Tony Stark had not followed Steve Rogers or the Joint Operations Command Special Operations Command task force deep underground. When it happened, he was heading outside with Agent Natasha Romanoff and Sharon Carter, who had appeared from who knew where. Secretary of State Ross treated the task force as his bargaining chip, and Tony Stark naturally had plans of his own—the Veronica combat system might have proven useless in the battle outside United Nations Headquarters, but the concept of synchronized satellite armor pods was still applicable. He had already instructed Friday to deploy an armor pod and deliver his standard Iron Armor to his location.
It would take time for the armor to arrive, after all, it was being dropped from low orbit. So he made his way up through the fire escape, intending to meet his equipment at the helipad. Along the way, Natasha Romanoff and Sharon Carter silently disappeared. No one knew what they intended to do—perhaps he had never understood how spies operated.
According to feedback from the facility's security personnel, the source of the explosion was in the underground parking garage. After the car bomb detonated, it triggered a chain reaction among the other vehicles in the garage. The underground parking garage was now completely engulfed in flames. The automatic fire suppression system could not handle such an intense blaze, and no one could enter the scene to investigate.
Since all surveillance equipment was down due to the citywide power outage, there was no way to determine which vehicle had caused the explosion. Things could not have been worse. No one knew what had happened, who was behind it, or why the Winter Soldier had suddenly broken free—it was hard not to suspect that someone wanted the Winter Soldier to escape, in order to achieve some