Stark Expo, New York-
-June 2, 2010, 2025h local-
"Hey man! I can see them coming now!" Rhodey shouted through the comms before hearing Tony land beside him. "Where've you been?"
"Saving a kid..." Tony replied while looking around, noticing the remains of Hammerdrones. "Looks like you cleaned up here nicely..." He then pointed towards the swarm. "You have the 'big gun'. Just make sure they drop away from the buildings."
"Oh yeah. My pleasure." You could hear his smile under his helm.
Rhodey bent his knees a bit and aimed the 'machine railgun' forward. The auto-aiming system went into overdrive and tagged each and every drone. The moment the drones passed the pavilions, he open fire. Two thousand rounds per minute of grain-of-sand-sized projectiles traveling at Mach 10 speeds could do some serious damage. In a matter of seconds, Rhodey already crashed half of the drones, particularly the less armored ones. It left the Army and Navy drones, the more destructive variant.
"That answers that. I need to superheat the metal to retain its stopping power over a distance..." Tony muttered to himself. "Anyway. Let's get to it." He added before flying off.
Tony used his air superiority to dodge and attack the Hammerdrones. Rhodey joined in and did the same thing, pelting the drones with the railgun. They were in the middle of utterly dominating the drones when something unexpected took care of all of it.
The Hulk and The Abomination burst through one of the buildings and bulldozed the dozens of the remaining drones. They left as quickly as they came while punching and throwing stuff at one another.
"Huh. That was easier than I thought..." Tony let out before seeing another pair running from where the giants came from and headed towards where they went. "Uh. Who was that?"
"They appear to be another pair that came one after the other that came shortly after Dr. Banner and Mr. Blonsky arrived..." JARVIS interjected while pulling up camera feeds showing a woman in black chasing after Banner with a man following shortly after. "Reports from the military say they have been instrumental in bringing down the possible casualties caused by Mr. Blonsky's initial rampage. They have been searching and evacuating civilians prioritizing people in the line of fire."
Now, Tony had a few moments in his life where he went onto the deep end. Digging everything he can on a specific subject or doing research and engineering sprees were some of his favorite deep-end activities. After his parents died, he went on to a deep end and researched everything he can on his parents. Including Howard Stark's Golden Boy, Steve Rogers, Captain America. So it isn't much surprising when he recognized one of the people chasing the goliaths.
"That's Steve Rogers." Tony let out.
"Who?" Rhodey asked for clarification.
"You know Steve Rogers. Captain America."
"What!?" Rhodey exclaimed. "Naruto really called in the big guns."
"I thought we were the big guns."
"We have the big guns. He is the big gun."
"Well, that doesn't hit me in my insecurities."
"You have an insecurity with Captain America?" Erik interjected.
"I forgot you're still hooked in the line..." Tony sighed. "I am not insecure. How would I be insecure? I'm Tony Stark! It isn't like my father didn't give more attention to a not-so-dead guy than his son."
Rhodey turned his head and stared at Tony before saying something.
"I thought you already worked over that problem?"
"Eh. It comes on from time to time." Tony shrugged as he answered.
"Huh, what do you know. Tony Stark has daddy issues too." Erik commented causing Tony to cringe.
"No no no no no. First of all, don't ever use the term 'daddy issues.' Secondly, don't ever use Tony Stark and 'daddy issues' in the same sentence. Most importantly, I don't have daddy issues." Tony said one after another.
"As you can see. My best friend doesn't have daddy issues..." Rhodey defended. "anymore."
"Ha, ha, ha." Tony let out in a patriotizing way.
Tony was about to continue when something wrapped around him and pulled him up and away. Rhodey looked up and saw a large armor suit carrying Tony with an electrified whip, to which he quickly followed.
"Whoooaaaa! Holy shift!" Tony's voice could be heard through the comms.
"I'm on your tail. Don't worry!" Rhodey replied.
"Try bringing him to the left. I got no clear shot from my nest." Erik added. When he saw Tony leaning his weight to the left and opening his repulsors, he continued. "Holy Shift? Why can't you just say shit?"
"Really? Right now?" Tony asked incredulously.
"Right. Right. I'll come back to that later..." Erik nonchalantly replied, before chambering a bullet in his sniper rifle. "Are you ready? I got the fucker in my sights."
"Do it!"
Not long after Tony's signal, Erik took his shot, hitting Vanko straight to the head. The armor-piercing round didn't pierced the helmet but it did its job well enough. Vanko was greatly stunned when the bullet hit, causing his head to be hit with a powerful ringing noise before crashing to the ground.
Tony quickly untangled himself from the electrified whip and put some distance between himself and the deranged Russian. Rhodey landed behind him and aimed his heavy weaponry towards the copycat.
"You good?" Rhodey asked in concern.
"Yeah. It's a good thing I got the power redirector and the capacitors working before going here..." Tony checked on the systems to make sure they're still online and looked at the burns around his body. He also checked on his body before noticing pain in his left shoulder. "It looks like I busted my left arm against though."
"We'll check on it later..." Rhodey started before his body tensed. "Cause this guy just is really set on a big fight."
Vanko reeled in his whip while slowly standing up. He shook his head a bit and reoriented himself.
"Ha! Nothing like a conk in the head to wake somebody up. Eh, Tony Stark." Vanko's voice could be heard through the external speakers with his usual Russian drawl.
Tony carefully observed the armor to take a general assessment of its characteristics. Vanko's armor was eerily similar to Stane's Iron Monger armor. Although it's clearly more focused on agility rather than defense. There are clear weak points in Vanko's armor and these were the same as Stane's — the exposed hydraulics. Multiple hydraulic pistons and actuators were prominent around the body, especially near the joints. There's also the enlarged gauntlets and cumbersome chamber for the whips.
"Everybody's a copycat these days and again not a great one at that..." Tony taunted. "I mean, you can't even double your rotations to up your output or efficiency. You have three reactors for god's sake. Why is that? One for the armor and one for each whip?" He continued before pulling back a little bit. "By the way, I can't say the word whip without thinking of something kinky."
"Hahaha. That's right. Laugh now Stark. You won't be able to when your six feet underground..." A whirring sound could be heard from Vanko's back as the whip slowly emerged from his gauntlets. Blue plasma and electricity forced their way through the hollow whip. "Let's see if you can dance."
Vanko jumped high in the air and did an acrobatic rotation, making both whips fly toward the Iron duo. Tony and Rhodey separated to dodge the electrified strikes which were strong enough to deeply gouge the concrete.
Rhodey kept on running around Vanko while continuously using the shoulder railgun. Tony, as a more experienced user of the armor, used the repulsors to propel him along the ground with an occasional repulsor blast. Between the two, it's quickly apparent that the Iron man armor wasn't made for running.
Vanko tried protecting his joints while using the whips to try and hit them but the barrage of projectiles prevented him from aiming. The lack of traditional weaponry prevented him from doing anything.
"Enough!" Vanko shouted before forgoing defense and overextending his whip, hitting Rhodey.
Rhodey felt low-voltage electricity passed through his body, unlike what happened to Tony. It was because Tony wasn't able to upgrade the capacitors so there were still some of the runoffs that eventually makes their way to the user.
"Fuck!" Rhodey cursed. "That stings."
"Yeah sorry about that. Forgot to upgrade the suit." Tony sheepishly said.
"No shit..." Rhodey rolled on the ground to dodge the whips before using the repulsors to move him away. "I'm using the anti-tank missile!"
A compartment opened up on the War Machine's shoulder revealing four warheads, one of which was spinning and glowing red. He was about to fire the missile when Erik's voice blasted through the comms.
"Move! Move! Move!"
Fueled by his training, Rhodey promptly canceled the launch sequence before jumping and activating the thrusters. A second later, the Hulk and the Abomination landed where Rhodey was.
"Holy fucking shit..." Rhodey breathed out in relief. "Thanks, man."
"No problem. I'm getting paid other way so I'd rather you're not turned into paste." Erik replied which didn't reassure Rhodey one bit.
The Hulk already had multiple punctures and lacerations. Green blood was slowly oozing out through his wounds. The Abomination was in a similar state, with even a few spikes broken. They both promptly stopped when they saw where they landed this time. The Hulk, however, kept slapping himself while never taking his eyes off Blonsky.
"All you weaklings are still alive?" The Abomination asked with a huge grin.
"I somehow forgot your pale crotchless ass under all this mess..." Tony commented. "There's just too many villains."
"It's a good thing there are a lot more heroes." A charismatic, authoritative voice can be heard from behind the Hulk.
Two persons walked out from The Hulk's shadow effectively revealing themselves. They walked out confidently to the right of the Hulk. However, in a completely unexpected turn of events, both of them placed their hands on their knees and looked to be completely exhausted.
"I thought you guys never get exhausted?" Tony asked incredulously.
"Sod off, You bloody toff..." Peggy let out, still recovering her stamina. "We were fighting that dodgy bugger before running all around and making sure this wankers didn't accidentally kill someone. So, give us a break, Stark!"
One of the consequences of Tony's insanely high IQ was the eidetic memory and that voice certainly came from the geriatric Aunt Peggy. The geriatric and supposedly dead Aunt Peggy. He even visited her grave. Now, ever since his life started getting complicated, there's only one person he can reliably blame when something like this happens.
"Fucking Naruto." Tony cursed to the air. The people around him looked at him weirdly but almost all of them knows whatever happened, his curse was totally justified.
"I'll take care of it. Don't worry." Another voice interrupted from behind Tony. When he turned around, he saw two masked women walking towards them.
"Natashalie. Emo girl." Tony greeted.
"Tony..." Natasha moved her head a bit and stared at Vanko, who was using the downtime on readjusting his suit. "I see you haven't finished him off yet."
"It's a lot harder bringing him down than I thought." Tony replied.
"Well. We have to deal with two of them now..." Natasha answered before turning towards the Hulk. "You're still ready to go?" The Hulk just grunted again in affirmation. "Alright."
"Are we going to do this or not?" Jessica inquired while cracking her fingers.