"Great." Tony slid off the bed with a hearty grunt. With no more poison in his body, he couldn't help but see Raven as a gift for all his hard work.
He donned his pants quickly, grabbed his shirt, and walked out of the room to the living area's bar counter. Refresh and ready to leave a mark at Stark Expo that night, he poured himself a nice glass of whiskey.
I fucked an alien… Not technically alien, but close. Tony felt as if his childhood dream had come true. Star Wars had nothing on him anymore. He already had his Aayla Secura. Wait, can't she morph herself into anyone? Oh… the possibilities.
He felt that he deserved another shot of whiskey. Then he poured another diluted drink for Raven and turned to head back into the bedroom to continue their discussion.
"You have a guest, Sir," Jarvis voiced all of a sudden.
"Guest? There wasn't anything on the schedule." Tony frowned, annoyed by someone ruining his mood. "Who is it?"
"It's a man, short, and looks furious according to his facial scan. The recorded footage shows him surveying the area for the past hour," Jarvis answered swiftly. "Running the facial scan… Canadian and… He's one hundred and forty-one years old."
"What?" Tony glanced towards the main door of his mansion. A thick piece of steel he had installed personally. The mansion was no less than a fortress.
Bam!
"What the?!" Tony almost jumped.
Bam!
"The intruder is trying to gain entry by force, Sir," Jarvis warned and took control of the Iron Guardians in the bedroom, bringing them all to the main door. "The intruder has metallic claws!"
Tony looked towards the nearest screen that was showing the outside view. The short man was roaring like a beast and clawing at the metallic door, easily slamming his claw into it and slicing it.
Sensing danger, Tony rushed to his basement workshop, donned the latest Iron Man suit, and flew back up.
Boom!
The metal door broke apart with a powerful kick from the intruder, splitting into two pieces. Grunting, looking angry, the intruder walked into the mansion and glared at Tony.
"Where is she?"
Tony didn't like someone breaking into his house, slicing his door, and then disrespecting him. So he controlled the ten Iron Guardians and made them all aim all their weapons on the man. "Calm your tits, Grandpa."
Like a feral creature, the man growled at Tony. His weird hairstyle and that rugged stubble beard were pretty imposing despite his lack of height.
"I'm allergic to cats, so I suggest you remove those claws," Tony warned him just as the Iron Guardians began charging the lasers. "I'll count till fiv—"
"Wraaa!" But the intruder leapt towards the Iron Guardian. "Where is she?!"
Boom!
The Iron Guardian shot a laser beam at the man, but right as the man's claws touched the Iron Guardian, everything was sliced up as if it were nothing, followed by an explosion.
What the fuck! What are those claws made of?! Tony stood there in shock at how easily his Iron Guardian was defeated. But speechlessness followed as he saw a hole in the man's chest getting filled on its own, healing him to prime.
Regeneration? Holy shit! I need his blood sample!
"Where is Raven?" The feral man roared and lunged towards another Iron Guardian. Despite being hit by the chest beam, the man sliced the machine and stood back up. Everything healed on him at visible speed.
"Logan? What the hell are you doing?!" Raven walked out of the bedroom at last, wearing nothing but a bathing robe tied around her waist.
Logan looked at her and felt confused. In her mutant form despite being in Tony's presence? That didn't make sense. That wasn't a part of the plan.
"We've been trying to get ahold of you for over an hour," Logan growled.
Raven annoyedly walked over to the bar counter where she had left her phone and looked at it. It showed no activity.
"Must be the jammers," Tony chimed in. "Happens."
Frustrated, Raven looked back at Logan with angry eyes, making the man shrink back his claws. She cursed her luck since her expectation was to sit with Tony and discuss mutant matters some more.
Tony sighed and walked back to the bar and poured Raven a drink. As he handed the glass to her, he sized up Logan. "So who's this lively old timer? Also a mutant?"
"He is." Raven smiled intimately and took the drink. "He has extreme regeneration and… claws."
"A cat with nine lives?" Tony quipped, draining his glass with a gulp. He sauntered over to the scattered remains of his latest Iron Guardian, now just an expensive pile of scrap metal. "How did he slice through my tech like it was Swiss cheese?"
"None of your business, Bub." Logan shrugged and walked over to the bar and poured himself a glass. "The Professor wants you back, Raven."
Raven got even more annoyed by that. "Why? Me and Tony had just started discussing the future of our kind."
Logan sized up Raven in the bathrobe and smirked. "Discussing? Sure, why not?"
"Wait, is that baldie also a mutant?" Tony exclaimed suddenly. He didn't know much about Charles Xavier but he did know that he was an intelligent man. "What's his ability?"
"He's a telepath. He can read and control the minds of others," Raven truthfully answered. She, as well as Charles, believed that if they were to pin any hopes on Tony, then their relationship had to start with clarity.
"Spooky," Tony muttered, silently wondering about the uses and misuses of that power. Why hadn't the mutants already controlled the sitting President to get their way?
"He's a good man, Tony." Raven clarified quickly.
Tony shrugged, his metallic suit joints whirring and clicking. "Alright, I'll swing by your school later. But first, duty calls. Gotta jet to New York."
Snap!
With a quick metallic click, the entire Stark mansion went into lockdown mode, leaving only the living area they were in, and the main door accessible. Tony decided to leave after that since his flight to New York was going to take a few hours.
With a new Arc Reactor that was much more powerful and efficient, he decided to ditch the private jet since his armor was faster.
"Tsk… my toys… my door," Tony muttered as he walked away. "I'll invoice your school later. Try not to break anything else until then, capiche? See you around."
Woosh!
Logan, with the entire bottle of whiskey in his hand, grunted at Tony's departure. "Ugh… Fuck."
"This one's on you." Raven waved her hands. "You broke them."
Frowning, Logan merely grunted to himself. "Let's go."
####
"Yeah baby~" Tony blasted through the sky, smashing the sound barrier like it owed him money. The adrenaline rush was off the charts. "What a fantastic day, Jarvis."
"Sir, one of the Iron Guardians in Texas reported a spatial anomaly in New Mexico." Jarvis suddenly alerted Tony. "The report suggests a temporal and gravitational disturbance alongside an energy surge."
"Aliens!" Tony exclaimed. "Send one of them to New Mexico to do an aerial reconnaissance. I want a visual report as soon as possible."
"Understood, Sir… You have a call from a blocked number." Jarvis changed the topic abruptly.
"Connect it."
Right away an old, hoarse voice reverberated. "Hey, Tony, how you doing?"
"Who is this?" Tony asked back.
The voice chuckled at the other side. "I didn't think you'd forget Monaco that quickly."
Everything made sense in that instance. Tony quickly made Jarvis trace the call while talking. "You sound pretty sprightly for a dead guy. What do you want?"
"Now the true history of the Stark name will be written. What your father did to my family over forty years, I will do to you in forty minutes. I hope you're ready…"
The call got disconnected.
"Sir, the location was somewhere in Manhattan," Jarvis quickly informed.
It wasn't hard to make a rough guess of where Anton Vanko might be after realizing it was also the night of Stark Expo. However, despite knowing all that, Tony couldn't bring himself to panic at all.
While flying, he looked toward his left and then to his right. In a neat formation, almost eighteen Iron Guardians were flying by his side. There were ten more waiting for him in New York, ready to join his side.
"He must have a death wish."
####
"Today! I present to you the next generation of warfare! Army! Navy! Air Force! Marines!" Justin Hammer roared from the stage with much fanfare. Leading the attention to his 'creations'.
Shhhhh…
All of a sudden, the sky reverberated with the noise of boosters. Tony and his small army of Iron Guardians arrived at Stark Expo, earning an even louder cheer from the crowd. People rose up from their seats, clapping. Some held banners, and others had Iron Man merchandise.
"Where is Anton Vanko?" Tony landed on the stage and loudly interrogated Hammer. "I know your brain. A five-year-old is more likely to make those machines than you."
"Who? What? I-I do—"
Shhhh…
Out of the blue, the stage started to vibrate. Tony looked behind at the dozens of armors that Hammer had made. The heat signatures at their feet were constantly rising. Right at the next moment, all of them raised their weaponized arms at Tony.
As that happened, the crowd started running to escape. But Tony remained standing there. Taking them up to the sky was riskier with all those glass windows. People were still evacuating.
"Iron Guardians! Neutralize them with an EMP first and then rip them apart!" Tony quickly ordered. The Iron Guardians were made to stand against a wide range of threats, after all. They had all sorts of means.
Since he was the target, the Hammer armors didn't fly up. Before they could even shoot at Tony, the Iron Guardians acted and used their combined EMP weapons. It wasn't a grenade but an instrument connected to their frames.
Within seconds, all of the Hammer Industry armors lost the light and froze in place.
"Use the signal distorters as well," Tony added and walked closer to the neutralized armors. He raised his palm towards the reactors stored in their chests. "Cheap copy."
Bang!
Bang!
One after another, Tony nullified the power sources, the reactors. He didn't call them Arc Reactors since that was too much of a disrespect to the real thing. Weak beyond measure, he doubted they'd even granted the armors a prolonged flight.
Bang!
In no time, Tony destroyed the entire fleet that Justin Hammer had built. Luckily, no large-scale destruction occurred and he saw the crowd evacuating the arena.
"Mr. Stark!"
Tony's brows creased to the voice in his ears. "Ms. Natalie?"
"Mr. Stark, Anton Vanko has escaped the server room. I believe he has an armor similar to yours."
Tony listened to her confident and tactile voice. Finally, she was showing her true identity, he thought. "I'll deal with him."
Crack!
Not long after, one of the massive glass panes in the ceiling of the arena broke apart and a large suit of armor landed right in front of Tony, below the stage. The face of its wearer was visible.
"What's up, dead guy." Tony waved his hand, completely unscathed up until then.
There was anger on Vanko's face. His plan had failed too embarrassingly. He wanted to create widespread panic, pain, and negative publicity for Stark with this incident. But instead, he gave the man a chance to look heroic.
"We'll see who dies first then."
Boom!
Vanko started waving his twin electrified whips towards Tony. They held the power of bastardized Arc Reactors. Although nothing comparable to him, Tony still felt a sense of danger and decided to maintain distance.
Boom!
"This is my revenge!"
Tony maneuvered and used his palm blasters. "Aaargh!"
But Vanko's whips caught him and slammed him into the ground.
He's got a thicker armor. Tony grunted and got back up to resume fighting. Time for teamwork.
The Iron Guardians began moving right then, all of them taking to the sky. They started to fly around in circles and shot palm blasters at Vanko with speed and precision. It gave Tony enough opportunities to approach the man.
Clack!
Tony clawed out one of the shoulder-mounted mechanisms for Vanko's whip, disabling one of them as the man was too focused on avoiding the Iron Guardians.
Clack!
Tony clawed the chest armor next. Throughout that whole time, the Iron Guardians blasted Vanko.
"Not like this, Stark!" Vanko boomed, enraged, and headbutted Tony, followed by his whip attacks. He somehow started to ignore the Iron Guardians striking him, as if he had accepted his death.
He's suicidal! Tony realized and jumped back. Fuck, he wants to take me with him.
Realizing there was nothing else he could do, he quickly gave a new command to the Iron Guardians. Surround him! Attack at the same time!
Thud! Thud! Thud!
All of the twenty-eight Iron Guardians landed on the ground, making a wide circle around Vanko's maddening but beaten form. He continued to flay his electric whip around, trying to hit the Iron Guardians. He did manage to connect at times, but still, the numbers were too many for him.
"Hahaha! This isn't the end, Tony Stark!"
Beep! Beep! Beep!
Tony's head turned and he noticed the defeated Hammer armors making a sound he really didn't like.
"Sir, the heat signature suggests the armors are trying to self-destruct." Jarvis noted.
"Fuck!" Tony cursed, knowing if they all exploded at the same time in such a cramped place the destruction would be insane. Although all the guests had left, he truly felt for his own life.
"Hahaha… Is that fear, Tony Stark?"
Tony took a deep breath and raised both his palms towards Vanko. "Deal with him first! Quick!"
Immediately, all of the Iron Guardians and Tony charged their palms and aimed not at Vanko but rather at the space just in front of his chest and the back.
The humming of their surging energy echoed in the air.
The charge was complete.
Under Tony's guidance, they all released it.
"Do it!"
The energy beams connected together at the same time and exploded. Like a sun, creating an orb of unstable energy, they blasted the front and the back of Vanko's suit at the same time, crushing him.
Blinding, chaotic, and loud—Tony got thrown back from the explosion itself.
Beep! Beep! Beep!
Right then, the Hammer armors finished their beeping countdown and exploded. The explosions dwarfed the one that Tony had created. Although weaker, the dozens of Arc Reactors exploded together.
BOOM!
The entire arena collapsed in itself, the roof, the floor, the stage, the concrete—broken, blasted, melted. Everything turned into a massive pile of rubble in an instant.
Tony was somewhere inside it.
The fire burned in places and the emergency services responded quickly. The news helicopters flew in the sky giving live coverage. The entire country was in doubt if Tony Stark, the Iron Man, had survived or died.
Clank!
Clank!
"Ugh!"
A few hours later, just as the firefighters tried to cut through the rubble of concrete and steel, a humanoid grunt resounded.
Boom!
A small burst of blue energy beam shot towards the sky, forming a gaping wide hole in the rubble. From that, Tony Stark slowly climbed out, half of his face plate gone, his armor extremely damaged from all sides.
"Tony!" Pepper cried and stumbled through the rubble to reach him.
Thud!
"Hey!" Tony got out of the hole and fell down wearily, gasping for air. But he failed to look at Pepper as his eyes focused on the red-haired woman in a strange leather suit, one with whom he had become very intimate.
"Mr. Stark."
Tony sighed once he noticed the eagle insignia on her suit—SHIELD, he recognized.
"You're fired."
______________________
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