Chapter 58 - sometimes you gotta run before you can walk

It had been a few days, since the explosion and Jeff had that conversation with Sebastian. Jeff had been unable to put on the suit to go out leaving the public to wonder where the Batman had gone.

That was not all, as some people had put their attention on the explosion trying their hardest to figure out what exactly had happened.

"Hill, what have you found?" Fury turned to face Hill as she walked into the control centre where he stood, with his eye combing through screens.

"Sir, we have been unable to find out what exactly happened in the building. We did find some interesting things", at this Fury turned to look her right in the eyes with his eye.

"First of all the Batman wasn't alone, security cams around the building were deactivated around the time the explosion happened, but one of our own caught something." Hill spoke as she brought up an image of Batman jumping out with Gwen in his hands.

Fury's eye narrowed seeing this, "Batman seems to have a sidekick." "how is the task I handed you earlier going?' Fury asked

"Still no luck sir, but with this we think we might have something", Fury nodded motioning for her to continue with her early report.

"Among the wreckage we recovered this" another picture was brought up and Fury's scowl got even deeper as he saw it.

"This is ours is it not? explain?" "Yes sir the weapon is indeed ours it's project SLING." Hill nodded confirming this.

"Then explain to my why the hell a weapon supposed to be looked up in a secure location is now found in the wreckage of a building that just exploded." "we are working on it sir" Hill spoke up.

"well work harder! Tell me you at least have something!"

"We did pick up a new lead, we discovered traces of a group who call themselves the Court".

"The court? I've never heard of them, we are SHIELD! how am I now hearing of this court?!" Nick took a few steps forward staring Hill straight in her eye. (A/N don't forget the members of the court are almost all former SSR and are really good at hiding)

"This group has been completely silent this was their first visible attack that has brought them to the light." Fury remained silent for a few moments before speaking up.

"Find everything about this court, the Batman seems to be in a war with them. The last time the bat got in a war with someone it began raining bombs in New York. I don't care who you find, wether it's the bats or this court I want them off the streets!"

Hill nodded before turning around and leaving.

In Stark's Malibu mansion.

Tony took a few steps as his suit was screwed on to him.

He spoke as he was picked his face plate, "Jarvis you there?" "at your service sir" his AI responded. "Engage heads up display"

"check"

"pull all preferences from home interface."

"will do sir"

"Alright what do you say?" "I have indeed been uploaded sir we're online and ready" Jarvis responded.

"Okay start the virtual walk around" "importing preferences and calibrating virtual environments." "check on controls" Tony ordered, "as you wish sir".

After a minute Jarvis spoke again, "test complete preparing to shut down and begin diagnosis"

"Erh.... yeah tell you what do weather and ATC checks start listening in on ground control" Tony interrupted Jarvis. "Sir there are still terabytes of calculations needed before actual flight is-" Jarvis tried to argue but was cut off by Tony once more.

"Jarvis, sometimes you gotta run before you can walk, ready and 3,2,1." Tony spoke before getting into position as propulsion began lifting him off the ground.

"Yeah!" Tony let out a shout as he flew out.

After a minute of flying Tony grinned like a kid before saying, "handles like a dream" and speeding off.

Tony soon came close to a ferris wheel and zoomed in to see a boy whose ice cream fell as he spotted Tony his disbelief clear in his eyes.

Tony gave the kid a salute before flying higher, "okay let's see what this thing can do. what's SR-71's record." "the altitude record for SR-71s flight is 81000 feet sir".

"Records are meant to be broken." Tony shouted before speeding higher unfortunately soon there was a build of ice.

"sir there is a potentially fatal build up of icicle"

Tony ignored it and tried to power through but the suit couldn't handle it and went off, causing him to plumet.

"The ice stopped Jarvis! deploy flaps!" Tony exclaimed but there was no response.

"Jarvis! we got to break the ice!" Tony exclaimed once more before manually opening the flaps just in time allowing the suit to come online and narrowly avoiding a fatal fall.

"Haaaa ha ha ha" Tony laughed out in relief as he flew back home he slowly descended on his roof and just as he was inches away from the roof he ordered, "kill power".

Tony fell straight through the building and into his garage, destroying one of his sports cars.

head on over to my Ko-Fi to read ahead and support me ko-fi.com/flowinglightning