imafuturist | An Expressway in Oklahoma, Monday Evening

With some of the information Maya had given willingly and some of the things Tony had not so legally pulled from FuturePharm's systems, they were able to nail down a suspect's name, Mallen, and also that he was a member of one of the many angry, little militant groups floating around out there for the disillusioned and violent.

That sounded like a recipe for success in giving someone a super-soldier serum. Sure.

They'd also been able to track the car he was moving in, Mallen running way hotter than any human aside from Johnny Storm ought to.

"Pull back civilians as much as you can as soon as I engage," Tony said to the local PDs, hovering over the roadway as his HUD was tracking the location of the car.

This was going to get messy. And yeah, he really should have called the team in to help. But even if he had, they'd still have to make it back from Wakanda. So it was mostly on him. Because Marvel was good at handwaving teams away from problems that totally should have been handled by them and not a one hero.

Once the van carrying Mallen was isolated enough from the rest of the traffic, Tony swooped in, slicing it in half to separate him from the two men in the driver and front passenger seats transporting him.

[NFB still! Sorry, Tracy. One more today.]

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Alright, it was safe to say that Mallen was not exactly pleased to come to a crashing stop. Not at all pleased. Also, he was massively psychotic, so he had that going for him. Which was nice.

You know, for him.

He ripped through the metal of the van to free himself,

Which was okay because Tony didn't completely think he'd get out of this without a fight. He sort of hoped he might, but that had never really been his luck. He landed on the road in front of Mallen, hand up to fire a repulsor because diplomacy so rarely worked on bad guys. "Lay down on the ground, hands behind your back and ankles crossed. There's no reason to make this difficult."

"Yes there is. There's lots of reasons," Mallen replied, making absolutely no move to obey that. In fact, he was starting forward toward Iron Man.

Okay, admittedly Tony set himself up for that one. He frowned and fired the repulsor at a low enough level to knock Mallen back. Or, well, it should have. Even upping the output did nothing to slow the man down.

Well, shit.

Mallen blurred for a moment, moving too fast to be tracked by human sight as he dodged out of the way of the blast to come up next to Iron Man to spit enough fire to melt the bastard.

Which, worryingly enough, might have been possible with the heat Mallen was generating. Tony twisted in place, grabbing the man by the throat to cut off any more of that.

Edited 2016-02-22 20:56 (UTC)

Sure, that stopped the fire. But it didn't keep Mallen from snarling and grabbing hold of Iron Man's forearm and squeezing tight enough that the metal strained and groaned beneath the force of it. The anger in him built up until it exploded with an electrical charge from his finger tips that dropped him out of Iron Man's grip.

Okay, that had not been listed in Maya's assessment of 'shit this guy can possibly do'. As such, Tony was rocking back and trying to get systems back on line after the jolt. Which, hey, might have happened if in the process he wasn't hauled up and thrown far enough back to hit the traffic that had been stopped for this fun little tiff.

Mallen being that strong had been mentioned in only the most vague of terms.

Tony groaned, ignoring JARVIS' warnings about suit integrity as he pulled himself out of the engine block of an SUV.

Before he could get his bearings back, Mallen was on him, picking up one of the nearby cars and hitting him like he was hitting a home run. A super violent home run.

Aw yeah.

The HUD flickered in an out inside the helmet, putting Tony in the dark for a moment before back up systems came online. He had so many back up systems, thank god. "Shit shit shiiiiit," he muttered to himself. It was nice that he could keep his opponents from hearing his panicked babbling. Really made him seem more dangerous than he was.

Once he was back on his feet, he did the sane thing and took a swing at Mallen.

Oh, Iron Man. So hopelessly outclassed here. Maybe you should have brought Thor along instead. Thor could have probably solved this problem way more easily.

Mallen caught the punch easily, squeezing until the delicate metal of the gauntlet and the bones within crunched.

"Oh, holy shit," Tony gasped, pain shooting up his arm as the suit went into overdrive to feed him something to take the edge off. He activated missiles from his shoulder to force Mallen to drop his hand before he ripped it off.

That failed. Miserably. And for his efforts, Mallen kicked out Iron Man's knee so the joint was out of alignment. It was so much easier to damage the spots that weren't heavily armored, after all.

It was fun!

Tony bit his lip to keep from making another pathetic whimpering noise as something went terribly, terribly wrong with his knee. He fired the repulsor on his free hand at full power levels right at Mallen's psychotic little face.

Which did some damage! Damage that was rapidly healing, but still. It mostly just ticked Mallen off.

He dropped his grip on Iron Man's hand and punched him in the chest hard enough to make a fist sized dent in the armor, probably getting in a good amount of damage to draw all this fun out. While Iron Man was still stunned, he turned to pick up the nearest car and lifting it over his head.

"You're going to burst inside that suit when this hits you. They're going to have to pour you out."

Why did they always have to come up with a threat like that? It was ridiculous. It was always ridiculous.

Tony's damaged leg was useless for supporting his own weight, let along a car. The chest plate was dented in enough that breathing was starting to get a little more than difficult. So. This was possibly the worst disaster he'd been in for... a very long time. Awesome. He was due, wasn't he? "JARVIS," he snapped. "All power to the unibeam. Now."

Which was certainly enough to send Mallen flying down the road, bouncing like a stone skipping over water.

Tony would totally appreciate that victory when he wasn't catching a fucking car before it could fall on him. He held it for a moment before the overworked servos in his undamaged knee started to whine and he was forced down onto the ground with the car resting on top of him. Yaaaay.

"Okay, next time bring the team," he muttered, going limp as emergency services started to flood the area. "J? Where--where's Mallen?"

"Target is currently approaching three hundred miles per hour, heading north."

"Shit."

"Yes sir."

Tony closed his eyes and attempted to move his damaged hand. No luck beyond a twinge of pain. "Call Maya. Tell her to get back to FuturePharm and expect me to arrive soon."

You know. When emergency crews could get this car off him. No big deal.

An Expressway in Oklahoma, Monday Evening

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