The Man of T.O.Morrow
A.I.M's VTOL was capable of a sustained top speed of seven hundred and fifty kilometres per hour, and could reach those speeds in the blink of an eye. By the time that Tony had dealt with the last handful of A.I.M operatives dotted around S.T.A.R labs, and J.A.R.V.I.S had contacted the NYPD to appraise them that the building was clear, the retreating jet had almost cleared the limits of the suits short ranged radar.
Almost.
He caught them up as they were winging it over Albany, course as straight as the crow flies. They'd tried to shake him through straight acceleration and it had failed. If he was a betting man, and he was, then he'd say the smart money was on them trying to shoot him out of the sky next. With a mix of smugness (at once again being right) and trepidation he watched a missile launcher fold out of the VTOL's fuselage.
“Here comes the 'fun' part.” The launcher swiveled towards him and wasted no time in offloading it's entire arsenal of four precision-guided munitions. Tony grinned. He teased an extra portion of thrust from the suit, flying straight for a collision course with the missiles. Any onlookers would have assumed the golden avenger had just developed a death-wish, and maybe he had, for there was certainly easier ways to deal with the missiles.
But none of them were quite as fun.
The missiles came shrieking onwards, screaming for Tony's blood, the man himself plotting an unerring course towards them, disaster imminent. He moved at the last possible moment, swerving in between the nigh-on imperceptible gaps between the missiles at breakneck pace in an impeccable display of aeronautical skill. Rhodey would have been proud as hell, and twice as jealous, to see it.
“A very impressive display sir, but was it quite necessary?” J.A.R.V.I.S didn't breath nor feel emotions, he was a computer program after all, but Tony could of sworn the A.I sounded like he was nervously breathy.
“Ah, but what use is life without a few risks, Jarv?” “Mrmm,” The A.I grumbled, again something he wasn't actually designed to do. Tony made a mental note to examine the A.I.'s programming later for abnormalities in the code.
“You'll be very happy to hear that we're not quite out of the woods yet then, as those particular missiles are heat-seekers”Tony risked a glance backwards to see projectiles 180 their trajectory to resume their pursuit of everyone's favorite billionaire playboy once more.
“Offff course they are.”It was time to apply a bit of lateral thinking. He told J.A.R.V.I.S to open it up, and the suit powered onwards at tremendous pace, on the cusp of breaking the sound barrier. He flew under the body of the A.I.M craft, and as soon as he had cleared it's nose shot upwards. The pilot would have been able to glimpse him flash by the cockpit window, and would no doubt be scratching his head as to what the Iron Man was doing. The missiles followed suit, the smart-chip technology keeping them locked onto Iron-Man and ignoring the gun ship.
Tony kept at his steady vertical climb until he'd made a respectable lead upon the projectiles, and then. . .
"Jarv, it's time to see how well the new heat sinks work. Kill the boots." The jets powering his flight died suddenly, though his momentum continued to carry him upwards for a moment before gravity reasserted itself. The Golden Avenger began to fall downwards towards the earth, narrowly avoiding the missiles as they zoomed past him, their on-board computers confused by the sudden disappearance of their target.
While still in his free fall he fired a wide angled, short burst, high powered repulsor blast at the projectiles, blowing them out of the sky. That dealt with, he engaged his thrusters once more, and turned upon the fleeing A.I.M craft.
The rear door of the VTOL peeled apart like wet paper, revealing the slightly cramped insides. A narrow lane lead between two bays of bench seating up to a recessed cockpit, though that wasn't Tony's prime concern right now. His attention was full fixed upon the middle-aged, dark haired mustachioed man standing infront of him. The man, who Tony suddenly realized looked like an older version of himself, was unfortunate enough to have a pistol barrel shoved into his left cheek, and a rifle pushed into his back. The weapons belonged two A.I.M agents who were using the man, who Stark assumed to be Morrow, as a shield. According to J.A.R.V.I.S they were the only three life signs, other than the pilot, on board.
"Professor Morrow I presume." Tony said, stepping deeper into the craft. The man didn't nod his head, probably down to the cold metal of the gun being ground into his skull, but his eyebrows did an admirable job of jumping up in affirmation.
"Don't worry Professor. I'm going to get you out of this." The two yellow-clad operatives pressed in even tighter to their captive.
"Ok guys, before this get's any messier than it has to, I want you to think about what you're doing." There was no response, though whether that was because the two operatives he was dealing with were the strong silent types, or because they were speechless in terror, well Tony couldn't say, not while they were wearing those expressionless masks. He pressed on regardless.
"And I don't mean 'think about what you're doing with your lives and change your evil ways' kinda way, I mean 'think about what you're doing this very minute and stop being stupid' kinda way. I just tore threw an entire building of you A.I.M rejects, in record time I might add, and each and everyone of those guys had hostages too. Didn't help them much, did it! I mean, I'm here now, so obviously it didn't! So what's so different about you guys, huh?"Again, the A.I.M agents didn't have much to say, though this time they risked a quick glance at one another. Tony took this to mean he was getting through to them.
"So I'm going to give you both a choice. And you too, Amelia Earhart in the pilots seat up there, don't think I'm forgetting about you! Option A. You put down your guns, let the prof go, surrender, then go to jail. Option B is basically the same, but instead of surrendering you choose to be stupid and I have to hurt you all."
"You're all supposed to be intelligent men, so I trust you'll make the right decision."At the conclusion of his address he raised his arms, palms outward towards the agents, and primed his repulsor cannons. He liked to think it was his compelling speech that made the A.I.M agents drop their guns, but he couldn't help but remember something his dad used to say that seemed especially apt for this situation.
The man with the biggest gun always wins the argument.Well nobody could argue that Tony Stark didn't have the biggest guns.
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