Tony Stark hadn't thought he'd discover that the walls of a nuclear facility weren't tough enough to withstand a metal man being shoved into them with some force. He bounded through more than two walls, then more than three… at the forth one he wondered how they managed to shield the building so well but cut cost by having substandard walls.
Finally, his helmet met asphalt, the material too tough to be damaged but the paint on the suit was a different story and so was his body inside the suit as the trip outside the center was tough and left the man slightly dazed.
The Ock Bot made its way towards him slowly, having managed to catch itself on a wall after launching Stark out. The claws scraped against the ground like a rabbit, fast steps that weren't touching the surface for more than a second before moving on.
He rolled out of the way when it finally sent out a beam toward him, countering a quick repulsor blast from his right hand at the same time.
"Jarvis," Tony yelped, boosting into the air to escape the reach of the bot's claws as they came down to try and cut through his armor. The armored hero took a look at the robot, "This one is different from the rest, what's this thing made of?"
"It appear-" With his left arm out, Tony launched a tank buster missile right at the center of the eye of the bot. Smoke billowed out from the explosion, obscuring the machine from Stark's eyes but the red beams racing out were clear signs that the robot was still kicking about. "-s that the main body is made from a material that is titanium mixed with an element that is unfamiliar to my sensors. The only weak spot would be the transparent material used for the repulsor eye."
"A new element?" Stark groaned. "What is up with this woman?"
First, it was the odd change of specialty, from cybernetics to practical applications of theoretical physics and robots. Now it was discovering new elements that mix with titanium that can take tank busters like they were nothing.
Doctor Octavius was starting to give him a run for his money with this level.
It was suspicious to Stark that there was this one special Ock Bot, the rest of them seemed to be made from lesser materials, given Cap could take one out with a single love tap of his Shield.
"Maybe she didn't have enough material for more than one?" he pondered before ultimately deciding that taking it out was more important than thinking about the mad woman's reasons.
Two of the bot's tentacles suddenly shot forward, the reach far longer, and the speed much greater than anything Stark had thought was possible from it. The man blasted his leg repulsors, using them as designed to rocket his body out of the way but found that a red blast had accompanied those tentacles, smacking him back into the reach of the pair of claws.
Within a second they entrapped Stark's arms.
"Ok, I've got this," The genius kicked out with a single foot, using the other to stay afloat, the repulsors on his boot set to maximum output. The eye-blaster combo of the Ock Bot started to bubble from the raw force being constantly pushed against the surface, but it appeared that the machine was able to balance on a single tentacle since another claw came up and pushed the foot away. "Nope… this is bad," Automatically the suit changed frequencies for him, calling the others. "Guys, a little bit of help?"
"..."
"Jarvis, is the connection not clear?"
"No, it appears to be blocked in some manner."
"They're not five minutes walking distance from me! What is this woman?"
Without any real means of fending the bot off, the machine was free to attempt to break through Stark's armor. A single claw tried to pry at the metal, tried to dig into the crevices of the armor, and peel it back but found nothing.
It was then that the bot showcased decent intelligence by targeting the area of the armor where the protection would end up being lesser… in this case, the joints. the claws that had been restraining him moved up slightly, though still holding on to him tightly, and applied greater pressure till the metal joints groaned.
Even some sparks lit out.
Not very good for the superhero known as Iron Man.
"Well… in for a penny," Stark sighed, charging his most powerful weapon on this armor. "In for a pound!"
His vision lit up blue as the Arc Reactor sent out a powerful beam, throwing the Ock Bot back and causing the machine to release the man from its grip. It hit into the ground with enough force to crack… the ground.
A tentacle erupted into a shower of sparks, seeming to short circuit while the main body of the Ock Bot jittered across the ground and eventually laying still. But Tony did let up with the barrage just yet.
Over half a minute of this barrage was all the suit could support in one continuous burst without risking overheating. Given that the Arc Reactor was currently keeping his heart from being torn by shrapnel, Tony didn't want to risk overheating the thing.
"I'll need to get that one back in the lab," Stark grumbled. "That's not just good hardware, the software is no slouch either."
He landed on the ground and started to make his way back into the facility, there was no time to stand around when the place was about to go into a Nuclear meltdown. The armored hero needed to act quickly, given the lack of response from the water control, which meant it was likely locked on a hardware level.
The facility was literally being fed water constantly by the nearby river, so it would've been impossible for it to be empty. Breaking a lock would be enough, for now, that should cool the reactors down.
Easy job.
Without warning, Stark found himself struck from behind, his body shoved deep into the asphalt. The dents and scratches were starting to add to the Billionaire's suit, what was once a pristine piece of advanced technology that appeared as if straight from the factory… now it looked as if Iron Man had walked through three different world wars.
With two claws, the Ock Bot held the man down, this time leaving no way for any of the man's weapons to target him. It took advantage of this bad spot that the hero was in as it sent out another attack, this time letting one of its claws spin rapidly till it was practically a saw as it started to cut through the protective material to get to the meaty bits that were beneath.
Then a screech echoed in the air, the machine falling back to the ground, the tentacle's claw still spinning but no longer held up, instead, it was grinding its way into the ground. Two more screeches rang out, electronic bits falling out as the machine erupted in flames.
"Dramatic entrance, Romanoff?" Stark asked, faintly inspecting his body while the SHIELD agent dropped down from the Quinjet with a new type of Anti-material rifle, something that Stark would've designed back when his company did that stuff.
Dark, non-reflective, with a barrel that appeared too short for the role but the rounds, they spoke for themselves. There were 20mm, for comparison a regular round for a standard rifle would be 12mm, and rounds that big were typically for autocannons.
It wasn't a normal piece of kit, especially if a normal person of her size could wield it, while standing, without tearing her arms off from the knockback. SHIELD didn't just have energy weapons in the back pocket, it seemed.
"You looked like you had it for a while," she shrugged. "Didn't seem right if I killed stole from you."
"Well, next time don't be so sporting," Stark replied, his eyes roaming over the small tears in his armor. It was a close call, he'd need to upgrade a few things on his next model. Less concussive force and more cutting force weapons. "I'm not paid by the kill here."
"I've lost contact with the Helicarrier," Romanoff revealed. "Complete communications blackout. Can't contact any of the other SHIELD bases either, so while it is obvious that this trap is a distraction, I can't say if we're being jammed here or if the entire organization went down."
"I doubt that Dock Ock coul-"
Tony cut himself as a thought rammed itself into the forefront of the armored hero's mind. A horrible realization, if there was a complete communications blackout…
"... how am I talking to Jarvis?"
(Bruce Banner)
"Don't like this… don't like this at all," The gamma scientist muttered under his breath, an act that caught Betty's attention from the other side of the lab. While she had been studying the data that their scans of the Scepter revealed to them, he had continued to monitor the location that the Tesseract had been triangulated at. "It's gone."
"... it's gone?" Betty responded, as shocked as she was intrigued. "Where did it go?"
"I don't know? From what I'm seeing it just disappeared. One second, here… and now it doesn't exist."
"Could've finally noticed the signal and put in a container to block it, that would lead to these readings."
"Or just a room shielded enough to block the signal," Bruce rebutted. "We've got to bring this to Fury. We've been tricked. This is just a distraction. They want us focused over there while they set up elsewhere. We'll have an army on us before you could say gamma related accident."
They bolted out of the room, but before they were near the elevator Agent Barton stepped out of it, with him, a trio of other agents and a deadly god. None of them were wearing the standard SHIELD jumpsuit worn by the men and women on the Helicarrier, they were instead wearing a darker jumpsuit, almost black with black masks.
Except for Agent Barton, who was wearing his standard grab except with silver quivers.
And the smirking Norse God, Loki, who wore the same outfit as he had been for the last day or so.
Bruce shoved Betty into a nearby supply closet, the woman yelping in shock. Despite that noise, the brainwashed agents and Loki just walked onward. There was a vent in the closet door, letting the doctor see Loki smirk at him when he passed them.
"He's letting us go?" Banner's mind raced. "Why? There's something I'm missing."
There was a loud pop, and the duo of scientists could hear two bodies fall to the floor with a thud. A new set of footsteps were added to replace the two that fell, and from the voice alone both Banner and Ross recognized the man.
"Barton, it's good to see you," Phil Coulson's calm timbre oozed through the air. "The eyes don't suit you as well as the cameras made it look."
"That weapon he's holding-" Barton spoke up, leaning towards Loki as he did. "-it's made from the remains of the Destroyer. We're not sure how effective it will be, but it should at least have a third of the destructive power."
A single shot was fired, a massive beam of what looked like concrete plasma flew across the hall, missing both Loki and Barton while tearing down the closet door. Next Barton bounced off a wall, hooked the Destroyer gun with his bow, and threw it towards the closet.
Coulson reacted to this with a quickness that seemed slightly outrageous to Banner, three straight jabs to Barton's jaw, and a sweep of a leg to try and take him out of the air. The jabs landed, while the bowman was able to hop over the sweep.
Barton threw his weight into a lunge, his bow catching Coulson by the neck as he trapped him into the wall.
"Mortals, always so messy," Loki gloated, his voice reminding Banner of the screeching eels of the Princess Bride at that moment. Something horrible that evoked rage in him. "Just look at the damage done to your own Helicarrier, back on Asgard that same beam would never miss a target, would also never overextend. You mortals really do like messing with things that you don't understand."
Somehow for an award-winning, gamma infected, super genius, Bruce Banner was known for not thinking things through. Case in point, at this moment he leaped out of the closet, rolling along the ground till his hand grabbed at the Destroyer Gun and shot out a blast right for Loki's head.
But with a flash of light, it went right through him and broke through the wall into the lab.
"Bruce!" Betty screamed as the man felt a cold dribble start to flow from his chest. Looking down, Bruce noticed that Loki's Scepter slowly revealed itself tapping against his chest, the alien himself appearing from thin air.
"I have no time to test myself against your beast," Loki gloated. "So I think I'll send you to my brother, he'll enjoy a good fight before he's crushed completely."
At first, Bruce's vision darkened till there was nothing around him but a void, Then he felt at peace, as if he was suddenly floating on in a pond, the birds peacefully chirping around him. The day was a nice temperature, not too hot, not too cold. No rain, no strong winds. It was a paradise for him.
He could even hear Betty nearby, something that brought him deeper into a state of zen… till he heard what she was saying.
"Help, Bruce… help me."
Barely audible, but it still brought with it a sense of panic. So much so that Bruce shifted forward to stand, but found that he was restrained by some unseen force, it hurt to move and his body screamed at him to stop. After what felt like an hour of fighting against the power holding him down, his body went back to rest. His energy drained.
But then he heard her shriek.
"Stop!"
"Betty!" He roared back, strength filling his body as he stood his ground, the world didn't get any brighter, but it did get smaller.
The final words that Bruce heard today where;
"Oh… shit!"
These were also the first words that the Hulk had heard in some time.
(Pat Doyle)
None of us were worried about Stark, mostly due to the sheer fragility of the Ock Bots that had attacked. When a light smack from Roger's shield in the right area was all that was needed to take one out, the one attacking Iron Man wouldn't be able to do much harm.
So while we waited for him to come back, I tried to think of how to stop a Meltdown with the controls.
"Okay… okay… don't panic," I paced between the two blondes. I was doing this at speeds that Cap couldn't follow along, but Thor seemed to at least tell where I was at most moments. It only took me a few nanoseconds to come to an epiphany. "We don't need the water tank!"
My sudden yell marked a return to a speed that Roger's could follow.
"You got a plan?" he asked me, his shield on his back and his helm on his head, the Captain appeared as the picture of composure.
"Yeah, Cap I'm going to need to run, get Widow, and the Quinjet ready. This is obviously a distraction, so you need to check in with Fury, see what we can find elsewhere, something is happening," Rogers nodded, in that tense way that implied that while he was going to do so, he didn't like not working directly to solve a big problem.
But there wasn't much Cap could do to stop a nuclear meltdown.
"Thor," I turned to the man, he leaped to attention at his name, the blonde god grinned at me. Ready for some action. "Stand there and look pretty, I'm going to blow on the reactors to cool them down."
"…"
"..."
"It may take a while but my species has freeze breath."
"..."
"..."
"I owe Fury another fifty bucks," Rogers eventually replied.
With that I burst out of the room and down to the first reactor, stopping on a dime. I could feel the heat, it wasn't too hot yet. Something that I hoped was a good thing. If this meltdown was too far along, it wouldn't matter how much I could freeze.
It would enter a state called quantum tunneling, at that point, it wouldn't be the heat that caused the issue. But instead, it would be occurring naturally… I think?
Need to have a talk with Stark after this. It was one thing memorizing notes in a brief and doing some further reading, it was another retaining years worth of learning in a day's worth of cramming.
I didn't want to get put into this situation again but fuck it up because I'd screwed up the science.
Taking in a large breath, the biggest that I'd ever taken… and I blew into the room hard. Instantly the room was blanketed in white, frozen solid. I gave it a single second, waiting for a sign that the ice was melting.
But found none, even the heat the reactor was giving off was dead. So I made way to the next one, repeated the action, but when I came to the last unit. I got… a bit wet.
I practically tripped into a lake's worth of water. The place was flooded with freezing river water, nothing that would bother my advanced biology and it did do the job of stopping this unit from melting down.
A win if there ever was one, but it did leave me with wet socks.
I hated wet socks.
Author's Note:
Hello again, another new chapter. Another new complication.
This chapter left you with a lot of questions. How did this happen? How did X character get here when Y character should've been somewhere to stop them?
All these questions... and more will be answered... in the next chapter.
Now on to the topic of the nuclear meltdown. I am not a nuclear scientist-I know shocking- so don't want to say that what happened here/what Pat thought about the situation and how to stop it was a hundred percent correct.
It's the best that I've managed to come up with due to my research on how a meltdown occurs and what exactly happens while cooling the reactors down. If anything I've said is wrong, or just irrelevant, be sure to post a correction for that.
I'll do my best to fix it. Ultimately this is a fictional story - I know... even more shocking - so this isn't the most important pat of the story. I just don't want anyone to go... "That ain't right, now I'm brought out of the story about a guy that loses his shirts in explosions constantly."