After Justin Hammer and his men left, Ivan Vanko casually placed a toothpick in his mouth, stood up, and walked out of the lab.
"What are you doing?"
One of the bodyguards Hammer had left behind stepped out and blocked Ivan's path as he approached the lab doors.
"Come on, I'm tired. Can I rest for a bit?"
Ivan glanced at the bodyguard, then shoved him aside and continued toward his room. Though it wasn't yet time to openly turn on Hammer, that didn't mean Ivan would let these two pathetic guards get under his skin.
The bodyguard was a little annoyed at being shoved, but he knew Justin Hammer only asked him to watch Ivan—not confront him. If he made a move now, he'd likely be the one fired tomorrow, not this laid-back Russian.
Back with Tony, after Coulson left, he finally followed his blueprint and, after half a day of effort, assembled the new element synthesis device. Once he adjusted the central prism to the angle he thought was ideal, Tony flipped the machine's power switch.
"Activate prism accelerator.Approaching maximum energy."
As J.A.R.V.I.S. reported the startup process, the machine roared to life.
A beam of blue laser shot out from the prism Tony had just calibrated.
When the laser didn't hit the intended target, Tony grabbed a wrench and slowly adjusted the prism crystal inside the device.
As the prism rotated, the blue laser cut cleanly through anything in its path like an indestructible blade. After slicing through a series of objects in Basement 13, the beam finally struck its designated location.
A flash of light burst forth—Tony knew instantly: the new element was successfully synthesized.
He shut down the machine and approached the freshly created element.Looking at it, a self-satisfied smirk formed on his face.
"Easy, right?"
Just like in a video game, J.A.R.V.I.S. announced:"Congratulations. New element acquired."
Tony pulled out a reactor core and modified it slightly, then inserted the new element inside.
"J.A.R.V.I.S., begin testing.""Yes, sir."
Meanwhile, back with Ivan Vanko, after a quick nap, he glanced at the time.
"Six o'clock. Perfect."He looked at the two guards standing like statues at his bedside and smiled slyly."I'm going to the bathroom. Want to come with me?"
Taking advantage of the guards' slight confusion, Ivan reached over and grabbed a screwdriver from his nightstand, plunging it into the throat of the black-haired guard.
"Excellent."
The searing pain from the punctured windpipe left the guard gasping, but with his airway damaged and blood flowing fast, he couldn't speak—only clutch at his bleeding neck.
Ivan then struck the guard's head with his elbow, knocking him unconscious. He died moments later, painlessly.
At that moment, the blonde guard quickly reacted. He lunged from behind, wrapped his arm tightly around Ivan's neck, and pushed his other arm hard against Ivan's right hand—trying to choke him out.
But Ivan Vanko, raised in a chaotic environment, was more than a brilliant physicist—he was also a skilled fighter.
In this deadly grapple, Ivan tried first to snap the guard's arm.When that failed, he used another method.
He threw himself backward, using the guard's weight to launch both of them toward the wall. Ivan bent his knees, kicked hard against the wall, and catapulted them back.
BANG!
The guard landed hard, his lower back smashing into the bedframe.
"ARGH!"The pain was sharp and intense. Instinctively, he released his grip on Ivan's neck.
The whole exchange—from Ivan stabbing the first guard to slamming the second onto the bed—took less than five seconds.
And thanks to the black-haired guard's body cushioning his fall, Ivan emerged without a scratch.
He stood, grabbed a wrench from the floor, and swung it at the blonde guard.
Since Ivan often worked overtime in his room building odd contraptions, it wasn't strange for him to have tools lying around.
The injured guard, realizing Ivan had just killed the other man, panicked.He knew: if he didn't act fast, he'd be next.
Driven by fear, the blonde guard ignored the searing pain in his back and dodged the wrench. He then grabbed a monitor from a nearby desk and hurled it at Ivan's head.
The weak throw, due to his injury, merely made Ivan stumble slightly.
"Too light. Can't you hit harder?"
Ivan wiped the blood from his lips where the monitor hit him, and flashed a grin that, to him, was warm and kind—but to the guard, it was cold and twisted.
The pain in his back told him he probably couldn't run, and he didn't want to die.
"Let me go. I won't say a word."
Weighing his options, the guard chose surrender. Fighting would mean certain death.Surrender… might not.
"Let you go? What makes you think you deserve that?"
Ivan raised the wrench again. The guard flinched, ready for death.
But the wrench stopped just short of his face, then lowered.
"I might let you live… if you help me with something. Do we have a deal?"
The guard opened his eyes and was met with Ivan's devilish smile.
"Deal. I'll do it."
"Good."
Ivan picked up his phone and dialed a number he'd saved for a long time.
Meanwhile, back with Tony, just as he was preparing to test the new reactor, J.A.R.V.I.S. chimed in:
"Sir, there's a call from an unlisted number."
Tony frowned. Most of his secure contacts had hidden numbers—and that usually meant S.H.I.E.L.D..
Speaking of S.H.I.E.L.D., wasn't Coulson still upstairs keeping an eye on him?
Calling me from upstairs? That's lazy.
But then he remembered: Wait, wasn't my house under signal lockdown?Now that a call's getting through… it means the signal's back online.
"Finally. I can make calls again. J.A.R.V.I.S., patch it through."
"Hello? Coulson, enjoying my bed?"
Tony answered cheerfully. He was nearly suffocated by the inability to call out for days.No food delivery. No takeout. Living in the suburbs with no signal?If he hadn't been busy discovering a new element, he'd have quit this whole gig.
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