#4: Minus Human, Part 1

“We’ve been tracking seismic disturbances over the area in which the Hulk manifestation last took place and we think we’ve got a pattern--”

“Wait, wait, how do you know where the Hulk last manifested?”

“Sir, Mr Stark, please. Have you not heard of the internet?”

“In-Ter-Net? Me am not fam-u-lar.”

“Ah, uh, well, this is the age of information, and like, nothing is secret for too long, and I found this:” The scientist sitting in front of Tony Stark pulled up a screen with fuzzy images of a green behemoth smashing through large machinery. “This is what we get now. We see footage of soldiers under the worst conditions imaginable from Iraq, and wee monsters growing out of the New Mexico desert. All from a cell phone, you know?”

“New Mexico? How do we know this? I don’t see any signs telling us this.”

“Well it took some time, but I was able to figure out from those mountains in the background you can see, and a whole lot of other things. All in all, I was able to apply this raw information and figure out where in the world it’s taking place. Now, taking that into consideration, that the last Hulk manifestation was at a supposedly closed military base in New Mexico, I was able to discern the seismic tremors around that area lead to the small town of Villalobos.”

The man pointed at the screen and the satellite footage of a police cordon.

“Something burst through the wall of that motel, and leapt-- you won’t believe the footage-- thirty miles back into the desert.”

He pulled more footage up on screen, showing a mountain range shake.

“And it landed here, and threw a tantrum.”

The mountains went from one frame being perfectly intact, to the second being strewn with rubble.

“The Hulk, apparently a modern day urban legend, is in fact a military complex destroying, mountain crushing mean sonofabitch.”

“Well,” started Stark, rubbing his chin, “That’s intimidating.”

The scientist pulled up a satellite image capture of the Hulk, howling at the sky. “You think?”

Stark took a breath. The Hulk was an unstoppable engine of destruction. He had read Bruce Banner’s notes. He’d memorised them. His back molars ground together as he thought about what he was about to do. He sighed, and looked down at the scientist in front of him. “I could fire you, you know.”


He flew. Quinjet Zero was quick, sure, but the Iron Man armour made air-travel effortless, and it was too much effort to go all the way to the air field, roll it out, get the pilot… He was headed to the coast, to his workshop. He needed to concentrate. He needed to work.. He had just the thing. He needed firepower. He needed something that could stand up to the Hulk. His current armour was good, sure, but it wasn’t what it could be. He had spent months barricaded into his mansion, tinkering with armours, and he knew what he needed.

He had work to do.

<<<Home link active. Awaiting further instruction :>>>

<Workshop: all systems active, Centurion systems brought to forefront.>

<<<Centurion systems active>>>

“Let’s do this…” he swooped down into the ocean, heading toward the underground entrance to his home.

He had work to do.


“Where’s Tony, Hap?” Pepper entered the office where Happy Hogan was reading the last Harry Potter novel, and darted her eyes about, looking in every nook and cranny of the large room. “It’s important. Really. Really important.”

“He’s headed back to his coastal retreat, love.” He folded the top right corner of the page he was reading, and closed the book. “He told us not to wait up, but the scientists are still buzzing away down in the labs. He’s got biologists working on Hulk anti-serum, gamma sensors, and he’s having the schematics sent directly to the node at the mansion.”

“What’s he doing with all that?” She shook her head. “No matter, doesn’t matter, I have a lead on the technology thefts, and Tony is not going to like what I just found out was stolen.”

Happy looked at her. She was terrified. She was shaking. “What? What is it? Pep, what’s happened?”

“I just… I just need to talk to Tony, alright?”

“Apparently, Mr Stark is indisposed at the moment.” Happy and Pepper turned and looked at the window, where a man was leaning, smoking a cigar that had just beginning to stink up the room. “Shame.”

“Who the hell are you?” shouted Happy, moving in front of his fiancée, “and what the hell are you doing in this office?!”

The man chuckled. “I love it when they ask that question.”


“A war is planned in phases. Phase one, declaration of intent. ‘I intend to break Tony Stark.’ ‘I intend to break his empire apart and collect the entire piece into my loving bosom and make everything alright again.’ But with Howard Stark’s son, it’s going to be different. I want everything. That suit of armour he’s got some dupe flying about in? I want that. His empire, yes, I want that too, but that armour. Think of the military applications, won’t you, Sandhurst?”

“Oh, I am sir, I am.” Professor Sandhurst smiled, his broken, crooked teeth contorting about his lips as they writhed about. “So what is phase two?”

Hammer looked at the checklist he had typed off and printed earlier. “We take him apart. Remove him from his power base. Take away his supporters. His allies. I entrust you with that task, Sandhurst. Do you have your toys?”

Sandhurst tapped his gauntlet, the hidden compartment buzzing open and revealing a series of circular devices. “I do indeed, sir. Who do you wish to be brought into the fold, as it were?”

“The lackey. Bring me the lackey. Bring me the lackey and some rusty tools. Let’s send a message.”


“How’s it going?” Nick Lewis looked up from his own work as Brian Nelson approached holding an USB. “What were you and Stark talking about earlier?”

“Ah, tracking that thing. Tracking the Hulk. I showed him the internet stuff and the seismographs. Now I’ve created a tracking programming combining the seismic readings and a heavy duty radiation detector calibrated specifically to gamma rays. It’s pretty snazzy, sending it over now.”

“I wonder what he’s doing with all this stuff.”

“Incorporating into his Iron Man armour, I’d say.”

“Would you now, Kevin?”

The red haired man who was fiddling with what appeared to be a gauntlet taken from the Iron Man suit grinned. “Yeah, I would.”

“O’Brien, no one cares what you think.” The three men laughed, and Brian looked at what Kevin was working on. “What’s that?”

“I’m figuring out how best to mount something on his Iron Man armour. This isn’t the real deal, but I was able to mock it up after looking at some video footage. That is a fine piece of machinery, don’t you think?”

“What you trying to mount to it, man?”

Kevin smiled. “Stun ray. Concussion device that renders those exposed unconscious. I have that designed, but it’s just incorporating that into the armour.”

“I wasn’t aware that Stark was looking for additions to that thing. It’s friggin’ perfection…”

“He’s not. But we won’t get anywhere just watching his bodyguard fly high above us. We need to aspire to that, remember?”

“So…?”

“So I might build my own armour.” He grinned, tapped his temple, and turned away.


It was just as he had left it. The suit was lacking a lot, but now he knew how to properly construct it, as he had his gold and red armour, it wouldn’t take him at all long to properly work on it. The first suit was a trial and error process, but his photographic memory, enhanced by the nano-cells he had injected himself with; it would be a few hours. The gold and amour suit, whilst effective, whilst able to fly into the high atmosphere without popping him like a balloon from the inside out, wouldn’t stand a chance against the Hulk. He needed more power… more protection.

“Wait…” He looked around, ideas sparking in his head. He pulled out a half constructed motherboard, and looked at it for a moment. “This… This could do… But… Too big…”

He was lost in his head. This was how it was when the ideas came to him. He didn’t need to think about the outside, only the inside, only on the project he had in front of him. He needed to process more power more efficiently. His current suit, whilst effective, whilst effective…

He went to work, micro-lasers in hand.


“Don’t make me repeat myself man! Who the hell--”

“Alright, alright,” the cigar-chomping put up both his hands. “I’m an old friend of Tony’s. M’names Nick Fury, you might have heard of me?”

Pepper’s eyes opened wide. “Director of SHIELD?!”

“The one and only. Well. Actually. Thinking about that, I’m the one, but not the only. LMDs are handy, if you know what I’m saying…”

Happy blinked. “I have no idea what you’re saying.”

“Right, right, anyway, Ms Potts,” he stepped forward, jabbing out his cigar on his gloved hand, and then pocketing it. “I know you’ve been investigating the thefts from Stark Enterprises’ cold storage warehouses. So have we. Not for long, but it didn’t take us long to see what had been removed from the premises.”

“You know it was taken?”

“Yes. I do.”

“Know what? Stop talking in riddles!”

Pepper turned to her fiancé. “A prototype black hole bomb!”

“Prototype? I know that Tony had one that was controlled, but… prototype?”

“Tony Stark is a bit of a tech-head, and an absent minded one at that. He build hundreds of weapons before packing it in because of the… Accident.” Fury tapped his chest. “if you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I guess, so…”

“Whoever has been swiping technology from Stark has in their hands a weapon that, when activated, theoretically, bend time and space and gravity together and cause the world to eat itself up. We’d cease to exist in moments, dragged into this artificially created blackhole.”

“But the one that Stark used…”

“Had the forcefield refractors built in, meaning it bent inside on itself, like a sphere,” Pepper shook her head. “This prototype, once activated, would keep folding outward, until it reached critical mass, and it would just… Exist. The solar system could die.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah,” nodded Fury, pulling the cigar out of his pocket and relighting it with a match. “Ah.”


The circuit was tiny. The suit was coming together, machines working on remote control, constantly flitting over the suit and connecting technology to the appropriate position. He was running the machines in the back of his head, different parts of his brain working different parts of the workshop.

His nose was bleeding. He ignored it.

He approached the chest plate of the suit and opened the tiny compartment that had yet to be sealed shut. Behind the amplification lense, where the diamond centred the weaponry systems, was an empty void waiting to be filled. He inserted the chip, and then everything began to buzz. He stepped back, the compartment was sealed shut, and he nodded slowly. It was perfect.

Just in time?

The wrist on the armour buzzed, and he hacked into it with his head. A computerised voice echoed in his head. <<<Gamma signature registered: Tracking.>>>

“Remind me to promote Brian Nelson. Or pay him more. Yes. Pay him more. That’ll do.”

He smiled and then wiped the blood from his nose.

“Ok. I can do this.” He pulled off his shirt, revealing the small glowing circle of metal that seemed to be part of his chest. It kept his heart pumping. Stopped the shrapnel from killing him. He removed his shirt, pulled on the heavy red chest plate of his new combat armour, and felt it click into place over his heart. The rush of electricity hurt. <Power up.>

<<<Armour charging.>>>

“Wait, what?” Tony tapped the chest plate. <Charging? How long will charging take?> He hadn’t factored that into his calculations. “Absent minded idiot!” he slapped himself on the head.

<<<Battery cells empty-->>

“Dammit! And you call yourself a super genius?!” He removed the chest plate, and placed it back with the rest of the armour. “Alright, alright, I can do this. This is easy. I just…” He looked back at the red and gold armour. “Oh, this is going to suck.”


“What the Hell?”

“Satellite images show… something. Movement. Craters. Something moving into craters.”

“Yeah, shut up, we get it. Where’s Stark?”

“Working, probably. I thought he was pretty cool but if he’s going to be--”

“Who cares? Where’s Iron Man?”

“Sitting behind a desk filling out paper work? Who knows!”

“What the Hell?”

“What?”

“Does that even look like the Hulk?”


He’d jury rigged the gamma detection software into his normal armour. He was nearing in on the source, and he was already beginning to feel queasy. The Hulk destroyed a city. He was a man who came ready in a coffin, and his armour was the one thing standing between him and--

<What the Hell?>

He shot down on the desert floor, and hovered above the scorched ground, a large shape emerging from a massive crater that formed in the time it had taken for him to land.

<Who are you?>

“Who… Am… I?” The voice was low and guttural. Each word chosen way before being spoken. “Who… Are… You?”

<I’m Iron Man. Are you… Bruce Banner?> Stupid, thought Tony… stupid.

“No… Iron Man… I am not… Though I can… Take you… To him…” Smoke cleared. Something stepped out of the bunker. It wasn’t the Hulk.

<Who are you?> Tony brought up his gauntlet. <Don’t move.>

“I can smell… Your… Fear…” The creature, bleached white skin like bone nearly glowing in the high noon heat. “hot… And sweaty… Are you scared, Iron Man…?”

<Who. Are. You?> His repulsor buzzed as it charged up. Finger on the trigger, energy payload building.

“… Scared.” The creature dove at Stark, and he let loose with a repulsor blast that could blast a hole in one hundred human beings lined up in a row.

The energy blast bent over the chest of the creature, and it slammed its fists into his chest. “Hnff.” He felt his chest plate buckle.


<Tone, are you picking me up?> Happy’s voice buzzed online in his ear. <You won’t believe what just happened... Jesus, I’m looking at your vitals man, are you alright?>


“Hnnnnffff…”

Another punch, and he felt metal in his mouth. Blood.

“Nuhhaaaa!”

He pooled his concentration, and a blast from his chest plate hit the creature, pushing it back.

<Jesus, Tone, you just lost 87% power systems!>

“Had to… Get it away… Unibeam prototype takes a hell of a lot of charge… Gotta…”

He hacked up blood.

“God… God… Gotta fly…”

He powered on his thrusters and shot up into the sky.

The creature grinned, and looked up. It crouched down, leaped up, and overtook Iron Man before he had gotten even remotely away. IT grabbed his ankle, squeezed, the sudden force cracking the boots repulsor jets, and breaking his foot, and then swung down, the Iron Man armour hitting the desert floor and creating its own crater.

<Tony!!! Tone!!>

The creature grinned. “Not just… Fear now… Death? I can… Smell… Death on you…”

Fists were raised.

THROOM!

THROOM!

The armour was holding, but it wouldn’t for much longer. He tried polarizing the surface of his suit, strengthening the millions of micro-plates that wove together to keep him safe, but even then, this thing, whatever it was, was battering down on him like he was wearing a tin-can.

Tony Stark spat blood. His chest hurt. It burned. His heart. His heart… “Happy, give me some good news, tell me what systems are operational!”

<I could lie to you, Tone, but honestly, that’ll get you killed. The suit is nearly empty, you need to get out of there right now, dammit!>

“Repulsors are down, that means I can’t fight, let alone fly away--” As he said it, the words sunk in. He was going to die here. Die at the hands of this pale skinned monstrosity.

The creature grabbed Iron Man by the head, and grinned once more. “…Any last… Words…?”

<I need…> Hissed Tony. <A drink.>


The blow echoed out. The creature looked at Iron Man, dented, damaged, blood dribbling out of holes in the armor, and smiled. “…You… Weren’t needed… But… It was… Fun…” He dropped the man, and looked around. “The Leader… Will… Be pleased…”