"Whoa, it's finally about to start. Jarvis, make sure to record this."
On the outer edge of the crowd, Lyon, just back from space, was holding a bucket of popcorn, looking like he was ready to watch a good show. Although the timing wasn't quite right, it felt like he was about to witness a major Marvel event in person.
"Lyon, sir, you seem quite eager for Tony's upcoming speech?"
Suddenly, a voice quietly spoke up from beside him.
Lyon's eyebrows furrowed slightly as he glanced at the speaker, his steps halted just as he was about to walk away.
"And you are...?"
A familiar face!
Lyon immediately recognized the man beside him—a middle-aged man dressed in a suit, with slightly thinning hair and a kind face.
Isn't this Captain America's die-hard fan, Coulson?
"I'm Phil Coulson, from the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division," Coulson said with a friendly smile as he handed over a business card.
"Quite a mouthful. So, what do you need from me?" Lyon asked as he took the card.
"We're an agency independent of the FBI and CIA. We'd like to discuss some recent events in the Middle East with you."
Lyon glanced at the business card and then handed it back to Coulson.
"You don't need to ask me. Tony's about to talk about exactly what's going on over there. Just wait, and you'll find out."
"Oh?" Coulson, surprised, looked up at Tony on the stage, sensing that something big was about to happen today.
"Thank you," he nodded politely to Lyon, then walked away, taking out his communication device to contact his superiors.
...
"Hmm... Recently, I'm sure you've all been following the events in the Middle East."
On stage, Tony flipped through a few pages of his speech before tossing them aside.
"Over there, some barbarians, armed with weapons of unknown origin, are wantonly slaughtering civilians."
"Of course, in the past, it was Obadiah who was secretly supplying them with weapons."
"Now he's gone, but those people still have weapons!"
Tony was about to continue when a reporter raised a hand to ask a question: "Are you referring to the Ten Rings, the group that kidnapped you and was then destroyed by Superman?"
"Uh, something like that, but the details are a bit different." Tony was momentarily thrown off.
Suddenly, it seemed like no matter what the topic was, the reporters always found a way to bring Superman into it!
Tony decided to skip the lengthy preamble and go straight to the main point.
"You probably also know that most of the Ten Rings' forces are based in the Middle East."
Actually, they're in Afghanistan.
"Recently, a man in iron armor has been wiping out these bandits over there."
"A lot of people have started paying attention to him, thinking he's a hero."
"I want to say, he has many flaws, and he's made plenty of mistakes in his youth, but you still might think of him as a hero. This actually..."
Another reporter raised a hand: "Are you talking about that 'Iron Kid' who's been imitating Superman lately? People are talking about that suit as the property of Stark Industries, so, do you know him well?"
Tony's words got stuck in his throat.
He stared at that reporter for a long moment.
Then, suddenly, he said, "That's Iron Man! Not Iron Kid!"
"And I... am Iron Man!"
"..."
The room fell into a stunned silence.
Everyone was looking at Tony, thinking he was trying to lighten the mood.
A few people even let out some dry laughs, trying to show they were entertained.
The only person genuinely laughing in the crowd, and laughing heartily at that, was Lyon.
This made Tony's expression darken.
Annoyed, he pursed his lips, took a step back, and with a flick of his wrists, revealed two wristbands.
"Jarvis!"
Boom!
In the next moment, an oval-shaped metal pod burst into the room from outside, skimming over the heads of the reporters.
Amidst gasps and people ducking for cover, the pod disassembled and began to assemble itself around Tony.
"I am Iron Man."
The armor assembled itself, the faceplate snapping shut, accompanied by the crisp sound of metal plates locking into place.
Tony once again calmly and firmly declared his identity.
This time, everyone was staring at him in shock.
The gold and red armor, standing at the center of the stage, was like an industrial masterpiece, shimmering with light.
Everyone's hearts were trembling.
Then, the crowd surged forward, with hundreds of arms raised, clamoring to ask their questions.
...
Evening.
"Honestly, you might as well have just shown up in your armor from the start. That way, you wouldn't have gotten stumped by the reporters so many times."
Lyon pushed open the door to the mansion, speaking to Tony, who was behind him.
After the press conference ended, Pepper had insisted on keeping him and Tony at the company for the entire day.
The mountain of documents seemed endless.
Even Lyon's super brain felt like it was protesting.
Lyon made a decision.
Once Natasha finished rescuing all the Widow agents, he'd appoint her as the CEO of the network company.
The job might be exhausting, but it would show that he trusted Natasha!
'I'm sure that handling multiple transactions worth hundreds of billions of dollars each day would give Natasha a great sense of accomplishment!'
'As for building the organization, that could be left to Yelena.'
'The young girl could benefit from more experience to grow quickly.'
The more Lyon thought about this decision, the more he felt it was a win-win-win situation!
There was no way he was going to take on that job himself after all.
Working before crossing over, and still working after? What was the point of crossing over then?
But all that was for later.
Right now, he just wanted to relax and have some dinner.
Good food was the perfect remedy for the fatigue of work.
However, just as he stepped inside, Lyon stopped in his tracks.
Tony's skeptical voice came from behind him.
"Is that really what you think? I saw it clearly; you were the only one laughing the loudest in the entire room!"
"By the way... why did you suddenly stop moving?"
Tony peeked out from behind Lyon.
In front of the large floor-to-ceiling window, a figure in a black trench coat that reached down to his ankles stood alone, gazing out at the sea.
The dark head and mysterious style could only belong to Nick Fury.
"Jarvis?" Tony called out.
"Welcome home, Mr. Stark, and Master Lyon," Jarvis promptly responded.
"It seems there's partial electromagnetic shielding in place. Impressive tech," Tony complimented, noticing that some of Jarvis's surveillance areas had been blocked.
He glanced at Lyon. "What do you think we should do?"
Lyon snapped his fingers. "Jarvis, deploy the armor and blast the guy standing in front of the window."
"As you wish, sir."
The sound of mechanical assembly echoed from downstairs.
"Wait! Don't be hasty!" Nick Fury, who had been trying to maintain his cool demeanor, panicked and quickly turned around.
"I am the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., Nick fuc... Oh, come on!"
Before he could finish his sentence, Jarvis had already activated the Mark 1 Super Armor, sending it upstairs.
The blue and red suit raised both hands, energy cannons charging up.
"Motherf—! I'll be back! We need to talk!"
Seeing that the AI had no intention of stopping, Nick Fury crashed through the floor-to-ceiling window and jumped off the cliff.
Boom!
As he leaped off the cliff, the energy blast narrowly missed him.
"Heh heh~ Nicely done!" Tony complimented as he walked over to the window, watching as a parachute slowly unfolded below the cliff.
"That guy really does have a backup plan for everything, just like you described," he remarked.
Lyon joined him. "Jarvis, looks like we need to give you an upgrade. We can't have just anyone breaking in here."
"Master, Lyon if I the teck of the house was like the Helicarrier's mainframe, I shouldn't have been blocked."
"Oh, you're getting cheeky now, asking for upgrades. Alright, let's upgrade your mainframe!"
Tony glanced at Lyon at this moment. "Speaking of which, if you had blasted that Black Widow agent of yours out of here yesterday, we wouldn't have found the Red Room."
"Why didn't you take action at the time?" he asked.
"Because there were some things I wanted to confirm," Lyon replied, blowing on the floor-to-ceiling window, causing all the broken glass to fall off the cliff.
"I intended to ask her for some information I was curious about, so naturally, I didn't send her away right off."
"What kind of information?"
"That's a secret."
"You're keeping secrets from me now? I bet you're just lusting after her body!" Tony's voice rose.
"Of course, that's part of it. I'm just making the mistake that all men make," Lyon said as he headed to his room.
"…You've got a point," Tony considered, realizing he wouldn't be able to turn down a beautiful badass woman who showed up at his door either.
__________
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