Iron Man 1
Tony's POV
Battle strategies can work as well in the business world as they do in the battlefield. Wasn't that supposed to be the lesson taught in the Godfather? Or at least was so claimed by Mr. Hanks in You've Got Mail.
I have a phobia of Valentine's Day. It's one of only 2 days each year I'm guaranteed not to go on a date; the other being the anniversary of my parent's death. They, or at least Mom, rates one day a year of self-isolation and complete gluttony of alcohol.
But I digress. The Godfather: too slow; too long. Sort of like that walking movie, King of the Rings? Something like that. You've Got Mail: my bots set it on replay every 14th of February until I yell at them to turn the damn thing off.
Battle strategies work in boardrooms. Or any of the other unexpected places life takes you. One of my favorite battles to pick strategies from was day 1 of the Battle of the Bulge.
It, along with Yinsen, helped me survive my unexpected leave from Stark Industries and the resulting aftermath.
Battle of the Bulge Play Flashback…
"My feet are going to freeze off!" I used a gruff voice as I removed the boots of a Gi-Joe and then placed him back in the bunker. "Private, run back to base and get me dry socks and dry boots."
Lesson 1: Dress properly.
Out in the real world, dressing properly means suits and ties in boss mode, a tux for the snooty types, jeans & a T for engineering, and whatever's "in" for a night of clubbing.
In this dusty cave dressing properly means ditching my 18.59 kg (41 pounds) of wired luggage I was being forced to carry around. i.e. The car battery attached to my chest was out of fashion and needed to go.
I felt like Frankenstein's creation, except the towns people were carrying a fish tank full of water instead of torches and pitchforks.
Fun fact: pure water does not conduct electricity.
Not so fun fact: nearly all water contains salts. Saltwater does conduct electricity.
Car batteries conduct electricity.
i.e. Not only did I experience the joy of repeatedly being threatened with being drown to death, I got shocked with jolts of electricity each time they stuffed my head under water and I came out dripping.
I make weapons to protect Americans and their allies. I don't make them for genocidal nut jobs. I won't be the next Hitler's lackey. Yet, somehow, this group of nut jobs has my weapons AND a harvest from my inteli-crops. More on that later.
But each waterboard session made it harder for me to maintain my resolve.
I confided to Dr. Frankenstein, "Even if I agree to what they want, I'm going to be dead within a week." We both knew that the car battery was a temporary solution to the issue of the shrapnel edging towards my heart. And neither of us had any doubt that our captors intended to kill us.
He responded, "Then this is a very important week for you."
The first step was to dress properly. Wet socks could freeze feet in winter. Corporal Milsoevich had made sure to ditch his before fighting his battle and I needed to ditch the car battery before I fought mine.
Dad had taught me the basics of arc technology in my early teens. Tech always evolves, and often shrinks. If I were to live, I needed to shrink the arc reactor from the height of a room to something that could fit between my ribs.
Battle of the Bulge Play Flashback…
Put them in long, white coats. They'll blend in with the snow and no one will see them coming."
Lesson 2: Blend in.
I have my own fashionable way of blending in. If Pep could hear my thoughts she'd snort and say, "You? Blend?"
Note: I fashionably blend.
I dress the part, then shine like a meteor flashing through the mesosphere. You don't broker the deals I've made by staying a dull gray asteroid orbiting with the other space rocks.
Blending in in this desert cave meant making them think I was building the Jericho missile. The only way to escape was to make them think I was doing what they wanted. I did it so brilliantly that I was allowed to walk around, order people about, and gather all the materials I would need.
Battle of the Bulge Play Flashback…
I grabbed a Barbie and in a girly voice said, "Oh, no! My cousin is a Nazi soldier. They might kill him! I better tell the other Nazis so they don't get ambushed." Then I showed the Barbie running back towards the town where she found a Nazis soldier and said, "None of your men are making it through! They're being ambushed by the enemy!"
Lesson 3: Tell allies you need their help.
Never get so short minded that you fail to learn lessons from your enemy's side of the line. The Nazis eventually captured the 99th infantry because some village girl had tattled and sought the Nazi's help.
I have an ego that I have no desire to contain. But I also have a fucking mega-brain and a whole childhood worth of training on how to take the reins at Stark Industries.
My ego is appeased by having my name plastered on everything my company spits out. But Stark Industries isn't a one man show. Thousands of people are in my employ. It's my job to delegate who does what so it all gets done. Being the boss man, I don't beg others to help me; I order them. It's one of the perks of being at the top.
Dr. Frankenstein terrified me. Waking up mid-surgery to find your chest splayed open and the Stigmata doctor standing over you with a scalpel does not make for a great first impression. Neither does finding out that the mad man has installed an electromagnetic attached to a car battery into your chest. He is one scary mo-fo.
I had to use logic to force past the fear. Logically, he'd saved my life with the impromptu surgery. Logically, I needed him to do it again.
I really did not want him to do it again. Bare minimum of pain killers. No anesthesia to knock me out during surgery. Dirty cave resulting in a high likelihood of dying of sepsis. But he'd kept me alive so far.
Step one: Introductions. "What do I call you?"
"Yinsen."
Something as small as asking for a name can be as momentous as deciding you're going to find a way to live. Those two moments were one in the same for me.
As scary as he was, he was a prisoner here too. We had a common history. We're both into innovative solutions. We met at a tech conference 8 years ago, so we run in the same circles.
He'd helped me survive. Therefore, Yinsen was an ally. I revealed enough of my plan to him to enlist his help with creating the miniature arc reactor and its installation.
Yinsen stood above me again, scalpel in hand, ready to re-open my chest, carve a perfect circle in my ribs and rearrange my insides so a tin can could be placed near my heart. I started to hyperventilate. "Yinsen, I may need you to give me a concussion."
"Stark?"
"Punch my head. Put me in a choke hold. Something. I don't think I can be awake for this again."
"A brain bleed is not what you need during surgery. Neither is asphyxiation. Drift into calculations and what you intended to do next. Would you care for a cover for your eyes so you cannot see what it is I am doing?"
The memory of the black bag our captors put over my head each time they wanted to hide information or increase my fear made me choke on my next breath and grip the table tighter. Tears wanted to leak from the corners of my eyes, but spilling them would be bad.
The cameras were always watching and the walls could be listening. Never reveal your fears to your enemies. Even if they already know them, they'll use that knowledge against you to make your situation worse.
"Just do it." I gritted my teeth and squeezed my fist.
"Relax, Stark. Your body needs calm. Think of what you will build, the mechanics of it."
Yinsen continued to coax and my brain obeyed, devising the proper attire to escape our confines.
Battle of the Bulge Play Flashback…
"Suddenly, they were ambushed on both sides."
Lesson 4: Plan for multiple attacks.
I'm used to being ambushed for my company's dealings. I ambush them right back with all that we do to improve society. Medical advancements. Intelli-crops. Technological advancements.
I create weapons to help soldiers ambush the enemy.
We have multiple attackers against us in the cave, so I devised multiple ways to attack back. Including rigging the door to blow if we were interrupted while I put on the suit.
Battle of the Bulge Flashback…
"Mom, can I practice at the shooting range today? Those two only made it because they were really good shots and you can only get good with practice."
"Your gun slinging days will need to wait until your Dad returns. But I'm certain there will be no need for you to defend the fort before that time."
Lesson 5: Practice.
In business, I say modify and improve while practicing. Repeat what's good; ditch the parts that don't work.
On the flipside, since my business is weapons manufacturing, I have tallied up a lot of hours practicing my aim. You've got to know if the mis-fire is poor aim on the part of the equipment or poor aim of the shooter. It was vital that I be a good shot and Dad had started my training sometime between when I learned to read and when I learned to write.
To escape our captors it was pure repetition and practice of the steps we were going to take. The literal steps.
"Say it again."
"41 steps straight ahead. Then 16 steps, that's from the door, fork right, 33 steps, turn right."
We'd had to count and memorize it while being walked in and out of the cave with black bags over our heads. Our captors might not have known squat about tech, but they were smart enough not to visually show their prisoners the path to freedom.
Battle of the Bulge Play Flashback…
Then I picked up a walkie-talkie, "Lieutenant Bouck to base. The Nazis have invaded Belgium and are preparing to cross the Ardennes Forest. Troops are needed in this area. Repeat troops are needed in this area."
Then I ran from the room and used the walkie-talkie's mate to say, "Troops are not available. Hold the line."
Lesson 6: Seek backup, but don't depend on it.
Turns out I only learned half this lesson. I was taught how to be the boss. A big part of that job is deciding who your backup is going to be.
I hired Pepper to manage the parts of my life I didn't care to deal with.
I paid Obie to handle sales.
I paid Happy to make sure I didn't drink and drive and so I could continue to work while in transit. Also, that security thing he's so hyped about. I guess I should have paid him to come along on this trip rather than insisting that I had that whole military as my babysitter and that I'd be perfectly safe. But then he might be dead too, like the soldiers that tried to defend our tank. So perhaps its best he wasn't along for the ride.
I paid and trusted R&D to do the jobs I assigned them.
Essentially, every employee at S.I. is there to backup and stay united behind the Stark line.
But I'd ignored the don't depend on backup part of that lesson. Someone, or multiple some ones, within my company were either crap at security or were intentionally selling my weapons, and crops, off the books.
I'd found, over the last 3 months, that Stark intelli-crops will sustain life and stave off starvation, when your captors are willing to dole out enough into the bowl. But they provide nothing for the tastebuds.
There was no backup to be had. Yinsen had steady hands and brains enough to help me build the suit and get me suited up. But in battle, he was just an old man with no protection. I was our only hope of escape.
So why the hell was he running out to greet the villains on his own! I yelled and tried to stop him, but he went out anyway, providing me with backup at the exact moment that I didn't want it.
Battle of the Bulge Play Flashback…
"Holy crap! It was a dud!"
"That dud just broke half of Private Houste teeth."
Lesson 7: Even imperfect things can have an effect.
The crux of having Howard Stark as a father is that you're always expected to perfect whatever you make, but nothing is ever perfected because there are always ways to improve tech.
That isn't to say that Stark Industries sells in-effective junk. That's Justin Hammer's job.
The only indicator that you'd done enough was when the official deadline for a product was reached. Then it'd go into production and get sold. Then R&D, or me, would work on the next evolution of the product.
Our deadline in the cave got shortened to a week, and then to mere minutes. Perfection wasn't an option. Getting every screw in wasn't even an option. It just needed to be effective enough for battle and escape.
I recall that Corporal Milosevich said that though he had followed the rule of trading out his weapons frequently to keep them functioning, the private had ignored his advice, claiming there wasn't time to pause from shooting. The private had burned his hands, but he'd also saved the life of their lieutenant with the overhead gun.
In battle, you've just got to make do.
Yinsen gave his life for mine. I took out my rage on all of them and made sure to destroy all of my weapons as well. The flame throwers were quite effective.
The flight capabilities turned out to be nearly a dud, but effective enough to crash in the desert far enough away to make a retreat on foot.
Battle of the Bulge Play Flashback…
"Do you think Dad's fixed that issue? I wonder if a polymer would work better. But that might melt too." Then my son just sort of froze. I knew what was happening. Howard did it too. Their brains got so absorbed with trying to solve a puzzle that it was like someone flipped all of the breakers, turning off everything that wasn't related to solving that problem.
Lesson 8: Find solutions to problems.
My job at S.I. was to discover and solve tech problems. Though my brain was ensconced in making a better suit and in constructing bots to help me put on and remove the suit, a background channel in my brain was tabulating how my current work could be applied to improving other Stark products, or ideas for new products.
Obie was right. I needed to come up with new ideas to pitch the board. I'd announced to the press that weapons manufacturing was being shut down until I decided on the new direction for Stark Industries, but I hadn't followed through on that part.
On the other hand, Obie told me not to worry about S.I., that he'd handle things until I was ready. He's a senior executive at S.I. and my godfather. I decided to let him handle the business while I focused on my creation.
I shoved the new product ideas further into the recess of my mind and zeroed in on perfecting my new creation.
It was fun. God it was fun. Flying, twisting turning, dodging, with barley a thought and the slightest turns of limbs. I'd joined the Wright brothers. Buzz Aldrin. I'd devised a new form of flight. I was doing something no human had ever done before. Jet packs don't count. There may be a vague similarity, but those were like a tricycle to my motorcycle.
I was flying faster and with more control than any other device previously made.
I wanted to set a record. "We're going up, Jarvis."
"Sir, I'd advise against going so high."
I ignored him. "Push it, Jar."
"As you wish, Sir."
My own Westley, but since I had no desire to be Buttercup I refrained from entitling my A.I. with that nickname.
Something I didn't take into account with my record setting goal: condensation. Or deposition may be more accurate. Cold, moist air floats about in the upper troposphere until it latches on to a piece of dust and freezes to it. When it happens enough times you get a cloud. Metal conducts heat away to the oxygen and nitrogen molecules in the air quickly, leaving it cold. The cold water vapor flocks to the cold metal and instantly freezes. Deposition.
Frozen metal joints don't function.
I'd become a giant drop of precipitate tumbling to the ground and if Jarvis didn't turn back-on I was going to splat. I may have a bit of the adrenally junky in me. The elation of taking off into the air mere decimeters (inches) from crashing into the ground flooded my system with endorphins. I whooped with delight and continued my flight.
Turns out landing was a problem too. Gold-titanium is heavy. Apparently heavy enough to put a hole through several layers of my house, a grand piano and some hefty dents into some very expensive cars.
So, two problems to solve: freezing and landing. I glanced up to the night sky through the damaged floor above me. Perhaps more than two.
Battle of the Bulge Play Flashback…
"Suddenly, they were ambushed on both sides."
Lesson Four, Revisited: Plan for multiple attacks.
"None of your men are making it through! They're being ambushed by the enemy!"
Lessons 3 Revisited: Tell allies you need their help.
I kind of suck at the planning thing. Probably too many times of hearing Dad reiterate, "Ready. Fire. Aim."
I was pissed that Yinsen's village was under attack. That town was small enough that he had to know those people. Probably shared blood with those people.
He'd made it so I could live. Time to return the favor. I put on the suit, sonic bombed myself across the ocean and a couple of continents, then took aim at the enemy.
It was satisfying.
It never occurred to me to plan an escape route or that my best bud would be called in to hunt me down and take me out.
I am a law-abiding citizen. Seriously! I am. Until impulse takes over. It's always been impulse that lands me in the boiling pot. In this little situation, Rhodey was the chef and I was the lobster that was about to be turned into dinner. It'd be really dumb for me to give him a real time map to the location of my lobster cage. So I lied.
Then the sous-chefs really started fishing for me with weapons my company had designed. I did my best to evade them, but they were S.I. weapons.
Time to beg the chef to let me swim away into the ocean. "Rhodey? Yeah, it's me."
"Been your friend for a few decades now, Tony. I recognize your voice."
"No, I mean it's me. I'm in the suit that your pilots are trying to shoot down."
Seek and receive help from an ally. Results: success.
Minus a mil to replace the downed plane. I'm a billionaire. With a B. Do you know how many millions that is? 1,000. Times that by the amount of billions my company's worth? Chump change to save the boss's life.
Battle of the Bulge Play Flashback…
After the girl tattled on them the Nazi's got sneaky and sent some of their men to crawl on their bellies up behind the bunkers."
Lesson 9: Be wary of surprise attacks.
And…
Battle of the Bulge Play Flashback…
Another soldier responded, "Trade out your weapon. Go back and forth between 'em. If the barrel warps no bullets'll get through it."
Lesson 7 Revisited: Even imperfect things can have an effect.
I was paralyzed. Unable to do anything but think.
The people that aren't a hot mess follow the rule of moderation: A bit of everything, but not too much of any one thing. I tended to follow the rule: If it feels good, do it. Making tech felt good. Checking the accounting books was boring. Turns out my company needed me to moderate a bit more; both in the be more observant sense and the spend less time in the lab and more time overseeing everything sense. But I couldn't be everywhere. That's why I hired the best.
The godfather that helped teach you how to be a businessman should have been counted amongst the best. Turns out the equation best=trustworthy is a false statement.
Who would think it could get worse than waking up in a cave with your chest attached to a car battery? Than being punched and waterboarded while your hands are occupied holding said battery?
Worse is discovering that your godfather paid them to do it. Paid to have you murdered. Has plans to murder your girl. Has just used your own tech to paralyze you. Is currently taking steps to murder you by removing the device that is keeping shards of metal from slicing your heart to pieces.
I hadn't been happy about him dealing under the table. I'd been fairly well furious that he'd been the one that proposed I be removed from the board of directors. I'd sent Ms. Potts to gather evidence against him.
I hadn't anticipated that my godfather wanted me to be murdered.
I kept trying to force my limbs to move. The moment I had a twitch of movement I forced them to do more. I staggered to my lab and almost made it to my workbench. Almost.
DUM-E is my first born. He was built to learn by observation. He makes mistakes, but he does his best to take care of me. He isn't as stupid as his name implies or as my ranting at him would indicate. He observed what was missing from my chest, deduced what I needed and put the original arc reactor within my reach.
"Good boy."
I smashed the case into the ground and inserted the electromagnet into my chest.
Battle of the Bulge Play Flashback…
"Who was making their weapons, a toy company? They couldn't even take out one of our soldiers when they were two feet away!"
I ran around maneuvering the white painted soldiers so every bunker had Nazis peering over the edge of the bowl.
"Übergeben!" (surrender in German)
Lieutenant Bouck looked around. His men were out of ammunition and all of them had guns aimed at their heads. "We surrender!"
Battle of the Bulge Play Flashback…
"Kid, if you haven't figured it out, we're not making it through this day. I just gave him time to take out a few more Nazi's before we all kick the bucket."
Lesson 10: Know when to surrender.
My tech was superior, but it had essentially run out of ammo. Not bullets, but power. It was on emergency backup and within minutes it was going to be nothing but a hunk of metal surrounding me, that was so heavy it could put holes through several layers of my house.
I ripped off one of the gloves. Then Stane landed in front of me. Instinct had me trying to use the repulsor against him, but my hand was bare. We fought. A good old-fashioned brawl. He punched me, making me roll across the roof. I flew at and punched him. He tried to crush my suit and tear me in half. I scalded him with sparks, interfering with his tech.
I made a brief escape, enough time to put in place a plan. I instructed Pepper on how to prepare to blow up the arc reactor. The large one my father made back in the 70s.
Obadiah came around the corner I'd been hiding behind and I pounced on his back. I tore out some of his circuits. My power source showed another lapse in its ability to keep working by ending the visual connection to the outside world.
Luck would have it that Stane chose that moment to devest me of the faceplate. My blindness had lasted less than a second.
He threw me and I tumbled across the roof again. I'd barley had time to stand when he started shooting the glass beneath my feet. The large arc reactor lay beneath the glass roof.
I was dangling from the metal framework and Obie was doing the whole supervillain thing, monologuing about the world's greatest weapon that I'd gifted him with, that he could now use to do as he pleased.
It was time to surrender. And it was time to accept I wasn't making it through this day.
Yinsen's last words to me had been, "Don't waste your life." I'd chosen that to mean: Stop being the Merchant of Death. Stop sending such powerful weapons out into the world and into the hands of people that may choose to use them in ways I disagree with.
Sacrificing myself would end the mess Obadiah had caused, as long as I took him out with me. "Pepper! Time to push the button."
Pepper yelled back, "You told me not to."
"Just do it!"
"You'll die."
She was right. But I was ready to make that sacrifice to make sure Stane died too. Part of me took a moment to acknowledge that I was formalizing his name to distance myself from who I was about to kill. As firmly as I could I ordered, "Push it."
Lightning flashed from the reactor, sending shots of plasma across the room. The upward blast of heated air propelled my body up and then out as the heated air found room to spread. I tumbled onto a solid part of the roof.
The secondary burst of plasma as the reactor went into full destruction blasted upward in a complete circle headed for the stratosphere, instantly vaporizing Stane and his suit.
I survived.
But it's the lessons reiterated to you by your parents that tend to stick like Gorilla glue. Ready. Fire. Aim.
I guess Dad had impulse issues too. But why argue with success?
Ready.
The powers that be had que cards written up and cover up stories with 'witnesses' ready to go. I had the cards in hand and was prepared to read them to the press. But as questions were thrown my way and I spouted the lies, realization struck.
I was a person that choose indulgence. I'd spent my childhood playing games of make-believe, pretending to be a superhero. How rare is it be able to realize that dream? And come on, I was the man that had "Stark" engraved on bombs and bullets. I wasn't someone that hides their achievements.
Pepper was going to be pissed.
Impulse is my crux.
Fire.
"I am Iron Man."
Aim?
"How could you? How could you, Tony? We had a plan. And you just went out there and told the world you're Iron Man!"
Yep. Pep was pissed. She's beautiful when she's pissed. She's beautiful. Period. But it's something to behold a person with the guts to chew out one of the most financially and politically, and now with the suit, physically powerful people in the world. Particularly when that person was your boss and could fire you with a word.
She was fantastic! I really needed to make a move on that.
"It'll be okay, Pep. I promise."
"Okay? How is this going to be okay?"
I gave a sheepish grin and shrug and tried, "The public loves me?"
She gave a disgusted eyeroll, but didn't disagree.
Author's Notes:
Maybe I took some creative license with the need of a second surgery. Oh well. It's fan fiction after all.
