After Tony rushed to the Expo, he didn't find any trace of explosives inside the Stark Pavilion, but he still picked up Pepper and flew out with her immediately.
To Tony, anyone else might be replaceable, but Pepper's safety was non-negotiable.
"Ahhh! What?!"
Pepper screamed as she was suddenly swept off her feet. One moment she was calmly standing, the next she was airborne at high speed—like being pushed onto a roller coaster mid-step. It was terrifying.
She felt like she was about to faint, but thankfully, Tony held her tightly and stopped not far away, landing on the roof of a nearby building. In fact, it wasn't that Tony wanted to land here—it was that after the earlier battle and this overloaded flight, his Mark VI armor was on the verge of collapse.
"Oh my god, I can't take this anymore…"
Once Tony set her down, Pepper took a few deep breaths, trying to calm her pounding heart. The adrenaline hit her all at once, and her body simply couldn't take it.
"You can't take it? Look at me!"Tony gestured to his battered Mark VI, which looked like it had been through a war.
"But why didn't anything explode?"
Tony was confused. Ivan Vanko had rigged his own armor with a self-destruct, so there was no reason the robots at the Expo wouldn't be rigged the same way.
Then he remembered:
"Clark said earlier that those robots might self-destruct. So he dismantled their reactors and stored them in a safe place. Looks like without the reactors, they couldn't explode."
"Well, my body definitely can't take any more of this!"
Above them, Clark listened to the bickering couple, and let out a quiet chuckle. Then he continued flying toward the Stark Expo. He'd just seen Jonathan Kent arrive in his old Chevrolet pickup.
"What the hell happened here?"
When Jonathan Kent finally reached the Expo, the entire site had been locked down. Through the police barriers, he saw that the interior was nearly empty.
He thought about how his emergency calls wouldn't go through, how every intersection he passed seemed to hit a red light, and how he'd been stuck in traffic for nearly an hour.Now, arriving only to see the aftermath, he still had no idea what happened.
"Dad, we're here."
At that moment, Clark—now back in civilian clothes—appeared behind him.
"This was all your doing."Jonathan turned to look at Clark, suspecting this was no coincidence.Every streetlight, every call that didn't connect—it was all too convenient.
They'd been stuck in traffic, and by the time they arrived—everything was already over.
"What are you talking about?" Clark replied with a confused face, clearly not planning to admit to anything.
Seeing Clark playing dumb, Jonathan simply sighed and turned back to walk toward the barricaded Expo.
He understood. Clark had done this to protect him.
In a battlefield full of non-human-level combatants, the police were just window dressing. Compared to energy cannons, machine guns, and missiles, a service pistol was laughable.
Still, Jonathan Kent was the police chief. Even if it was dangerous, if something happened, he had to show up. That was his duty, even if just for the sake of morale.
So even though he understood Clark's good intentions, he still had to come.
Clark shook his head and walked with him into the now-secured Stark Expo. Even though all the robots had been destroyed, Clark knew better than to assume nothing could go wrong. It was safer to stay close to his dad.
The officers guarding the site didn't stop him—not with Jonathan Kent at his side.
After Ivan Vanko's death, no further incidents occurred at the Expo.Once police finished the final inspection, they handed the scene back to Stark Industries, trusting them to handle the cleanup.
Far away, in a hidden HYDRA base, news of Vanko's failure had just come in.
"Vanko failed. That meteorite wasn't Kryptonite. So… what now?"
Alexander Pierce stepped into Sitwell's office, demanding an answer.
"It's fine. That was just a test. I never expected to beat Superman with one rock like in the comics."
Sitwell waved it off calmly.
"We'll lay low for now. But our opportunity will come."
He couldn't let Pierce see the frustration and helplessness he felt.With recent failures piling up, HYDRA's infiltration of S.H.I.E.L.D. was now dangerously close to exposure.
Despite still controlling half of S.H.I.E.L.D., Nick Fury was becoming increasingly suspicious. Agents like Coulson had already begun to form independent squads, limiting HYDRA's reach.
And though HYDRA was strong, in this era of superhuman warfare, they lacked a decisive force—a true super soldier to lead them.
They had seen firsthand what a peak human like Captain America could do to the battlefield.
But after Red Skull, they had no more success creating such soldiers. The super serum could be remade, yes—but the side effects were too dangerous, amplifying the user's inner darkness. Even HYDRA dared not use it on their own.
Why? Because if they lost control of such a superhuman, the consequences would be catastrophic.
Without a true powerhouse, facing someone like Iron Man or Superman meant almost certain defeat.
That's why Sitwell and his associates were now so obsessed with Clark.If they could get their hands on Superman—or even figure out how he works—they might finally be able to build a squad of Kryptonian-level operatives.
With such a force and the Insight program, world domination wouldn't just be a dream.
But after Vanko's failure, HYDRA had to face reality: Kryptonite—at least as they understood it—didn't exist.
Not the kind that worked, anyway.
Sitwell couldn't admit it. Not now.HYDRA was too exposed, and he had to maintain an image of control.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the universe, Loki had been drifting through a spatial rift for several days.
"What the—?!"
BOOM!
He crashed through a rift and landed on a massive spaceship.
Thanks to his Asgardian physiology, Loki survived the vacuum of space and the fall, though not without pain.
"Where… am I?"
Looking around, he had no idea what this place was—but based on the surroundings, he guessed it was a ship.
A massive one.
So massive, in fact, that its surface stretched beyond the visible horizon.
By sheer scale, it could rival Asgard itself.
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