NYC, New York, Friday Afternoon
Rhodey
Summer classes were finally over for the day and Rhodey was set to go back to the hotel his mom and him were staying in. The very nice, funded by Tony hotel, but it was a hotel nonetheless.
He sighed, waiting for traffic to come to a stop before he could cross the street to get to the subway.
Rick Jones
That would, of course, be when a kid no older than him came hauling ass down the street, shoving Rhodey aside in order to dart out into traffic.
Because that was totally safe.
Rhodey
"Hey!" Rhodey shouted after him, adjusting his backpack and glaring. "Watch it!"
He sure showed that guy.
HULK
Yeah, that kid was totally scared of Rhodey.
And not the insanely large green man who suddenly landed no more than ten feet from where Rhodey stood. The concrete cracked around him, splintering out from the force of impact.
He growled, glancing around at the traffic and terrified people before leaping into the air once again. High enough that he seemed to almost disappear.
Rhodey
"Oh," Rhodey said, backpack falling forgotten off his shoulder. "Oh man. Not an urban legend."
He fumbled through his pocket, yanking out his phone in order to call Tony. Because this could not end well.
Tony
"I already took my meds for the day," Tony said once he answered the phone. Because Rhodey was a mother hen, damn it.
Rhodey
"So, not what I'm calling about," Rhodey snapped, taking off in the direction the Hulk had leapt. That kid who bumped into him had been running away from it.
He couldn't just do nothing if he needed help. "Remember that green guy? Less of a myth. You need to get your Dynamobuster armor on. And now."
Tony
"Um." Tony paused, pulling up news feeds from New York. "Are you taking your... meds."
Blurry camera footage wasn't on the news, but it was on Twitter. Who knew #greenmonster would trend today?
"On my way!"
Rhodey
"Great!" Rhodey said to a dial tone, pocketing the phone as he came on the scene of where the jumping had ended. One building had nearly caved in, an entire side gone. And streaming out of it were some familiar and all together annoying yellow costumed goons.
"AIM," he muttered to himself. "Perfect."
HULK
The Hulk seemed to agree with that assessment as he was busy being peppered with gunfire and what appeared to be fancy laser weapons.
Not that it stopped him, of course. Excuse him while he was very busy picking up a nearby abandoned car in order to throw it at a herd of the annoying AIM goons.
"Hulk smash," he roared, rushing at the next wave of attackers.
Rhodey
Rhodey had to run to avoid being hit by a thrown car. This was not how he'd wanted to spend his afternoon, people. This wasn't how he'd wanted to spend it at all!
"Oh god, oh god, oh god," he muttered to himself, avoiding the busy AIM goons and angry green thing on his way to find that kid and get him out of harm's way. Where had he gone? Inside the building. Please say no, oh god, please say no.
AIM Mooks
Unfortunately for everyone involved in this fun little debacle, AIM was less than keen to deal with a giant, gamma irradiated rage monster.
And the small force assaulting him was only there to give those scientists inside the building enough time to escape. Because they knew how to cut their losses and run. It was a tried and true tradition.
"Fall back!" one of the goons shouted as an aircraft carefully landed just outside the little warzone they'd had set up.
HULK
With suddenly less things shooting at him, the Hulk had a moment to remember why he was even there.
"Rick..."
He narrowed his eyes, trudging into the building to find his missing friend.
Rhodey
"You have got to be kidding me," Rhodey hissed, hiding behind a pile of rubble as the creature passed by. He picked up his phone, dialing Tony again. "You better be on your way here or I swear to god--"
Tony
"I can only fly so fast, Rhodey," Tony snapped back. "I'll be there in ten minutes."
Rhodey
Great. Juuuust great.
Rhodey took a deep breath, peering out over the rubble. "This is a dumb idea," he told himself. "Really dumb."
Then took off into the building after the Hulk.
Tony
As promised, Tony arrived on the scene ten minutes later. To... nothing at all happening.
"Seriously? Did World War III happen here?" he asked, surveying the damage.
Rick
The kid from before suddenly appeared from inside the rubble, dropping down to the street. He calmly walked past the damaged area, right up to where Iron Man stood.
There was possibly something off about the kid, though. As he held something behind his back as he approached and all.
Tony
"Whoa there!" Tony said, turning in place to get a read on him. "This is not a good place to be, kid. You need to get out of he--"
The computer chimed in suddenly: Enemy technology detected. Designation: The Controller.
"...oh crap."
Rick
By then, it was too late to stop it from happening. The kid had already pressed a familiar looking controller disc against the armor.
"I've made a few upgrades to account for your armor, Iron Man," the kid--the Controller, really--said. "I hope you enjoy them."
Tony
"Crapcrapcrap--"
The computer continued to chime in: Outer armor compromised. Initiating lock-down sequence. Awaiting user intervention.
Outside of the armor, a blast of electrical blast sent the kid sprawling backwards, but did nothing to remove the disc now attached to it.
And Tony stopped being there. Oops?
"Let's see what we can do with this, shall we?" the Controller asked through Tony's voice.
With that, Tony took off to where the Controller stood. A safe distance from the battle that had once taken place.
[[NFB, of course!]]