#caughtinsidecollisions

It was just supposed to be recon.  

Kate told him that he needed a job to distract him from everything going on in his life, so she sent him off on a job to survey some suspicious activity in Brooklyn.  He had thought it was stupid, but he played along with what Kate was trying to do, and went on the recon mission.

He had set up camp in the abandoned apartment across the street in a room where he could see the building opposite, and read his comic books at the same time.  He was making the best of this seemingly boring little task when he sensed some movement in the hallways.

He put the books down, looking cautiously into the hallway and standing up.  “Hello?” he called as he stepped toward the hallway.

The very last thing he was expecting to see in this crappy old building was the Star Spangled Man himself.  His jaw dropped and he could feel his powers start to leak a bit, warning anyone around that he was standing there.

@caughtinsidecollisions

Tommy typically made a habit out of avoiding places where lots of people went. He didn’t mesh well with crowds. Still, when you find out that there’s an office building on fire, it could scarcely be avoided.

He would have called the others for backup, but there wasn’t any time; when he ground to a halt nearby, smoke was billowing heavily from the top. Whatever had caused the fire, it had happened very suddenly. The building itself wasn’t huge—only five or six storeys—but from the sound of it, the fire was blocking off the top two from being evacuated. 

Pulling his goggles down over his eyes, Tommy zipped past the human barricade blocking anyone from approaching the bottom of the building, too fast to be seen. So long as he moved quickly, he didn’t have to breathe in too much smoke; he ferried the people out two at a time, dumping them inelegantly out the main entry before dashing back in. He could feel the heat getting to him, though; even when he was fast enough to not spend more than a few seconds in the top floor at a time, a few seconds was a lot of time to a person like him. 

He was just on his way out for the last time, a semi-conscious older man draped over his shoulders, when he returned to the stairwell to find part of it had collapsed. Tommy coughed, looking around for another way out. They couldn’t use a window; he wasn’t invulnerable and they were too high. The only way out was down the stairs. Groaning, Tommy let the man go, approaching the pile of rubble and struggling to stay focused long enough to vaporise it.

He sensed he’d done something wrong almost immediately; instead of the blockage disappearing, the entire stairwell began to shake. Tommy picked up on it just in time to grab the unconscious man behind him while the stairs underneath their feet lost their structure and collapsed. They landed painfully on the flight underneath, and Tommy started running again almost immediately, fast enough to get ahead as the already-weakened building structure started to collapse in proper. 

Tommy staggered out of the front of the building just as fell in on itself behind him, only just managing to get far enough away. He dropped the unconscious man he was carrying at the feet of the bewildered onlookers. By now, he was dizzy with fatigue; his costume was clingy with sweat, and his vision was swimming. He could hear some people talking, pointing at him, but not what they were saying. 

It had been too long since Tony had been down to the compound.  The last time he was there, he was saying goodbye to the team, and going on his own to potentially start a family with Pepper.  He hadn’t really expected to go back.  The Avengers would do their thing, and Tony would throw some money at them every now and then.  

But that whole plan had backfired pretty quickly, and it was time that he went back.  The flight down was never bad, but the nerves were eating him up.  He didn’t know why he was so nervous, it was his building.  It was full of people that he knew and loved, so there was really no reason for him to be nervous.  

Even still, he found his heart pounding in his chest as he drove up to the compound.  He got out and walked up, smiling as he saw Steve waiting there for him.