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*BOOM!*
Obadiah Stane hit the ground with terrifying force. The impact felt less like a person falling and more like a truck flipping over and slamming into asphalt, hard enough that the earth shuddered in response.
Dust puffed outward in a ring.
And when the debris cleared, it was obvious Stane wasn't just "tough."
He was transforming.
By now, his appearance had changed completely. Thick layers of steel plating wrapped over his body like living armor, locking into place with ugly, heavy seams. In seconds, he'd gone from "rich old man with a cigar" to a towering humanoid slab of iron.
Calling him a human fortress wasn't dramatic anymore; it was accurate.
At this point, the name Iron Monger wasn't a nickname; it was a description.
In that state, there was no way Hawkeye's explosion had truly hurt him. Stane pushed himself up with a grinding motion, anger blazing across his face as if being knocked down was the most offensive thing that had ever happened to him.
"You're a slippery one," Stane snarled, glaring up at Hawkeye. His voice practically vibrated with fury. "You damn Birdman."
Then his mouth twisted.
"Die!"
*KRRRK! KRRRK!*
Metal screamed as a cannon barrel extended from his armored body, unfolding with a harsh mechanical grind, like his torso had just decided it wanted to become a weapon platform.
*WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!*
Missiles launched in rapid succession, tearing through the air toward Hawkeye.
And these weren't the basic kind that just flew in a straight line and hoped for the best.
These were homing missiles.
"Damn it!" Hawkeye's expression snapped into full focus. His wings flared wide, and he shot through the tight space, zigzagging hard, weaving between wreckage and walls like he was threading a needle at supersonic speed.
The missiles tried to follow, with sharp turns and aggressive angles, but their guidance systems weren't even close to agile enough.
One by one, they failed to keep up. They slammed into nearby structures instead.
*BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!*
Explosions tore through the courtyard, chewing up stone and blasting debris in every direction. The shockwaves rolled like firestorms, making the air feel thick and violent.
Even so… this wasn't a clean win for Hawkeye.
Because no matter how fast he was, he was still flesh and blood. Even in falcon form, a direct hit, or even getting caught too close to a blast, would end him.
If he hadn't been absurdly fast, he would've been roasted alive already.
Even now, several of his feathers were singed. One caught flame, trailing a brief ribbon of fire behind him as he shot past a collapsing wall.
Coulson took one look at the chaos and realized what this had become. This wasn't an arrest; it was a massacre in progress.
"Retreat!" Coulson shouted at the top of his lungs. "Fall back, now!"
The fight had spiraled entirely out of control.
Stane's power was miles beyond what ordinary operatives could handle. Against someone like this, standard S.H.I.E.L.D. tactics weren't just ineffective, they were suicidal.
*RUMBLE! BOOM! BOOM!*
Explosions rolled through the courtyard like thunder that refused to stop. Shockwaves slammed into walls, flames burst outward in messy, violent waves, and chunks of stone and metal whipped through the air like shrapnel confetti from the world's worst party.
The whole place looked like a living hell.
And the worst part?
This wasn't even Stane going "all out" on everyone. This was merely the collateral damage from him fighting Hawkeye.
Which meant the regular agents didn't stand a chance.
Coulson pushed the remaining team into a desperate retreat, shouting directions while dodging falling debris. Natasha moved with them too, even though she was a Devil Fruit user; she didn't have much choice.
The Mimic-Mimic Fruit was insanely useful, sure. Versatile. Sneaky. Perfect for infiltration and deception.
But in a battlefield like this?
It wasn't built for trading blows with a walking iron fortress spitting missiles like candy.
"Trying to run?" Stane's manic laughter boomed behind them, loud and sharp through the chaos. "Too late!"
His Gatling-gun arms rose again, and then the world turned into noise.
*RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!*
A merciless hail of bullets tore after the fleeing agents, chewing up the ground around their feet. Painful grunts echoed one after another as people went down, some stumbling, some collapsing instantly, blood pooling beneath them before they even had time to understand what hit.
And the usual "find cover" strategy?
Yeah. Not happening.
Explosions were detonating everywhere. Buildings were cracking and collapsing like they were made of cardboard. The cover didn't stay on for more than a second.
"Retreat!" Coulson barked into the comms until his voice rasped. "I repeat...retreat!"
The truth was brutally clear now: S.H.I.E.L.D. could not handle Obadiah Stane. Not even with Hawkeye and Black Widow on the field.
It still wasn't enough.
*WHOOSH!*
At a critical moment, Hawkeye, still dodging homing missiles up in the air like his life depended on it (because it did), fired another arrow down toward Stane.
*CLANG!*
This one didn't fly for Stane's chest. It sank into the ground right beside his feet.
Stane didn't even look worried. He kept firing missiles like he was bored and trying to multitask.
"Hey, birdman!" he mocked, voice dripping with smug amusement. "Try aiming properly next time!"
*CRACKLE! SNAP! POP!*
The arrow suddenly erupted, and brilliant arcs of electricity burst outward in a violent, flashing web. The current surged straight into Stane's body.
And at that moment, Stane wasn't just armored, he was basically a giant walking metal conductor.
The electricity ripped through him inside and out, lighting up his frame like a neon sign that read: REGRET.
"Ghh!"
Stane's body convulsed violently. His relentless barrage faltered for the first time, the rhythm of destruction finally breaking.
Coulson didn't waste a second.
"Move, move, MOVE!" he shouted, grabbing the opening like it was a life raft. "Get out of here, now!"
The handful of surviving agents bolted, stumbling and sprinting through smoke and falling debris, desperate to put distance between themselves and the nightmare behind them.
*WHOOSH!*
Hawkeye pressed the advantage too, firing another arrow straight down.
*BANG!*
The arrow detonated midair and unfolded into a massive metallic net that dropped over Stane, wrapping him up like a trap meant for something very illegal.
For half a second, it looked like it might work. But then...
*BOOM!*
A missile fired instantly. The explosion tore the net apart like it was tissue paper. By the time the smoke cleared, Stane was already standing again.
And that's when Clint's eyes narrowed, because something had changed.
A dark, rubbery layer now coated the surface of Stane's armor, like he'd just added a brand-new "anti-annoying-bird" upgrade.
Rubber.
A perfect insulator.
Just like how Enel's lightning was useless against Monkey D. Luffy, Hawkeye's electrical trick had just lost its bite.
Stane rolled his shoulders, the rubber-coated armor flexing as he stared up at Hawkeye with a predator's grin.
"You actually managed to make me look this bad," Stane growled, locking his gaze on him. "Not bad, Birdman."
His smile twisted.
"Not bad at all."
The cannons embedded across Stane's armored body swivelled again with a mechanical grind, tracking Hawkeye like he was a target locked in a video game, except in this version, "game over" was permanent.
"Barton, pull back!" Coulson's voice snapped through the comms, distorted by static and chaos. "That structure's about to collapse!"
Hawkeye didn't waste time arguing. He already knew the truth: he couldn't take Stane down, not cleanly, not fast, and definitely not while half the base was exploding around them.
So he did the smartest thing a person can do when facing a metal nightmare with missiles for arms: Heleft.
His wings flared wide, and he shot toward the exit like a bolt released from a bowstring.
*SWISH! SWISH! SWISH!*
As he flew, he loosed several arrows in rapid succession, not at Stane, but at the environment.
One arrow buried into a load-bearing column. Another punched into a supporting wall. Another sank into a structural joint, as if Hawkeye were playing a very aggressive game of "remove the right pieces, and the whole thing falls over."
And one arrow...
One arrow went straight into the wall ahead.
*BOOM!*
*CRASH!*
The wall blasted open in a shower of dust and debris, and Hawkeye shot straight through the new opening without slowing down.
A heartbeat later...
*BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!*
The arrows he'd planted detonated in sequence.
*RUMBLE! RUMBLE!*
The building behind him shuddered, groaned, and then started to collapse.
It wasn't a neat collapse, either. It was the kind where concrete cracked like ice, steel beams screamed, and the entire structure seemed to fold in on itself like it had finally decided it didn't want to be a building anymore.
The spectacle was terrifying.
For a brief second, the surviving S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, dirty, bleeding, and exhausted, couldn't help thinking the same thing: 'That monster has to be finished now… right?'
*BOOM!*
A deafening explosion answered them.
The collapsing building was violently punched open from the inside, blasted apart like something had just refused to stay buried. Rubble erupted outward, and out of the dust flew a massive, human-shaped iron war machine, tearing free and soaring into the air as if gravity was just a polite suggestion.
"…That's just ridiculous," someone whispered, voice flat with disbelief.
Every single surviving S.H.I.E.L.D. agent stood there, frozen in place, completely dumbfounded.
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Next Chapter: A Fated Showdown: Iron Monger vs. Tony Stark
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