Innocent Bystander | T. Stark ✔️

twenty two ▼a final battle

Even in the suit, Tony could feel the dry desert wind sucking the moisture from the air around him. A burning sun beat down on him. The fast approaching fortress loomed ahead and his thermal scanners indicated a dozen bodies inside.

The voice of Jarvis filled the Tony's ears as he came to a stop above the fortress, suspended in the air as his scattered thoughts assessed the situation. "I believe your best option would be entering through the-"

"You know I like the dramatic entrances, Jarvis," he said absently, eyes locked on the angled roof.

"Sir-"

He was already tearing through the sky, straight for the roof. One blast from his gauntlets weakened the material before the force of impact brought it crashing in. Tony landed upright and instantly fell into a defensive stance only to find that he was alone. The display of the suit told him that there was a single person in the room to his right. Carefully and cautiously, the painful memories of his last encounter with the Mandarin still fresh in his mind, he entered it.

The Mandarin was waiting, so eerily still that it made the hair on Tony 's neck stand on end. Neither spoke or moved, locked in wordless battle.

It lasted mere seconds before a crushing force was throwing him backwards towards the wall, pinning him against it. The stone of the wall cracked, lines spider webbing out from behind him. Tony tried to control his breathing and his racing thoughts. Raising an arm against the crushing force, Tony fired a blast at the Mandarin. A wave of relief passed through him when the invisible power relented. His magnetic pulses worked.

Masked shock appeared in the Mandarin's eyes. His fingers slid over the many rings, his source of power, on his gnarled fingers. The band on his right hand middle finger began to pulse with light and Tony braced himself as a swirling vortex of wind wrapped around him. If he hadn't been in the suit he would have been tossed aside like he was weightless.

Fighting against the massive gusts, Tony struggled towards his enemy and fired another magnetic pulse. The wind died just as a repulsor beam knocked the Mandarin backwards. In a single bound Tony was in front of him. He threw all of his strength, frustration and desperation into his punches aimed at the Mandarin's face. He wasn't fully aware of the unbridled hits that didn't slow, only of the emotion threatening to drown him.

When his fit of rage shattered, he was left only with an ache in his chest and the buzz of adrenaline. The Mandarin lay unconscious, trails of scarlet ran down his face.

"I've located the missile on the floor below, sir."

Tony stood. He couldn't lose himself like that again, he couldn't break under the pressure.

A short staircase led to an open lab. The far wall was a grid of screens, each with a person monitoring it. They turned at the sound of his arrival. Some aimed guns at him and Tony knocked them aside before they could take aim with ease. The remaining people cowered but did not run.

"Get out, now." Tony ordered. There was only a moment of hesitation before they scrambled around him, staying as far from him as possible, and disappeared up the stairs.

The suit opened and he stepped out. The freezing air from the stone walls cooled his sweating skin. "Sentry mode," he commanded, leaving the suit to monitor be his eyes as he approached the towering missile in the center of the room. A hatch in the ceiling revealed the crisp blue sky where the missile would launch from. The engineer pivoted to the wall of screens and his gaze immediately fell on the countdown. The launch sequence had already been initiated- there was only two minutes left.

He scanned the missile, looking for any possible way to extract some of the virus. It's surface was smooth without a divot or crack to pry open. Circling it, he felt his heart sinking.

Tony hurried to the control panel. "Jarvis, override the launch."

"I can't seem to get past their security," Jarvis said. Panic welled in Tony's chest. He needed to find away to salvage enough extremis from the missile for Juliet while keeping in from becoming airborne and releasing the virus on the world.

"Just once I'd like to do something absolutely ordinary on a Saturday night. Just once."

He felt a pang run through him. He knew just what Juliet would have said if she was here, knew just what the amused smile on her face would look like as she teased him in her quiet voice. "You and I both know that's not true."

And then he would have kissed her. He would savor the way it felt when she smiled against his lips and dug her fingers into his shirt.

His feelings for her hadn't come in one massive, life changing revelation. They had come in the smallest of moments when she did something that was first nature to her, something so natural and somehow exhilarating to him. They had come when he saw her love for her work, for the people around her an for the world. She cared about the things that many people dismissed, like a dying flower or an engineer whose world was crumbling.

He wasn't sure he remembered how to live without the little pieces that made Juliet, and that terrified him.

The countdown read thirty seconds. Tony clenched his fists, feeling the bite of his fingernails into his palms. He felt utterly helpless.

"I can't break through, sir."

The countdown continued though the rest of the world felt as if it were standing still.

"Can we invert the missile horizon?" He asked, his fingers falling onto the keys in front of him. "If it doesn't release the virus until it's at an extreme height the freezing temperature should kill it before it can reach any people."

"Beginning calculations."

"Three..." Tony braced himself. "Two..." He couldn't seem to stop the shaking of his hands. "One..."

A blast of smoke jetted from the missile as it's boosters carried it through the hatch. Tony watched the live feed from a camera attached to the missile. It climbed higher and higher, continuing in a straight line instead of arching to fly parallel with the ground. From the feed of the camera, he watched as the sky around it turned darkened until it was pitch black. Frost webbed across the metal surface. The feed cut out as it exploded and Tony held his breath.

"Did it work?"

"None of the virus survived. Well done, sir."

His feeling of relief was short lived. None of the virus survived. With no more extremis, he couldn't bring himself to think what would happen to Juliet. How would he face her? How would he tell her that he couldn't do anything to heal the damage his reactor had caused?

Then his heart stopped. At the beginning of the rise of the Mandarin's plans, Tony had requested a sample of extremis to study. Juliet had researched it, discovering what she could before returning it to it's tube and leaving it in the door she had claimed as her own in the lab. It was still there.

Tony stepped into the suit as his heart hammered against his chest. His display told him that the suit had just enough power to get him back to California. If he could get the sample to New York, Bruce would know what to do. He could still save her.

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we are so close to the end and i am honestly getting nostalgic

also, ya'll should absolutely go to Mrs_BuckyBarnes account because she has a new tony fic called Rise. it is amazing and we all know that tony needs more love