Chapter 53: The Desperate Walking Duo"Tony, the banquet isn't over—where are you going?"
Obadiah watched in confusion as Tony, looking oddly grim, rushed toward the exit with his bodyguard, Happy, right behind him.
"Hey, Obadiah, something urgent came up. You handle the rest of the event, will you?"
With that, Tony and Happy marched out without sparing another glance, ignoring Obadiah's repeated calls.
"Tony! Tony!"
Later that night, in one of Obadiah Stane's Manhattan apartments...
The enraged Obadiah smashed everything on his desk.
"Damn you, Tony Stark! That little brat actually dared to humiliate me!"
Raising a small axe, he brought it down hard onto the mahogany desk.
"Stark Industries thrived under my management! You—nothing more than a spoiled playboy—if not for me, the company would've collapsed ages ago!"
"And yet, everyone only remembers you! Why?!
Howard, you deserved to die early!"
After venting his rage, Obadiah finally calmed down.
He picked up a Stark Industries encrypted satellite phone, switched to a secure channel, and made a call.
It rang for a while before a mechanical voice answered.
"Speak. What do you want?"
"I want Tony Stark dead. Name your price."
"You know the account. Send the deposit. He's a high-profile target—we'll act in six months."
"I want it to look like an accident."
"You understand that making Tony Stark's death look like an accident… isn't exactly easy. That's an extra charge. Staging an accident costsmoremoney."
"I've already transferred the deposit. I'll wait for good news."
Obadiah hung up, his rage finally soothed.
"Tony… just wait for the little surprise I've got in store for you."
That night, Obadiah slept better than he had in weeks.
Meanwhile, back on the streets—
Tony and Happy had already begun their involuntary walk of misery home.
Luckily, most of their routes overlapped, so at least they had each other for company.
No matter how hard Tony tried, his body continued moving tirelessly toward the cliffs of Malibu—like his soul was hijacked and the body was running on autopilot.
Honestly, it was a horrible feeling.
"Happy, how long do you think we'll be walking?"
"At our current pace? We'll probably arrive by tomorrow morning.
And Boss… bad news: your mansion's at least 50 miles farther than my place."
"Damn it!"
Tony Stark had never hated the location of his luxury mansion more.
"You think you ticked off a mutant, Boss? I've heard they're the ones with weird powers. If that kid really was a mutant, we better be prepared. Some are even said to have mental control abilities…"
Happy, despite being a trained security professional with decades of experience, was clearly unsettled.
"Mutant, huh? That's… possible. Looks like I need to start digging into that world."
By sunrise, only poor Tony was still suffering.
Forget blisters—his shoes were worn down to the sole.
By the time he staggered through his front gate, it was already the next afternoon.
If it hadn't been for a food truck along the way—where he wolfed down three burgers and two sodas—Tony was sure he would've passed out from dehydration.
The instant he stepped inside his house, control of his body finally returned.
Tony collapsed onto his couch, too exhausted to move, while the robotic arm JARVIS quietly whirred in the background.
That night—
Tony awoke to the burning pain in his feet.
He couldn't walk. Crawling was his only option now.
The front door creaked open.
Pepper Potts entered, having come by in person after failing to reach Tony by phone all day.
As his personal assistant, she had full access to the mansion.
When she saw Tony crawling on the floor, she was… surprised, to say the least.
"Boss? Why are you on the ground?"
If his clothes weren't still intact, Pepper might've assumed he'd overdosed on weed and was halfway through some weird sex "play."
"It's a long story. Do me a favor—grab the spare medical kit in the southwest corner of the room. Bandages, antiseptic, all that stuff."
"You sure you don't want a hand getting up?"
"No need."
(Though Tony thought to himself: If my feet weren't completely destroyed, I'd take that hand in a second.)
So, under Pepper's puzzled gaze, Tony crawled his way back to the sofa.
Thankfully, it was only five meters away—any further and it would've been tragic.
Finally back on his beloved couch, Tony gritted his teeth as Pepper tended to the wounds on his feet—disinfecting and wrapping them, much to his pain.
"Who initiated the collaboration between Stark and Oscorp?"
Tony, slightly recovered, started probing.
"As far as I know, it wasn't Obadiah. Stark Industries does have a bio-tech division, but we've never made major breakthroughs. This move must've come from Oscorp."
"What do you know about their new shareholder?"
"You mean that guy with the hard-to-pronounce Eastern name?"
"Yeah. That guy."
"Not much. He showed up for the first time at the banquet. Oscorp had never mentioned him before. My guess is he just joined the board recently."
Pepper really didn't know anything about Uchiha Akira.
"Alright. Got it. Unless something urgent comes up, don't bother me for a few days—I need to recover."
After Pepper left, Tony didn't rest.
Even while healing, he began researching everything he could find on mind control.
Clearly, his defeat had come from being mentally manipulated.
While digging through material, he started hypothesizing:
"If the mind can influence reality… then mental energy must be a quantifiable force.
And if it's energy, then other energies should be able to interfere with it."
"Gamma rays? Too intense. Would kill the user—no good."
"Alpha rays? Strong ionization, poor penetration—might work. Worth testing."
This was Tony's first encounter with supernatural abilities.
And for the first time, he began designing countermeasures.
He threw himself into the research, completely losing track of time.
In the blink of an eye, a week had passed.
"It's done!"
After seven intense days, Tony completed five prototype mental defense helmets.
Since he had no previous knowledge in psychic shielding, he created different variants—hoping trial and error would reveal what worked.
"Pepper, get me in touch with Professor Charles Xavier at the Mutant Academy."
"Are you sure, Tony? Xavier is a major figure among mutants.
If you get too involved with them, the CIA might get suspicious.
Didn't you reject their offer to collaborate before?"
"It's fine. I'm Tony Stark. What's the CIA going to do? Rewrite the Constitution?
If they've got a problem, they can call Stark Industries' legal department."
"Just get me a meeting with Xavier. Tell him I'm coming to visit."