Stark Residence
–Alex Warner–
"Oh, no," he muttered to himself, floating on top of the ocean, watching the distinct silhouette of the Iron Man suit fading away in the distance. He was so close. The rubble falling on top of him slowed him down immensely, as he had to manoeuvre around that, resulting in the delay of just a minute or two, but by that time, all he could see on the ocean floor was concrete, wood, and some parts of the helicopter he'd blown up earlier.
No sign of Tony one moment, and the next, a suit just rocketed out of the rubble, heading straight south for some reason. Hearing the sound of emergency services pulling up, he shook his head and swam to the shore, a single click of his feet creating enough pressure for him to rocket forward, reaching the shore in one fell swoop.
Drying himself using fire natured chakra, the only jutsu, if one could even call it that, he knew when it came to the Fire Nature chakra, he took stock of his situation and knew that the car was gone, so was his cover. Which meant, it was time to bolt.
He couldn't stay here. He knew more than the authorities did, and stopping Mandarin should be easy enough since they were after the Vice President and were going to use the Iron Patriot suit, that hideous rendition of the once badass War Machine, to do so. Keep eyes on both of them and voila! He would have the–
He froze during his walk, the sound of water being vaporised reaching his ears, as he looked down, from where he was walking on the cliffside using chakra, and grinned as he saw a red hot person swimming out of the ocean.
"Well, I'll be damned," He muttered to himself, generating a precise amount of extra chakra at his feet, propelling him from the wall, and landing right in front of the mercenary, but he couldn't be just a mercenary, could he?
After all, he had Extremis running through his veins. The man looked up at him from his prone position on the soil, grinning, and the sceptre from the nightmares of most people in one hand. The fear was understandable.
Moving to knock the man out, his gaze slid to the sceptre as the thought of just mind controlling this scum and making things way easier for himself crossed his mind, but he banished that thought immediately. IT was a slippery slope, and he knew it. Now, it was just to reduce the risk of him being spotted and then having to fight his way out later, it might just be because he did not want that inconvenience of working for his answers.
So, with that, he lifted the man in one hand, the weight not really bothering him as he used chakra to latch onto the man's clothing. Unfortunately, doing the same to the skin was not really optimal because, well, the risk of blowing off people's skins was high, no matter how much practice he had beforehand.
With a thunderous groan, the sound of metal and concrete splashing into the ocean reached his ears as he hightailed it out of there. He was sure that his recorded presence here would soon attract SHIELD and the likes of HYDRA, to sniff out the tracks of the Sceptre, which could effortlessly mind control most people on the planet.
___xx___
He flexed his fist, watching the tooth that he had just knocked out of the bloody terrorist's mouth, sizzle and melt before carving a hole in the wooden flooring. Expensive wooden flooring, to be specific.
Then, with another sizzling sound, the man twitched minutely as yet another tooth grew in its place, healing the man perfectly within seconds. It was kind of impressive to watch, the level of regeneration these guys could revolutionise the entire human society as they knew it but alas, it would first and foremost be used as a weapon and then as a medical tool, which is why he agreed with Tony's opinion of this being a thing that should ideally be thrown away but could be kept under severe lock and key, with the key thrown away. In case of emergencies, the lock could just be smashed apart.
This was the sixth time he had to knock the man out, seriously tempting him to use the sceptre to at least make the man immobile, if not answer all his questions. Seriously, that Extremis stuff was something else alright, rousing the terrorist, whose name he had not bothered to learn, within minutes of being knocked out with extreme force.
He was very startled the first time as the bastard got a lucky shot, the reminder of which was a burn in the shape of a palm and burnt skin on his back. It should heal properly and leave only maybe a light scar in a few days, but the fact that the man got the drop on him bothered him far more than the pain.
He got him back good, though, broke a few bones, and knocked him out but it was frustrating to see all the damage healing within minutes, leaving the man as good as new when he woke up again, which was a lot.
Seriously, the last time he knocked the man out, he heard some bones in the neck not break outright but definitely crack, and he'd feared the man dead, but apparently, Extremis could heal through that as well, just far slower than usual.
Shaking his head, he made sure to wrap the rebar tight enough around the man before pouring the prepared concrete around his body. He was not risking the man escaping in any way. Since he did not have much in the way of enhanced strength and mostly relied on his body superheating and seemingly infinite regeneration as a means of offense, he was fairly certain that concrete, and rebar keeping his limbs in place would keep him contained, at least until Fury and Co. arrived with their fancy methods of superhuman detainment.
"Huh," He said to himself as he watched the concrete just flow off the man's body, as an idea crossed through his mind. After listening to what the man had planned, along with the sick pleasure he expressed at doing some stuff, he was sure that what he was doing could not be considered torture.
Plus, the man could regenerate from it anyway, so why worry?
He picked up yet another piece of rebar- apparently, the owners of this place believed in having everything required to lay down a solid slab of concrete, with the mixers, for some reason, but just as he was about to stab the terrorist in the ribs, he paused.
Shaking his head, he threw the rebar away. No need to stoop to their levels. Plus, the government, being what they were, were not about to lay down the red carpet for someone very closely associated with the person who was going to target the President soon enough.
Walking out of the opulent mansion, he took out the burner phone he kept deactivated, and with the battery separated, just in case, and dialed 911.
"Hi! I would like to talk to Nick Fury, please." He said, to the confused 911 operator on the other end, who, understandably, began talking through her manual, likely thinking him to be mentally disoriented.
Well, to speed up the process of SHIELD tracking down his voice and taking over the call in some fashion, he began speaking.
"Nick Fury. Natasha Romanoff. Clint Barton. Phil Coulson. Maria Hi–" He stopped speaking, as the nice lady on the other side of the 911 call was cut off, the phone giving him static for a moment before the very angry voice of one Nick Fury was audible to him once more.
"WHAT."
He smiled, something about angering THE spymaster satisfying something within him, "I have a lead on who the Mandarin is, or rather, who his targets are. He is not some Middle Eastern terrorist. He is someone much closer, and he is planning to target POTUS. I know this because I have one of his men currently in front of me, incapacitated. Oh, yes, before I forget, when you come here, bring stuff that can hold up to very high temperatures."
"Wait, what? What do you–"
"I said, the man is an enhanced. He has very advanced regeneration-seriously, I had to keep knocking him out- and his body can heat itself to temperatures capable of melting stuff. So, keep that in mind when you come here. I, on the other hand, have a wayward genius billionaire playboy philanthropist to track down. Alex, out!"
Ripping the burner phone apart, he threw it in two different directions before going back to the house. He reckoned that he had maybe 10 minutes before the nearest cop cars descended on this place, so it was a perfect time to enjoy the PB&J he had made earlier.
Seriously, for some ridiculous reason, rich guys had an expensive sounding brand for every single thing. What was wrong with normal peanut butter? He would never know.
Shaking his head, he quickly rinsed it off with some orange juice, and a nice, almost neck breaking punch to the terrorist later, he was off to the races.
Some abandoned oil tanker in Tennessee. That was going to the endgame, as the man told him. Mandarin had some pretty heavy balls, to think he could succeed with this.
Sure, if this was some isolated superhero universe with only Tony Stark as the sole protector of the free world, then maybe, Mandarin's plan had some chance of success, but as things stood now?
SHIELD would much rather blow a hole in his head, or failing that, bring out the big guns, i.e, the guns he knew they had stashed around, the ones that used the Tesseract's energy and just dust the guy.
Not to mention, going that far was truly unnecessary, as Mandarin, the guy with the best Extremis compatibility so far, could be killed. Not even atomic death was necessary. Most probably, his entire body being destroyed in a spectacular explosion would be enough.
A well placed arrow from Barton through the head, should incapacitate him, and then, well, the US Military was known for many failures but delivering heavy payload, bordering on war crimes, with heavy precision anywhere on the planet was certainly not one of them.
__xx__
Within hours, he was back in the city proper and in a car, headed outside the city, probably to either San Diego or Tijuana, depending on the level of heat Nick Fury puts on the top of his head.
Oh, who was he kidding? He was going to have to leave the country and use his Genjutsu to reliably get to Tennessee.
The only thing left was to rescue Tony, who would do the job of taking out Mandarin for him. Mandarin's plot of targeting POTUS was already Dead on Arrival, since Fury would take his warnings seriously.
That only left the cleanup, something he was not keen to do. So, the first thing he would do after finding Tony was dump this duty on him and then..f*ck right off.
Maybe come back to Tijuana for another holiday.
One thing was for certain, though, Fury was only going to hate him more from now on. Strangely, the thought of participating in a hunt, even if he was the target of said hunt, excited him more.
Even so, it worked out for him because that would just necessitate even higher levels of skill in Genjutsu, satisfying that training itch in his mind.