through the dense smoke and cut the power to his repulsors coming to a soft landing on a platform atop the tower He saw a man wearing a white jumpsuit with a full head mask it immediately struck Tony as odd The guy looked like he should be working in a laboratory studying strange diseases not working on an oil rig I hear you don’t want to leave shouted Iron Man over the din of the fire How about you tell me why after I’ve rescued you He extended his right gauntlet toward the man To Iron Man’s surprise the man backed away They left me the man said nearly hysterical They left me Now he’s coming He pointed beneath them Who’s coming Iron Man said sharply You mean there’s someone else We’ve got to get them They’ve set him free We have to leave now the man shouted If you’re at all confused imagine how Iron Man must have felt Set what free he shouted as flames licked the bottom of the platform they were 4
standing on He moved to grab the man but as he did so something swiped Iron Man from behind It knocked the Avenger off his feet and onto the hard metal surface Shaking it off Iron Man looked up just in time to see an enormous hairy hand reach for him Before he could act the hand grabbed Iron Man The golden Avenger tried to break free but the giant hand shook him like a rag doll leaving Iron Man thoroughly disoriented What in the he said as he struggled to get a look at the thing that was giving him the worst case of vertigo since that time he rode the world's largest roller coaster with Hawkeye Catching his breath Iron Man looked quickly at his helmet's heads up display The HUD showed exactly what he thought Whatever was shaking him to pieces was wreaking havoc on his armor's systems This had to stop now Iron Man fired a few rapid repulsor bursts at the hand and he heard something shriek The sound was booming The hand let go and Iron Man activated 5
his boot repulsors to take to the air He flew up and saw the man in white cringing in fear from the giant hand which was about to grab him I don’t know what that hand is connected to Iron Man thought but I’d rather not stick around and find out In an instant he was next to the man in white He grabbed him by his jumpsuit just before the giant hand could swat him away Another burst of repulsor fire gave Iron Man a little room to maneuver He jumped off the platform with the man in white just as his repulsors kicked on Flying away from the burning rig Iron Man headed toward one of the Coast Guard ships with the man in his arms I’m gonna bet there’s a pretty interesting story behind all of this he said to the man How about I drop you off and you tell me all about it after I put that fire out Hovering over one of the ships Tony dropped the man onto the deck The man was caught by a couple other people wearing similar white jumpsuits 6
That’s when Tony noticed something else Something strange jumpsuits The Coast Guard boats didn’t seem to have any Coast Guard personnel on them The only people he could see on the ship were the men in white An explosion from the oil rig drew Iron Man’s attention leaving him no time to ponder this weird development He double-timed it back to the oil rig and flew once more into the chaos of growing black smoke and flames He steeled himself for an attack as he prepped his armor to fight the fire To Iron Man’s great surprise there was no sign of the giant thing that had attacked him It was like it never existed thought How could something so big simply disappear he As Iron Man tried to wrap his brain around his circumstances he activated his gauntlets Thin streams of an oxygen-depriving chemical sprayed outward Iron Man worked his way from the tower 7
