Racing on in (Open)
A universe away

It was, all things considered, a good day to be one Stephanie "Stevie" Barton.  School was over and done with, she had a job she liked fixing cars (even discounting the money in her trust fund), Mom was off her back about doing more with her life for the moment (though the promise of a couple of business courses in the winter semester also seemed to at least temporarily placate Antonia Stark).  She'd managed to survive a shopping trip with MC (and reluctantly would admit she'd picked up a few good things on the trip too).  William Blake, the extremely hot son of Donald "I used to be Thor" Blake and Jane Foster was still her primary friend with benefits.  She had parts for the hot rod she was restoring coming in in the next couple of days.

And to top it off, her Hot Rod gear had just recently had its tune-up and was working in fine condition.  Granted, she hadn't been responsible for the tune-up herself (ask her about a car's engine?  She was fine.  Ask her about repuslors or titanium-gold alloy plating or anything else her mother had invented and she just rolled her eyes and got a headache), but the freedom of being able to move at just under sonic speeds, over just about any surface?  Well, that more than made up for not understanding how it all worked.  Something about a repulsor field and attractions and repulsion and blah blah blah, "it lets me run fast.  Like wearing a car."

Something ahead, however, caught her attention.  Some kind of energy vortex.  She didn't have much in the way of scanners in her gear, but even she could see that.  She increased her speed for a moment, priming her gauntlets to deliver a high speed punch if need be, but decelerated quickly as she got closer.

It was a white disk of... emptiness, that was the only word for it.  For a moment, she was certain she saw two men--she could almost swear the were identical twins--fighting in the middle of it, but she couldn't be sure.

"This is Hot Rod to Avengers Mansion," she said, after activating her comm system.  "I'm down on Wall Street and there appears to be a... portal-glowy-spacey-timey-whimey-ball... thing.  Here.  Now."

The whatever it was flickered for a moment, and she was certain she saw the two men again, saw one briefly overcome the other and try to do... something, but then saw the other recover, preventing it.  Whatever the one had prevented, however, wasn't enough.  The whiteness flashed, flared, and for a second, it was all she could see.

***

When she could see again and her helmet's visor had depolarized, she instantly noticed first, that her wi-fi connection to Avengers Mansion and to global GPS wasn't working.  The second thing she noticed was that she was reasonably certain the name on the bank on her right had been different just a minute ago.

Stevie tapped the side of her helmet, trying to engage the comm, but all she got was static.

"Well," she said to herself, "this is just great.  Now I've got to get this thing fixed."  Which meant swallowing her pride and asking someone sciency (preferably not Mom.  Because she'd get all "this wouldn't happen if you'd let me build you a real suit" and she'd have to be all, "Mom?  Claustrophobic, remember?" and the arguments would go on again) to fix it.

A quick test confirmed that, at least, the rest of the suit was working.  She accelerated back towards Avengers Mansion.  The security system at the gate should have recognized her and swung open as she approached, slowing down to a speed just a bit above that of the average car.

Somehow, it was turning into not her day.  The gates completely failed to open.  It was a good thing she'd still been slowing down.  Any faster, and she'd probably just have plowed right through them.  As it was, her repulsor field protected her, but allowed her to be knocked back, landing on her ass on the street.

"...As a certain rock covered super-heroine might say... "What a revoltin' development'."