Things don't always work out… Do they?
The news anchorwoman spoke to the cameraman, microphone firmly in hand. "Stark Tower has been destroyed.", was the most important sentence she said. "The Incredible Hulk seems to left now, heading off to only God knows where.", was the second most important sentence.
You do your best. But sooner or later, things come crashing down.
"Tony!!!", War Machine, Jim Rhodes, cried as he heaved aside huge pieces of wreckage with the strength of his powered armor. "Tony, where are you?!" He moved aside an entire concrete wall.
I used to be a futurist.
"Tony!", Rhodes exclaimed happily as he discovered the mangled and beaten Hulkbuster Mark II armor; the giant red and gold monstrosity, beaten and dented. "I'm coming, Tony! I got ya!", Rhodes said as he pried away pieces of the armor, clawing to get to his friend inside.
I don't believe in the future anymore…
"Oh… Oh, Tony…", Rhodes said sadly. "Tony…"
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10 years later.
Ten grueling, miserable years later, Virginia "Pepper" Potts looked at herself in the mirror, pleased to find she had aged rather well. Or at least, she looked a lot better then her boss…
It was a beach house, tucked away somewhere in the Caribbean on a pleasant beach with crystal clear water and palm trees. The kind of life most people strive for.
Pepper walked outside of the beach house, and walked a short distance to the large garage just outside, and she expected what she saw.
Clang!
Clang!
There it stood, pounding away at a piece of metal over an anvil with a small hammer.
He wore a very light suit of "armor", but it wasn't for gallant fighting, the armor was to keep its wearer alive. All was covered up and protected, save for the wearer's head, the armor was helmet-less. It wasn't even gold and red colored for the most part, the thick body suit mesh that covered serveral motors and couplings was a shade of dark grey. The only exception to the dull color was the various pieces of red-plated equipment on the suit, and occasional dulled gold colored coupling. A few wires and tubes connected over the medical equipment, occasionally snaking into and out of the gold couplings around his chest.
The armor did provide some degree of strength; otherwise its wearer might not even have the strength to get up in the morning, much less form metal by hitting it with a hammer.
The figure heaved the hammer over his head and swung it down to beat the red-hot piece of metal on the anvil again.
Clang!
"Tony!", Pepper shouted over the anvil clang.
It looked at her. It was what was left of Tony Stark, once the Invincible Iron Man. His mustache had grown into an unruly beard but his hair was still black, with the exception of a bright silver streak of hair over the temples. His eyes, however, weren't as sharp and focuses as they used to be. His eyes were groggy and drunken.
"Breakfast is ready, Tony." Pepper crooked her thumb over her shoulder and pointed back at the house.
"Yeah…" He set the hammer down next to the metal. "I'll be there in a moment."
"You were up all night drinking, again, weren't you?", she asked somberly.
He didn't answer.
Tony believed the armor, built to sustain Tony's life after grievous injuries at the hands of the Hulk, was the only thing keeping him alive. It could pump his blood, jumpstart his heart, push air in and out of his lungs, and functioned as a mini-dialysis machine. Years ago it was modified to also function as a replacement to Tony's liver.
The armor had been, oh so affectionately, dubbed, the "Iron Lung" armor. For obvious reasons.
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"Thanks, Pepper.", Tony said as Pepper handed him a mug of hot chocolate to drink later that night.
"Don't mention it.", Pepper said.
They were both sitting on deck chairs, hand made of iron, which was the result of Tony's days spent as a blacksmith. Above them was a beautiful night sky filled with stars against the deep black backdrop of space. It was the kind of star-filled sky you never got to see in the city.
"Jeff loved his boats new cleats.", Pepper said. "Says thanks."
"Great.", Tony sipped his hot chocolate, gingerly holding the mug with his over-powered gloved hands. "Nice moon.", he said of the half moon that hung in the dark and star-filled sky above them.
"Yeah…", Pepper said looking up at it too.
"I've been there before, ya know.", Tony said.
"Who says ya can't go there again?"
Tony looked over at her with one raised eyebrow, as if saying: "Please… Give me a break." But he kept that comment to himself.
"Come on, Tony. Don't give me that look again."
"Pepper… It's been ten years…" Tony set his mug of hot chocolate on a table between the two chairs. "Most time I've spent outside of this suit was a few hours."
"Not true.", she pointed out with a wave of her fingers. "What about when you sleep?"
"That doesn't count. That bed of mine is practically a pod or something. All those backup life support systems rigged into it."
"Still… Can't spend forever in that thing."
"Pepper…", he rolled his drunken sailor's eyes off to the side. "We've been over this. I took a big green fist then several tons of wreckage to the chest. Heck, I barely had a chest when Rhodes found me."
"Yeah yeah yeah, I know all the facts.", she dismissed as she took another sip of her own hot chocolate. "But you also had the Extremis crawling all over you before we even pulled you out of that armor."
"Not this again…", he held his face in his gloved hand.
"Tony, you used to be so confident in the Extremis being able to heal you that you wanted to fight Wolverine! Maybe it's healed you by now."
"No, Pepper…" He removed his gloved hand from his face.
"For all we know, you're totally recovered by-"
"Drop it.", he said firmly. "I'm stuck like this." He picked up his hot chocolate again. "For a good long time…" He sipped.
Pepper paused for a moment and leaned back in her seat. "What happened to you, Tony? You used to have so much hope in the future."
"The future?", he asked her as he turned to look at her. "Another couple of decades trapped in this damn armor... What good is the future to me, Pepper?"
"But you don't have to be!"
"The last time I tried to take this off for too long, I nearly died. Again. I can't keep being given second chances, Pepper…"
He stared into his mug of hot chocolate.
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The next day Pepper was in the kitchen, reading from a cookbook and feeling very victorious in her quest to cook a decent dinner. Of course, she'd had plenty of practice over the past ten years she'd spent caring for and tending to Tony Stark.
Clang!
Tony, meanwhile, was pounding away at a piece of iron again with his hammer. He too had had plenty of practice over the last ten years. His garage and beach house were filled with various metal pieces of furniture that he had hand pounded himself.
Clang!
Clang!
Clang!
KABOOM!!!
Pepper was surprised by the blast; it shook the house on its soft soil. "Tony?" She looked out the kitchen window and saw that Tony's garage was completely in flames. "TONY!" She ran out.
As soon as she stepped out the back door to run to the burning wreckage, a sharp white pain licked across her left calf muscle and she fell into the sandy ground. "Agh!" Ugh…" She looked back at her left calf and saw it bleeding.
"I would'a never guessed…"
Pepper looked up and saw a familiar face, wrapped in a costume of black and red. "Spymaster?!", she gritted while she reached down to hold her leg.
Spymaster, garbed in his in his black and red costume, stood above her holding a pistol with silencer in one hand and resting his other palm against a detonator on his belt. "I would'a never guessed Iron Man was practically a cripple living on Paradise Island with his secretary."
"How'd you find out where we are?!", she demanded as she rolled onto her back and scooted away.
"Because it's what I do…", he said. "I was going over some old leads and by luck I got a whiff of some freak in an space suit pounding away at metal all day. I got curious." He took a sickeningly casual step forward. "Ya know, the whole world thinks he's dead. Lots of people wished they could'a been the ones to finally off him." He lowered his pistol and pointed it at her head. "It's a job I'd offer to do for free."
Tony felt hot sand and ash against his face. Suddenly the Iron Lung armor he wore weighed so much more somehow. God, he felt so old so sudden.
He forced his eyes open and saw a blur of bright blue light, the sky. He must've been pushed outside by the blast. His ears were ringing, his head spinning. He watched the blue blur come more into focus, revealing clouds and thin traces of smoke floating on that blue sky.
"Get up.", Spymaster said.
Tony heard that.
Pepper winced and sat up. "You nuts? You shot my leg!"
"Get up anyway.", he said waving his silenced pistol.
The armor… the light armor and suit known as the Iron Lung… It wouldn't respond.
Tony forced his neck to move his head, dragging his cheek across the sand, to look back.
His Iron Lung was destroyed. Equipment dented, read-out screens cracked, hoses torn. Back up systems were beeping and busing themselves trying to engage, but that was about as steady as a 1945 Buick that sat in the garage for about a decade. His life support was down.
"I'm a goner…", he laid the side of his face in the sand.
Pepper clawed against the wall of the house and tried to pick herself up, wincing and hissing as she pulled her injured leg up and put her weight on her good leg. "Ugh! Well… You gonna shoot me and get it over with?!"
Tony's eyes opened again. "Pepper…" , he muttered.
"Shellhead was a smart guy, before he decided to give the Hulk a hug, that is.", Spymaster said. "And rich. He's got to have something valuable here."
Another wince. Hot blood down her leg and over her instep.
The Iron Lung's destroyed. I got hours to live, unless someone drags to me my vault of a bed. Can't move… Muscle atrophy? Doesn't matter… Pepper…
"Show me where the goods are.", Spymaster said.
Pepper gritted. "Go to-"
PFFT!
"AGH!", Pepper yelped after a second bullet pierced into her left thigh.
"Pepper…!", Tony moaned. He dug his heavy gloved hand into the sand, like moving dead weight, and began to push himself up. The armor… The armor wasn't as heavy as Tony thought it would be.
Pepper leaned heavily against the wall, closing here eyes and gritting her teeth in pain. An involuntary tear escaped one of her wet eyes.
She always did want me to take this damn thing off... There was emergency release switch behind a slide-away panel that would disengage the whole armor if he needed medical treatment right away. Something that had actually happened to him a lot… back in the good ol' days.
Tony punched the button, releasing seals and locks all over the Iron Lung. And a gold substance, a bright beautiful gold, began to flow over Tony's skin as the dead armor began to open up…
"I guess you're just gonna have to tell me now…", Spymaster said regrettably.
Pepper just glared, sweat running down her brow and her short red hair draping over her rage filled eyes.
"I got two more limbs to choose from…"
"You killed Tony…", she gasped then held her breath again.
Beat, beat, beat, went Tony's heart. The gold flowed. He got up. It hurt, his whole body was sore. He propped himself up on a knee as the backpack of his armor falls away, ripping free tubes. His chest plate fell off, pulling the rest of the armor with it. Gold flowed. His lungs, his real lungs, filled with air on their own. Gold flowed.
"Yeah…", Spymaster said. "It was a long time coming too." He held his gun to her head. "And it'll happen to you too."
Tony's hammer that had been in his hand during the explosion laid half covered in the sand. A gold hand reached down and picked it up.
"Well?", Spymaster asked. "You gonna talk?"
Pepper slumped to the ground, yelping from the twin shots of pain in her legs.
"Well?", he asked.
"Not… A chance." She spit at him, the spittle landing on his waist.
"A shame." He pulled back the hammer of the pistol for effect.
Pepper's eyes suddenly went wide and she was breathless. But… She wasn't looking at Spymaster… "…Tony… You're…" She was looking directly behind him.
Spymaster spun around.
And Tony Stark, bathed from head to toe in gold, swung his hammer into Spymaster's chest with all his might!
A sickening "Uckh!", a sort of wet hack, was the only sound that escaped Spymaster's throat as he hit the ground.
"Pepper!", Tony yelped as he dropped the hammer and stared down at her.
Pepper… was just as shocked. "Tony…" She looked him over from head to toe.
There were still a few old medical connection couplings in his flesh, but those were taken care of easily enough. The gold Extremis formed a solid suit over him, like some sort of gold latex paint. His chest was not collapsed, nor smashed, nor inside out, or any deformity of any imaginable kind. …Aside from the medical couplings and the exit ports for the Extremis, that is.
"Pepper…", Tony looked down at his own body too, staring at his chest and his upturned palms.
"Oh my God…", Pepper uttered. Then she smiled. "Told you."
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"You should be proud of yourself…", Pepper said as she trotted herself into Tony's room, cracking the door open and peering into the dark room. "Spymaster wont talk cause he can't talk. You cracked his sternum pretty nicely."
She was only wearing shorts, as her legs were encased in flexible splits and support leggings to assist her injured legs in walking. Ah, the wonders of Stark International's medical division, back in the day.
Tony was sitting at his desk, alone in the dark, staring down at his body with his back to Pepper. The Extremis had retracted itself back into the hollows of his bones earlier.
"He'll live though…", she said as she looked over at Tony's bed, a pod-like structure snaked over with wires and machines and tubing. "Got enough medical equipment to heal a third world country over here. He's wrapped up and tied down in the guest room. We need to find out how he found us, and…" That's when she turned to look a bit closer at Tony as he sat in his chair.
He was nude, staring down at his body, which was cast deeply in shadows, with his hands turned upwards towards the ceiling. The large cast iron seat, designed to hold him while in the Iron Lung, must have been cold and uncomfortable. But, Pepper imagined, Tony most be savoring in the sensations of his own body free of that iron thing…
"Tony…?"
"I'm fine, Pepper.", he said softly as he spoke through the thick beard.
"We need to find out how Spymaster found us, Tony.", she paused. He continued to sit in the deep shadows and deeper contemplation. "But… You probably want to be alone tonight, don't you?"
Tony slowly nodded.
"Good night, Tony…", she said. "Spymaster's all tied down for the night and secured. Call me if you need anything, alright?"
"Pepper…", he called out to her from the back of his throat.
"Yes?"
Tony slowly turned and looked at her over his shoulder, his blue eyes seeming so fragile and distant in the dark. "Thank you…"
Pepper, as she had quite a few times before in the long decade, felt a swell from her softer side. She closed her eyes, bent over slightly, and kissed his thick bearded cheek. "Good night, Tony…" She turned, and walked out while quietly shutting his door behind her.
Tony, was left in the dark again. He reached over to a drawer, and from within withdrew a bottle of Whisky and an empty glass. He held both in his hands, his real human hands.
And he stared once again at his familiar demon in a bottle, his old friend, his long lasting adversary… His most hated aspect of himself… And set the glass down before chugging strait from the bottle. The wonderful foul liquor burned down the back of his throat, a sensation so familiar as to be comfortable.
He set the bottle down with a gasp, and leaned over his desk.
He sat for a moment, thinking as the hard liquor ran through his veins without the Iron Lung to protect his liver.
Then he opened another deep drawer in his desk, and withdrew a large stack of newspapers…
Ten minuets later, the whisky was pushed away to the corner of the desk while the newspapers took up nearly every other square inch of space on the desk. Some of the newspapers were only a few years old, others the entire decade.
Tony grabbed his bottle again, and held it firmly in his hand as he looked over papers he had carefully organized.
"STARK TOWER COLLAPSE" was one of the headlines before him. "HULK RAMPAGE CONTINUES!", was another headline in front of him.
"WORLD MOURNS THE PASSING OF HEROES SLEWN BY THE HULK"
"HULK HAS FLED EARTH AFTER SEEKING REVENGE, HOW WILL WE REBUILD?"
"JUSTINE HAMMER RETURNS AND SEEKS CONTROL-", that headline was cut off by another paper which read "WAR MACHINE SLAUGHTERS INNOCENTS!"
"HAMMER NAMED NEW CEO OF STARK INDUSTRIES. PROMISES TO REBUILD"
"SPIDER-MAN ATTACKS SHIELD HELICARRIER"
"JIM RHODES RELEASED ON FALSE CHARGES."
"RETURN OF THE MANDARIN? WHAT WILL THIS MEAN FOR CHINA?"
"MANDARIN ELECTED EMPORER OF CHINA"
Tony winced as he continued to watch history catch up to him through the paper's headlines. He whipped his head up and took another swig from the bottle.
"STARK INDUSTRIES REACHES RECORD BREAKING PROFITS"
"FIVE YEARS LATER, A WORLD WITHOUT TONY STARK"
"UNREST IN CHINA"
The liquor split over Tony's lips and down his beard.
"STARK INDUSTRIES GOES PUBLIC! OWN YOUR VERY OWN ARMOR… FOR A PRICE!"
"TITANIUM MAN AQUITTED OF ALL CHARGES"
"SEVEN YEARS LATER"
"TEN YEARS LATER. A WORLD WITHOUT THE HULK."
Tony threw the bottle away from his face, splashing the alcohol across the pages of the newspaper as he leaned over the papers weakly.
"What has happened…", he choked up sadly. "Without me…?"
Five minuets later, he was staring at it again. And this time, his envy was thicker then usual.
The original red and gold Iron Man armor.
This happy little beach house, one of Tony's very first safe houses, held a duplicate of his very first red and gold armor. It was so old and obsolete compared to his other armors, and yet infinitely stronger appearing then Tony himself.
He stood in front of the armor as it rested in its rectangular crevice in the wall on display.
The iron face, so heavy, so emotionless, so much stronger then him. He found himself envying it and it's strength. He yearned to feel that power again, that raw logical power. He never could dream of it again while trapped in his Iron Lung, but now… Now he was free and standing nude before the armor once again, just like he had so many, many years ago…
He glanced at his face in the mirror of the small workshop. His hair and beard unruly and thick like a castaway, a grey streak of hair across his temples, his eyes so distant. He smelt of liquor and tears.
He looked down at his body, touching his bare fingertips to his bare chest. The Iron Lung was gone… Could he still… Could he still wear the armor? The real armor?
He looked up at the armor again. Staring at the emotionless eye and mouth slits. So powerful, so secure.
"What…" He reached up and set one shaking hand against the armor's cheek lovingly. "What have I let happen to you?" He hung his head low in sorrow. "To everything I own… To my world?"
…
He looked back up at the armor slowly… But with different eyes.
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Pepper suddenly woke up in her sleep, hugging her body pillow and cocooned in her sheets, to the sound of a loud metallic thump outside. And she groaned to herself as she shut her eyes with a glare still on her face. "Stupid Tony… Already drinking away your new body… Stupid.", she muttered, assuming the metallic thud was Tony's late night drunken swaggers.
She heard another metallic clang, like dropping a socket wrench. But she dismissed it in her slumbers.
"Stupid…"
And then silence. Sweet peaceful silence.
And then the muffled roar of jet engines!
Pepper's eyes shot open again.
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"Computer diagnostics… All green!", Tony yelled from somewhere over a low roar, the drunken slur in his voice somehow receding and his voice much clearer.
He felt it all around him. The Extremis nano-tech virus, and the armor. He could feel them both around him.
Extremis was all over him again, which was becoming once again a familiar feeling. The armor around Tony was so old, one of his first models, so old it was run by a mix of hand gestures and combination buttons to be pressed by the tongue. It had been long ago rebuilt for nostalgia's sake. Now Tony felt the Extremis flow and interconnect with the suit.
With the gold Extremis connected to the armor, and the Extremis connected directly to Tony's once magnificent brain, Tony could once again feel every sensation and detail of the armor as…
As if…
As if he literally was Iron Man again.
And…
The engines roared.
All systems were green.
And it felt so good… Like the return of your first love.
Suddenly the door to the workshop slid opened and Pepper rushed in, wearing her pajamas and her hair was a mess. She stopped dead in her tracks just beyond the door with wide eyes and a dangling jaw.
"Tony…", she spoke breathlessly, her words almost flooded over by the roar.
It looked back at her, with eyes that hadn't looked on anything in ten years…
Tony, in the Classic Red and Gold Armor, levitated just over the ground with his jet boots roaring triumphantly. Wires trailed over the armor and to various computers and monitors, like cob-webs all over an old locked away treasure.
Pepper smiled. "Tony!"
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Stark Industries Headquarters.
"Gentlemen…", Justine Hammer spoke to the board of directors from his plush leather seat. "I believe this adjourns this weeks meeting?"
The old bird had somehow come back. The last time Tony saw Justine Hammer; he was floating in a block of ice through space, preserved in a cryonic sleep of sorts. How he had come back had never been officially confirmed, but the common story was that his ice coffin had been retrieved from space at some point in the long decade since Tony Stark's death. And with Iron Man dead, it hadn't taken too much work for Hammer to finally achieve what he'd always wanted… Ownership of Stark Industries.
And Hammer, in his pressed suit and neatly cut white hair, couldn't be happier for it. Profits were through the roof, after all. And Stark International, soon to be renamed Hammer International, was growing larger every day. Not even the growingly defined wrinkles on his face could hide the smug sense of achievement and arrogance that Hammer enjoyed every day.
Outside, Hammer's poor mistreated secretary reached over and picked up her ringing phone. "Stark Industries, Executive Floor. How may I help you?", she asked with a distinct lack of energy.
A pause as she listened to the person on the other end of the line.
"I'm sorry", she said, "but Mr. Hammer is in a board meeting right now and can't be disturbed. May I take a message? Okay…", she said while wearingly reaching over to her memo pad to jot down yet another meaningless message in her dead-end career.
She began writing and repeating aloud what she heard the person on the phone say, not really paying attention. "Uh huh… Coming back to take what's mine… Hammer you sniveling weasel… Your hairpiece is ugly too. With love… Tony Stark." And after she wrote the name, her head perked up with attention. "Tony Stark?!"
Back inside the conference room, closed behind heavy redwood doors, the phone on the conference table began to ring. The Caller ID identified the caller as the secretary.
Hammer sighed to himself as he picked it up. "I told you…", he howled. "I'm not to be disturbed in my- What? WHO?! You can't be serious!"
The other board members looked up alarmed.
"Lock that door! I want security up here on the double!", Hammer ordered to the other members of the board.
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"I can't believe I used to call this flying." It was slow and noisy, he felt a strange vibration in his feet from the boot jets that he hadn't felt in years upon years. This was, to his recall, one of the very first flight-capable armors after all.
But you never really forget it, and it never really stops being so incredible, no matter how much you wanted to know where that annoying vibration from your left heel's thruster was coming from.
He looked over to see his reflection in the glass windows next to him, and the reactions of people noticing him past the windows. And it felt great.
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Men in armors stormed into the conference room.
The armors were a bluish grey in color, but were very similar to the Guardsman Armors worn by The Jury, back in the day. Although, these armors, had a gently glowing disk-like object on the center of their chests. Despite the repulsor emitters in the palms of the armors, they all carried rather large and powerful looking rifle weapons.
They were the mass-produced and public version of the infamous Iron Man. Hammer had stooped so low as to sell the technology to the public and private sectors… For a high price that is. Going public with the great power of Stark Technology, the same technology that fed S.H.I.E.L.D., was something Stark had vowed never to do long ago. And wisely so, no potential villain could be entrusted with such power.
But in a decade without Tony Stark… Well, there's no one to say otherwise.
Four of these armored guards stormed into the room, each taking a corner of the room. Two other guards on the outside of the room shut the large redwood doors and closed off the room.
"Hammer, is this really necessary?", one of the other board-members asked, referring to the guards.
"We are one of the world's largest weapons manufacturing companies, after all!", Hammer said as he stood up next to a guard. "What would you expect?"
"It's probably just a prank call.", another board member said.
"Or a trap.", yet another board member pointed out.
"All the more reason to take this seriously if it is a trap.", Hammer said. "And if it's a prank, the prankster will be sorely punished."
"Um…", a suddenly pale board member said. "Hammer? It's not a prank.", he said as he pointed behind Hammer.
Hammer's lips grew stiff, his fist clenched, a lump developed in his throat, and he quickly spun around to look behind him. And he saw exactly what he expected to see…
The Iron Man.
There he stood, shinning in his classic gold and red shining bright in the night sky. He hovered in the air above the roaring blast of his boot jets just outside the thick window. Through the thin eye slits of the helmet, bright blue eyes glared at Hammer, like some sort of monster peeking through the hole in his crate.
Hammer looked next to the guards, who already had their rifles raised and trained on Iron Man.
But the Iron Knight paid them no attention as he held out his hands and pressed them to the glass. The repulsors of his palms lit up and fired, and the thick reinforced glass immediately began to crack.
The guards opened fired, which only helped the glass to crack and break all over.
The board members dove to the floor for cover.
Hammer held up his arm over his eyes, shielding his old eyes from the bright lights with his Italian-suit covered arm.
Suddenly it got very bright and the glass shattered away. Then the light faded quickly.
"Hold your fire!", Hammer said as he waved his arm away from his face, flinging small shards of glass off his suit. "You should know better…"
Iron Man stood on the air, on the pure thrust and power beneath his own two feet. He extended one foot, and cut the power to the thrust just before it stepped foot onto the ground. Then he cut the power to the other boot and stepped safely on the carpet of the office, just before the edge of the broken window.
Hammer, in his frail but strong old body, stood strait up and stared eye-to-eye with the metal beast that had barged his way into the office.
"Sir?", one of the guards asked as he held his rifle trained directly at Iron Man's helmet. "Shouldn't we open fire?"
"No…", Hammer said. "Those armor piecing rounds weren't made for this kind of armor.", he said simply as he took a step up to the Iron Intruder.
And they both glared at each other. Neither had seen the other in nearly 15 years.
"Stark?", Hammer asked.
"Hammer…?", Tony replied from behind his very favorite wardrobe.
"How are you even alive?", they both asked each other at the same time. And then they both blinked in surprise.
"The last I heard you were frozen in a block of ice.", Tony said.
"I was found. The last I heard you were dead from an I-Beam in your chest.", Hammer replied back spitefully.
"The news of my demise was greatly exaggerated.", Tony said.
"So I can see…"
They paused silently again, and continued staring down one other.
"Tony Stark… Is that really you?", one of the board members asked as he and the rest slowly got up from the floor.
"Alive and kicking, Mr…", Iron Man said as he looked up and noticed the board member. "…Whoever the hell you are."
"That, is Mr. Robinson. One of my board of directors for my company, Stark.", Hammer said.
Iron Man looked back. "The company's mine. Always has been, always will. I've come to take it back." He practically spat out the last sentence.
"I don't see your name on it.", Hammer said.
…
"...My name is on it.", Iron Man said.
"Well- Er-", Hammer hesitated. "Yes, it is. But the company is mine." He pointed a finger up at Iron Man. "You died! You're dead, you hear me? And if it wasn't for me this company would have fell strait into the crapper!"
"Wrong.", Tony said from behind the mask of the Iron Man. "You were never supposed to have this. And now that I'm back…" The glare from behind the narrow eye slits never failed. "Prying it from your old bony hands is on the tippy top of my to-do list."
"You'll be hard pressed to do that." Hammer was as strong and stubborn as ever.
"I've pressed harder." And then Tony turned around and stepped right off over the edge of the broken window's ledge. And his boot jets whined for only 3/16th of a second before firing, the thrust supporting Iron Man's weight as he stepped onto the hot air beneath his feet and increased power to the thrusters. Iron Man began to fly off into the night sky…
Hammer swallowed a lump in his old wrinkled throat, then swiftly turned around and marched past other board members and guards. "Meeting adjourned!"
Two of the armored guardsmen quickly pulled the door open and Hammer stormed out first.
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"Computer!", Hammer yelled as soon as he stepped out of the elevator and entered the huge computer core. The room had a very strong breeze from the countless cooling fans and air currents surrounding the endless miles of fiber-optic cable and red-hot computer CPU cores. An endless sea of petrabytes and petrahurtz, of nano-circuits and silicon.
At it's master's beacon, a very large monitor in the middle of the room suddenly beamed to life. "NO DATA" displayed for about a quarter of a second before the screen blinked to black and then displayed a very unique face. The digitized and pixilated face looked very similar to the yellow face of Iron Man's later helmets, complete with a lower jaw that would move up and down to animate the action of talking.
"Yes, sir?", the computerized face asked.
"Computer, Tony Stark is alive.", Hammer said as he walked forth and stood in front of the large monitor. "Run a probability report. I want to know what this means."
"The creator is alive?", the computerized face haunting the computers and cables asked.
"Disregard.", Hammer said. "He is your creator, but I am your master. I paid the technicians to scrape what was left of you out of the remains of the Sentient Armor.", he told the computer firmly, almost as if to scold. "Now tell me what Tony Stark will do!"
"Yes, Sir.", the computer said, almost regretfully. "Subject Tony Stark, assuming he has no health complications from injuries with The Hulk during his last known appearance, will wish to reclaim his former company, Stark International."
"I know that already. He told me so himself. Crashed through the window in one of his old armors."
"Accessing security footage… Yes, sir. I believe Tony Stark, in addition to seeking to reclaim his company, he will also recondition and gather as many armors as he can from secret stashes he has hidden away for safe keeping."
"You think he stored away armors?"
"I would."
"But we've found all his stashes and safe houses."
"Incorrect.", the computer said. "Tony Stark was a very cautious and slightly paranoid man. It is highly likely he has various countermeasures and contingency plans that were orchestrated without S.H.I.E.L.D. or company knowledge. 'Under the rug', as it were."
Hammer grimaced. "What will be his first move?"
"With The Mandarin running china with Guardsmen Armors being worn by his top enforcers, and with rather high-end weapons technology, Stark will strongly suspect you of selling the armors to China."
"That's been disproved. Even S.H.I.E.L.D. can't place that."
"Tony Stark was head of S.H.I.E.L.D. once.", the computer promptly pointed out. "I predict a 87 likeliness that Tony Stark already suspects you to selling his technology to Communist China."
"My technology!", Hammer inserted.
"And a 97 likeliness that Tony Stark will be organizing a plan to wrestle control of Stark International from you through any number of ways. I also predict a 58-72 likeliness The Mandarin will be affected by this."
"Enough.", Hammer said. "I want you to search for and destroy all evidence of my selling armor and weapons to China."
"That request is already fulfilled twice per day, Sir. The contraband is always bought from Stark International though a personal Swiss account of yours and sold personally to a different representative of the China Board Of Education who does not know the contents of the packages he ships. All paper information is swiftly destroyed and all digital data is encrypted and backed up in my own personal hard drive then deleted from the original source. S.H.I.E.LD. is eventually contacted after a random delay of no more then 5 days and no less then 2 hours, and given a redundant update on their own separate shipments and orders."
"And to get to the backed up files on your hard drive?"
"Tony Stark would have to infiltrate the company's security and access my core hard drive directly from this outlet. However, downloading the data would be impossible, due to painware simulations and master-command override programs, which prevent my doing so. Would you like me to review the list of contingency features to prevent my handing over sensitive information?"
"No…", Hammer muttered under his breath.
"At first attempted violation, painware simulation programs deliver to me the simulated biological sensation of excruciating pain in increasing amounts. Second violation involves painware simulation and an automated closing of all network connections. Third violation begins the systemized deletion of my entire hard drive, including the encrypted files."
"Alright… I said I didn't need to hear it.", Hammer said, truthfully having enjoyed the list of features.
"Sorry, Sir. I did not pick that up." The computer paused to hear if Hammer had a reply. When he did not speak, the computer continued. "In any event, should Stark somehow download the files, they are heavily encrypted 272 times over in an exact sequence. Only I have the sequence data to decrypt the files."
"Why do I keep those files around, again?", Hammer asked curiously, almost happily.
"For blackmail, Sir. You have cornered several Chinese representatives into doing your bidding or exposed them to Mandarin for pocketing money in hopes of earning his better favor.", the computer said.
"I love me.", Hammer said satisfied, and he turned and began to walk out. "Make a efficiency run over the entire company. Tie up any loose ends that Stark might gnaw at."
"Yes, Sir. I believe I can reasonably presume what he'd attempt first."
Hammer got into the elevator and pressed the button to close the doors and head for his office.
"After all.", the computer said as the doors closed. "I know Tony Stark the best."
The doors closed.
"He created me…", the computer said, it's pixilated face appearing to lower sadly.
-Loading…-
Iron Man's red armored glove gripped a thick chain, and gave it a heavy yank.
Pepper, Iron Man, and some other object covered with a tarp, stood in the dusty and dirty basement of a long-since ruined home. The building had been mostly demolished, and now hung open like a rotting wound among otherwise beautiful homes.
Pepper watched as Tony, as Iron Man, pulled the chain and a thick piece of flooring was pulled away by it. The flooring, nothing more then a large plate of metal, slid across the dirty floor quite loudly.
"I can't believe Hammer tried to have this place demolished.", Pepper said unpleasantly. "We could be staying in a mini-mansion instead of the bunker in the sub-basement."
"I'm just glad I left everything I owned to you and Rhodes.", Iron Man said as he looked back at Pepper, and then dropped the large chain with a horrible clanking sound when it hit the ground. "Otherwise he might've destroyed the bunker too if you hadn't stepped in and claimed ownership again."
"A lot of good that did us!", Pepper said. She was holding bags of groceries and supplies in her arms, and a little dust had caked on her brilliant red hair. Her legs were still wrapped by the supports that bent with joints at the knee and took weight off her injured muscles, which were healing quite nicely by the way. "We should have been here."
Tony lowered his head a bit. "I know. But that's the past."
"And we still don't know what happened to Jim…", she said, trailing off.
"I know.", Tony said again as he raised his helmet-covered head. "But we will soon." He turned and walked to the object covered in the tarp. He squatted down and scooped it up in his arms, like a heavy rolled up carpet or like the deceased corpse of Lazarus. With it safely in his arms, he turned and walked passed Pepper. "Come on."
Pepper sighed to herself, and then she let a smile creep over her lips. So much was wrong… But if Tony could somehow bounce back… For so many years she had fought to keep his spirits up. And now, by comparison, she seemed like the pessimist. "Alright."
In the large hole that was uncovered by the metal plate being dragged away, was a long staircase. Tony, the covered item he carried as Iron Man, and Pepper walked down the stone stares for what seemed like a decent while. The air was thick and stale, the smell of ghosts.
At the bottom of the staircase was a large door. Instinctively, Pepper went to a small keypad near the door, and bent over for it to read her retinal scan. "Hope this thing still works."
"That makes two of us. I'd hate to bust down my own door.", Tony said.
The keypad beeped an approval and the heavy metal door slowly slid away. Tony and Pepper walked in.
"Lights.", Tony said.
And then the lights suddenly clicked to life. They were now in a large two-story tall workshop with a corridor at the end leading to living quarters. Machinery and parts cluttered a few desks along with computers, all of them untouched for over a decade. And, across the walls, were less then a dozen of Tony Stark's most memorable armors neatly on display in their own crevices. If the air smelt like ghosts, then these old armors were surely what was haunting Tony's hidden workshop.
"Home sweet home.", Tony said, and then he walked across the workshop with the tarp-covered item in his arms.
As he walked, a large crimson metal hand slipped out of the tarp and hung loosely.
Iron Man set down the tarp-covered item on the table with a couple heavy clanks. As he stood back the tarp settled, and it was clear to see the human-like form under the trap.
"What is that, anyway?", Pepper asked.
"An armor.", Iron Man said.
"Well, duh.", Pepper said with a chuckle. "Which one?"
"A very good one.", Iron Man reached up, and pulled off the helmet. Tony Stark, had shaved off his beard, but kept that goatee and mustache he loved so much. He had also had Pepper cut his hair into a slightly more respectable cut. Although he hated the grey lines over his temples, even though he had to admit he did look distinguished with them. "I had been working on rebuilding that armor there." He set down his helmet next to the tarp-covered armor. "Most of it is actually finished, hardware wise. But…" He looked at it regrettably. "It's been ten years."
Pepper walked over and set down the groceries and supplies on a table. "Guess I better see what kind of condition the kitchen is in. What's on your to-do list?"
Tony looked at her, and smiled. "First, a change of clothes. This thing's an antique.", he said of his old armor, and walked past her with heavy clanks for footsteps.
"Then?", she asked with a raised eyebrow.
-Loading…-
"Attention unidentified aircraft, please identify yourself, you are entering restricted S.H.I.E.L.D. airspace.", said some woman over the radio. And then she listened through her headset to the aircraft's reply.
"This is Tony Stark, Iron Man.", the aircraft said.
An eyebrow raised on her face. "Sir, Tony Stark is dead. If you do not properly identify-"
"Code one-one-six-delta."
The slightly surprised woman typed in the code to her computer. And she blinked a few times. "This code's over ten years old, but… It's legit."
"I've been gone along time. Making a landing on Landing Pad 5. Over and out."
"Wait!"
The comm. link was already terminated.
"Damn!" She reached over and slammed her fingertip into a few specific buttons.
Sirens began blaring all around the compound. Soldiers rushed to their arms and took position. Sentries took up aim, looking for some sort of aircraft but only seeing a small red dot in the sky. All around… The S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier.
The Helicarrier floated above the clouds, like some sort of castle in the sky or Zeus's thrown atop Mount Olympus. Literally, a flying aircraft carrier and battleship.
And all personal looked up, weapons trained, on the glowing red dot that came closer and closer.
"Remember, don't open fire until I tell you too.", Maria Hill said. It had been a long time since Tony Stark had last seen her, and she had long since been head of S.H.I.E.L.D. ever since Tony Stark's death. She looked up, wearing S.H.I.E.L.D.'s normal blue and white jumpsuit, and focused on the glowing dot that lowered itself closer to her. Could that really be Tony?
And…
It was.
It was Iron Man, wearing what would later be identified as, one very glitchy Prometheum Armor. Slowly it lowered with the flames of its boot jets licking up against it's armored souls of its feet. The unmistakable exhaust pipes stemming from the Prometheum Armor's back dully shined in the light of Helicarrier spotlights. And the somehow scarier faceplate stared down upon the soldiers of S.H.I.E.L.D. like some sort of angry cosmic being.
Iron Man slowly lowered flaming feet first, among large control towers and humongous weapon turrets.
And everyone… Was watching.
Maria watched, and found her self in a sense of ah again, for she hadn't seen Iron Man in… Ten years. She shook her head to snap out of it and watched as Iron Man lowered closer to the ground next to her on Landing Pad 5 and shut off his boot jets.
He landed on the ground with a noticeably quieter thud. Even if the armor had gathered dust for ten years and half of its systems didn't even work again yet, it was still a marked improvement over the older one he had been wearing earlier that night.
Iron Man looked over at Maria Hill, her reflection somehow showing up in the armor's dull gold finish. "Hello, Maria.", he said.
"Tony…?", Maria said. "How do we know it's really you?", she said firmly. "You're supposed to be dead."
"It's me." He reached up and removed his helmet, and held it low in front of his abdomen. "Code One-One-"
"Yeah yeah, I heard it already.", she waved it off, and then looked at him, still trying to gather just what she was looking at. "Where have you been?", she demanded.
"I've been away a long time, Maria…", Tony said gently. "And I want to know something…"
"And that is?"
"What's happened since I've been gone?", Tony Stark asked her.
………………………………………………………………………………...
Author's Note: I'm back, baby.
If Batman and Spider-Man can get Dark Knight Returns and Reign, why can't Iron Man have Futurist? This idea came to me one day, while I was in the shower, believe it or not. I looked up a friend who is a major Iron Man fan and we started talking. A while later, here we are now.
In case you're wondering about my other stories, mostly involving Red X… Well, I'll admit I've been on a bit of hiatus while I dealt with other issues. But I desperately want to get back to writing, even if it's not just in Red X stories. Red X is still my favorite character, by far, so you will absolutely see more of him. But I do want to write other characters and expand my horizon, since I dream of one day being a real comic writer.
So here's to comeback trails, and fighting for you right to be Number One on top again. Cheers. And enjoy the rest of Iron Man: Futurist.
P.S. Would the owner of a red flying Ferrari please report to the parking lot? You left your lights on.