Year Four, July
WAR MACHINE #23
BACK IN THE JUG AGANE
Written by Tom Lynch

note:content branded mature

"Good afternoon, Stark Enterprises, how may I help you?"

"Pepper, you pretty much run the company these days, don't you? You don't need boss-man Stark, right?"

Pepper Potts sighed and rolled her eyes. She'd told Tony this was going to happen. But did he listen?

"I'd prefer it if we could hang on to him for a few weeks, Jim," she said, calmly. "He's working on something new... Why do you ask?"

"I'd like to test his little present by pointing the railgun up his Saville Row ass and, as John Turturro put it, pulling the trigger until it goes 'click'."

"I'll pass your message on," the redhead replied, trying unsuccessfully to stifle a smile. "Good to hear from you, Rhodey. Don't be a stranger."

"That an invitation to strafe his office?"

"Sadly, no."

"Damn, woman..."

"Big package they just delivered, Chief. What was it?"

"My life. Once."

James Rhodes looked up from the note on his desk to the employee at his door and grinned, a little sheepishly. "Sorry, was that a little too ominous?"

"Just a bit, Chief. Seriously, what is it?"

Rhodey shook his head, stood up. "Ah... just a little something from my old boss," he said. "Stuff he found in the depot, no use to him. Sentimental stuff, you know?"

Serena nodded. "Yeah, I got you, Chief. Just so you know, we've got the Roberts’s waiting outside..."

James Rhodes nodded. "The dead son. I got you. Tell them I'll be through in a second."

"No problem, Chief."

He watched her leave, stood, checked his reflection in the mirror, straightened the tasteful dark-red tie carefully. Had to do the sombre act right with the bereaved. This was not necessarily easy after people tried pulling your strings, when what they were in fact doing was pushing your buttons.

He glanced down at the note again, face carefully expressionless, composed.

"Fuck you, Tony."

Jim,

You're a smart man. You read the news. You know it's worse than ever now.

We need every hand we can get. Accordingly, I've prepared this present for you. It's got everything the old one had turned up to eleven.

I know you'll do the right thing, old friend.

Tony.

The initial conference with the Roberts parents had gone swiftly; they were, as were many so suddenly bereaved, uncertain of the mechanics involved in what they required, knowing only that they desired the end product.

Jim's role in most of these early-stages consultations was to sit back silently, look professional, and occasionally nod affirmingly as Serena took them gently and expertly through as much of the technical details as they needed and wanted, and then outlined the price.

And soon, Rhodes Recovery would dive at a death site, to recover the body of a young diver caught with... what? He hadn't yet been found, so they couldn't know, but Rhodey's guess was something had gone wrong with the air cylinder. Of course, that still left a lot of possibles, but it was too, too common.

And this, he thought almost savagely, was how he made a difference now. When he wasn't hired to find sunken treasure (a daft game, but he made sure he got paid), his company cleared things up. Gave families a chance to mourn. War Machine was...

Well, he'd say a young man's game, but Tony persisted. A mug's game, maybe. So much effort and power just to maintaining the status quo.

Because you couldn't improve the status quo as a hero. Only by failing did you change it, and then for the worse.

The only redeeming factor of his time as War Machine...

The only redeeming factor was simple.

The fucking buzz of it all.

And God help him if he wasn't tempted.

James Rhodes had been, in his youth, a mercenary. A soldier of fortune. A damn good one. The last two brush wars he'd served in, he'd actually been requested by name by his captains. Point being, he could fight. He developed, as so many long-term active soldiers did, an almost instinctual sense of fire zones, where best to take cover, who to shoot first...

It was this instinct that had led him, once, after his mercenary career was effectively over, to look at the Iron Man armour and think "Now, if we made the weapon on that gauntlet a little bigger... and we could probably bolt some more firepower on somewhere..."

That was pretty much how War Machine had been born. And then he'd lost the armour - time-travelling, of all the weird ways to lose it - but he'd got back to his own time with, uh, well...

...an alien suit of armour.

Yeah. Uh-huh. Rhodey, you probably had a shot at Oprah till that last bit. Now we're in the realms of fantasy. Off to Montel with you. Bad superhero-mercenary-whatever.

Or if we get into your friendship/love-hate shit with the man who made it... well, I gather Springer's planning on a superhero special soon. You two'd be perfect. Certainly get the ladies to tune in.

He'd lost the alien armour, too, saving Tony's bacon (while Stark was busy being thought dead again, but that's another story, really, and a messy, confusing one. Most of the ones involving the Richards brat are).

And he'd retired, and he'd been pretty happy about that, all in all. Retired from the superhero biz, that is - by the time he could have got another suit up and running, the heroes were back from that year-long goddamn holiday they took in a parallel universe, more of 'em were stepping up to the plate (Like the Crusaders, as a prime example - Britain hadn't had a proper superteam since the second world war, where the hell had they pulled this new one out of?)

Rhodey could quit comfortably, was the point.

And now Earth's heroes get involved in the Kree-Shi'ar war, and interfere with events that don't concern them again, and Force Works get into deep shit that the public ain't meant to know about but really, really do, and since Tony's on Force Works and wandered into space with the rest of them, the situation looks grave enough that he wants his old buddy at his back, wearing the weaponry he isn't prepared to use himself, helping to sort it out.

Because Tony Stark does not get it.

He doesn't understand that his 'old friend' was not entirely happy when first manipulated into taking over for him. Nor that, when you know he isn't in fact, dying, he's a pretty crappy manipulator for a tycoon.

But the armour's now lying, mostly in it's crate, at the side of his office in Rhodes Recovery.

Waiting for Rhodey to recapture the buzz.

Fuck you, Tony.

"Tank, database scan. Begin."

">klik< Parameters?"

"Known parahuman or supertechnological operatives, amoral or moral. Also known affiliates. Rank by distance from current location, nearest first. And quick."

">klik< Parameters acknowledged. Scanning."

The man who talked to his car saw a head-up display form in his eyes. It told him, first, that the Magnum in his arm was out of ammunition, and second, that at current expenditure rates it didn't expect the machine pistol to last the next twenty seconds.

Then it flashed away for a second, to be replaced with another. This said that Tank's CSA database uplink had let a cracker get in the back door. He'd shut Tank's onboard weaponry down before the countermeasures closed his access down.

And Tank had had to truncate the scan too. Still, at the very least that confirmed the identity of his attackers...

"Tank, come to me. We gotta get out of here."

His gaze was fixed to the name at the top of the list. It was labelled SPECULATIVE, but the CSA were generally pretty good, and if they were right...

Hell, if they were right, who better?

"The real best thing about Rhodes Recovery," Rhodey said, a smile on his face, a drink in his hand, as he gestured out toward the coast, the sea aflame with sunset. "The ocean."

"Got that right, Chief," his mechanic replied. Duncan occupied the seat next to his boss on the wharf, toting a fishing rod rather than a drink, but looking just as relaxed. Of course, it was after business hours. "Good news, by the way; I think I've figured out what was wrong with the Laura. Should have her fixed tomorrow, with any luck."

"That's good to hear," Rhodey said. "She's probably better for the Roberts job than the Silverside. Nice job, Dunc."

"Tweren't nothin', Chief. We got the contract, then?"

Rhodey nodded again. "I'll be diving with Spike, I think. You up for the helm?"

"Of course."

"Where's he going?"

"Unknown, sir. I have the chopper following, as well as the jeep..."

"He's planning something, I know it. Stop him, kill him, and figure out where he was going!"

"...Aye, sir."

The wharf had a decent security setup for what was expected. Armoured sports cars with gun turrets were not expected. The fact this one smashed through the hydraulic barrier pretty much as soon as the guard on duty saw it helped, too.

It hung a right almost immediately, screeching tyres having just grip enough to prevent the whole deal from plunging off the wharf into the sea. Rhodey and Duncan looked up immediately, Duncan curious and confused, Rhodey on edge.

Damn combat reflexes.

A helicopter whipped in overhead, turning in a way that suggested the craft wasn't built for graceful turns, certainly not at speed. It reminded Rhodey irresistibly of watching TV with a can, Saturday afternoons in the eighties, on weekends he'd been home between wars...

It reminded him of Airwolf's weekly targets. Civilian-looking copter with machine gun and rocket props bolted on, 'cause that was cheaper than buying a fake gunship.

And then one of the rocket 'props' detached itself from the helicopter and hurtled toward the car - and then past it, the driver, smashing through someone's shop-window fronting to avoid occupying the same stretch of road as the rocket.

Rhodes Recovery had the misfortune to be on the wharf's curve.

"Chief, wha-"Duncan gasped as his employer shot bolt-upright from his chair, whiskey tumbler falling slow-motion to earth, grabbed his engineer by the shirt, and jerked him out of his chair.

The tumbler shattered.

The fishing rod went flying.

The rocket was still picking up speed.

And James Rhodes threw his engineer bodily out over the wharf and into the sea below.

To safety.

And then he spun around, a creature of instinct now, and dived back into Rhodes Recovery.

If he could get upstairs before it hit, he should make it through the impact with only minor injuries, and he'd-

WHUMP

"We have a negative on the kill, sir. Property damage. At least one civilian casualty, and one witness."

"Shit." The observer crossed the room, peered over the console operator's shoulder. Action playback of the explosion was reflected in his glasses. "What happened to the nice and quiet operation you promised me, McKean?"

"He ran, sir."

They'd destroyed the ground floor. The second floor, slowly collapsing into the wreckage below it, was shaken, damaged and unstable. But Stark's package, partly due no doubt to the lead lining in the crate - paranoid about X-Rays, apparently - hadn't even had to rely on it's own toughness to take the impact.

James Rhodes pulled the torso pieces out and began assembling the gift with a skill borne of long practice.

No fucker did this to his life. No one.

"Missile's jammed..."

"Hit the console."

The chopper gunner thumped the targeting system with gusto. It blipped, cleared, and switched sights to the remaining missile. "Bingo."

Below them, the jeep swerved on to the wharf, skidding to a halt where it could block any potential retreat by the sports car. Five men spilled out, assault rifles at the ready. They were dressed in neat non-camouflage military fatigues.

SHOOM

Something streaked out of the damaged building, heading straight for the chopper, picking up speed. It's trail was red, fading to white smoke as the projectile passed.

It intersected with the helicopter. Half a second later, light spilled out of the aircraft.

And then the thunderclap broke. Perhaps it's extra impact was what did it, but the second floor of the damaged building collapsed.

Leaving a figure standing in the air.

In white and black armour. A red point shone to one side of the helmet. A multibarrel rail gun perched on one shoulder; a smoking missile silo in miniature, the other.

"War Machine is back, children," an amplified voice announced coolly. "You have thirty seconds to apologise for that building."

The men from the jeep exchanged nervous glances. "Uh, what-"

The railgun rattled out it's song. The jeep hood sprouted a dense network of holes. Several of them issued forth smoke.

"Twenty seconds, motherfuckers."

The jeep's driver triggered his seatbelt release, stood, raised his rifle, and fired. The bullets pattered off his target, who flew a few yards closer, still standing upright. That seemed to be too much for the driver, who ceased fire.

War Machine raised his hand, extended it palm-first. A beam burst forth.

And the jeep exploded, incinerating the driver.

"Ten seconds."

"Shit, man, we're sorry!" the apparent leader of the little group shouted. "You ain't supposed to be a killer. You're an Avenger!"

Staccato laughter. Duncan, listening while treading water in the wharf, wondered if the suit - and, he thought, let's be honest, it was blatantly the Chief in there - had tinkered with the bass on the laugh. Creepy James Earl Jones shit.

Rhodey cut the power to his boot jets, and dropped seventeen feet to the ground, which rocked under his arrival. Cracks in the concrete spread out radially around his feet. "Are you telling me what I can and can't do, boy?" he thundered. The armoured warrior strode toward the soldiers, pausing only by the sports car. "I'll deal with you in a second, you little bastard," he announced, before turning back to the troopers. He continued stalking toward them; for their part, they seemed frozen in place.

Reaching the leader, he clamped his hand over his head. "OK," he said. "Looks like your boys ain't too keen on backing you up, boy. Not good for a leader, that. But listen..." He upped the volume on his armour speakers.

"I can crush your skull, spray your brain through my fingers, without raising a sweat. I can make your head vaporise just by turning up the power on my gauntlet. And that still leaves me with three weapons to cover your squad. I am not an Avenger. I quit all that. I am War Machine. I do what I choose to do. And you will not screw with me, because I do not have a problem with killing if it's needed. Do you understand what I am telling you?"

The man nodded; Rhodey felt the movement distantly through his gauntlet. "Good. Now, you wanna tell me who paid you? Who I can go to to deal with that building?"

"Uh-"

"I want compensation," War Machine said. "Hey, you know what? We can do this real simple. It worked once already. Ten seconds..."

NEXT ISSUE: Rhodey’s pissed off, and he’s got plenty to figure out. Sherlock Holmes never thought like this…