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'Inner dialogue/thoughts'
"Normal dialogue"
[System]
[Diary entries]
~ With Tony ~
"That's enough."
Steve's words hung in the air like a verdict. Tony could only see the broad back of the newcomer, the round shield raised defensively, but Stane had a full view of what stood between him and his prey.
"That's... impossible. You're supposed to be dead." Stane breathed out.
Tony wished he could turn his head to see what had Stane so rattled. The dead suit kept him locked in place, staring at the back of a man he'd only seen in old photographs and museum exhibits.
"The fight's over. Stand down. This doesn't have to end with anyone else getting hurt." Steve said firmly.
For a moment, Stane just stood there. The Iron Monger's massive form was still, its scorched armour catching the dim light from the ruined mansion.
Then Stane started laughing.
It wasn't a chuckle or a snort. It was a full belly laugh that echoed through the Iron Monger's speakers, distorted and almost hysterical. The sound bounced off the broken walls and debris, filling the space with something that felt genuinely unhinged.
The metal faceplate retracted with a hiss, revealing Stane's face. He was sweating, his eyes wide with a manic gleam that Tony had never seen before.
"Do you know what I have here?" Stane gestured at his armour with one massive hand. "This is the greatest machine of war ever made by man. And I just defeated the genius who created it. Tony Stark himself, lying there like a broken toy."
He took a step forward, and Steve's shield came up slightly higher.
"And you think you can stop me? A man out of time? What exactly can you do to a Metal God?"
"Hey, Obie? You're all talk and no bite, you know that?" Tony couldn't help himself.
Even with his suit dead and his body aching, his mouth still worked just fine.
Stane's eyes flicked to Tony, and Tony pressed on despite Steve's slight shift in posture.
"If you were really all that, you would've built that suit yourself. But you couldn't, could you? You needed to steal my tech, steal my reactor. You couldn't even figure out the power source without ripping it out of my chest."
"Tony-" Steve started.
"No, no, let me finish. You know what the difference between us is, Stane? I build things. I create. And you? You're just a scavenger picking at my scraps."
He paused, letting the words sink in.
"You'll never be able to do what I can do. And no matter how much you try, no matter how big your suit is or how many missiles you strap to it, you'll never amount to anything more than what you've always been."
Tony's lips curled into a smirk.
"Stark's employee."
The change in Stane was immediate. The manic gleam in his eyes died, replaced by something cold and dark. His face twisted into an expression that Tony could only describe as doom and gloom personified.
Steve let out a heavy sigh. "You really should have kept quiet."
Tony was about to ask what he meant when he heard it.
A mechanical whirring sound, high-pitched and growing louder.
Both Steve and Tony recognized it at the same time.
"Missile!" Steve shouted.
Stane didn't say a word. He didn't need to. His arm came up, and from the shoulder housing, a small missile launched directly at Tony.
Steve moved faster than Tony thought humanly possible. The shield came around in a blur of red, white, and blue, deflecting the missile's trajectory just enough to send it careening into the ground at Stane's feet.
The explosion was deafening.
But that wasn't the worst part.
The mansion, already battered from the earlier fight between Tony and Stane, couldn't take any more. The floor beneath Stane cracked, then shattered. A whole section of the building tore away from the cliff face with a groaning, screaming sound of metal and stone giving way.
Stane barely had time to react before the ground disappeared beneath him. The Iron Monger tumbled backward, arms flailing, as a massive chunk of the mansion went crashing down the cliff toward the rocky beach below.
Tony watched it happen in what felt like slow motion. One moment Stane was there, all arrogance and metal. The next, he was gone, swallowed by debris and darkness.
After a few moments, the rumbling stopped and the dust began to settle.
Tony and Steve stood in the aftermath, neither moving for a long moment.
"Well," Tony finally said, breaking the silence, "that's an interesting development."
Steve lowered his shield slightly, scanning the jagged edge where the floor used to be. "Is he...?"
"Dead? Probably not." Tony wished he could shake his head. "The Iron Monger's built like a tank. And if I'm guessing right, he probably landed in the lower levels. The mansion extends into the cliff."
As if on cue, a deep rumbling echoed from somewhere far below them. It wasn't another collapse. It was movement.
"Great," Steve muttered.
"Yeah. That means enclosed space fighting." Tony tried to move, failed, and let out a frustrated breath. "Look, whoever you are, you seem capable. But that suit of his is still functional, and he's going to be really pissed off now."
Steve nodded, then turned his head slightly. "Did you get all that?"
Tony frowned. "Get all what? Who are you talking to?"
There was no one else in the room. At least, no one that Tony could see from his locked position.
"Get Stark somewhere safe," Steve said to apparently no one. "Once he's secure, I could use a hand down there."
"Who the hell are-"
A figure stepped into Tony's field of view.
The newcomer was wearing a red and black tactical suit, the kind of thing that looked like it was designed for serious combat. A helmet obscured his face, and he moved with the kind of easy confidence that came from either extreme competence or extreme stupidity.
"I'll get him to a safe spot. Go handle the self-proclaimed Metal God." The figure said to Steve.
Steve nodded once, then walked to the edge of the collapsed floor and jumped.
Just like that.
Disappeared into the darkness below without hesitation.
Tony stared at the newcomer.
"Okay, I've got a lot of questions, starting with: who the hell are you?"
The figure turned to face Tony fully. Even without seeing his face, Tony could somehow tell the guy was smiling.
"Me? I'm Red Hood."
~ With Steve ~
Steve hit the ground hard. The impact crater he'd landed in still had heat rising from it, and he could smell burnt rubber and engine oil in the air.
He straightened quickly, shield raised, and took stock of his surroundings. The mansion's garage stretched out around him, filled with what looked like a small dealership's worth of high-end vehicles. Sports cars, classic muscle cars, even what appeared to be a prototype something-or-other covered in a tarp.
Rich people things.
Steve barely had time to complete his scan before he heard the crash.
He spun, shield coming up instinctively, just as a car came flying toward him. Not a small car either. A full-sized sedan, tumbling end over end through the air like someone had thrown it.
The impact was tremendous. The vehicle slammed into his shield with enough force to drive Steve backward, his boots scraping trenches in the concrete floor as Steve felt the shock travel up his arm and into his shoulder.
But he held.
The car finally split against his shield and fell away, reduced to twisted wreckage.
"That's new," Steve remarked, lowering his shield slightly.
The Iron Monger emerged from the shadows at the far end of the garage, walking with slow, deliberate steps.
"Captain America." Stane's voice echoed through the speakers, and Steve could hear genuine wonder in it. "You know, history really didn't do you justice."
Steve said nothing, adjusting his grip on his shield.
"Stark and I, we can only do remarkable things because of our armour. But you? You're the real deal, aren't you? You just tanked a car with nothing but a shield and your own two feet."
Stane stopped about twenty feet away, his massive form blocking the light behind him.
"I have to know. How are you alive? And how are you this strong? Tell me your secrets, Captain. I could use them." The hunger in Stane's voice was unmistakable.
Steve's answer was to shift his weight, bringing his shield up into a ready position.
Stane chuckled. "Fine. I'll get the answers after I've killed you."
The metal faceplate slid back over Stane's head before he charged.
The Iron Monger moved faster than something that size had any right to move, arm swinging in a massive haymaker aimed at Steve's head. It was the kind of blow that could take down a concrete wall, thrown with full confidence that nothing could stop it.
Steve didn't try to stop it.
Instead, he stepped forward, into the swing, inside Stane's reach. His shield came up not to block the fist, but to catch the forearm. He angled the edge just right, and the force that should have crushed him instead slid sideways, redirected away from its target.
Stane stumbled, thrown off balance by his own momentum.
Steve was already moving. "Last chance. Stand down."
"Over my dead body."
Stane swung again, another brutal attack with no technique behind it. Pure power, pure rage.
Steve sidestepped easily. As the Iron Monger's arm swept past, Steve brought his shield edge down hard on the knee joint, causing Stane to stumble.
Steve capitalized immediately. He stepped in close and slammed his shield into the Iron Monger's chest, targeting a section of plating that had already been cracked by the earlier unibeam blast. The hit rang out like a gong. Before Stane could recover, Steve's fist found the exposed cabling near the shoulder, and something sparked under the impact.
What followed was less a fight and more a game of cat and mouse.
Steve never stayed in one place. He ran circles around Stane, using the garage's vehicles as obstacles. Every time Stane tried to grab him or swing at him, Steve was already somewhere else, repositioning for a better angle.
And the shield.
The shield was everywhere.
Steve would throw it at what seemed like random targets. A wall, a car hood, a support pillar. And Stane would track it, expecting it to miss. Then the shield would ricochet, bounce off the surface at an impossible angle, and crack into Stane from a blind spot. His back, his elbow, the joints of his armour.
Again and again.
Stane's frustration grew with every hit. He was expecting the fight with the Soldier to go like his fight with Tony.
Overwhelming force crushing superior technology.
But Steve wasn't fighting like Tony. He wasn't trying to match power with power.
He was dismantling Stane piece by piece.
'He's better than Stark. How is this possible?' Stane realized with a mix of rage and grudging respect.
After the shield bounced off his knee joint for what felt like the tenth time, Stane snapped.
"ENOUGH!"
He grabbed the nearest vehicle, a sports car worth more than most houses, and hurled it. Then he grabbed another and did the same. He swung them like clubs, smashing everything around him, clearing the space of obstacles with brutal efficiency.
The flying debris caused Steve to take a step back.
When the destruction finally stopped, Stane stood in a cleared circle of wreckage, breathing hard behind his faceplate. He turned to face Steve, who didn't even look winded.
"It's time to end this," Stane declared, his voice carrying a note of finality.
He was about to step forward when they both felt it.
A rumbling from somewhere above them. Something moving through the structure.
Then the sprinklers overhead burst open.
But the water didn't fall like rain. It moved with purpose, snaking through the air in streams that began to circle Stane's armoured form. Before Stane could react, the water had encased him in a body of water.
A figure dropped through a hole in the ceiling, landing in a crouch between Steve and Stane.
"You're right. It is about time we put an end to this." Luke said as he stared straight at the trapped Stane.
Stane tried to move, to break free, but more water rushed in from the broken sprinklers, encasing him in what could only be described as a prison. Every time he shifted, the water shifted with him, repositioning to counter his movements.
Then the prison compressed.
The water tightened around the Iron Monger like a fist, holding Stane firmly in place. His servos whined as he strained against it, but he couldn't get any leverage.
Steve let out a low whistle as he walked up to stand beside Luke.
"Maybe you should have been the one to handle him in the first place. Would have saved a lot of time." Steve said.
Luke laughed. "You were doing fine. Would have beaten him sooner or later."
"Not as instantly as that." Steve gestured at the water prison.
"Potato potahto." Luke waved off Steve's praise.
Steve shook his head but didn't push it. "So what's the plan?"
"Stark thinks Stane's suit is a power hog." Luke kept his hands raised, maintaining control of the water. "At the rate he's been burning through energy, he should be running on fumes pretty soon."
Steve nodded. "So we wait him out."
"We wait him out."
Inside the water prison, Stane struggled uselessly, his earlier confidence replaced by something that looked a lot like fear.
- End of Chapter 92 -
E/D: Completely new way of how the battle ends with Luke joining in to steal some limelight HAHAHAHAHAHA. I wanted an 'Epic' fight, but then i realized this was just Stane xD Let's save the epics for New York or maybe even Thor.