Deep in his lab below his family's apartment, Tony continued work on his latest project. He was working on a skin-tight technology interface suit. When it was done, it would allow him to wirelessly link up to and control computers and other technology with a thought.
"Tony!" Rhodey called from upstairs. "Tony are you still down there?"
Tony looked up from his work. "Huh? I'm down here Rhodey."
Rhodey walked down the stairs into the lab. The place was a mess with papers strewn everywhere and bits of machinery lined the tables and shelves.
"What are you working on now?" Rhodey asked.
"Just something that should allow man kind to manipulate machinery through thought," Tony explained.
"And you're doing this…why?" Rhodey asked.
"I was bored," Tony said as he idly worked.
"So you decided to create the next great invention of the world?" Rhodey asked in disbelief. Tony just grunted.
"Geniuses," Rhodey grumbled. "You know we have school tomorrow right?"
"That's tomorrow, this is today," Tony said. "Besides, when have I ever neededto study, sleep, or in any way try for school?"
"Show off," Rhodey accused.
"So what if I am?" Tony shot back with a smile.
Rhodey rolled his eyes and left Tony to his work. Tony continued late into the night, until finally it was done. Tony tried on the suit. It was skin tight, all black body suit that fit him perfectly. It didn't have gloves and the collar only came up about an inch. Tony slipped his real clothes on over the suit. The black sleeves didn't stand out now that he had a normal shirt over them, and his jeans completely hid the leg section of the suit.
"Now to see if it works," Tony mumbled. He focused on his phone, and suddenly the phone turned on and called Pepper Potts, a girl Tony just so happened to have on his mind.
"Oh crap! Hang up hang up!" Tony shouted.
The phone hung up as ordered. Tony breathed a sigh of relief. The suit worked, and Tony could control technology with his mind. Tony went to sleep, fully dressed and still wearing the tech interface suit.
Above Earth, a lonely space ship orbited the planet. The ship of the Extremis, an alien race capable of manipulating technology through thought.
In the command bridge, an armored Extremis soldier walked in, dressed in Mk IV Extremis armor.
"Sir, technicians have completed work on the prototype Mk VII," the soldier reported. "Our scouts have also returned from their mission to Earth. It would seem the Emperor was correct. Human physiology is capable of accepting the Extremis virus."
"Excellent," the captain said. "Then very soon the invasion will begin."
"No," Tony argued.
"I'm telling you man, it's true," Rhodey boasted happily.
"Rhodey, there is no way that you asked out Whitney Frost today when I was in the bathroom," Tony insisted.
Rhodey gave up. "Alright so I didn't. But I was going to!"
Tony laughed. "Sure you were."
The two friends went back and forth like that as they walked home from school. Like all New Yorkers, they didn't bother to look up much. But if they had, they would've noticed the flaming meteorite streak through the sky and smash into the park. But they would notice it soon enough.
"So you got any homework tonight?" Rhodey asked.
"Finished it in class," Tony shrugged. "Looks like it'll be another boring night of nothing for me. How bout you? Homework?"
"Up to my eyeballs in it," Rhodey groaned. "But I'll manage."
Tony nodded. "Well I'm not staying cooped up at my place all day. Maybe I'll go for a walk in the park."
"Which is Tony-speak for: Maybe I'll go to the park to look for hot girls jogging," Rhodey joked.
"Maybe," Tony admitted.
"Your sick man," Rhodey accused as he walked to his apartment building.
"Whatever. See you at school tomorrow!" Tony called as he walked off.
High above the Earth, a single assault ship orbited the planet. Inside the ship, things had taken a turn for the better/worse.
"WHAT!" the captain shouted. "What do you mean it was lost?"
"The new Mark VII prototype was lost when we encountered a solar wind storm sir," the underling reported. "The cargo was lost, but we believe it has safely crash landed on the planet Earth."
"Then what are you still doing here?" the captain ordered. "Get down to there, and find that armor!"
"Yes sir!" the soldier shouted and took off.
Back on Earth, Tony hadn't seen any hot girls in the park, so he'd actually started going for a walk. By chance, or maybe by fate, he saw smoke rising out of the grass a distance away from the path. Tony slowly crept up to the smoking crater, unsure what he would find. What he saw amazed him.
Before him was a large metal pod about seven feet long. As Tony crept up to it, his tech-interface suit sent out a signal, and unseen hinges on the pod hissed open. Steam rose out of the now open crevices in the pod, blinding Tony. When the smoke cleared, Tony reached out and slowly opened the pod. Inside was a humanoid robot made of all silver metal and two glowing blue eye-slits. It also had a mouth slit, and on the chest was a glowing blue triangle.
Tony knocked on the chest like he was knocking on a door. A hollow sound was made. It wasn't a robot. It was an armor.
"No way…" Tony mumbled with a smile on his face. For a genius like him, this was too cool. "What is this thing?"
Tony's hand moved across the metal, feeling it. Abruptly, the faceplate slid back, and Ton jerked his hand back in surprise. Proceeding with caution, Tony lifted the helmet assembly up and held it up, admiring it. Out of curiosity, he slipped the helmet on and closed the faceplate down and back into place. Inside it was dark, but the helmet fit Tony's head comfortably.
"Too cool," Tony breathed.
Tony wondered what the armor was like if it were on, and suddenly the dark interior of the helmet was lit up, and displays and images filled Tony's vision. Focusing, he soon began to make sense of the various images. One showed his position on Earth, another was a map of his surroundings, a different one showed the helmet was recording everything it saw and heard.
"This…is…" Tony was at a loss for words, and his eyes fell on the rest of the armor. Very soon he had assembled the armor over his own clothes. The armor locked itself in place, resealing air locks, calibrating joints, stabilizing motion sensors, and so much more. As the last auto screw finished spinning, Tony began to figure out how the armor's heads up display (HUD) worked. He soon closed down everything so that he was down to only what he would see with his own eyes.
The armor gave his vision a slightly blue tint to it, but Tony didn't mind much. He was mostly ecstatic that the armor fit so perfectly on him. He test flexed his arm. It felt…different.
"Oh man this is unbearably cool. I wonder who made this. China? NASA? No, Area 51! Wait no they deal with aliens what was I thinking. Uh…"
Tony knew he had to tell Rhodey about this…this…thing. Instantly, he heard the tone of a dialing phone.
"What the? Okay as cool as that is it's also kinda creepy. This thing is reading my mind or something."
"Tony? What's up man?" Rhodey answered.
"Huh? Rhodey you're not going to believe what happened to me!" Tony shouted. "I just found–"
Tony was interrupted by a scream. "Rhodey I'm gonna have to call you back something's wrong!"
"Tony what is it? Tony!" but Tony hung up and ran off in the direction of the scream.
"Damn this thing is slow," Tony muttered to himself as he ran at an odd pace. At that moment thrusters roared to life underneath Tony's feet and he shot forward like a rocket, soon exiting the park.
"Whoa!" Tony shouted as he flew into open traffic. "How do you steer this thing?"
Tony saw what he was about to crash into. A huge semi truck hauling a fully loaded trailer.
"OH GOOD GOD!" Tony shouted, thinking that he had met his end.
Instead, the truck smashed into him and after crumpling in the front, flipped end over end over the armored teen.
Tony somehow managed a hover and looked at the ruined semi. He looked down at himself. The armor didn't have a scratch on it. The HUD clicked to life and showed it was running a quick damage assessment. Green lights across the board.
"Well that's convenient," he mumbled.
Another scream filled the night, reminding Tony why he'd been running earlier. He shot through the sky as his armor's sensors traced the sound waves of the scream back to their source.
"Is there anything this thing can't do?" Tony wondered.
Tony landed behind three men who were closing in on a young girl, about Tony's age.
"Seriously guys this is so cliché. Mugging the beautiful girl? I mean at least rob an old lady or a buff dude. Mix it up a little yeesh," Tony joked.
All three men spun around and gasped. Tony wondered why, and then remembered he was still in the armor. The armor added five inches to his height and made his build seem far more impressive than it really was.
"Who the heck are you?" one of them asked.
"Uh…I'm Robo cop and you're all under arrest," Tony said, taking a heroic pose.
The men looked at each other.
"Lame!" one of them shouted.
"Seriously man you gotta come up with something better than that," the lead thug said. "Like uh…Iron Man."
Tony looked at his armor. "Yeah…I seriously doubt this thing is made of iron."
"Who cares? It's catchy," the third one reasoned.
"Well who can argue with that logic?" Iron Man asked, and then punched one of the thugs in the face.
He followed up by elbowing one in the stomach and sending him flying into the wall with a back fist. Down to one thug, Iron Man kicked him through the wall of a building. Iron Man smiled under his helmet.
"Um, thank you?" the girl mumbled.
Iron Man looked her over. She was familiar, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. Went to his school maybe? Pictures of every girl at his school suddenly flashed through the HUD, until the armor's computers found a match. Pepper Potts.
"Don't mention it Pep– ma'am. It's all in a day's work for Iron Man. Yeah, I like the sound of that," Iron Man said proudly.
With that, he flew off into the night, crashing into a building on the way up. Pepper watched her armored savior fly away. What had he said his name was?
"Iron Man, huh?" Pepper said with a smile.
The next day at school was interesting to say the least. Tony had stashed the armor in his backpack, and as such didn't have any room for his text books. He didn't need them anyway, not when he'd memorized them. The armor was surprisingly light, and Tony carried the backpack with ease.
"Tony!" Rhodey called when he saw his best friend. He waved him over to the circle of kids that had gathered.
Besides Rhodey, there was Pepper, Happy Hogan, and Nick. They all either waved or said hi to Tony.
"And then he just beat them to a pulp like they were nothing!" Pepper yelled, continuing her story.
"What are you guys talking about?" Tony asked, playing dumb.
"Iron Man," Pepper said.
"Something's not right with this Iron Man guy. He could be a Russian experiment, sent here to steal US secrets," Nick speculated.
"Stop," Rhodey said. "Just…stop. Why must everything be a conspiracy with you Nick?"
Nick just shrugged. "Eh, don't say I didn't warn you guys about Hydra."
"There's no such thing as Hydra Nick," Tony told him for the billionth time.
"Tell that to Dugan and Hill," Nick said solemly.
"Whatever," Pepper said. "The point is, there's a super hero in New York. Granted his look is off…"
"Off?" Tony asked. "What's wrong with m– Iron Man's look?"
"It's too robot," Pepper said. "It needs some color. Ooh! Like some hot rod red down the"
Tony didn't really pay attention to what Pepper said after that. But he agreed that the suit needed some color, and he like the idea of the color red. As the others continued to talk about Iron Man and Nick continued to spout conspiracy theories, Tony was busy thinking about the armor. Where did it come from? Could anybody operate it, or did they need a tech-interface suit like his? Who made it? So many questions…
"Hello?" Tony woke up from his trance.
"Huh? What? Where am I?" Tony mumbled, still dazed.
"That was the final bell Tony," Rhodey told his friend. "School's out for the day."
"I can leave now? Joy."
On the way home, Rhodey brought up something tony had meant to tell him last night.
"Can you believe Pepper's Iron Man story?" Rhodey asked. "I mean, I kinda think she's making it up–"
"I'm Iron Man," Tony blurted.
"What?" Rhodey asked.
"I. Am. Iron Man," Tony repeated. "The armor is in my backpack right now. I can control it because of the tech-interface suit I showed you earlier. It flies, it amplifies strength, and who knows what else."
"Wow. That's….wow," Rhodey said.
"Exactly. So I'm a super hero now, and since you know, that makes you my sidekick."
"Sidekick?" Rhodey cried, outraged.
"Yes. We can even give you a name. Iron Lad," Tony teased.
Hey. Tony Stark here. I'm still learning how to use the suit and finding out what it can do, and I've already got my first super villain! Doesn't look very well put together, but hard to argue with a thirty-foot tall Russian robot. Next time on Iron Man Galaxies: Crash of the Crimson Dynamo! Dang that thing is ugly!
And that concludes the first ever episode of Iron Man Galaxies. I plan on doing a full season of this, followed by season two. Anyway, now that the show has launched, tell me what you think! Do you like the idea of the story? Hate it? Tell me! Constuctive critcism appreciated, flames accepted, annonymous reviews enabled. I don't care people, just review!
Oh. I don't own Iron Man in any way shape or form because if I did he would have lost the Marvel Civil War. Anti-Reg all the way!