"What happens when that red light kicks in?" Ethan walked up to Tony, eyeing him with a curious grin.
"It forces the armor to revert to its raw state," Tony replied. He'd already peeled away the blood-soaked plating and was rummaging through his gear to grab the backup charger. Settling in, he let out a sigh of relief as the power began trickling in.
Meanwhile, Tony flipped through the hard-won data. "Looks like early Extremis virus experiment logs," he muttered, visibly disappointed. The data was useful, sure, but he was hoping for intel on the Mandarin.
"Hand it over. If you can't pull anything from it, let those properly equipped try." Ethan pulled out his phone, snapped quick shots of the pages, and sent them off to Coulson at S.H.I.E.L.D.
Just five minutes later, a ping came back. Coulson's text read, "Based on what you sent, we found what seems to be a Mandarin base. Not abandoned either. Worth checking out."
"Perfect. Shoot me the coordinates," Ethan said. Then a thought struck him. "By the way, Fury had that meeting with our Vice President yet?"
"Director Fury is with him now," Coulson replied. "Given the VP's ties to the Meta Academy, it's going well. Should smooth over our current standoff."
Ethan nodded, chuckling. "Fury never makes a move without his entire chessboard mapped out first. If he's handling it personally, it'll work."
He turned to Tony. "Alright, Coulson sent the spot. Good news: it's in Miami. No trekking through dusty warzones. Bad news: for your power situation... kinda rough."
Tony gave a weak laugh. "Yeah, ran the math. If I want enough juice to reach Miami, I'd need to charge here for at least a full day. These backwoods lines can't even tickle the Arc Reactor. I need something a lot more... efficient."
"Efficient?" Ethan raised an eyebrow. Tony's eyes suddenly lit up as he remembered Thor's "help" during their last scuffle.
"You know... like Thor," Tony said, gesturing wildly. "You can pull off that kind of stunt, right?"
"This?" Ethan lifted a hand.
The air above them twisted as he manipulated the local atmospheric vectors, compressing moisture into towering thunderheads.
Bolts of electricity jumped through the dark cloud, crackling like a living net.
"Whoa, whoa! Not that! That's a bit too... Asgardian. The last time, Mjolnir nearly fried my whole suit. Now I am the suit," Tony stammered. "Let's go gentle."
Ethan smirked. "Alright, how about this?" He focused, fine-tuning the electromagnetic vectors at a molecular scale until a tight ball of plasma formed at his fingertip. It pulsed, held together by his precise adjustments of electric and magnetic field lines, then he tapped it to Tony's chest.
"Yes! That's the spot." As the plasma discharged, Tony shuddered, his systems whirring back to life. "God, it's weird. I'm getting used to it. Could you up the amps just a tad?"
"Could your lines get any creepier?" Ethan groaned, rubbing his forehead.
"Hey, merged with your tech now. Feels like liquid lightning rushing through every circuit. It's... oh man, it's addictive."
"Pres, Mr. Stark—I've evacuated the townspeople." Spider-Man swung back in, landing neatly, then froze. "Uh... what did I just walk in on?"
"Nothing weird. Just wrapped up," Ethan said, clearing his throat.
"Hey! Don't stop. I'm almost topped off," Tony protested. "Do you want my OCD to flare up?"
"Stop whining." Ethan rolled his eyes, then manipulated the local electric field again, vector lines snaking out into a glowing whip.
He snapped it across Tony's back.
"Ohhh, that's it. Fully loaded now," Tony gasped. "Ready to go kick some Mandarin ass."
Ethan shook his head, imagining if Ivan Vanko had lived long enough to see Tony like this.
That would've been a therapy bill waiting to happen.
Meanwhile, Spider-Man looked shell-shocked.
Here stood his academy idol and his favorite Avenger—sharing moments that sounded dangerously close to... something else. "It's gotta be Deadpool's influence," Peter muttered. "No way that was what it looked like."
Tony cracked his knuckles. "Alright, Mandarin's next on the menu."
"Wait up!" Peter shouted as Tony and Ethan lifted off. "I want in on this."
Tony turned midair. "Kid, if this was a holiday party, you'd be my plus one. But it's not. It's a deathtrap. So no."
"I can handle myself! I'm not just some kid anymore. I can help. Like last time, remember? Please, Mr. Stark." Peter pulled off his mask, eyes earnest.
"Trying to guilt trip me, huh?" Tony sighed, then smiled weakly. "You're a good kid, Parker. Too good. I want you home tonight, eating cookies with Aunt May. Not dodging missiles."
"There are cameras in my warehouse," Peter deadpanned.
Tony stiffened. "You didn't. Cameras? Like... oh crap." The two locked eyes.
Seconds passed before Tony deflated. "Alright, fine! You're a bad kid who needs close supervision."
He glared at Ethan. "You're the Meta Academy boss, his big-shot mentor. Aren't you gonna talk him out of this?"
Ethan shrugged. "We encourage hands-on learning."
"Fantastic. So how're we getting him to Miami? Should I toss him like a football? ...Why are you two looking at me like that? Don't say it's a good idea—"
Five minutes later, Iron Man was rocketing toward Miami, a certain excited webhead riding piggyback, hollering with joy into the wind.
At the speed of Ethan and Tony, it didn't take long to get to Miami. But when the three of them arrived at the coordinates, they found a luxury villa waiting for them.
"Looks like our Mandarin likes to live it up," Tony muttered, eyeing the sprawling mansion.
"The guards are tight," Peter whispered from a tree, scanning the grounds. "A lot of security cams and patrols."
"We still need to get inside. If we spook him, he might vanish."
Tony started tapping into his wrist console. "I'll hack their cameras, loop the feed, maybe trigger an alarm at the gate to draw some guards off."
Before he could finish, a guard with a hound came around the corner. The dog growled, ready to bark. Peter shot a quick web, sealing its jaws, but the guard barely had time to react before Ethan snapped his fingers.
A thin line of compressed air shot forward, like a micro blade. It sliced through the guard and his radio in one clean sweep.
"Ethan!" Tony hissed.
"We can't risk anyone calling in."
Ethan floated upward, his coat rippling.
He flicked his hand, adjusting air pressure vectors around the perimeter. Instantly, razor-sharp wind blades erupted outward, cutting down every guard in sight before they could scream.
Blood misted the hedges.
Peter swallowed. "Uh... subtle."
"Done. Get moving," Ethan ordered, landing lightly. "Where's our next stop?"
Tony checked the map. "There's an underground facility. No cameras, lots of guard clusters. If the Mandarin's anywhere, it's there."
They found a concealed hatch by the back garden. Tony pried it open and dropped down first.
As they moved through dim corridors, any guard who got close barely had time to raise a gun.
Ethan would redirect the vector of his blood flow, causing them to collapse unconscious or dead instantly, veins bursting from sudden pressure shifts.
Finally, they kicked in a heavy steel door. "Mandarin! Time to end this!" Tony roared.
But inside, instead of their target, they found Rhodey hanging by chains, bruised and stripped of his War Machine suit.
Around him stood half a dozen Extremis meta soldiers.
"Tony, took you long enough," Rhodey croaked.
"Rhodey? What the hell—"
The Extremis metas rushed them. Superheated hands grabbed Tony, forcing him down.
His armor sizzled as their bodies pumped out hundreds of degrees of heat.
"Ethan, now!"
"With pleasure."
Ethan raised both palms, a ball of crackling blue plasma formed, then shot straight at Tony.
The electrical surge overloaded the Extremis bodies, their regeneration backfiring in spasms. T
ony's arc reactor glowed hot, siphoning off the energy.
He ripped free and blasted an energy beam that punched through two metas at once.
"That never gets old," Tony gasped, giving Ethan a shaky thumbs-up.
Rhodey squinted. "Was that... your new battery charger?"
"Long story. Let's get you down."
Once Rhodey was free, he gawked as Tony absorbed his armor back into his chest with a thought. "Since when can you do that?"
"I'm... working through some changes."
"Focus," Ethan snapped. "Why were you here?"
"They wanted my War Machine suit to get close to the President," Rhodey said. "Probably already on the move."
Tony swore. "Then the Mandarin was a diversion."
"Or a puppet," Ethan added.
"There's still a creepy old man upstairs in the villa," Tony said. "He was with two women last I checked."
"Should I remind you? The Mandarin is a creepy old man with a mustache," Ethan deadpanned.
Tony just sighed. "Let's get this over with."
Upstairs, the so-called Mandarin was stumbling out of a bathroom, pill bottle in hand.
When he saw four heavily armed strangers pointing repulsors and web-shooters at him, he dropped the bottle and slowly raised his hands.
"Aw, crap," he whimpered, sinking to his knees.
Rhodey blinked. "This is the terrorist mastermind?"
"I think we found this year's Oscar winner," Ethan said dryly. He leaned down and grabbed the Mandarin by the collar. "Alright, clown. Tell us who really pulls your strings."