"All right. I suppose your request isn't entirely unreasonable." Tony looked around and decided to heed Baia's advice, slowly retreating from the shadow of the massive billboard into the sunlight.
He had just seen the angel statue at the entrance in a weeping pose, but now, the face covered by hands seemed to be smiling—maliciously. The cherubic face of the roadside angel statue, which should have been round like a baby's, now bore a cruel and twisted expression, baring pointed teeth.
When he turned back again, the angel statue had disappeared.
"Great. I'd rather face Hydra operatives right now." Although it was a bright morning in New York, the silence around made it all seem eerie. Stark loosened his tie uneasily, feeling a chill breeze behind him. Maybe his own New York was more harmonious after all. He chose to selectively ignore the times when even the Avengers had turned New York into a disaster area during battles.
"Don't blink. Don't look back."
Despite feeling annoyed, Tony wasn't panicking. He located the angel statue, which had sneaked behind a tree to peek at him, and didn't avert his gaze, steadily retreating until the noise of people and traffic returned to his ears, feeling relieved.
Then he hurried to the address Baia had sent him.
Brooklyn, Hahn's Diner.
"Has Wayne Enterprises really gone bankrupt?" Tony poked at the sticky noodles on his plate with a fork. "I'd rather eat garbage from the trash can than this."
Baia, who hadn't eaten much of her food either, actually agreed. "But there might be something we need here."
"Like what?"
"Like some, um, seemingly unreliable employees." Baia pulled Max and Caroline, who were chatting at the counter, over. "This is Max, and this is Caroline, the ones we met last night."
Tony pushed his sunglasses down, revealing his caramel-colored eyes, and scrutinized the two sisters. "Are you referring to janitors number one and two? Not bad."
"I'm referring to our CFO!" Baia leaned in close to his ear. "Caroline graduated from Wharton Business School, and she's financially savvy. I think she has potential."
"Hmm, hi. Nice to meet you, Mr. Stark." The blonde girl gave a polite smile, revealing the necklace that was the only symbol of her past life. "If you and Miss Wayne need any financial advice, I can provide some assistance."
"The Boardroom?" Tony didn't respond directly to Caroline's words, instead raising an eyebrow and looking at Baia.
"The Boardroom," Baia confirmed. "What do you think of Caroline?"
Tony casually replied, "Looks decent."
His refusal to directly answer Caroline's words and his offhand comment in front of her clearly indicated his lack of cooperation.
Baia didn't know that, in Tony's original world, he was famous for his arrogance. However, because Baia was young and had helped her, he was more tolerant of her.
Of course, it's not that Tony was uncouth; his difficult behavior mainly stemmed from his disagreement with Baia's views.
Ever since her father's imprisonment for fraud, Caroline, once a wealthy young lady, had fallen from grace overnight, and she had heard sharper taunts than Tony's. With a weak psychological resilience, she couldn't survive in Brooklyn. But when Max heard Tony's evaluation, he didn't hesitate to roll his eyes.
Caroline took a deep breath, maintaining a calm smile. "At least give me a chance to prove myself."
"Fine, you have five minutes." Tony glanced at his watch. "Prove yourself."
The blonde girl looked a bit flustered, glancing at Max, who then grabbed her shoulder and pulled her out of the booth, poking her chest. "Listen, you don't have to cater to these nasty and annoying rich people. We're fine as we are now."
"We need," Caroline rested her hand on Max's shoulder, explaining patiently, "we need some money to open a real shop, Max. Working night shifts in the restaurant storeroom isn't a solution. We'll have enough money to buy a new oven, trust me. I can make this happen."
Her words grew more resolute, but her smile faded as she sat back down in front of Tony and Baia, her heels clicking against the floor.
"Alright, five minutes," her tone was decisive. "I will prove myself."
Tony glanced at the time again. "Two and a half."
Caroline felt like what she needed was a month to carefully refine a business PowerPoint presentation, along with a conference room and a tailored business suit, not sitting here in a waitress's yellow and red apron, dictating ideas.
But, nevertheless, she slowly regained the confident demeanor she had in college. Caroline only took half a minute to outline the general structure of the Stark Business Empire, albeit mainly summarizing Baia's 50,000-word proposal.
More importantly, she outlined how to lay a solid foundation, how to use each day, each month to make this seed grow into a sapling, and then into a towering tree. Caroline wasn't very confident, but she worked hard to plan out every step of the Stark Industries concept.
People often thought that Tony Stark, the nonchalant chairman of Stark Industries, was only interested in his superhero career and knew nothing about business. Some even said that without Pepper, his company would have gone downhill. This was the most serious misunderstanding of Tony Stark's business ability.
He just couldn't be bothered. At first, Tony wasn't really paying attention. He was scrolling through the data and energy fluctuations near the "Winter Harbor" apartment uploaded by Friday just moments ago. But soon, he was drawn to Caroline's ideas. He furrowed his brows slightly, realizing that she wasn't as unreasonable as he had imagined, although there were still many immature aspects to her ideas.
"Alright, miss," Tony interrupted Caroline. "Your name?"
"Caroline."
"Which Caroline?"
"Um... Caroline Channing." She said in a small voice, realizing her irreversible failure.
No matter how great the plan was, her father was best at selling business proposals to people. That's why a Channing's plan, no matter how grandiose and meticulously crafted, would not be accepted by others.
"Didn't quite catch that. Could you repeat it?" Tony didn't understand why she suddenly lost her confidence.
"Fine! Caroline Channing." Caroline shouted, then stood up and looked at Tony with a pained expression. She thought he already knew who she was, and the so-called proving herself was just a joke at her expense. But she quickly adjusted her mindset. "Are you satisfied now? I won't bother you anymore, but if you have anything to say about my surname, I swear I'll slap this lump of spaghetti on your face."
"Although I don't understand why you're so worked up," Tony shrugged, "but you're hired. Start as an assistant if you want. Your call."
Tony was wealthy, but he had only recently arrived in this world and hadn't had the chance to be deceived by Caroline's old man, so naturally, he was unaware of the notorious deeds of the Channing family among the New York elite.
Caroline covered her mouth excitedly.
"Oh, by the way, here's a buy one, get one free." Tony turned to Max.
"I bet you don't really care about my surname," Max shrugged.
Tony snapped his fingers. "You're right. Now, Baia, we need to discuss more important matters—"
"Angels have taken over Manhattan," Baia interrupted temporarily, chasing away Max and Caroline.
"Tell me more." Tony took Baia's laptop and winced after struggling with the Mac interface for a moment.
Baia explained, "This is to give the good girl a secret identity. You see, she's Siri in public, but secretly she's Friday!"
"Not all superheroes like to keep secrets," Tony muttered.
"In fact," Friday typed on the screen, "having a dual identity feels quite nice."
Tony expressed strong condemnation towards his AI's sarcastic tone, then began to organize the information he had collected so far.
This time, besides the task details, the system issued a warning for a "high-risk task," along with a series of data about these creatures called "Weeping Angels," which was much clearer than the information about "Prisoner Zero" before.
Before Tony came back, Baia had read and sorted out this information. The weirdness and danger of these creatures made her feel extremely uneasy. She accessed the Batcave to search for some keywords, but the results showed that neither the Justice League nor Bruce had ever fought such creatures.
"The Weeping Angels are ancient predators, their existence dating back to the early days of the universe. Unlike ordinary creatures, Weeping Angels are quantum beings. When observed, they immediately turn into motionless statues, and when you avert your gaze, they steal your time."
"Steal my time? What does that mean?"
"Once touched by an Angel, it has the ability to send you back in time, perhaps thirty or forty years ago. You'll spend your remaining days in history, and the future you've disappeared from becomes their sustenance."
"Alright, conscious quantum beings," Tony rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Now that we know what they are, there's nothing to fear. Since they turn into statues when observed, is it possible to just blow them up?"
"Their essence is not stone," Baia explained briefly, knowing Tony's intelligence didn't require much elaboration. A quantum disguised as stone, even if shattered, can be restored to its original state.
"But that doesn't mean they're invincible," Tony said. "I've got some ideas, but I can't just go like this. Give me some time to upgrade the suit."
Baia hesitated. "Maybe we should just inform the Justice League directly, or at least let Batman know."
She wasn't someone who couldn't differentiate between urgent and non-urgent matters. She knew what she could handle and what might be beyond her abilities. Although the system had never issued an impossible task, the cost of failure was something she couldn't bear. If anything happened to Tony because of some mistake, she would never forgive herself.
"If you're worried about me, princess," Tony said, "you don't need to come with me. I can handle this myself. This is New York, I'm Iron Man, and that's that."
"It's not that—" Baia's voice raised slightly, feeling a bit frustrated with Tony since a while ago. "What if something happens to you?"
"Nothing will happen! I didn't say I'd go now. I don't fight unprepared battles."
"But just in case," Baia crossed her arms, furrowing her brows in a way that resembled Batman's, questioning him, "if you can't return, what then? What about Pepper? What about your New York? We can't handle this—"
The maternal tone from the Wayne girl reminded Tony of someone, particularly Steve Rogers, who loved to preach. But Steve was always wrong, and Tony Stark was always right; he could definitely handle whatever came his way, and that was one of them.
"Why don't you go ask Batman how he balances family and career?" Tony retorted. "Isn't that female reporter from Metropolis thrown off buildings every other day? Why not just advise the Justice League to quit too and everyone can go back home to soak up the sun? That way, no one needs to take responsibility for anything!"
Baia glared at him, anger and restraint burning in her green eyes.
Tony wasn't sure if there was a definitive relationship between her and Batman, although due to Baia's behavior, he had many guesses. That's why he could use it to attack her, and Baia's reaction was accurately captured by Tony's eyes.
"I'm not saying you can't do anything," Tony continued, "I'm just suggesting notifying—"
"You've already notified me, so you don't need to bother anyone else!"
"Fine, do whatever you want," Baia stood up, her voice still crisp when she was angry. She swung her bag onto her back. "You never listen to me anyway, do you? You don't care what others think."
"Take this, little sprite," When Baia stormed out like an angry hamster, Max intercepted her, handing her a freshly unwrapped lollipop with an apple flavor, "Don't bother with the moron."
Baia hesitated for half a second, then stormed out with the lollipop clenched in her mouth.
Tony Stark was best at this, he could irritate half of his teammates to death with just his mouth.
It wasn't entirely his fault. Tony sighed, calming his racing heart, and ran his hand through his hair in frustration, ignoring the dissatisfied crying face on the screen that Friday projected. He just hadn't been Iron Man for too long.
"Who are you planning to provoke next?" Max leaned on the table next to the booth, holding a menu, his voice slightly slurred.
"Do you have whiskey?"
"A glass of industrial alcohol!" Max shouted towards the kitchen.
In the shadowy street corner, a statue stood inconspicuously on the corner of a Brooklyn street.