had acted against my flimsy posture and tossed my body around like a rag doll, making me airborne for a good few seconds. My back had the first impact against the netted, metal bannister and blocked my plummet to my imminent death. I groaned as I slammed back to the ground, a few levels down and my reactor crashing with a clang.

'Elle—!'

'Get to Tony, first!' I managed to grunt out as he swung over to me, nodding hesitantly and shooting downwards to Tony's aid. As my agonizing fall took a toll on my right leg, limping my way down the next few stories of stairs. I felt a twisting pain up my side, knowing I had probably cracked a rib. The wound was long forgotten when I heard the deeming voice of the adversary.

'I got this, Rhodey,' we heard Tony say. 'First response needs you, now.'

I coughed out, pain clogging up my sides. A loud groan left my lips as I tried to limp down a low flight of steps. 

'Elle?' I heard a cautioning voice in the comm between my ear. 'Honey, you okay?'

'Yes,' I managed to breathe out, 'I think.' 

'Heya, Stark!' I heard Zeke's vengeful shout from below, my hands leaning over the railing to get a look. 

'You can't see it because of my armour but I promise, I'm smiling. Because I've got everything I've ever wanted in one room—my love above and you. Below me.'

Zeke's armour was Tony's but amplified to a thousand. The bannisters, the black-and-red panels, and chest beams—they were vaster, sleeked and looked way more powerful than the Iron Man weapon systems. His repulsors seemed to pack the power of higher-level atom bombs, the force of the hit chipping Tony's armour painfully. The cement of debris around them cratered in as Tony shot off the ground and not ready to lose just as yet.

'What a bunch of pearlie-whites you have in that screwed-up head of yours,' Tony mocked. He grabbed Zeke's metal head and using his upper hand on crashing him into a nearby wall. Before Zeke could recover from the hit, Tony had fisted a hand around the neck of the armour and denting it. 'Call off the bombs, Stane. It's between you and me—let the civilians be safe.'

'It's not terror if there's no death, right?' Zeke choked out from under his helmet. 'You still have to learn a lot about business, oldie.'

'You'd have been a genius if you weren't so psychotic, Ezekiel.'

'And you should've been dead a long time ago,' he kicked Tony off him with a single strike of his leg against his chest. 

The power yield the Iron Man rip-off guard had was unreal. Zeke's repulsors glowed to the exponential lustre of the sun, lighting up the floor as he struck another detonation at Tony. I let out a cry as his armour crashed into the ground ungainly, a few parts of the suit sizzling with heat from the blow. He laid unmoving from the wrath, another yell leaving me on instinct.

'Tony, get up!'

This made Zeke look up at me and Tony used his distraction as his advantage, moving from his frozen dead position to roundhouse kick on his helmet. Zeke fell to the ground unbalanced and Tony aimed his palm at his chest, but instead of letting out a blast, a green spritz of steam sizzled over Zeke's face. I remembered Tony talking about nano sprites, a cloud stream of that size should've shut his lungs down.

'I don't breathe anymore,' he laughed darkly. 'Call it the wave of destiny but I'm more of a futurist than you'll ever be.'

'You're a monster.'

'And you're a relic, Stark.'

The last blow that size must've packed the power of more size than the Taiwan and Tabora strike combined. Tony was caught off guard when the thruster doubled him, slamming his armour and him, into the cement with a bang. The sound of thousand jets came when the repulsors acted up, crumbling the wall around the Iron Man armour and Tony's helmets chipping off. He didn't stop until Tony's armour was down completely, my legs shaking underneath me as I watched on and unable to act on it.

He stopped. 

The armour, taking all the impact, crashed to the ground like a loose marionette and all his motor functions giving up. I clamped a hand over my mouth to not let out the wailing sobs, as the armour's eyes flickered to eclipse and the reactor dying out. Darkness and silence, that was it.

'I did it!' Zeke rejoiced as Iron Man stayed where he was. 'He's dead! Tony Stark is dead! '

∞

[...um. see you in the next chapter? ]

[ update (18.01.2020): edited. ]