Chapter 59: The Sudden Attack—Is Tony at the Bottom of the Sea?
After prying the intel on his contacts from the Skrull...
Tony Stark looked at Steve. "So, what's the play?"
"We hunt."
Steve crossed his arms, his mind made up. "We know their secret, and we know their ambition. We can't just let them run free."
"We finally have a solid lead on these Skrulls. We have to run it to ground. All of it."
"What about him?"
Tony jerked a thumb at the captive. "We can't just…"
He never finished the sentence. JARVIS's voice screamed through the room.
"Sirs, incoming missile, fast-mover!"
"What?"
Tony instinctively threw out his hand, calling for the suit.
The armor rocketed toward him, but at the last second, Tony redirected it, forcing it to wrap around Pepper.
In that same instant, the missile hit.
BOOM!
The cliffside villa exploded. The concussion wave blew everyone off their feet.
Steve, reacting instantly, had thrown himself over the suitless Tony, his shield taking the brunt of the blast.
Lynn, meanwhile, had summoned a wall of skeleton warriors, shielding himself and Natasha.
A second missile hit. Then a third.
The entire villa collapsed, half of it shearing off the cliff and plunging into the ocean below.
Steve was slammed against a support wall, but Tony was blown clear, tumbling into the sea with the rest of his house.
The foundation was gone. Tony was in the water. Lynn and Steve grabbed Natasha and Pepper, hauling them to the only stable ground left.
Out over the water, three attack helicopters hovered.
Seeing Stark's villa utterly destroyed, they began to bank, turning to leave.
But the next second, two searing beams of heat lanced out from the smoke-filled ruins, punching straight through one of the helicopters.
It exploded instantly, a fireball dropping toward the ocean. Its main rotor, spinning wildly, sheared off and careened into the second chopper, ripping straight through the cockpit and the pilot.
The third helicopter, seeing this, immediately dumped flares and tried to flee.
But the heat vision beams swept across the sky, precise as a scalpel, and sliced the aircraft clean in two.
Watching the wreckage rain down, Lynn felt a twinge of disappointment.
'It's a damn shame I can't fly.'
'If I could fly, I could just hover like Superman and fire at will, instead of having to stand on the goddamn ground and aim.'
Natasha already knew about this ability, but Steve Rogers stared, stunned. "That was you? In Europe?"
Pepper, who had regained her footing, scrambled to the edge of the broken cliff, screaming Tony's name.
The armor on her body immediately disengaged, breaking apart and rocketing down into the waves.
"Tony…!"
She collapsed to her knees, her eyes flooding with tears.
Lynn walked over and put a hand on her shoulder. "He'll be okay, Pepper. He's Tony."
"I knew it! I knew when he gave out his address to the media, I knew the Mandarin would retaliate! I was going to warn him, but…"
"Pepper, calm down. He's going to be fine."
Natasha joined them, crouching by her side. "This is Tony. He flew a nuke into a wormhole and lived. He's not going to die from this."
As if on cue, the water below roiled. The Mark armor burst from the sea and shot into the sky, disappearing into the distance.
"Look!"
Steve, who had been scanning the ocean, pointed, his voice filled with relief. "He's in the suit, he's flying! I knew he'd be okay!"
"Thank God."
Pepper sat back, the terror finally leaving her. But just as quickly, confusion took its place. "If he's okay... and Lynn took out the helicopters…"
"Where is he going?"
At her question, the others just shook their heads.
Lynn thought for a moment. "Probably... to find the bastards responsible."
'If I remember the plot,' he thought, 'Tony's probably unconscious right now, with the suit on autopilot.'
'But he'd wake up, and he'd take down Killian.'
'Hmm. Extremis... looks like Natasha's vision of that 'white-suit' Iron Man might be coming true sooner rather than later.'
'Of course, if Tony doesn't decide to play around with Extremis after this... then the Superior Iron Man might never happen.'
'This world doesn't have mutants, so maybe the whole AXIS event is a bust anyway.'
"I've already contacted SHIELD."
Steve walked over to them. "Someone needs to clean this mess up. Since Tony's safe, we can relax... a little."
"But Lynn, I need your help. We have to find that Skrull. See if he survived the blast."
"Right."
Lynn nodded.
He stood and began picking his way down through the wreckage. A pile of rubble blocked the stairwell to the lab.
Steve was already there, heaving chunks of concrete aside.
Lynn joined him.
Steve watched as Lynn effortlessly lifted a piece of rebar and concrete that had to weigh at least three hundred pounds.
"I figured as much," Steve said. "Your body... it's been enhanced, too."
"I just didn't realize the man in the mask at that Hydra base in Europe... was you."
Lynn tossed the slab aside. "I told you, I don't want the trouble. The only reason I was playing bodyguard was because Pepper offered to find me a place to live."
"Steve, you of all people should understand. You got the serum seventy years ago, you fought in New York…"
"When you have superhuman abilities, but all you want is to be a normal person... that says something about your character, doesn't it?"
Hearing Lynn's blatant self-praise, Steve actually nodded in agreement. "It does. To have that kind of power, and not use it for evil... to resist that temptation... it's a rare quality."
"But sometimes... things don't always go the way we plan."
Hearing the deeper meaning in Steve's voice, Lynn heaved a two-hundred-pound block into the ocean. "You're not... about to ask me to join the Avengers, are you?"
"The thought crossed my mind."
Steve looked at him, his expression completely serious. "Your abilities, your character... I think you'd be a perfect fit. Even Natasha said you were…"
"Stop. Right there."
Lynn tossed the last piece of rubble aside, revealing the stairs. "I'll take my current lifestyle over being a superhero, thanks."
He looked down, and saw, floating right in front of him...
...the spirit of the Skrull.
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