The holographic displays cast ever-shifting patterns of light across Tony's workshop, multiple screens showing parallel analyses - his flight test data alongside footage from the Metropolis confrontation. His fingers moved through the air with practiced precision, manipulating three-dimensional models while JARVIS ran calculations in the background. The new arc reactor in his chest hummed quietly, its blue glow mixing with the sickly green of the kryptonite readings on his screens.
"Notes," Tony spoke, adjusting the ice pack on his shoulder while studying the parallel data streams. "Main transducer feels sluggish at plus 40 altitude. Hull pressurization is problematic. I'm thinking icing is the probable factor."
His eyes tracked how Metallo's systems had adapted to extreme conditions during the fight - something his own suit would need to match. The cybernetic soldier's performance data offered insights he couldn't ignore, even if Luthor's methods made his skin crawl.
"A very astute observation, sir," JARVIS replied. "Perhaps, if you intend to visit other planets, we should improve the exosystems."
Tony focused on a particular sequence where Metallo's exterior had reconfigured itself mid-fight, its molecular structure shifting to absorb impact. There were lessons there, if he could crack the underlying principles without resorting to unstable power sources.
"Connect to the sys. co. Have it reconfigure the shell metals. Use the gold titanium alloy from the seraphim tactical satellite. That should ensure a fuselage integrity while maintaining power-to-weight ratio. Got it?"
The screens filled with comparative analysis - his suit's performance data next to Metallo's capabilities. The kryptonite readings they'd gathered provided another layer of insight into how to enhance his systems without compromising stability or the user.
"Yes. Shall I render using proposed specifications?"
"Thrill me."
While JARVIS worked, Tony's attention caught on the TV news. "Tonight's red-hot red carpet is right here at the Disney Concert Hall, where Tony Stark's third annual benefit for the Firefighter's Family Fund has become the place to be for L.A.'s high society."
"JARVIS, we get an invite for that?"
"I have no record of an invitation, sir."
Tony picked up the prototype mask, studying the mathematical diagrams etched across its surface while the reporter continued: "...hasn't been seen in public since his bizarre and highly controversial press conference. Some claim he's suffering from post traumatic stress and has been bedridden for weeks. Whatever the case may be, no one expects an appearance from him tonight."
His eyes moved between the mask and the footage of Metallo. Both represented attempts to enhance human capability, but where Luthor had sacrificed the man for the machine, Tony was determined to find another way.
"The render is complete," JARVIS announced.
The new design rotated on screen, gleaming gold in the workshop's light. Tony cocked his head slightly. "A little ostentatious, don't you think?"
"What was I thinking? You're usually so discreet."
Tony's gaze drifted to one of his cars - a classic hot rod, matte black with flame details in brilliant red. Behind it, the screens still showed Metallo's increasingly unstable behavior during the fight. A reminder of what happened when power came at the cost of humanity.
"Tell you what. Throw a little hot-rod red in there."
"Yes, that should help you keep a low profile." The design shifted, red panels appearing alongside the gold. "The render is complete."
The new color scheme wasn't just aesthetics - it incorporated everything he'd learned from both his test flight and studying the battle in Metropolis. A design that could match superhuman power while protecting the person inside, not consuming them.
"Hey, I like it. Fabricate it. Paint it."
"Commencing automated assembly. Estimated completion time is five hours."
Tony checked his watch, already reaching for his keys. "Don't wait up for me, honey."
The silver Audi R8 purred to life, its license plate - STARK4 - gleaming in the gathering darkness. The drive to the benefit gave Tony time to think, to prepare himself for his first real public appearance since Afghanistan. Since becoming something more than just the Merchant of Death.
The venue appeared ahead, red carpet already crowded with LA's elite. Tony pulled up smoothly, tossing his keys to the valet with practiced casualness. As he straightened his suit jacket, he caught sight of Obadiah giving an interview nearby.
"Weapons manufacturing is only one small part of what Stark Industries is all about, and our partnership with the fire and rescue community..." Obie was saying, his silver-tongued charm in full effect. But his practiced speech was interrupted as cameras swung toward Tony's arrival.
"Hey, Tony, remember me?" A woman approached him eagerly.
"Sure don't," Tony replied smoothly, moving past her. He spotted a familiar face in the crowd. "You look great, Hef!"
"We're going to have a great quarter," Obie called out, trying to maintain control of the situation.
Tony made his way to where his mentor stood. "What's the world coming to when a guy's got to crash his own party?"
"Look at you," Obadiah's surprise seemed genuine enough. "Hey, what a surprise."
"I'll see you inside."
Obie caught his shoulder, voice dropping low. "Hey. Listen, take it slow, all right? I think I got the board right where we want them."
"You got it," Tony assured him. "Just cabin fever. I'll just be a minute."
Inside, he headed straight for the bar. "Give me a Scotch. I'm starving."
"Mr. Stark?" A man in an immaculately pressed suit appeared beside him.
"Yeah?"
"Agent Coulson."
"Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The guy from the..."
"Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division."
"God, you need a new name for that."
"Yeah, I hear that a lot." Coulson's expression remained professionally neutral. "Three months ago, you disappeared in Afghanistan. Since then, we've had an alien in Metropolis demonstrating impossible powers, LuthorCorp unveiling military-grade cybernetics powered by an unknown mineral, and now your remarkable return. Listen, I know this must be a trying time for you, but we need to debrief you. There's still a lot of unanswered questions, and time can be a factor with these things."
"Let's just put something on the books."
"How about the 24th at 7:00 p.m. at Stark Industries?"
But Tony's attention had already drifted. Across the room, a vision in blue had caught his eye. Pepper stood with her back partially turned, her hair falling in elegant ringlets down her bare shoulders. The dress - his unconscious mind reminded him he'd bought it for her birthday - clung in ways that made focusing on government agents entirely impossible.
"Right, yeah," he said vaguely, shaking Coulson's hand without looking. "I'm going to find my assistant, we'll set something up."
He moved through the crowd toward Pepper, drawn like a compass finding true north. "You look fantastic," he said when he reached her. "I didn't recognize you."
Pepper turned, surprise and something else flickering across her features. "What are you doing here?"
"Just avoiding government agents." He studied her face, noticing how the lighting caught the red of her lipstick. "Are you by yourself?"
"Yes." She smoothed her dress self-consciously. "Where'd you get that dress?"
"Oh, it was a birthday present."
"From you, actually," she added when he raised an eyebrow.
"Well, I've got great taste." The music changed to something slower, and Tony felt an inexplicable urge to keep this moment going. "You want to dance?"
"Oh, no. Thank you."
But he was already guiding her onto the dance floor, ignoring her token protests. They fell into an easy rhythm, though Tony noticed how her eyes kept darting around the room. "Am I making you uncomfortable?"
"No. No," she said quickly. "I always forget to wear deodorant and dance with my boss in front of everyone that I work with in a dress with no back."
"You look great," he assured her. "You smell great. But I could fire you if that would take the edge off."
That earned him a genuine laugh. "I actually don't think you could tie your shoes without me."
"I'd make it a week."
"Really?" Her skepticism was adorable. "What's your social security number?"
Tony's mind went blank. "Five?"
"Five? You're just missing a couple of digits there."
"The other eight," he admitted with a grin. "But I got you for the other eight."
They danced in comfortable silence for a moment, but Tony couldn't help noticing how the lights played across her features, how naturally she fit in his arms. Something shifted in the air between them, an electricity he couldn't quite name.
"How about a little air?" he suggested, his voice rougher than intended.\
"Yes, I need some air."
The balcony offered a welcome respite from the crowd, though Tony found himself even more aware of Pepper's presence in the relative privacy. She was babbling nervously about workplace dynamics and appropriate boss-employee relationships, but all he could focus on was the way moonlight caught in her hair.
"I just think you're overstating it," he said softly, cutting through her stream of protests.
"You know, and we're here, and then I'm wearing this ridiculous dress, and then we were dancing like that and..."
She trailed off, finally meeting his gaze. Tony felt his carefully maintained walls crumbling as they gravitated closer together. Pepper's eyes drifted closed as she leaned in, and for one perfect moment, everything else fell away - Afghanistan, the suit, the company's future. There was only this, only her.
Then reality reasserted itself. Pepper's eyes snapped open and she pulled back slightly. "I would like a drink, please."
"Got it, okay."
"I would like a vodka martini, please."
"Okay."
"Very dry with olives. A lot of olives. Like, at least three olives."
Tony made his way to the bar, his mind still reeling from the almost-moment with Pepper. The arc reactor hummed steadily in his chest, its soft blue glow a stark contrast to the butterflies in his stomach. He couldn't remember the last time a woman had made him feel this off-balance. Actually, he could - it was Pepper, always Pepper, making him question everything he thought he knew about himself.
"Two vodka martinis," he told the bartender, leaning against the polished wood. "Extra dry, extra olives, extra fast." He paused, then added, "Make one of them dirty, will you?" He dropped a generous tip in the wine glass, more out of habit than conscious thought.
The familiar routine of ordering drinks helped steady him, but his hands still trembled slightly. The almost-kiss on the balcony had shaken something loose inside him - some carefully maintained wall between Tony Stark, billionaire playboy, and the man who'd come back from that cave forever changed.
"Wow. Tony Stark."
The voice cut through his contemplation like a knife. He turned to find Christine Everhart approaching through the crowd, wearing a black dress that probably cost more than most reporters' monthly salaries. Her expression suggested this wasn't a social call.
"Oh, hey." He managed what he hoped was a casual smile while his mind raced to place her name. They'd had an... encounter before Afghanistan. Time magazine? Vanity Fair?
"Fancy seeing you here." Her tone could have frozen his martini solid.
"Carrie." He knew it was wrong even as he said it, but somehow being wrong felt safer than admitting he remembered their night together.
"Christine."
"That's right." The bartender returned with his martinis, and Tony had never been more grateful for alcohol. He needed something to do with his hands, something to focus on besides Christine's accusatory stare.
"You have a lot of nerve showing up here tonight." Her professional mask slipped slightly, showing real anger beneath. "Can I at least get a reaction from you?"
"Panic." Tony took a sip of his martini, trying to maintain his usual glibness even as his chest tightened around the arc reactor. "I would say panic is my reaction."
"Because I was referring to your company's involvement in this latest atrocity." She gestured toward the TV screens where footage of Metallo's challenge to Superman played on endless loop. The green glow from his chest matched readings Tony remembered from Afghanistan - readings that shouldn't exist in any known physics. "First experimental cybernetics, now this?"
"Yeah. They just put my name on the invitation. I don't know what to tell you." The lie felt bitter on his tongue. He was getting tired of defending decisions he hadn't made, changes implemented while he was supposedly dead in a cave.
"I actually almost bought it, hook, line and sinker." Her laugh held no humor. "The prodigal son returns, shutting down weapons manufacturing, talking about responsibility. Really had me going."
"I was out of town for a couple months, in case you didn't hear." The cave's darkness pressed against his memories, making him take another drink. His fingers brushed the arc reactor unconsciously - a habit he'd developed since his return.
Christine's expression shifted to something harder, more focused. "Is this what you call accountability?" She pulled out a stack of photos, shoving them into his hands. "It's a town called Gulmira. Heard of it?"
Tony's world narrowed to the images in his hands. His weapons - not just old stock, but new models, things that shouldn't exist outside secure facilities - in the hands of terrorists. Including the Jericho missile, the very weapon he'd refused to build in that cave. The same technological principles now powering Metallo's cybernetic frame.
His mind flashed back to Yinsen's stories about his village, about family and peace destroyed by weapons bearing the Stark name. The same weapons now being used to create something that could challenge Superman himself.
"When were these taken?" His voice was barely steady.
"Yesterday." Christine watched his reaction carefully. "The same day your company unveiled their new 'superhuman deterrent' powered by classified tech. Quite a coincidence."
"I didn't approve any shipment." The photos trembled slightly in his hands. "And I sure as hell didn't approve Metallo."
"Well, your company did." Her voice carried the sharp edge of someone who'd finally caught her prey. "Just like they approved turning a wounded veteran into a walking weapon. The Tony Stark I interviewed before Afghanistan would have loved that - the ultimate fusion of man and machine."
"Well, I'm not my company." He pushed past her, needing air, needing space to think. The photos felt like they were burning his hands. On the TV screens, Metallo's challenge played again - the green glow in his chest matching the radiation signatures Tony had detected in that cave.
He found Obadiah outside, working the crowd with his usual smooth charm. The older man's smile faltered slightly when he saw Tony's expression. That same smile that had once meant safety, guidance, connection to his father's legacy. Now it just looked calculating.
"Please, do you mind?" Obie tried to wave off an approaching photographer, but Tony wasn't having it.
"Have you seen these pictures?" He thrust the photos at Obadiah. "What's going on in Gulmira? And don't tell me you don't know about the mineral shipments from the same region."
"Tony, Tony." Obadiah's voice carried that paternal disappointment that had once meant something. "You can't afford to be this naive."
"You know what? I was naive before, when they said, 'Here's the line. We don't cross it. This is how we do business.'" The words felt like acid in his mouth. "If we're double-dealing under the table... Are we?"
A reporter's shout cut through their confrontation: "Mr. Stark! Your comments on the Metallo situation? Sources say the cybernetic integration uses proprietary Stark tech!"
"Your picture, please!" Another called out, cameras flashing.
"Let's take a picture." Obadiah's arm wrapped around Tony's shoulders like a steel trap. "Come on. Picture time!"
They posed together, Obadiah's smile never wavering while Tony's face remained hard as granite. His mind was racing - connecting weapons shipments to mineral deposits, cybernetic innovations to classified research. The picture of betrayal growing clearer with each flash.
Obadiah leaned close, his words meant for Tony alone: "Who do you think locked you out? I was the one who filed the injunction against you. It was the only way I could protect you."
The words hit Tony like physical blows, each of Obadiah's syllables stripping away another layer of trust. This man who'd been like a second father, who'd guided him after Howard's death, had orchestrated everything from the shadows.
Obadiah pulled away, straightening his tie as the reporters swarmed forward:
"Care to comment on Metallo's breakdown at Centennial Park, Mr. Stane?"
"What about the partnership with LuthorCorp? Did you know about Superman's reaction to the mineral?"
"Any response to witness reports about Corbin's psychological state?"
"No," Obadiah said firmly, already heading toward his waiting car. "No comment."
The press instantly turned their attention to Tony, voices overlapping:
"Hey Stark, what about the neural interface tech? Your design, right?"
"You shutting down weapons manufacturing but helping build super soldiers?"
"Got anything to say about your company's role in all this?"
The questions blurred together as Tony's world tilted sideways. He caught Christine's knowing look as she turned away, having gotten exactly what she wanted - proof that the great Tony Stark wasn't as in control as he pretended.
A reporter from the Daily Star shouldered forward. "Four days since the incident and still no official statement from Stark Industries. You still standing by your company's involvement in this mess?"
Tony ran a hand through his hair, the weight of it all pressing down. The footage had been playing non-stop since the fight - Metallo's gradual deterioration during the battle, the moment he'd started tearing away his synthetic skin, the kryptonite radiation that had poured off him in waves.
"You know what?" Tony's voice came out steadier than he felt. "I'm not standing by any of it. Not the weapons showing up where they shouldn't, not the tech being used to turn soldiers into guinea pigs. Sometimes the whole machine's broken, even if you helped build it in the first place."
"What about Corbin?" someone called out. "The military still hasn't located him since he fled the scene..."
"Corbin's a good man who got screwed over." Tony's hand drifted to his chest where the arc reactor hummed. "Trust me, I know something about being turned into something else. Difference is, I did it to myself."
He pushed through the crowd, their questions following him like shadows. His mind was already racing ahead to his workshop, to the Mark II taking shape in secret. They wanted to see real innovation? He'd show them what technology could do when it wasn't being twisted into weapons.
The valet brought his car around and Tony practically dove inside, needing to escape. He pulled out his phone as he hit the accelerator. "JARVIS, you there?"
"Always, sir. Though I note your blood pressure seems elevated."
"Yeah, well, finding out your father figure's been dealing under the table tends to do that." He took a corner faster than strictly necessary. "How's our project coming along?"
"The Mark II's primary systems are at 86% completion. Though I still have concerns about the high altitude performance."
"Pull up everything we've got on those weapons shipments to Gulmira. And dig deeper into the radiation readings from the fight. There's something there we're missing."
"The signature is remarkably similar to what we detected in..."
"In the cave. Yeah." Tony's hands tightened on the wheel. "Looks like Obie's been busy while I was playing dead. Start running simulations on the suit's power systems. I want to know if we can replicate that kind of output without using whatever the hell that green rock is."
The Malibu coast stretched out before him, waves catching city lights like scattered stars. But Tony barely saw it, his mind already in the workshop, already planning the next steps.
He could still hear the music from the benefit fading behind him. Somewhere back there, Pepper was probably wondering where he'd disappeared to, still feeling that almost kiss. But he couldn't think about soft moments on balconies right now. Couldn't let himself get distracted by the way moonlight played in red hair.
"Sir," JARVIS interrupted his thoughts, "I've completed analyzing the energy readings from the Centennial Park incident. The instability patterns in Sergeant Corbin's core showed exponential growth throughout the confrontation."
"Show me when I get back. And warm up the fabrication units. Time to remind everyone what real innovation looks like."
The engine roared as he pushed it harder, racing toward home, toward his workshop, and hopefully he could salvage this mess.