Chapter Text
It’s been about a week since the fire. Callaghan’s already been buried, Tadashi remains stable but comatose, and Tony’s just about exhausted his rather limited investigative capabilities with no leads to pursue; looking into the alarm company revealed nothing unusual, the blade used was decent quality steel but otherwise nothing that couldn’t be ordered off Amazon, and the lost footage was – despite his and JARVIS’ considerable expertise and efforts – completely unrecoverable.
Whoever did this – and it was sabotage, he’s absolutely sure of it – may have been in a rush, but the fire was more than enough to cover their tracks remarkably well.
So, he’s watching, tinkering with the armor while keeping tabs on anything and everything he could find connected to the showcase, from Krei and his company to the police department’s ongoing investigation, and scanning the area for anything out of the ordinary – after all, and though the fire is the obvious culprit, a lot of the inventions on display aren’t accounted for, so he wouldn’t be surprised if whoever’s responsible took some tech in the chaos. Whatever comes up first, he’s ready and raring to go.
Someone needs to pay for what happened.
While the lack of progress has definitely been frustrating, it’s given him time to catch up on the other reason he’s visiting the West Coast; a series of bizarre, seconds-long energy readings a few dozen miles out into the Pacific that S.H.I.E.L.D.’s asked him to pinpoint and evaluate. Tony would’ve told them where to stick it, as usual, but the energy signature gave him pause – apparently, it’s a nearly identical match to the Tesseract’s. Whether someone else is trying to replicate S.H.I.E.L.D.’s achievement with Titanium Man’s power core, or the Asgardians already lost the damn cube and someone’s trying to portal in, it’s definitely something he needs to check up on.
…which is why he’s “borrowing” a satellite from the X-Men.
He’s got a few of his own, of course, and so does S.H.I.E.L.D., but in his defense, the mutant nation has proprietary sensor tech that blows what even his considerable fortune can buy out of the water – the more powerful mutants could, after all, spell untold destruction for puny, typical human infrastructure, and since mutation typically triggers during the terribly harrowing phase of puberty, it’s in their best interest to find such individuals and offer them shelter and instruction on how to best rein in their superpowers ASAP. By the time S.H.I.E.L.D. sends in the troops, the X-Men are usually booking it away from the scene on that sexy, highly modified SR-71 of theirs.
It does mean he has a phone call to see to now, though. “Incoming call from Professor Charles Xavier, Sir.” –JARVIS pipes up.
Tony winces, gesturing for the AI to accept the call. The celebrated mutant researcher and activist appears on a nearby screen, smiling softly and, as is his wont, knowingly. “Heya, Chuck! Your noggin’s looking shinier than ever. We didn’t schedule a call, did we?”
Professor Xavier leans slightly forward on his high-tech wheelchair, an octogenarian looking somewhere between fifty and sixty thanks to his mutated genome. “We did not, Anthony. Though I expect this call is not actually much of a surprise.”
Tony snorts. “I swear, you borrow a satellite for five minutes…”
He waves the comment off. “Please, Anthony. Our satellite is your satellite – provided, of course, that Stark Industries doesn’t mind a little borrowing of our own from time to time.” –he says, amused. “No, I…merely wished to check on you; I heard about the fire, and I offer my condolences.”
Tony’s mood sours, unable to conceal his surprise. “I, uh, thanks. I forgot you knew Callaghan, too.” –he says, absent-mindedly. Charles has given many a guest lecture at MIT over the years, of course, and he’s befriended many of the faculty members, Callaghan included. “He was…one of the good ones. He didn’t deserve to go out like that.”
Xavier nods. Tony looks down at the gauntlet he’s tuning up for the umpteenth time, unsure of what to say. His history with the professor is rather interesting; back in the day, S.H.I.E.L.D. was rather keen on scrutinizing every single move that the growing mutant population would make, especially as a certain helmet-clad Master of Magnetism grew in power, both through his incredibly strong mutant ability, and as a social leader and political figure. Charles has always been something of a mediator – a terribly charismatic individual, even without employing his immensely powerful telepathic abilities – so he grew close to S.H.I.E.L.D.’s upper echelons, playing his role well in the negotiations between Magneto, Director Carter, and the World Security Council that eventually led to the creation of the mutant nation of Genosha on an artificial island halfway between Japan and the continental US. He ended up a good friend of Aunt Peggy’s, and, of course, his own father…even though Howard was, to put it lightly, decidedly opposed to Magneto’s crusade, and more generally, the idea of letting powerful mutants roam unfettered, no matter how isolated.
In addition to being around every now and then, Xavier was always pretty interested in Tony’s abnormal intellect, encouraging where Howard was rarely anything but derisive, so he grew up with the Professor as a comforting – if rather infrequent – presence in his life. Tony wouldn’t call him a mentor – that role was filled by Jarvis, his mother, and regrettably, Obadiah – but he was certainly a role model.
“This seems like a particularly poor time to have a conversation.” –Xavier notes. “Shall I call another day?”
Tony shakes his head. “Nah, I’m good. Just tinkering. Keeping watch over the city.”
“Have supervillains truly become so common on American soil already that you must?”
“Dear lord, don’t invoke that shit.” –Tony mutters. “No, this is about the fire, actually. I…think it was sabotage.”
“That’s a dangerous thought to have.” –Xavier notes, idly.
Tony glowers. “For whoever’s guilty, yeah.” –he retorts, darkly.
The mutant leader sighs. “I am well-acquainted with the desire for revenge, believe me.” –he says, almost looking his age for a second. “I know better than to try and dissuade you from it. But I do hope you manage to keep a level head whenever you find the culprit. Your actions, after all, reflect on a much greater whole than merely yourself, now.”
“Well, Supergirl handles our Twitter, so…I think the Avengers have PR well in hand, Chuck.” –he drawls.
“And I truly hope you are able to keep it that way.” –Charles says. “But that is not necessarily what I meant. I’m sure you’ve noticed that there are a great many young men and women, particularly those with abilities beyond what humanity considers the norm, that now undoubtedly look to you and your peers as an example, just as mutant youths look to my X-Men.”
Tony scowls. “I try not to remember that fact.”
“I’m afraid that is a luxury even you can’t afford.” –he chides, softly. “Iron Man became the tip of the spear that is this new age of heroes the moment you broadcast your identity to the world; every foe you take on, every cause you choose to support, every blast of your gauntlets will be scrutinized by the entire world in perpetuity – from the giddy six-year old donning a plastic caricature of your helmet, pretending to fight bad guys and begging his mother to purchase a lunchbox with the logo of your team, to the so-called Leader of the Free World, insomniac in the White House, wondering if his country’s hilariously oversized military budget would be enough to take you and your peers down, should you ever go against the interests of the West.”
The engineer snorts. “Y’know, I didn’t vote for Ellis, but I’m not exactly looking to storm the Oval Office anytime soon.” –he says, pointedly.
“Your jab is precisely my point.” –Xavier retorts. “We may be few, comparatively speaking, but our power is beyond what the vast majority of humanity can fathom; they see your gleaming, crimson and gold armor and, whether they do so consciously or not, they think of you as the Ancient Greeks must’ve thought of the demigods in their myths. And yet, unlike those legends, there is little doubt or mystery as to your power and feats – we exist, we aren’t going anywhere, and by that simple notion we are dangerous.”
“I know what we’re capable of.” –Tony says. “I also know what we’re not. I’m not particularly worried about what the team will do, five years from now – not even Banner.”
“But you are worried about the future. You always have been – it’s the Stark in you.” –he says, and Tony tries to ignore the usual urge to spit in his father’s grave. “I gather that’s why you attended the SFIT Showcase for once – your brush with death in New York has you concerned about who’ll be left to hold the torch after you’re gone.”
Tony grunts. “You know I don’t do off the cuff telepath BS, Chuck.”
“You’re a bit far for that sort of thing – without my plugging into Cerebro, at least. Just as I know you would almost never consent to telepathic intrusion, you know better than to expect such grievous misuse of power from me.”
Tony rolls his eyes – he knows, of course. “Yeah, yeah. What was it the intern said, the other day? Something about ‘great power, greater responsibility’?”
“Something to that effect, I’m sure – sounds like a young man worth listening to.” –Xavier says wryly. “Going back to that pointed reminder of yours, the truth is that the only reason Nightcrawler did not kill President Reagan is that his Catholic guilt got the better of him. The fact is, the laws and strength of mankind are, at least currently, insufficient when it comes to reining in power such as you and I can wield – and that of the future generations we must now look towards. The only people who can truly police us – who can support the development of our peers or halt the rise of our foes – are us.”
The genius engineer finally sets down the gear he’s been tinkering with – what was once intended as merely a flight stabilizer, now a powerful weapon that has taken down many foes, powered or otherwise, taking dozens if not hundreds of lives by now, and saving countless others. Tony prefers to think of himself as just a man in a particularly fancy can, but Xavier’s not wrong – if he truly put his mind to it, he’s pretty sure he could rule half the world by this time next week, whether by particle fire, cold, hard cash, or a proffered, armored hand, to say nothing of what he could achieve with the Avengers on board.
“Open to suggestions then, I guess.” –Tony says. “You do have decades on us, when it comes to this.”
“I’d suggest opening a school, but I rather think we have enough competition in that regard.” –Xavier says, amused. “I think you’re already doing the right thing, Anthony. I just hope you and the rest of the Avengers are able to continue on the righteous path.”
Tony snorts. “With Captain America at the helm, I don’t think we have much of a choice.” –he says, sardonically, as a silent message from JARVIS on a nearby screen lets him know that the energy signature is pinging again. “I gotta go, Chuck – oh, but do give Forge my regards. Adapting the Danger Room tech to an open-air abandoned limestone quarry was not an easy ask, but boy, did he deliver – worth every penny, and they were many. Remind me to send y’all the footage of us duking it out with the Omnitrix kid and his pals, yeah?”
Xavier raises one of those finely groomed eyebrows of his just a bit, but he simply tilts his head. “I’m sure he’ll be pleased to know – and rest assured, we’ll put your generous contribution to good use. Take care, Anthony.”
He slips on the gauntlet, taking comfort in the way everything snaps into place like clockwork. “Where’s the fun in that? That’s what the synthetic vibranium plating is for.”
Iron Man soars into San Francisco Bay, swiftly closing the distance to the general location that the energy signature was detected. According to the X-Men’s satellite’s data, the reason that the source couldn’t be pinpointed is that it’s manifesting in several places at once – if he understands it correctly, they’re actually quantum-entangled particles existing in and connecting two points in space-time simultaneously.
If this isn’t Tesseract shenanigans, he might’ve just stumbled onto the basis for FTL communication in the foreseeable future.
The gold-and-crimson comet plunges into the frigid waters, shrugging off the considerable impact as little more than light turbulence. “Alright, eyes wide open, Jay.” –he says, the suit’s sensor suite immediately getting boosted to the max. “To quote Einstein, we’re on the hunt for some ‘spooky action at a distance’.”
“Charming, Sir.”
Tony cycles through several scans, none of which catch his attention until one of his depth sensors pings what appears to be a metallic structure burrowed into the ocean floor, connected to a small island on the surface. “This seems promising. What’ve we got on this charming little piece of real estate?”
“A moment.” –JARVIS says, cross-referencing the coordinates with every database they have access to. S.H.I.E.L.D.’s, to no one’s surprise, is the winning bet, but it seems even they don’t know exactly what it is. “Site: AKUMA, base of operations for Project SILENT SPARROW – a joint DARPA and NASA venture, with material support from a classified civilian enterprise. The installation is under strict military quarantine – even S.H.I.E.L.D. deemed it best to leave the place well enough alone, it seems.”
Tony frowns. “Not a lot of companies that can play around with this kind of sci-fi. Is it one of ours? OsCorp, maybe?”
“I can find no record of it on the Stark Industries classified materials archive, and I would need considerable time to sift through the encrypted materials seized from OsCorp.”
“Maybe it was one of Obie’s.” –Tony grouses. “Sure sounds like his preferred brand of shady crap.”
Pinpricks of blue light flash in the distance, near the island but heading away and back towards San Francisco. “What is it they say about fairy lights, JARVIS?” –he asks idly, jetting towards the strange phenomenon.
“Nothing a prudent sort like yourself would concern themselves with.” –the AI says, sarcastically. “Regardless, I advise caution.”
The lights blink in and out at random intervals, never twice in the same place but always at the exact same time. Dread starts to surge in Tony’s chest – the color is almost exactly the same as the Tesseract and the portal it generated – the rift in space-time he very nearly got stuck on the wrong side of. He tries to put those thoughts away, but they come regardless – perhaps the oppressive underwater environment, darkened by depth and the late time of day, coupled with the eerily familiar flashes of light, keep him from thinking of anything else.
“Your heart rate is spiking, Sir.” –JARVIS urgently notes, noting the alarmingly irregular rate on his HUD. “I recommend removing yourself from this environment as soon as possible.”
“…m’fine.” –Tony slurs, trying his best to ignore the sweat suddenly trickling down the back of his head or the prickling throughout his scalp. He feverishly cycles through the various scan modes, not so much paying attention as he’s desperately attempting to find an alternate explanation that doesn’t involve his brief stand-off with the endless, frigid void. Miraculously, he finds something. “Uh…am I witnessing the genesis of a Gray Goo singularity?”
JARVIS takes a few seconds too long to answer. “Nothing so enticing, Sir. They appear to be massive quantities of Microbots.”
That snaps Tony back to normal. “Wait, what? As in, the Hamada kid’s invention?”
“It would appear so.”
Sure enough, once he gets close enough to make out the details, he sees it – what must be billions of Microbots, slithering through the ocean floor like a city block-length metal slug. They’re hauling something: a sphere, at the front of the formation, and a strange, curved piece of machinery at the back. Tony takes notice of the change in elevation; they’re arriving at the shoreline, the front-most Microbots building themselves out of the water and climbing onto the pier – or rather, wrecking the pier and making themselves into a makeshift replacement.
Part of him wants to see this play out – he has no idea who could possibly be behind this, though his gut is kinda pointing Krei-wise, but he can learn as much as he needs to as soon as he takes down whoever’s the bots’ puppetmaster.
Iron Man boosts out of the water, hovering a couple dozen meters above the water level, far enough back that he hopefully won’t draw any attention. The scene he’s greeted with is…not at all what he expected; sure enough, there’s a perfectly dry man in a kabuki mask and wearing a black trench coat, held aloft by a tower of Microbots right where the sphere used to be, but he’s not alone.
He is, in fact, about to crush half a dozen teenagers and a medical robot with a shipping container.
“Holy Mother of Megazon!” –the Shaggy-lookalike hollers. “Am I the only one seeing this?”
He isn’t, of course. The tall Latina snapping a quick pic with her phone and obviously enraging the supervillain is proof enough.
By the time the man in the mask throws the container, Iron Man’s already closed half the distance. Sparks fly as he skids onto the concrete, next to an understandably screeching young man, and nearly bumping into what appears to be a hastily armored Baymax, who actually beat him at stopping the container in its tracks by a hair’s breadth.
“Iron Man!?” –Hiro balks behind Baymax. He shakes his head, nodding at the others and then at his brother’s bot. “Go! Baymax, get him!”
He seems prepared to stick around for the fight, but the short young woman with the pixie cut yanks him back towards the ridiculously small hatchback they must’ve arrived in. Iron Man easily tosses the container away, and Baymax wastes no time in dutifully complying with Hiro’s order, but the supervillain is hardly threatened; he slaps the robot towards the car with a makeshift tentacle, and grabs him with another, tossing him back over his shoulder towards the water with surprising strength – if he hadn’t had those vibranium momentum dampeners installed a few weeks back, he probably would’ve passed out for a sec from the G-forces involved.
Experience kicks in, finding the right angle and cancelling out the throw with a short burst from his palm thrusters. The car has peeled off, as fast as its three-cylinder engine will allow, and the villain is in hot pursuit. “Well, I’m kind of offended.” –Tony grouses, reveling in the kick of his thrusters as he joins the chase. “Ignored in favor of a handful of nerds and a nurse bot in carbon fiber jammies.”
“Green is a poor look on the Iron Man, Sir.” –Jarvis teases.
“Yeah, yeah. Just track ‘em, Jay.”
He flies south over the shipping yard, towards the heart of the city. JARVIS swiftly grabs the attention of the nearest Stark Industries satellite monitoring the West Coast, looking for the supervillain and his quarry, but he’s not that hard to find – flying overhead, he can simply follow the trail of lights going out as the Microbot swarm washes over the street. He supposes he oughta count his lucky stars; for such a big city, it sure is a quiet night – quiet enough that civilians can jump out of the way relatively safely, that the few cars on the road have decent enough room to swerve to avoid the roiling mass of tiny robots, and that Hiro and company can stay just beyond his grasp.
Iron Man dives in and centers his sights on the criminal, right on the teens’ tail. Almost instinctively, he primes a micro-missile and takes aim, the maneuvering thruster on the corresponding side of his abdomen switching on to compensate, then takes a much needed second to think – is he really about to fire military-grade munitions in the narrow streets of San Francisco? It would hardly be the first time, of course – overkill is almost more his middle name than Edward – but recent events have made it clear that, as heroes, villains, and their battles grow more frequent and more complex, fine-tuning his approach has become less of an option and more of a necessity.
Blowing up the bad guy ends the chase, sure. But it also leaves him without answers, it probably traumatizes the kids and any onlookers a bit, and, of course, causes a bunch of property damage. The metaphorical hammer that the Chitauri invasion called for isn’t the answer here.
He keeps thinking of Tadashi. A fraction of a percent more power behind the blast that saved his life would’ve definitely snuffed it out.
The missile retracts into the armor, and he brings up the palm repulsor instead. The gauntlet whines with power – just enough to knock the madman off his improvised pedestal and into a nasty yet very survivable tumble – but the blast gets blocked; apparently, the Microbots’ sensors alerted the criminal to the attack, because he not only brings up a pillar that protects him, he turns it into a tentacle that grabs an unlucky passerby and throws her at him even as he continues the inexorable march forward.
The woman screeches in terror, but he manages to adjust his trajectory to go up in an arc, grab her in mid-air as he starts a loop back towards the ground, slowing down just enough to leave her where she started – if significantly more frazzled – and boosting again towards the action.
“Very smooth, Sir.” –JARVIS compliments.
“I’d ask you to call me Maverick, but I’m not exactly a fan of L. Ron Hubbard.” –he drawls.
Tony crests a hill and finds yet another perplexing sight; the supervillain quickly catching up, as the hatchback seems to have stopped at a red light.
He curses. “Why in the hell did they stop!?” –he hisses.
“It is the law, Sir.”
“Which does not apply for a goddamn car chase, Jay!”
He blasts twice at the villain to distract him, but the shots are easily blocked again – blocked, but not without cost, Tony realizes, as small chunks of Microbots fuse together from the impact and become useless to the gestalt, tumbling to the ground, utterly inert. He doesn’t get to capitalize on the discovery, as the supervillain tosses a whole damn car at the fleeing nerds.
He zooms forward, overtaking the supervillain and blasting the mercifully empty car off-course, just enough that the lima bean green hatchback manages to swerve to the right. Iron Man turns, only to see a pillar of shifting black metal rushing towards him, slamming into him and driving him clear through the building he was hovering in front of, ending up on the other side of the block. He recovers quickly, flying up so he can track them down again.
“Well, someone went to the Tokyo school of drifting...” –he mutters, as he finds the chase again and dives towards it.
Indeed, whoever’s the new pilot must have some experience with less than legal street racing, as they start pulling off maneuvers even he would think twice of attempting, especially on a car like that – tiny, forward traction, full of people, and topped with a mechanical cherry in the form of Baymax, whose ample butt is firmly wedged into the car’s roof.
Tony soars over the rooftops, then dives down to fly beside the left side of the car; the passenger door has been ripped off by Microbots, leaving Hiro exposed. “Head back to the docks!” –he barks over the suit’s speakers, blasting a repulsor beam to ward off the supervillain. “I can’t go all out in the city!”
The pilot – the short, young woman with the purple streak in her jet-black hair, barely nods. She pulls into a drift that delivers the tiny car into a nearly equally tiny alleyway, sparks flying as the sides scrape against the windowsills. Iron Man doesn’t follow, priming his wrist laser and firing a tight arc as he turns. The man in the mask dodges, jumping off his moving pillar and willing the Microbots to catch him, even as the cross-section of the metal blob that the laser washed over melts into thin, fragmented shards. The villain mercilessly retaliates, forming two pillars at either side of Iron Man that slam together like clashing fists.
“Sonuva…the bastard’s sanding off the paint job…” –Tony grumbles, priming all the repulsors on the suit and firing them all at once, blasting the Microbots off of him. The man is gone, relentlessly chasing his quarry.
It strikes Tony as odd; sure, the kids are witnesses to whatever crime they caught him committing, but – not to toot his own gold and crimson horn – Iron Man is right there. Even if the guy doesn’t think he can take him on (and yeah, okay, he can’t), why stick around and risk getting taken down or worse, just to take out a bunch of teenagers?
Once again, he finds the chase, just in time to see the car jump over a freakin’ canal using the Microbot mound at the base of the column the man stands atop as a makeshift ramp. “Hot damn, she’s good. Remind me to race her someday.” –Tony says, as he bursts forward, hands crossed in front of his faceplate as he dives straight at the man, aiming to knock him off his damn pedestal.
The maneuver works, sort of; he smashes straight through the barrier the villain hastily puts up, but the impact knocks him just off course, crashing through the pedestal instead of into the madman. It still drops him about ten feet, and he lands on the Microbot-strewn street with a painful grunt – the first sound he’s heard him make this whole damn time.
Iron Man rises from the shallow crater he created on the sidewalk, repulsors held up. “Alright, I’m done with this song and dance.” –he grouses. “Your time’s up, buddy. Give up now and I might not bill you for the suit’s new paint job.”
The man doesn’t say a thing as he slowly rises, seemingly more out of pain than caution – must’ve been quite the hard landing. He’s probably not enhanced, then, which speaks volumes of what Hiro’s Microbots are capable of. Once he’s back on his feet, he slowly forms a corona of Microbots behind him, like a cobra’s hood. “…really? Alright, fine.”
The corona splits into spiky tendrils, two of which stab at him, both of which get blasted to useless chunks by his repulsors. But this, it turns out, is a feint; the man must’ve snuck a thin stream of Microbots behind him as they both postured, because all of a sudden, he’s entirely covered in the damn things. He rolls his eyes; this little trick didn’t work when he got smashed by ten times this many Microbots, so this thin a layer should be child’s play to shed, but all sorts of alerts light up his HUD. “What the…!?” –he balks, as the villain leaves.
“Sir, the Microbots are infiltrating the armor through the gaps in the plating!” –JARVIS urges, a note of worry in his emulated voice.
It’s like he’s covered in an army of mechanical ants, attempting to chew, in a sense, through the delicate electronics beneath the nigh-impenetrable armor plating. He sweeps a bunch of them off, almost on instinct, but it’s obviously no real solution. “Fire suppression system, now!” –he barks.
“Offline, Sir! The Microbots are disconnecting every cable they can find!”
Tony curses, looking around. A live wire immediately draws his attention – damage from the crash, no doubt. He bursts forth, but one of his jet boots pops uselessly, ensuring he tumbles into an awkward roll. Still, he’s in range, and he manages to wrestle the increasingly sluggish suit into reaching for it.
Electricity surges through the suit which, thanks to Whiplash and Thor, is pretty much designed to not only conduct the current, but incorporate it into its power reserves at no risk to the squishy engineer inside. The Microbots on the outside instantly get launched away, hundreds of thousands of tiny explosions going off around him like metal popcorn. “Microbots neutralized.” –JARVIS reports. “Attempting repairs.”
The actual damage isn’t bad, but like JARVIS said, the damn things efficiently disconnected a bunch of systems, which means he can’t chase the bastard down again – or, at least, he can only do it on one jet boot and a prayer. “Forty-two’s down, huh? Execute Hermit Crab protocol.”
“Confirmed. Summoning Mark VII armor. ETA: 182 seconds.”
“Whatever we’ve got left, give me it. We need to take that jackass down.” –he says. Before he kills those kids…, he doesn’t dare voice.
It’s a wonky situation, but he manages to achieve minimum flight speed, shakily heading towards the docks. “Can we take control of the Microbots?” –he muses, as his eyes zip back and forth on his HUD, trying to cut as many corners as it takes to get the damn suit in something resembling working order.
“I’m sorry, Sir, I tried. Mr. Hamada’s command diadem is encrypted; without the cypher, it would take an unfeasible amount of time to get through.”
“I figured.” –Tony says. “Just hope we’re not too late…”
Three minutes of the wobbliest flight he’s had since first testing Mark II’s jet boots, he crests a hill just in time to see the tiny hatchback get forced off the pier and into the sea by a Microbot tunnel.
Tony swears, rushing towards the scene as his radar pings the back-up Mark VII, decelerating from its top speed of Mach 10 and tracking him as best it can. He finds a roof that looks more or less stable, and he commands the armor off of him, which makes a horrid metal-on-metal noise as the leftover Microbots inside get crushed by the shifting armor plates. After a quick mental calculation, he jumps off the roof, the fresh armor assembling around him just in time to avoid splattering into the pavement.
The man in the mask is gone, the Microbots shuffling away from the scene. He briefly considers attaching a tracking device to the chittering mass, but he knows it wouldn’t last. Instead, he dives into the water, setting off a quick sonar ping that helps him pinpoint the sunken vehicle. As he reaches the wreck, he breathes a small sigh of relief – the kids are obviously in a panic, shaking off the shock and all-but-ripping off their seatbelts, but Baymax has already shed his carbon fiber armor and they’re grabbing onto him so he can float them up to the surface.
Tony floats up to them, and sees that Hiro’s struggling with his seatbelt. The kid startles when he turns on the floodlights on his clavicles, releasing part of the breath he was holding, but also the belt, which prompts a quick blast from Iron Man to set him loose. Working together with Baymax, they float up as fast as they can while avoiding the bends.
The group surfaces, Baymax turning into a makeshift raft that the teens naturally cling to. They’re shivering, and crashing into the water probably left them some minor cuts and bruises, but they survived.
“…I told you we’d make it!” –the tall Latina girl says.
Optimistic, Tony thinks, but he has to admit, a weight has fallen off his shoulders, too. “Your injuries require my attention.” –Baymax says. “And your body temperatures are low.”
“We should get out of here.” –Hiro agrees. “I, uh…don’t suppose you got a secret bunker in San Francisco, Mr. Stark?”
“Closest is Malibu. Sorry, kid.” –he says, igniting his palm repulsor at low power and pushing them towards the shore. “But I wouldn’t be too worried about the man in the mask coming after you again – at least, not tonight. I underestimated him, but he definitely took a good hit or two, and he lost quite a few Microbots in the process. He’ll be licking his wounds for at least a couple days.”
Hiro gets a curious look at that, but nods. “Well, Aunt Cass would freak if we showed up like this, so…any suggestions?”
The stoner-looking guy narrows his eyes, determined. “I know a place…”