by Alex Irvine
He scooped up a newspaper from the stack she was carrying and read the headline: WHO IS IRON MAN?
Tony shook his head. Already the battle seemed like a half-remembered dream. His people had never found the Iron Monger armor; apparently, the Arc Reactor had vaporized it, and Stane with it.
“Iron Man…” Tony mused. “That’s kind of catchy. I mean, it’s not technically accurate, since the suit’s a gold-titanium alloy… But it’s kind of evocative. ‘Iron Man.’”
“Here’s your alibi,” Coulson said, handing Tony a document. “You were on your yacht, Avalon, during the whole incident. I’ve got port papers that put you there all night and sworn statements from fifty of your guests.”
“Maybe we should say it was just Pepper and me alone on the island,” Tony suggested. “On the yacht, I mean.”
Coulson pointed at the document. “That’s what happened,” he said. “Just read it, word for word.”
Tony glanced over the document. “There’s nothing about Stane here.”
“That’s being handled,” Coulson said. “He’s on vacation, and small aircraft have such a poor safety record. This isn’t my first rodeo, Mr. Stark.”
“Thank you very much for all your help, Agent Coulson,” Pepper said.
“That’s what we do,” Coulson said. “You’ll be hearing from us.”
“Let’s get this show on the road,” Tony said.
“You’re not Iron Man,” Pepper said.
“Am so,” Tony said, just to be contrary.
She shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
“You know, if I were Iron Man, I’d have this girlfriend who knew my true identity. She’d be a wreck, because she’d always be worrying that I was going to die, yet so proud of the man I’d become. She’d be wildly conflicted,” he went on, stopping to face her before he had to go out for the press conference. “Which would only make her more crazy about me. Tell me you never think about that night.”
“What night?” Pepper asked. She straightened his tie.
“You know.”
“Are you talking about the night that we danced and went up on the roof, and then you went downstairs to get me a drink, and you left me there, by myself? Is that the night you’re talking about?”
Tony tried to say something, but Pepper Potts was the only person in the world who had ever been able to render him speechless.
“Will that be all, Mr. Stark?” she asked.
“Yes,” Tony said. “That will be all, Ms. Potts.”
Pepper entered the conference room ahead of Tony and introduced him to a room full of reporters from all over the country. Rhodey was also there, giving Tony his stern stick-to-the-script stare. “And now, Mr. Stark has prepared a statement,” he said. “He will not be taking any questions. Thank you.”
Tony stepped to the podium. “Been a while since I was in front of you,” he said. “I figure I’ll stick to the cards this time.”
There were chuckles from the crowd.
“There’s been speculation that I was involved in the events that occurred on the freeway and the rooftop,” Tony began.
A reporter in the middle of the room cut him off. “I’m sorry, Mr. Stark, but do you honestly expect us to believe that was a bodyguard in a suit that conveniently appeared, despite the fact that you…”
“I know that it’s confusing,” Tony said. “But it’s one thing to question the official story, and another thing entirely to make wild accusations, or insinuate that I’m a Super Hero.”
The reporter shot back immediately. “I never said you were a Super Hero.”
“You didn’t? Well, good, because that would be outlandish and fantastic,” Tony said. He was flailing and he knew it. “I’m just not the hero type. Clearly.”
Rhodey leaned over to him. “Just stick to the cards, man.”
Tony nodded. “Yeah.” He looked at the cards, then back up at the waiting reporters and cameras.
Rhodey gave him the stare again.
Tony dropped the cards.
“The truth is… I am Iron Man,” he said.
The room exploded into pandemonium.
CHAPTER 21
In a forgotten part of Russia, a flickering television screen showed Tony Stark’s press conference on a loop. Ivan Vanko watched. He watched Tony Stark say “I am Iron Man.” He had watched videos of Stark flying through the air. Fighting the enemies of America. The more he watched, alone except for the television and his cockatoo, Irina, the more he hated Tony Stark.
His father, Anton, had passed away just three days before. Since then Ivan had turned his small apartment into a workshop, because before Anton Vanko’s death, he had told his son many things—and shown him many things. Ivan had learned the true stories of Anton’s work and Tony Stark’s crimes. He had absorbed as much of his father’s knowledge as he could. He had sorted through old records and plans, notebooks and loose sheaves of paper covered in diagrams and equations.
Ivan shuffled through boxes and found a cardboard blueprint tube. On the peeling label he read the English words: STARK INDUSTRIES. Underneath were two names: HOWARD STARK and ANTON VANKO. Ivan returned to the worktable and spread out the blueprints in the spill of lamplight. It was time for him to claim his heritage… and for Tony Stark to learn the bitter truth about his own.
CHAPTER 22
Tony decided Iron Man was going to be a part of whatever he did from here on out. He’d revealed the truth and he didn’t try to keep his Iron Man suit a secret. Anytime someone needed him to help keep the peace, he was there. Over the next six months, he rescued hostages, defused standoffs, and twice brought small countries back from the brink of war—all that in just the first six months after the big Iron Monger fight and press conference revealing he was Iron Man.
Then it was time to put Iron Man to a different kind of use: kicking off the Stark Expo. It was one of the world’s biggest gatherings of geniuses and inventors, where they all got together to showcase their new ideas.
For the opening ceremony, the crowd poured into the Tent of Tomorrow. They had already been treated to a montage on the giant video screens of Iron Man’s recent exploits: an aerial tango with a barrage of shoulder-fired missiles, a lightning raid on a pirate ship off the Horn of Africa, a head-on collision with an air-to-air missile whose explosion coming over the Expo sound system was loud enough to register on nearby seismometers. The crowd loved it. They loved it even more when the real Iron Man rocketed down and landed at the center of the stage.
Robot arms unlocked the invisible joints on the Mark IV suit and took it apart. From the crowd’s perspective, it appeared that Iron Man had been disassembled and a tuxedo-clad Tony Stark constructed in his place. The whole procedure took only seconds.
“It’s good to be back!” he called out. He paused for a moment to get his breath. Six months earlier, when he’d turned himself into the armored Super Hero, he hadn’t known what a physical toll it would take. Between the explosions, the late nights, and some troubles with the Arc Reactor, Tony Stark was worn down. But he had a show to put on.
“Blow something up!” a guy called from the crowd.
“Blow something up?” Tony echoed. “I already did that. I’m not saying that the world is enjoying its longest period of uninterrupted peace in years because of me. I’m not saying that from the ashes of captivity, never has a greater Phoenix metaphor been personified in human history. I’m not saying that Uncle Sam can kick back on a lawn chair, sippin’ on an iced tea, because I haven’t come across anyone who’s man enough to go toe to toe with me on my best day… Please… It’s not about me. It’s not about… you… It’s not even about us; it’s about legacy. It’s about what we choose to leave behind for future generations and that’s why, for the next year and for the first time since 1974, the best and brightest men and women of nations and corporations the world over will pool their resources, share their collective vision to leave behind a brighter future. It’s not about us! Therefore what I am saying, i
f I’m saying anything, is welcome back to the Stark Expo! And now, making a special guest appearance from the great beyond, to tell you what it’s all about. Please welcome my father, Howard.”
Tony stepped offstage as Howard Stark appeared on the screen, shown in his workshop sometime around 1970.
“Everything is achievable through technology,” Howard Stark said in the old film footage. “Better living, robust health, and—for the first time in human history—the possibility of world peace!” He gave the camera a nervous smile as he walked to a scale model of that first Expo.
Applause from the crowd swelled as the lights cut out and the music picked up, booming through the darkness as the crowd went nuts all over again. The Stark Expo, bigger and better than ever, was under way.
CHAPTER 23
After his appearance, Tony signed a replica of an Iron Man mask for a little kid and scribbled a few other autographs on the way to the backstage doors. Tony was running out of gas—fast. He staggered from exhaustion. Happy held him up. Looking around to see if anyone had noticed Tony’s stumble, Hap asked, “You okay, man?”
“Aces,” Tony said, even though it wasn’t true. He’d started to notice odd discolorations around the Arc Reactor housing in his chest. You couldn’t see them right now because of his clothes, but tendrils of a sickly purple radiated out from it. He was pretty sure the palladium fuel cells powering the reactor were poisoning him. His blood toxicity was 18 percent on some scale Jarvis had come up with. It apparently ranged from Perfect to Dead, and he was too far from one and too close to the other.
Jarvis was trying to find a new power source for the reactor, but it was a race against time.
Happy shoved open the backstage door, and a fresh wave of shouts and flashes greeted them. Tony rose to the occasion, shrugging off Hap and playing to the crowd. Happy triggered the remote control that opened the roof of Tony’s favorite set of wheels—a gray sports car. Tony grabbed the key from Happy. “I’m driving,” he said.
As he approached the car, a woman leaning on it stood to meet him. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Stark,” she said.
Tony had no idea who she was. “You too, Ms.…?”
“Marshal,” she said. “As in US.” She slapped an envelope onto his chest. “You are hereby ordered to appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee tomorrow at nine a.m.,” she said. She let go of the envelope and turned away.
There was no way to get out of it, so the next day Tony was in Washington DC. It was not the first time Tony had testified before the Senate, but he had a feeling it was going to be the least pleasant. Why? Because the hearing was chaired by Senator Stern, who had never liked Tony and liked him even less now.
“Mr. Stark, according to these contracts, you agreed to provide the US taxpayers with”—Stern flipped through a file and read—“‘all current and as yet undiscovered weapons systems.’ Now, do you or do you not at present possess a very specialized weapon—”
“I do not.”
“You do not,” Stern repeated incredulously.
“It depends on how you define the word ‘weapon,’” Tony said.
Stern became angry. “The Iron Man suit is the most powerful weapon on the face of the earth,” he said. “Yet you use it to sell tickets to your theme park.” The senator decided to try a new tactic. “I’d like to call upon Justin Hammer, our current primary defense contractor, as an expert witness.”
Justin Hammer strode down the aisle to be sworn in, basking in the attention. He ran Hammer Industries, a huge rival company to Stark Industries. Since Tony had stopped making weapons, Hammer had stepped in to supply the US government. Tony and Hammer had never liked each other.
“Let the minutes reflect,” Tony said into the microphone, “that I observe Mr. Hammer entering the chamber and am wondering if and when an expert will also be in attendance.”
Senator Stern’s gavel banged over an outburst of laughter. If Hammer was bothered, though, he didn’t show it. “I may well not be an expert. But you know who was?” he asked, playing to the gallery but addressing the question to Tony. “Your dad. Howard Stark. A father to us all. And he knew that technology was the sword, not the shield, that protects this great nation.”
Hammer went on. “Anthony Stark has created a sword with untold possibilities, and yet he insists it’s a shield! He asks us to trust him as we cower behind it! I love peace, but we live in a world of grave threats.”
Tony rolled his eyes. Anthony? Nobody had called him Anthony since maybe the first day of kindergarten, which he’d gone to only because other kids did.
“Thank you. God bless Iron Man, and God Bless America,” Hammer said.
This gave Tony an idea. He slipped his new phone out of his pocket. It was a rectangle of fiber optics, pure computing power that looked like a piece of clear plastic. He started fiddling with it while Senator Stern continued. “Thank you, Mr. Hammer. The committee would now like to invite Lieutenant Colonel James T. Rhodes into the chamber.”
Tony looked toward the door, where Rhodey was entering in full dress uniform. He looked uncomfortable. Tony met him in the aisle and they shook hands. He was glad to see Rhodey there even though Rhodey didn’t look happy to be there. If there was any living human Tony knew he could count on to do the right thing, that person was James Rhodes.
After Rhodey had been sworn in, Stern said, “I have before me a report on the Iron Man compiled by Lieutenant Colonel Rhodes. Colonel, please read into the minutes page fifty-seven, paragraph four.”
“Certainly, Senator,” Rhodey said. “May I first point out that I was not briefed on this hearing, nor prepared to testify—”
“Duly noted,” Stern said without looking up from his notes. “Please continue.”
Rhodey swallowed the snub and went on. “This paragraph out of context does not reflect the summary of my findings.” Stern said nothing, and Rhodey had no choice but to read the indicated passage.
“‘As he does not operate within any definable branch of government, Iron Man presents a potential threat to the security of both the nation and her interests.’” Rhodey looked up at the senators. “However, I went on to recommend that the benefits far outweigh the liabilities—”
“Colonel Rhodes,” Stern interrupted. “Please read page fifty-six of your report.”
Rhodey glanced at the indicated page and gestured to a bank of monitors, which lit up to display blurry satellite images. “Intelligence suggests that the devices seen in these photos are in fact all attempts at making manned copies of Mr. Stark’s suit.” With a laser pointer, he indicated points on each of the monitors where blurry images showed something like an armored suit.
Aha, Tony thought. He’d figured Stern would do this and now he had a chance to turn tables. He stood and touched an icon on his phone. “Let’s see what’s really going on here,” he said as his phone took control of the monitor screens. “If… I… may,” he began, as a series of classified videos loaded and began to play. At top left, a North Korean proving ground was hosting a test flight of a skeletal suit. Something like Tony’s repulsors fired, lifting suit and pilot into the air. “Wow, it looks like I have commandeered your screens,” remarked Tony with a smile.
“And you’re right,” he continued. “North Korea is well on its…” Suddenly, the suit and pilot disappeared in a flash of light that overwhelmed the camera. When the image resolved, the smoking remains of the suit were being hosed down by firefighters. “Nope,” Tony said. “Whew. That was a relief.”
Similar results played out on the other monitors. “Let’s see how Russia is doing.… Oh, dear,” Tony went on. “And Japan?… Oh, I guess not. India? Not so much. Germans are good engineers. Yowch. That’s gonna leave a mark.” Then he froze all the looping videos except one. He expanded that image until it took up the entire bank of monitors.
“Wait,” Tony said. “The United States is in the game, too. Look, it’s Justin Hammer.” Glancing over his shoulder at the camera crews filming the h
earing, Tony added, “You might want to push in on Hammer for this.”
This last video showed Hammer, observing as a crew strapped someone into an armored exoskeleton. It was a bad imitation of the Iron Man suit. On the monitor, Hammer winked at the camera. The prototype suit lifted off and started a loop-the-loop that quickly turned into a crash when the thrusters cut out and pieces of the prototype started to fall off. The suit tumbled back to the ground, kicking up a huge plume of sand. Hammer could be heard yelling to cut the video.
In the Senate chamber, Hammer finally succeeded in unplugging the monitor. “Yeah, I’d say most countries are ten years away,” Tony said. “Hammer Industries, maybe twenty.”
Hammer looked like he had a mouthful of spoiled milk. “I would like to point out,” he said, “that the test pilot survived and suffered only minor spinal bruising. He is currently white-water rafting with his family.”
Tony turned to face the camera. “The good news is,” Tony said, “I’m your nuclear deterrent. And it’s working. We’re safe. You’re welcome. You want my property? You can’t have it. I have successfully privatized world peace. What more do you want?”
Stern was shouting and pounding his gavel, but Tony ignored him. He hopped down from the lectern, flashed peace signs, and blew kisses. The cameras loved him.
CHAPTER 24
Fool, thought Ivan Vanko. He was working and watching Tony Stark’s appearance on television.
Ivan’s eyes watered and his neck ached from the fine soldering work required to build a functioning miniature Arc Reactor. Until that moment, only two had existed in the world. Now there was a third, tiny and perfect, glowing on his worktable. His father would have loved it. Ivan wanted to share the moment with someone, so he reached out toward Irina’s perch and waited for her to climb onto his knuckles.