Iron Fire

Chapter Seven: Time to Close Up Shop. The Stark Loophole


A few weeks later, and I was back to one hundred percent. I worked on my work so hard that you could practically see steam pouring out of my head. My shed was wrecked as I had moved what I could move up to my room and salvaged what I could. Poor Dum-Ee was completely atomized.

My phone rang as it was Momo, "Yo, talk to me, Miss Lightning Bolt!" I greeted.

"Are you okay?! I heard about the Iron Endeavor thing, I wish I could've helped, but my dad had something to do and he borrowed Mjolnir… I'm glad you're alright, Machine-Head…" She sighed.

"Yeah… huh?!" I was interrupted by Tony.

"Kid, this is serious!" He said as I put Momo on hold.

"What? What's up?" I asked.

"Look outside," He said as I looked out of my room window to see a team of ten or twenty guys combing the crater where my shed used to be. A woman with graying black hair and chocolate brown eyes was supervising the clean-up as I walked outside.

"Excuse me, what are you doing?" I asked.

"I'm Maria Hill, director of SHIELD. We're here to confiscate your illegal gear, Mr. Todoroki," she said in a clipped tone as they took the remnants of Mark One and Two. Three was being taken too.

"You can't do that! This is all I have!" I yelled, watching them take everything I worked so hard on.

"Maybe you should've thought of that when you first put it on…" she sighed, looking at me with sympathy.

"Who ordered it?!" I yelled as Tony appeared.

"I did… I'm sorry, kid. But you were wielding it like you just found your dad's gun… I think the Iron Endeavor incident highlighted the fact that you were so open about it. I'm sorry kid, I appreciate all that you did. But maybe it's time to reconsider your dream," Tony suggested as I backed away and ran into the house.

As the trucks drove away with all of my hard work. I was crying into my pillow, tearing down all of my built-up confidence. All of it was laid bare.

I heard a knock on my door.

"Go away!" I snarled as the door opened to reveal my sister.

"Sido…" she sighed, sitting on my bed and putting her arm around me.

"Since when did that ever work?" she asked.

My phone buzzed. It was Momo, probably concerned because I left her hanging. I didn't want to talk. I didn't want to look at her again…

"Fuyu… That suit was all I was… now I have nothing. Everyone in 1-A is gonna turn their backs on me! Momo is… is… gonna stop being my friend! All I am was my suit! For once I felt like a real hero! Father was right, I was just mocking heroes…" I sniveled as Fuyumi picked up one of my many books on heroes of the past.

"Look at Hawkeye and Black Widow, they had no special powers! They just had training and guns and bows and arrows! You have to start believing in what you can do," Fuyumi said, smiling as I sat back up. That made me remember that nothing was really going to just change. That SHIELD would probably withhold my suits.


I lost the one thing that made me a hero… now I'm useless. As the days without my suit wore on, the more the others noticed. The more the others saw the pathetic waste of space that I was. Yet Momo and Mina weren't the only ones not to see that.

"Hey, Todoroki!" Mr. Parker, a kind man in his forties edging towards his fifties, called to me. He was our teacher and had similar facial hair to Tony's own. He always believed in me. He wound his arm around my shoulders.

"I know how it feels… I lost my suit too," he sighed, his brown eyes filled with memories. He smiled, patting my shoulder.

"There's someone I'd like you to meet… come on!" he said as I followed him to the support wing of the school. There was a huge metal door as I heard the cheery tones of pounding metal and the din of power tools. The door opened as a girl with long salmon pink dreadlocks with her bangs swept off to the right tackled me to the floor. Which isn't an everyday occurrence, but kind of an uncomfortable one.

"Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod! You're that blessed man that has all those Iron Man suits!" the girl squealed, squeezing me. She was shorter than me, and I wondered if she got a running start.

"Okay, Mei, that's enough…" Mr. Parker chided.

"Sorry! C'mon, Sidoroki! I wanna show ya something!" Mei said, grabbing my hand as I had noticed her eyes were gold and had crosshairs in them. Mirroring my sunset orange eyes. She had that lust for exploring and building new ways to make life easier like a scientist. But she had the intense drive of a fierce challenger going up against a champion. The drive that I lost.

"I'm extremely proud of THIS baby! In fact, I'm proud of all of 'em!" Mei exclaimed, holding up a pair of metal boots with giant motors on the soles. I saw a sleek silver suit… of my armor? It was Mark Two!

"It… can't be! Mei, how'd you get Mark Two?!" I gasped.

"Well… I found it. Just standing in a line with the other two… the problem is that I can't open it… cause of something called the 'Stark Loophole' Whatever the heck that is…" she huffed. Patting it half-heartedly.

"It's because the armor only responds to me, now," Tony's familiar voice said from it.

"Tony! You got a lotta nerve coming back here!" I snapped at him.

"Kid… what are you trying to do?" he asked.

"Because of you, I'm probably going to get expelled! That suit was all I needed to be a hero! To finally have a shot at being a goddamn hero! Now… now… I'm useless again," I sighed.

"So what you're saying is that you can only be a hero with my armor on?" Tony surmised, actually appearing in front of me.

"Exactly!" I snarled.

"Kid… you couldn't be more wrong even if you tried. You already are a hero, you don't need a suit. You've had a long time to think, but not long enough to know if it's really something you want. Is this for yourself? Or someone else?" He asked, raising an eyebrow as Mei dashed forwards, excitedly bursting with questions for Tony.

I realized that I was doing all of these things for one thing that I needed to sort out. Who am I?

There had to be something there to tell me who I am… that one essential question I needed to answer.

"Seriously kid? It's not something to blow your mind over… I'm just letting you have your suits back, this is a 'teachable moment'," Tony sighed.

"I'm… Sido Todoroki, future hero Iron Fire. Designation Lil' Stark, Loose Cannon, Iron Kid, Iron Lad, and… Soft Little Stark," I sighed.

"Pfft… what's with the last one?" Tony snorted.

"Don't ask," I sighed.


"Alright, everyone! Today is Battle Training! And your partners will be picked at random! As well as the teams facing off today!" All Might yelled as we all looked at each other.

The training grounds were like carbon copies of the exam areas. We were broken up into teams of two. I ended up with Momo. I was lucky in that regard. It was heroes vs. villains.

I noticed that she was getting more and more nervous as our team was coming up. She kept on looking around like she had somewhere to be.

We went into the cityscape.

"Momo… you're gonna be alright, I'm gonna be right beside you!" I assured, my armor summoning itself. We met up with the others.

"Whoa! Momo-chan is that really you?!" Ochako gasped.

"Yes, it is! I finally figured out how to do the other half of my quirk… I guess it's because of my best friend…" she giggled, her grin never leaving her face.

"Yeah, maybe…" I sighed.

"Kid, don't beat yourself up, you didn't do anything…" Tony sighed, patting me on the back.

"I wish I had a better dad…" I huffed.

"You have me! I'm kind of your dad!" Tony objected.

"Yeah… but I mean a real one. One who didn't kamikaze his son's happiness and family. One who would be glad to give me hugs and bedtime stories… not one that took over an old gigantic Iron Man suit and tried to kill me and my new friend..." I sighed as my helmet came up around my head as All Might came in.

"Alright, everyone! Here's the first match-up!" he called, pulling our team out alongside Izuku and Ochako. I saw Bakugou's expression shifted to one of absolute rage and anger.

"So a Todoroki, a hero, and two heroes in training walk into a bar…" Tony surmised as I chuckled.

"I guess Momo is a hero… considering she's the daughter of a god and a mortal… I'm the Todoroki, and Izuku and Ochako are the ones in training, right?" I asked.

I went silent, we were the villains in this exercise. The heroes would try to incapacitate or take the nuke we were protecting.

"Okay kid, Gravity Girl and Captain Green Bean are the heroes."

"I know that, and Izuku has that weird enhancement quirk… there's something off about it," I surmised, scanning the building for them.

"I'll protect the bomb, you go and spook 'em," I commanded as Momo nodded, shouldering her hammer and walking out.

I made my helmet go down as I took everything that Ochako could float out of the equation, I couldn't give her a chance to win. The pillars had to stay, though. It would make the building structurally unsound. I knew that Stark Industries funded many projects involving heroes and their training. The pillars would prove to be a problem if Uraraka was able to yank one out of its mooring.

"My company's contractors are helluva good builders!" Tony said imperiously.

"Shut it, 'Dad'! I need to concentrate!" I snapped at him.

"Jeez… fine!" Tony huffed.

*KRAKOOOM!* The building shook as I was tossed off my feet. Momo was doing one hell of a distraction… I think? I wasn't really sure.

All I knew was that she probably was still trying to get a handle on her new powers.

"Kid! On your left!" Tony yelled as I barely dodged a rain of stone bullets.

"What the- Uraraka must've made it past her!" I snapped as the floor fell away and I ignited my thrusters. The bomb almost fell, but I caught it, my suit whining from the strain. It would be if there was any weight to it.

"Yoink!" she yelled. I floated up high, my thrusters resisted as warning signs popped up in my face.

'At least I'm gonna go out actually trying…' I thought as I hefted it and grinned, 'One… last… gamble!'

Then, my thrusters started to sputter, as I started to slowly descend.


I sat before my mother, my armor was collapsed into a small chip, barely even the size of a nickel. She and I stared at each other. Her face was tight and withdrawn as I looked down at my feet.

"I'm… sorry," I sighed.

I felt her hand squeezing mine, "It's alright, Sido. Your father went crazy as I did…" she huffed.

"I don't get it! Why? Why did he…? Why did he act like a father after he almost killed me? Mark Two was almost completely broken if I hadn't broken his armor with a punch before… he'd have killed me…" I huffed as my mother caressed my scarred cheek.

"He clearly wanted to try to make amends… that's the first step, Sido," she said, calculating her words carefully.

I smiled sadly. Watching the world go by as I really reflected on what had happened to me, I haven't had my suits for three weeks, my shed was gone, still pounded into a crater, my dad is in jail, and I met the one person that could really understand me. In fact, that's why I came back to school.

"Uhm… hey, Mei?" I asked as she was bent over her workbench, her odd steampunkish goggles on her eyes as she was working on something.

"Whaddya working on?" I ventured.

"Something important, are ya here to work on your suits?" she asked.

"Yeah, Mark Two died today… the thrusters destabilized and sputtered out, I think my energy source sucks… I've always had trouble with that," I sighed as Mei still worked.

"You listening?" I huffed.

"Yeah, I'm thinking," Mei said.

"About what?" I ventured.

"That homecoming dance… you got someone to go with ya… right?" she asked.

"No, why?" I denied.

"Figures, we're innovators, we have no time for others." Mei sighed.

"Ask Momo, she'd jump at the chance…" Tony suggested.

"Okay, I will," I said.

Little did I know that she really would jump for it...