During Stark's birthday party, Ben was at his apartment trying to figure out a way to save Stark. So he didn't attend his party. Later he came to visit him to see if he is alright. He found that the place was a mess and the roof had a giant hole in it. Stark was wearing his Mark IV armor while lying on the floor, drunk.
Ben: What the hell happened here? Mr. Stark are you alright?
Tony: I don't need you. You're an alien. Go back to your universe.
Ben: You're drunk. Did someone attack you? Jarvis, what happened?
Jarvis: Mr. Stark got drunk during his party and started dancing and peeing in his suit in front of his guests. Colonel James Rhodes wore the Mark II armor to stop Mr. Stark and they had a fight after which he took the suit and left.
Ben: Damn. So much happened.
Stark then stood up and started to walk away.
Ben: Mr. Stark you should rest. You're in no condition to go out.
Mr. Stark: Leave me. I'm better alone. I'm the smartest man alive. I'll figure something out.
He then leaves and Ben fixes up the place.
The next day Ben goes to meet Stark and finds Agent Coulson there and Stark was working with a lot of new equipment.
Tony: Oh good Ben you're here. I talked to Fury today, and I got all the answers.
Ben: Hello Mr. Coulson and what answers are you talking about?
Tony: My father didn't create the design for the arc reactor alone. He had a partner, Anton Vanko. They both created it but Anton tried to sell it. So, my father, had him deported to Russia. Ivan, the guy who attacked me that day was his son. That's how he made his arc reactor. Now I have all my father's papers, documents, and equipment from Shield. It was his design so maybe I can find something here that can help me figure out the substitute for palladium.
Ben: What about poisoning?
Tony: Shield slowed it a little, btw did you know my secretary Rushman, was a Shield agent?
Ben: What? Wait why is Shield helping you and how does Shield have your father's stuff?
Tony: He was actually one of the founders of Shield.
Ben: Waoh!
Tony: Let's do this.
Together they went through all his documents and find out that luckily the map of the 1974 Stark Expo was a diagram of the atomic structure of a new element. Together they were able to create it. And replaced his Palladium core with the new element. Stark later finds out that Ivan Vanko faked his death to escape prison and might be working with Justin Hammer, CEO of Stark's rival company. So he prepares to stop him and informs Shield about it.
At night, during the Expo, Hammer presents everyone with his new armored drones that he made for the government that would be led by Colonel James Rhodes who was wearing a heavily weaponized Mark II called the War Machine. Stark wears his new Mark VI armor and reaches the Expo to warn Rhodes about Hammer and Ivan. Suddenly all the drones start attacking the people and Rhodes loses control of his armor and starts attacking stark along with other drones.
Rhodes: Tony…Tony, I am locked on. I have target locked.
Tony: On what?
Rhodes: On you!
Ben: Shit, looks like Ivan took control of the drones and Colonel James' armor.
Rushman: I'll go stop Ivan, you protect the people and destroy the drones.
Ben turns into Jetray and fights the drones and saves people while Stark gets chased by War Machine and other drones.
Jetray: So many drones. Didn't know Ivan was such an engineer.
He switches between Jetray and Bigchill to destroy the drones.
Ms. Rushman who was actually Agent Romanoff goes with Happy to Hammer's control room. She fights all the guards and defeats them and reaches Vanko's room but finds it empty. She then gives the control of Rhodes' armor back to him.
Together Stark and Rhodes destroy many drones and save a lot of people.
They are then attacked by Vanko who was wearing a different armor this time. He attacks both of them with his electric whips. But Stark's upgraded armor had parts of Vilgax's tech which made it immune to electric whips and he defeats Vanko with Rhodes' help.
Vanko: You lose.
As he says this, all his drones, including his suit starts beeping and emitting a red light.
Rhodes: These drones are all rigged to blow up. We gotta get out of her man.
Ben sees this and turns into Echo-Echo and multiplies himself into many clones. Each clone then turns into XLR8 and evacuates all the people near the drones to safety.
XLR8: Don't worry, I got everyone to safety.
Stark and Rhodes fly away and Stark saves Pepper.
Vanko explodes and dies. Hammer gets arrested.
The next day, Fury declares Stark unstable and unreliable and hence they will only need Stark for consultation. Stark and Rhodes get medals for saving the people and the identity of the shape-shifter now named "Alien-X" by the people is still unknown.
Ben: They literally named me after one of my aliens.
Tony: Alien-X cus you are an alien which can take any form, so like your form is variable. So the variable X.
Ben: That's smart.
Tony: It is.
They later celebrate their latest victory as well as the creation of the new element.
The next day Ben receives a call from agent Coulson.
Agent Coulson: We need your help with this one.