Tony stood by the door to listen to Rhodey's spiel to the recruits. "The future of aerial combat," he said, his voice ringing through the hangar, "Is it manned or unmanned? I'll tell you, in my experience, no unmanned aerial vehicle will ever trump a pilot's instinct, his insight, that ability to look into a situation beyond the obvious and discern its outcome, or a pilot's judgment."
Tony chose that moment to walk up. "Colonel," he greeted. Rhodey turned towards him. "Why not a pilot without the plane?" he asked. Rhodey chuckled. "Look who fell out of the sky, Mr. Tony Stark!" "Hello, sir," one of the recruits greeted. Tony shook his hand.
"Speaking of manned or unmanned, you gotta get him to tell you about the time he guessed wrong at spring break; just remember that, Spring Break 1987, that lovely lady you woke up with? What was his name? Was it Ivan?" "Don't do that," Rhodey said. "Don't do that. Don't believe that, don't do that, don't do that." "Okay," Tony shrugged.
"Give us a couple minutes, you guys," Rhodey said to the recruits. They walked off. Rhodey chuckled. "I'm surprised," he said. "What?" Tony asked. "I swear I didn't expect to see you walking around so soon." "I'm doing a little better than walking," Tony said.
"Really," Rhodey said, crossing his arms. "Yeah," Tony said. "Rhodey, I'm working on something big. I came to talk to you…I want you to be part of it." Rhodey smiled. "You're about to make a whole lot of people 'round here real happy," Rhodey said with a nod. "'Cause that little stunt, at the press conference, it was a doozy."
Tony took a deep breath. "This…is not for the military. I'm not…it's different." Rhodey's brow furrowed. "What, you a humanitarian now or something?" "I need you to listen to me," Tony said.
"No," Rhodey said. "What you need is time to get your mind right." Tony gave a patronizing smile. "I'm serious," Rhodey said as he turned and walked away. "Nice seein' you, Tony." "Thanks," Tony muttered.
Tony sat down at his computer and started inputting code. "Jarvis, you up?" he asked. "For you sir, always," the AI replied. "I'd like to open a new project file, index as Mark II," Tony said. "Shall I save this on the Stark Industries Central Database?" Jarvis asked as Tony moved a file from his computer screen to his holoscreen.
"I don't know who to trust right now," Tony muttered. "'Til further notice, why don't we just keep everything on my private server." "Working on a secret project are we, sir?" Jarvis asked. "I don't want this ending up in the wrong hands," Tony said as he redid the Mark I hologram, trashing parts and keeping others.
"Maybe in mine it can actually do some good," Tony said as he spun the hologram around.