Chapter 17 Mark I Just Out of the Oven
Arthur stood outside his apartment door, purposefully straightened his jacket, took a deep breath, and completely suppressed the surreal powers inside his body. He reached out to grip the doorknob and turned it gently.
Just as the door was pushed open a crack, Arthur saw the figure standing in the entryway.
Gwen was wearing a black hoodie that was somewhat exaggeratedly large for her, her entire petite body almost sinking into the fabric, with the hem covering her shorts and revealing two straight, fair legs.
She didn't even wear slippers, stepping barefoot on the solid wood floor.
The tension from the street robbery and the rookie Spider-Man in the morning had not completely faded yet. Her light blonde-pink gradient short hair was a bit messy, and the corners of her eyes still retained a slight redness left by nervousness and apprehension.
She just stared straight at the door, like a somewhat insecure kitten waiting a long time for its Master to come home.
Arthur changed into slippers and walked over in a few steps. Without asking much, he directly reached out and placed his hand on Gwen's head, gently messing up her hair.
"Alright, stop overthinking things." Arthur's voice was very gentle, carrying a comforting tone, "For the rest of this half day, I'm not going anywhere, and I belong entirely to you, okay?"
Feeling the warmth coming from the top of her head, Gwen's tightly tensed shoulders instantly relaxed.
She didn't speak, just nodded heavily, stepped forward, buried her face into Arthur's chest and rubbed against it twice. Only after confirming that this embrace was real did she slightly increase the distance.
The two walked to the living room; this could be considered their most familiar mode of getting along. Arthur grabbed a throw pillow to prop behind his back, finding a comfortable semi-reclined posture on the sofa.
Gwen instantly kicked off the slippers on her feet, crawled onto the sofa, and curled up beside Arthur like she had no bones, her head skillfully finding the most comfortable spot on Arthur's shoulder to lean against.
Arthur held his phone in one hand, boredly scrolling through short videos, occasionally swiping down on the screen with his finger.
Gwen leaned against him like this, her eyes watching the funny images on the phone screen, but her mind was obviously entirely on the person beside her.
Her hand rested seemingly casually on Arthur's thigh, her fingers unconsciously picking at the fabric of his pants.
For Gwen, the panic and despair of witnessing Peter Parker awakening his abilities this morning were finally washed away bit by bit on this sofa filled with a familiar scent.
Just as Arthur scrolled past a few utterly unnutritious food videos, he suddenly turned his head and asked Gwen, who was leaning on his shoulder,
"Kiddo, Tony Stark invited me to go see his newly built mecha tonight. Are you going?"
"If you go, I will go." Gwen didn't even think, replying almost instantly.
For Gwen right now, let alone going to see some mecha, she would follow him even if he went grocery shopping.
She silently calculated in her heart: Whatever the public security in this lousy place of New York wants to do, let it be. Anyway, since that silly boy wearing the rough red-and-blue colored suit this morning loves being the standout bird so much, all the hard chores of upholding justice for these past few days can just be thrown to Peter Parker.
Besides, she had been exhausted enough recently; it was time to give herself a break and enjoy some leisurely days accompanied by her boyfriend.
Thinking of this, Gwen contentedly shrank further into Arthur's arms, and closed her eyes with peace of mind.
Arthur felt her movement and didn't speak, just slightly adjusted the angle of his shoulder to make her lean more comfortably, and then continued to sit there quietly, accompanying her to pass this peaceful afternoon time.
Time passed bit by bit like this, and the sky outside the window gradually grew dark.
Past eight o'clock in the evening, the phone in Arthur's pocket suddenly vibrated, and the harsh ringtone broke the quietness in the living room.
Arthur answered the call, and before he even had time to say 'Hello', Tony Stark's unique loud voice, carrying strong confidence and a trace of impatience, came out from the earpiece:
"Hey! Arthur My Mark I is fresh out of the oven! Come over right away, come take a look quickly!"
Arthur casually replied 'Alright, I'll be there in a bit', and hung up the phone. He patted Gwen, who was still leaning on him: "Let's go, we're heading out."
Gwen rubbed her eyes, climbed up from the sofa, and ran to the bedroom to change into a light jacket and jeans.
Out of the apartment building, the night of the New Yorkstreets was still bustling. The two stood by the roadside waiting for a car.
At this moment, Arthur knew it like a mirror in his heart: if he followed the way he left Stark Tower in the morning, grabbing Gwen and running away using the Rabbit Talisman, he estimated he could teleport to the destination in a few seconds.
But he couldn't do this, because in his'setting', he was just an ordinary college student in front of Gwen who could only commute by taking a taxi. If he took off on the spot, wouldn't this little ancestor be scared half to death.
Meanwhile, Gwen beside Arthur pulled at the corner of Arthur's clothes, watching the traffic coming and going on the road.
She also had a small abacus in her heart: according to her usual way of traveling as Ghost Spider, shooting a few webs and swinging back and forth between buildings, she could easily zip over in a dozen minutes.
But she couldn't do that now; she was a delicate, ordinary female high school student, the kind who rarely did strenuous exercise normally. So she could only stand obediently in the cold wind, waiting for Arthur to reach out and flag down a yellow taxi.
The two of them each harbored their own hidden agendas like this, neither discovering the other's hidden background. In this acting competition named 'How to Perfectly Disguise as Ordinary People', they cooperated with each other with great tacit understanding.
"The two of you should go run for Best Actor and Best Actress."
Along the way, traffic jams and traffic lights caused the taxi to stop and go, dragging on for almost an hour before finally arriving at Stark Tower.
Arthur paid the fare, brought Gwen into the lobby, and the elevator went straight to the private area on the bottom floor.
As soon as the door opened, Tony was standing not far away. He looked exceptionally excited today, but was obviously a bit bored during the waiting process.
Seeing Arthur and Gwen walking over, Tony very deliberately let out a big yawn and complained: "Hey! You guys are really slow. I thought you guys were kidnapped by aliens halfway."
Arthur stepped forward, calmly glanced at Tony, sent an extremely obvious look over, and then said unhurriedly: "No way, Dr. Stark. After all, I'm an ordinary person. For such a long distance, I have no other way to fly over besides taking a taxi."
Tony was slightly stunned. His brain, comparable to a supercomputer, instantly flashed with the image from this morning of the man before him pushing open the window of dozens of stories high, staying fixed in midair like a ghost, and then instantly disappearing without a trace.
Looking again at the young girl next to Arthur who had a curious look and looked soft and frail, Tony instantly understood.
So this badass was playing role-play with his little girlfriend.
"Hey, whatever." Tony curled his lips, very cooperatively picking up the conversation without exposing Arthur's trick:
"Come quickly, this is the debut of my fully upgraded Mark I, guaranteed to blow your minds."
Tony turned around, leading the way in front while guiding Arthur and Gwen all the way deep underground.
Finally, they came to an extremely spacious underground parking lot. This place had been temporarily converted into a workshop filled with cables and testing instruments.
Dr. Yinsen was sitting on a folding chair nearby, with a clipboard placed on his lap.
As soon as he saw Arthur appear, this usually calm middle-aged scholar immediately put his things down, stood up, and nodded with a smile to signal.
His respect for Arthur was carved into his bones; after all, if it weren't for Arthur's strong clearing of the scene in the desert this morning, he would probably still be trapped in that cave now.
Arthur smiled at Dr. Yinsen, which counted as greeting.
Gwen curiously looked around. As a top science student in school, she had a sensitivity to mechanics and physics that surpassed ordinary people.
The thick circular metal base in the center of the site, along with the cold-glinting metal parts scattered all over the floor, especially those industrial-grade multi-jointed mechanical arms hanging on the rack, all gave her an intuition: this thing was definitely not an ordinary iron toy.
Tony was too lazy to even say an extra word of nonsense right now; his passion had been completely poured into the upcoming test.
He walked straight towards the circular base in the center of the venue, parted his legs, and stood firmly on it.
"Jarvis, initiate the program, prepare for suit-up." Tonyraised his chin and issued the command.
Accompanied by a subtle electronic humming sound, the mechanical arms that originally hung quietly around instantly moved.
They accurately clamped a piece of metal leg armor from the ground, fitting it firmly onto Tony's legs in a way full of power yet without losing delicacy.
The hydraulic device made a soft "hiss" sound, and the buckles automatically locked.
Immediately afterwards, another mechanical arm grabbed the arm components and handed them over. Under the operation of the machinery, the assembly process of the entire armor began bit by bit and methodically.
Chapter 18: Successful First Test of Mark I
Accompanied by a faint "click" sound, the final faceplate, carrying a cold metallic luster, snapped tightly and seamlessly into place.
In the center of the temporarily constructed Underground Room garage test site, a full-composite silver suit of armor exuding the violent aesthetic of industrial machinery was officially assembled.
Beneath the faceplate, Tony Stark closed his eyes and took a fierce, deep breath of the air filled with the stuffy scent of the Underground Room.
To be honest, this was an extremely crazy move. Prior to this, this painstaking creation of his, which he named Mark I, hadn't even completed a single decent computer wind tunnel simulation, and the fault tolerance rate of the joint transmission was an unknown.
But just a few seconds ago, when he caught sight of Arthurout of the corner of his eye—wearing casual clothes and putting on a pretentious act while hugging his girlfriend—his damned, genius-like competitive spirit was completely ignited.
This morning, it was this seemingly harmless college student who single-handedly cleared the field in the desert with divine power that science could simply not explain, and then, at the top of Stark Tower, defied gravity, suspended himself in mid-air like a ghost, and vanished in an instant.
To a firm technological materialist arms dealer, the existence of Arthur was a dimensional strike against the worldview he had built over decades.
Therefore, even at the risk of breaking his bones on the spot, Tony had to flex the muscles of mortal technology in front of this "superhuman".
"All transmission data is normal at the moment." Dr. Yinsen, standing to the side, pushed up the glasses on the bridge of his nose, holding a data tablet connected to the mainframe, his voice steady.
As an eyewitness to Arthur unleashing his divine might in front of the Ten Rings Gang Base gate, Dr. Yinsen knew very well where Tony's peacock-like urge was coming from right now. "Jarvis, attempt underlying connection."
"Connection successful, sir. Mark I internal circulation system is online." Jarvis's authentic-accented British male voice echoed through the empty garage.
"Very well." Dr. Yinsen stared closely at the strings of green code jumping on the screen, continuing to issue instructions methodically, "Jarvis, record the real-time donning data and perform a comprehensive scan and comparison."
Several blue laser beams swept across the silver-white armor from bottom to top along the ground rails. Two seconds later, Jarvis gave a positive response.
"Tony, don't rush to do anything else; try striding out and walking a few steps first." Dr. Yinsen raised his head and said to that tin can.
Two heavy pants came from Tony inside the armor. He slightly bent his knees, and accompanied by the rough yet powerful roar of the hydraulic servo motors, this mechanical monster weighing hundreds of pounds heavily lifted its right foot, stepping solidly onto the concrete ground and producing a deafening muffled thud.
Like a giant toddler who had just learned to walk, he cautiously moved forward two steps, turned around, and then walked a small circle around the platform.
Although the movements were slightly stiff, every step was filled with an overwhelming sense of mass. When he steadily returned to his original position, both the sweat-soaked Tony and Dr. Yinsen holding the panel simultaneously bloomed with a pure smile belonging to engineers when their work successfully ran.
Arthur, standing outside the cordon, raised an eyebrow. He deliberately retreated half a step, naturally wrapping his arm around Gwen's slender shoulders, maintaining the steady image of a college student "protecting his girlfriend out of fear of being crushed by machinery."
But what he was thinking in his mind was: Tony this guy really is a once-in-a-century madman; just a pile of things pieced together entirely by hydraulics and circuit boards, he actually managed to tinker into an exoskeleton.
However, if he were to punch this iron shell with his own Ox Talisman... this thing would probably cave in like a soda can.
"Not bad, Tony, now for the final step." Dr. Yinsen's expression gradually turned solemn as he retreated beyond a safe distance.
"Testing flight capabilities. A warning: don't mess around, limit the main thruster power to 1% output first."
"Received, watch closely." Tony's muffled voice came from inside the faceplate.
The next second, the stabilizers in the center of Mark I's palms and the thruster ports at the bottom of the soles simultaneously erupted with a dazzling dark blue light. The high-energy fuel was instantly ignited under the catalysis of the miniature arc reactor.
"Boom—"
The deafening roar of the engine instantly tore through the silence of the garage, and scorching heat waves mixed with dust violently pushed outward in all directions.
Driven by the recoil force, that heavy armor actually wobbled off the ground, hovering half a meter high.
"Whoa! Whoa! Goodness! This thrust is a bit floaty!" Because the thrust of the hands and feet was extremely difficult to synchronize, Tony's body swayed violently in mid-air like a drunk Russian man, and the armor shells collided with each other, producing a teeth-gritting friction sound.
Gwen at the side naturally let out a light gasp, very skillfully and naturally shrinking into Arthur's embrace, her hands tightly clutching the fabric at the chest of his jacket.
From witnessing firsthand the panic attack caused by Peter Parker wearing that crude red and blue suit this morning, to finally finding absolute security in her boyfriend's arms now, she played this "frail high schooler frightened by a big scene" flawlessly.
But in reality, this science honors student and Spider-Woman hidden beneath the skin of an ordinary person had just been staring with her azure-blue eyes, fixing her gaze dead-set on the tail flames beneath Tony's feet.
She was performing extremely crazy mental arithmetic in her mind: to be able to instantly generate high-frequency counter-thrust overcoming tons of gravity and its own mass, the energy conversion rate of this miniature reactor simply defied all common sense written in her high school senior physics textbook. Furthermore, this was true terrain-ignoring flight!
Usually, as Ghost Spider, she could only rely on shooting Web-slinging in the steel and concrete jungle to swing around; if she encountered an open area without tall buildings around, she would also have to honestly run on the ground.
And Tony Stark actually wanted to use money and brains to forcefully send himself up into the sky.
After struggling in mid-air for a dozen seconds, Tonymanaged to steady his form relying on the auxiliary gyroscope at his waist. Although it was still trembling slightly, at least it was no longer spinning.
"Not bad right? I feel like this balance mechanism is set a bit too conservatively." Tony's arrogant voice came through mixed with the noise of the thrusters, carrying a gambler-like escalation fanaticism, "Jarvis, open the safety valve, push the power directly to 3% for me!"
"Wait! Tony, that's way too reckless—" Dr. Yinsen was startled and shouted to stop him, but he didn't have a remote control in his hand.
Before his words fell, the dazzling firelight suddenly magnified several times, and the color of the tail flame transformed from dark blue to searing bright white.
The huge thrust, like an invisible giant hand, instantly hurled Tony's body fiercely into mid-air.
This time, he completely lost control.
Mark I, like a steel fly with one wing clipped, rampaged wildly above the spacious Underground Room garage.
Tony danced about in mid-air, attempting to use his palm stabilizers to find balance, but this instead made his flight trajectory even more unpredictable.
"Bang!"
He slammed headfirst into a Stark Industries security off-road vehicle parked in the distance.
Amid intense friction, the high-temperature tail flame directly acted like a scraper, forcefully burning half the baked paint of that expensive car into charred black ashes. A pungent scorched smell instantly permeated the air.
The armor performed a clumsy roll in mid-air, and the palm's thrust unintentionally swept across another sports car.
The high temperature melted a large hole in the windshield, the engineering plastic on the car frame distorted and dripped visibly to the naked eye, and the anti-theft alarms of several cars shrieked miserably amidst a crackling sound of current short-circuits, throwing the scene into instant chaos.
Facing this chaotic scene where debris might fly, Arthurturned around very smoothly, using his broad back to block the direction of the center of the testing site, holding Gwentightly and protecting her in front of him.
Looking at the girl in his arms with only half of her small head exposed, he inwardly muttered:
Compared to his own telekinetic levitation which could directly break free from gravity by silently activating and stacking the Rabbit Talisman and Rooster Talisman, this kind of takeoff method relying purely on brute-forcing fuel was simply as crude and ungraceful as using a double-kick firecracker to chase a high-speed rail.
And Gwen, protected in his arms, while smelling the reassuring, familiar scent on Arthur, gritted her teeth in her heart and cursed the wealthy uncle scurrying around in mid-air.
If it were her wearing the spider suit and encountering this kind of out-of-control situation, she would only need to shoot a Web-slinging at the ceiling, utilizing the most basic pendulum principle to discharge this scurrying force within a second. How could she tear her own garage to pieces like this steel porcupine?
But this steel porcupine didn't care at all how many luxury cars he had destroyed.
Amidst the piercing alarms and crashing sounds, Tony's voice echoed through the entire Underground Room via the mask's speaker, carrying not a trace of fear, but instead exuding an absolute confidence and madness: "This is a bit tricky! This is indeed a bit tricky! But I can do it! I can definitely control this damn thing!"
He forcibly twisted his waist in mid-air. After the initial wild firing of the leg and hand output systems, his brain grasped the balance point of the four-limb thrust in this extremely short period of time.
Finally, less than half a meter away from the ceiling load-bearing pillar, that brutal metal armor forcefully stopped its momentum, steadily hovering in mid-air.
The messy alarms in the garage were still ringing, but he had done it.
"Awesome..." Tony panted heavily, the breathing light of his faceplate flashing rapidly. "Jarvis! Immediately pull up the damn city map for me and replan a ground-departure flight route! The basement is too small, I'm going out for a big spin!"
"Right away, sir. The route has been uploaded to the HUD headset."
Needing no extra nonsense, the tail nozzles of the armor in mid-air shrank with a roar, and then violently erupted at maximum power.
Arthur and Gwen only felt an afterimage interwoven with silver and firelight flash before their eyes. Mark I rushed out roaring along the wide garage exit passage, carrying a violent airflow capable of blowing over trash cans.
The garage instantly quieted down, leaving only those few unlucky cars venting wisps of black smoke.
"Quick, look over here!" Dr. Yinsen quickly tapped a few times on the panel in his hand, directly projecting the real-time return feed from the main display of Tony's armor helmet onto the largest artificial intelligence holographic display screen in the center of the garage.
Arthur pulled Gwen and walked over. The screen shook slightly, and the harsh hissing sounds of wind noise and airflow sweeping across the armor shell rushed over through the speakers.
That was the first-person perspective belonging exclusively to Tony Stark.
The image on the screen zoomed upwards at high speed. The first to burst into view was the New York City night view revealed as the altitude of the armor soared.
At this moment, with no obstruction of sight from any skyscrapers, the entirety of Brooklyn and Manhattanlooked like a giant, boundless glowing carpet. Beneath the black night curtain, tens of millions of household lights resembled a converged sea of stars.
The traffic flow on the highway turned into winding, flowing golden-red blood. This was the World that Tonyhad always tried to protect with weapons, but now decided to guard in a different way.
The image continued to soar, and the armor carved a sharp arc in the night sky. In the lower right corner of the screen, the numbers on the altimeter were jumping upward at a terrifying speed.
The armor skimmed past the huge Ferris wheel on Coney Island at an extremely close distance.
In the high-definition image captured by the holographic screen, Arthur and Gwen clearly saw that in a gondola right at the top, a little boy with a head of curly hair, only about seven or eight years old, was holding an ice cream cone in his hand.
At this moment, the boy pressed his face hard against the glass, his eyes wide open like two glass marbles, and his mouth widened into a large "O" shape due to extreme shock.
Meanwhile, the vanilla ice cream scoop that was originally in his hand slipped completely due to his daze, dropping onto his shorts with a "pat" sound, but he didn't even glance at it; all his attention was firmly pinned by the steel monster spitting firelight outside.
The armor unhesitatingly left it behind. The field of vision on the screen suddenly turned pitch black, and immediately afterward, large patches of dense white mist erupted around. That was the armor breaking directly through the low-altitude clouds.
A few seconds later, the white mist dissipated, and everything suddenly opened up.
Displayed before everyone was the scenery above the clouds.
That was a boundless, silver-white cloud top resembling an inverted ocean of marshmallows. A huge and bright moon hung high on the black dome curtain without a trace of impurities, and the cool moonlight wantonly paved and sprinkled across this uninhabited sea of clouds, edging the rolling clouds with dazzling golden rims.
"Hhahahaha—!!"
Inside the speaker, Tony Stark's loud laughter suddenly burst out.
That laughter seemed exceptionally abrupt above the silent clouds, yet so soul-stirring.
He didn't speak, just laughed wildly and wantonly like that. In the laughter, the flippancy of being a billionaire in the past was gone; that was a frenzied vent after surviving a near-death ordeal in that pitch-black, despair-filled desert cave,
the death knell of the Stark who once relied on selling life-depriving weapons to trade for status, and even more, the heartfelt pride and ecstasy of relying on ultimate mortal wisdom and hammering steel to forcefully send oneself up into the firmament, truly embracing the vision of gods with a human body.
Chapter 19: Unnamed Proposition Target
The exhaust fan in the underground garage was operating at overload, completely sucking away the pungent burnt smell and the white smoke left after the combustion of high-energy fuel.
Right in the center of the testing site, Tony Stark piloted the Mark I and landed steadily on the landing platform.
As soon as he stood firm, rows of complex industrial robotic arms around him immediately swarmed up like sharks that smelled blood.
The clicking sounds of metal unlocking rang out one after another, and the pneumatic devices emitted continuous exhaust sounds. The mechanical claws precisely clasped the latches on both sides of the helmet and neatly pulled it upward, revealing Tony's face inside, which was flushed red by the high temperature and covered in fine sweat beads.
Immediately after, the robotic arms continued to work downwards, stripping the heavy chest plate, arm guards, and leg armor from his body one by one.
Tony casually wiped the sweat off his face. Although he was so tired that his chest heaved violently, his eyes were shockingly bright.
He stepped off the test platform, and his first reaction was not even to look at the flight data collected by the backend, but to walk directly in front of Arthur.
During the day in the desert, he had witnessed with his own eyes Arthur's magical power that defied physical common sense. For a proud genius like Tony, that scene had been weighing heavily on his mind.
So now, Tony spread his arms, gestured to Arthur with his hands, raised his chin slightly, and the expression on his face practically had "Praise my great invention" written on his forehead. He was waiting for Arthur's evaluation of his mortal technology.
Arthur didn't put on airs either. Looking at the overly excited billionaire in front of him, he didn't say a word, but simply and neatly raised his right hand, giving Tony a big, solid thumbs-up.
The meaning was simple and clear: Awesome.
Seeing that thumb, Tony let out a long breath, a smug and unabashed smile splitting the corners of his mouth.
Although he had always boasted that no one could understand his genius thought process, getting this recognition from Arthur, who also possessed extraordinary means, was indeed very gratifying to him.
Dr. Yinsen, standing in front of the console, was also busy. He pushed up his glasses that had slipped to the bridge of his nose, his eyes fixed firmly on the feedback data refreshing rapidly like a waterfall on the tablet computer in front of him.
Watching all the indicators pass through, Dr. Yinsen could not help but raise a sincere smile on his weathered face.
Just a few days ago, they were still in that sultry and humid cave in the Middle East, cobbling together a survival by hammering a pile of scrap metal.
He truly never expected that in this lifetime he could still stand alive in Stark Tower in New York, making a set of steel armor that could truly fly into the sky.
However, the rigorous scholar's instinct quickly overcame this joy. Dr. Yinsen quickly swiped the screen a few times, pulling out several sets of data marked in red.
He raised his head, his expression becoming very serious: "Tony, don't rush to be happy yet. We have to face reality. After all, the current Mark I is still too crude."
Dr. Yinsen pointed at the tablet and began to point out the fatal flaws one by one.
"The fault tolerance rate of power transmission is extremely low, and the various energy output data are still slightly unstable. Just now in the sky, it almost stalled several times due to power supply gaps. What's more important is the material issue—" Dr. Yinsen tapped the holographic screen.
"The current metal materials have insufficient cold resistance. If you still want to fly high into the clouds like today in the future, once the altitude is too high and the outer temperature plummets, the body will definitely face a serious risk of icing. If the joints freeze and get stuck, you will smash down from the sky like a solid iron lump. Therefore, whether it is materials or systems, everything needs further refinement and improvement."
Having finished listing so many problems in one breath, Dr. Yinsen suddenly felt as if he had exhausted all his strength.
He put down the electronic board in his hand, reached out and pressed his lower back in pain, rubbing it vigorously while complaining with a bitter face.
"Oh my god, my old back... I really am getting on in years, a person with one foot in the grave, yet I still have to toss around with you young people in the middle of the night doing this high-pressure dangerous experiment. If you keep messing around like this, my old bones will sooner or later fall apart and end up right here."
Hearing Dr. Yinsen complain, Tony not only didn't feel guilty, but instead walked over and patted Dr. Yinsen's shoulder, bantering very familiarly.
"Come on, Dr., with your energy level, I think crafting two more micro-reactors by hand would be a breeze. At worst, tomorrow I'll have the logistics department cover every floor of the entire building with top-grade latex mattresses for you."
After a round of mutual teasing, Tony turned around and put his attention back on Arthur.
He clapped his hands, straightened his clothes, and put on the enthusiastic air of a host entertaining guests.
"Alright, tonight's shabby armor exhibition session ends here. What are my good buddy's plans next?"
Tony looked at Arthur, and then looked at Gwen standing obediently beside them all along.
"It's getting late. Do you need me to send a luxury motorcade to take you back to Brooklyn? Or should I directly have Jarvis prepare the best suite for you upstairs? The view is absolutely unbeatable, very suitable for young people to spend a pleasant night."
Upon hearing "prepare a room", Gwen, cowering in Arthur's arms, instinctively gripped the fabric of Arthur's hem tightly.
Too many things happened tonight, especially that fledgling spider kid wearing a crude red and blue suit, which gave her a great scare.
At this moment, the extreme sense of dependence belonging to a trauma-type tsundere girl deep in her heart had been maxed out to the limit.
Superheroes, steel armor, saving the World—she didn't care about any of these messy things at all.
Her only thought now was to stay away from these troubles, go home with Arthur, return to that ordinary apartment full of a sense of security, and quietly be Arthur's little girlfriend.
Gwen raised those clear blue eyes and quickly exchanged a glance with Arthur, who was looking down at her.
She didn't even speak, but shook her head very slightly yet firmly.
Arthur instantly read the plea in the girl's eyes. Fully accommodating Gwen's wishes, he placed his hand on her hair and gently rubbed it, then turned to look at Tony, shaking his head decisively to decline.
"Forget it, it's too late, let's go straight home. We won't stay here and delay you from continuing to study those refinement plans."
Seeing that Arthur decided to leave, Tony didn't force them to stay. Deliberately to maintain the facade of "ordinary people" in Gwen's eyes, Arthur did not use any magical travel methods.
Moments later, Arthur held Gwen's hand, walked out of Stark Tower, hailed an ordinary yellow taxi on the streets of New York, and calmly headed back home to Brooklyn.
After a period of time, the scene shifted.
Inside the core laboratory on the top floor of Stark Tower, the incandescent lights were shining brightly.
Quite a while had passed since the test flight just now. Tony and Dr. Yinsen had long put away their joking thoughts, and both of them were buried in front of the research table, continuing to ponder various update plans for the Mark II armor facing several huge projection light screens.
Just as Tony was trying to use the computer to simulate the low-temperature resistance limit of another alloy coating, the glass door of the laboratory was suddenly pushed open hard.
"Tap, tap, tap."
The sharp sound of high heels striking the marble floor came hastily.
Pepper Potts—that is, Pepper, walked in quickly with a solemn face.
Even the security verification layers outside the door requiring advanced permissions failed to slow down her pace.
She didn't even pause at the door for even half a second, walking straight to the front of Tony's console.
"Thud."
Pepper deftly slammed a thick file she had been holding in her hand for a long time hard onto the desk in front of Tony.
On the front page of the file, the glaring red stock trend chart was plunging straight down like a cliff, a curve that would make any entrepreneur dizzy just to look at.
"What are you going to do about this?"
Because of anger and anxiety, Pepper's voice trembled slightly.
Pointing at the file, completely ignoring the fact that Dr. Yinsen was present nearby, she opened her mouth straight away like spilling beans.
"Tony, you took a trip to the Middle East, and upon coming back, you suddenly announced at the press conference the closure of Stark Industries' core weapon sales department. Not only is this a crazy decision, but the consequences have arrived now! It directly caused the company's stock price to plunge sharply this afternoon, plummeting by a full 56.5 points!"
Pepper took a deep breath and continued to throw out even more explosive news.
"Because of this drop, the entire board of directors is in an uproar now. These people are stepping up preparations to make trouble, especially those guys with the deepest intertwined interests inside. They are preparing to use joint voting rights to kick you straight out of the position of the company's decision-maker!"
Faced with Pepper's rapid-fire questioning and this dismissal document that was enough to give any CEO an instant cerebral hemorrhage, Tony acted like nothing was wrong.
He just casually glanced at the exaggerated line chart without even a trace of surprise or anger.
Tony stretched and shrugged his shoulders extremely nonchalantly.
"Rest assured, Pepper. Let them make a fuss. I have more important things to do right now than those stocks and the old men's decisions."
As he spoke, Tony extremely casually raised his hand and pointed his thumb not far away.
There, the Mark I armor that had just undergone preliminary testing was fixed on an omnidirectional scanning bracket, and several robotic arms were carrying out meticulous three-dimensional scanning and further upgrading and reconstruction on it.
Seeing Tony's impervious demeanor, Pepper looked at the man in front of her who was familiar to her bones, feeling a deep sense of powerlessness.
She let out a heavy sigh. She knew that this was Tony Stark.
Once this proud man made a decision, or fell into his genius-like inventive frenzy, no one and nothing could change his mind.
There was simply no way to make him pay attention to those commercially perilous numbers.
Having no other choice, Pepper bit her lower lip and could only bite the bullet and change direction to continue proposing.
"Alright, if you insist on doing this. Then you must have something to lean on. This matter... aren't you going to let your friend in the desert know? If he is willing to come forward to help..."
Hearing Pepper trying to get him to ask Arthur for help, Tony's fingers that were tapping the keyboard paused slightly.
Of course he knew how capable Arthur was. But he was even more that arrogantly ingrained Tony Stark.
Whether it was the conspiracies in the business World or the field of creating armor through technology, he had a self-esteem that would never bow to anyone.
Soon, Tony skillfully slid his fingertips to quickly adjust the bearing axis data of the mechanical skeleton in front of him on the virtual screen, and without even turning his head, he answered extremely calmly: "No need."
His tone exuded an absolute confidence that left no room for refutation.
"These guys think they can crush me like this? What a joke. Without an industry that manufactures murderous weapons, I am still Tony Stark, and the smartest brain in the World is still housed in my head. But Stark Industries... once I am truly gone from here, what it will become is no longer certain."
The blue fluorescent light on the screen reflected on Tony's focused face.
The reflections in his eyes were all rows of rapidly flowing code and those armor design blueprints gradually taking shape.
"And..."
Tony stopped his movements, gazing deeply at the fledgling metal monster ahead, his voice becoming slow and resolute.
"What do those mortal businesses amount to? As long as this brand-new thing can be completed... what I can reap in the future will be far more than what I currently have and what I have lost."
Chapter 20 What kind of mess is this? Both of them have mouths yet refuse to speak, just out-acting each other, right?
The journey back to Brooklyn from Stark Tower seemed exceptionally brief amidst the friction between the tires and the ground.
The night was already deep, and the dim streetlights flashed alternately inside the carriage, casting down upon the backs of Arthur and Gwen's intertwined hands.
The taxi finally stopped steadily downstairs at the apartment building. This was destined to be a night that could only stop at parting.
The two got out of the car, and the cold wind of the early morning made Gwen instinctively shrink her neck. Arthurhelped her pull up the slightly skewed zipper of her coat, and Gwen smoothly leaned closer, leaving a kiss with a slight warmth and the scent of peppermint on Arthur's cheek.
"Goodnight, see you tomorrow morning."
She said softly, those azure-blue eyes flashing with undisguised reluctance under the streetlight, but eventually she took two steps back and turned to run toward her own home across the street.
Arthur went upstairs alone and pushed open the door belonging to his own room. He didn't turn on the main lights, with only the city neon lights seeping through the gaps in the curtains serving as the sole illumination.
He casually hung his coat in the entryway, changed into slippers, and walked to the bedroom, plunging headfirst onto the slightly messy single bed.
The room was eerily quiet, and this quietness seemed somewhat abrupt after experiencing a whole day of desert speeding and mecha displays today.
What made him feel most amiss was the temperature around him. Having grown accustomed to a girl whose body temperature was slightly higher and who always liked to burrow under someone's arm like a restless kitten, the large bed now felt empty instead, inexplicably producing a trace of boredom.
He just stared aimlessly at the pitch-black ceiling in a daze for a while, and then, under the invasion of fatigue, fell fast asleep.
Over the next few days, for these two young people with a bunch of secrets, they welcomed a long-lost uneventful daily routine like ordinary couples.
The coffee shop at the street corner, the shopping mall in downtown, and those alleys full of graffiti everywhere in Brooklyn all became their strongholds for wasting time.
The two held hands and squeezed into the crowd, with Arthur often carrying the clothes bags Gwen newly bought, while Gwen would naturally stuff half-eaten caramel ice cream into Arthur's mouth.
This period of time felt simply unrealistically relaxing for Gwen.
One afternoon, as they were sitting on a street bench eating hot dogs, a harsh siren suddenly sounded from not far away.
Three Police cars roared from one end of the street to the other. If it were in the past, as long as she heard the siren ring, no matter what Gwen was doing the second before, her brain would instantly sound the highest-level red alert.
Immediately afterward, she would look at Arthur with full of guilt, casually pull out a terribly crude excuse like "My dad is looking for me for something urgent" or "The band suddenly needs to hold an emergency meeting", and then hastily flee the dating scene, hiding into the nearest alley to put on the Spider-Man suit to stop crimes.
But not anymore. When the siren sounded again, Gwenonly slightly turned her head to glance at the end of the street, not even shaking her hand holding the paper cup.
She quietly leaned against Arthur's shoulder, stirring the ice cubes at the bottom of the cup with a straw.
Because she knew very well in her heart that just a few blocks away, that novice Spider-Man Peter Parker wearing homemade red and blue pajamas must be hanging on some streetlight pole preparing to take over this messy situation.
Since there was this unlucky little brother covering for her, she naturally and peace of mind chose to be the quietest beautiful girl in all of New York, comfortably dating.
Just like that, the days peacefully slipped to this night.
Outside, a medium-sized shower was falling, raindrops tapping against the window glass. Inside Arthur's apartment lit up warm warm-yellow wall lamps.
Gwen was wearing a white wide-collar T-shirt belonging to Arthur that was obviously several sizes too big for her, and the washed-white shorts on her lower body were completely covered by the hem of the shirt.
At this moment, she was paralyzed in Arthur's arms like a boneless creature, Arthur was sitting on the carpet leaning against the edge of the sofa, while she was resting her head on Arthur's thighs, holding her phone with both hands and aimlessly swiping through short videos.
As she swiped and swiped, a breaking news clip popped out without warning.
The picture quality of the footage was extremely poor and shook violently, obviously urgently filmed by a passerby with a mobile phone from the periphery.
In the lens, in a place that looked like a highway section, a huge, silver-gray unknown humanoid machine was waving its thick mechanical arms. Then a few blurry photos flashed past.
The news broadcaster's voice came out solemnly: "Recently, unknown armed forces suddenly appeared on the streets of New York, causing panic among a large number of citizens. According to official internal news leaks, the Department of Defense tends to believe that this is a secret infiltration weapon of a hostile country, and multiple sources also pointed out that this is likely related to Stark Industries, which has recently drastically reduced its weapons business and disappeared from the public view..."
Immediately afterward, the video screen cut directly to a dazzling, crowded press conference hall.
Dozens of microphones of all sizes were placed in front of the podium, and the magnesium flashes made people's eyes sore.
Tony Stark wore an extremely exquisite custom-made suit, chewing gum in his mouth, standing behind the podium.
He held a piece of paper in his hand with no idea what crib notes were written on it, his gaze drifting for a moment.
Then, just as everyone was waiting for him to clarify the robot incident according to the PR draft, he put down the paper.
Facing the nationwide live broadcast camera, the corners of his mouth curled into a smile full of absolute confidence and slight arrogance, and he spat out a sentence with that highly recognizable voice: "I am Iron Man."
The video came to an abrupt end here, and the screen was switched to a close-up of the news anchor whose jaw dropped in shock.
Arthur pulled his hand out of Gwen's hair, which exuded a faint shampoo fragrance, and reached out to swipe away and close the video.
He raised his head, took a big sigh looking at the ceiling, and couldn't help muttering out loud: "Tsk, this Tony really hasn't changed at all.
He just had to make such a flamboyant show. With this kind of random announcement of his, the peaceful days in the future are completely over, and troubles will definitely follow one after another."
But Gwen, lying on his lap, was obviously completely uninterested in the mess created by this potbellied (in her view) arms dealer.
Compared to grand words like saving the World or revealing identity, she cared more about the warm-touched hand Arthur had just taken away.
She twisted her body with extreme dissatisfaction, and like a cat searching for territory, she nudged hard toward Arthur's lower abdomen.
Burying half her face into the rough cotton fabric, she found the most comfortable position again, closed her eyes, and mumbled incoherently to continue enjoying this stolen leisure time.
Looking at this defenseless appearance in his arms, Arthur's mind became active.
Watching the news just now, he casually flipped through the plot trend of the original movie titled "Iron Man" in his brain.
The current situation made him a bit unsure. Originally, this Universe already had mutant Spider-Man and all kinds of messy things, and the timeline of the plot had long been pulled somewhat chaotic.
He was not sure whether his intervention caused a huge shift in the time node when Tony encountered trouble.
But soon, Arthur threw this matter to the back of his mind.
Let it deviate if it wants to. For him who held the Zodiac Talisman trump cards, as long as the general direction did not undergo devastating changes endangering himself and Gwen, he really didn't care about other specific details.
Just as the atmosphere in the room was so quiet that only the sound of raindrops remained, the screen of the mobile phone Arthur left on the coffee table suddenly lit up violently. Accompanied by it was a burst of urgent default ringtones.
What was displayed on the screen was a completely unfamiliar number, with no origin location and no remark name.
Arthur frowned slightly and looked down at Gwen, who had already opened her eyes and was staring at the phone.
In order not to appear guilty, he did not pick up the phone and walk aside to answer, but directly stretched out his arm to press the answer button and casually clicked on the speakerphone function.
"Hello?" Arthur tentatively made a sound.
Almost at the exact moment the sound came out, a highly destructive muffled sound exploded directly in the speaker.
That was an extremely violent explosion, very, very close to the sound-receiving microphone, shaking the speaker of the entire phone into a hoarse distortion.
This sound directly made the lying Gwen sit up straight instantly, her muscles tightening subconsciously.
Following closely after the explosion was a huge, heavy sound of steel tracks or some mechanical feet rubbing and squeezing tyrannically on the ground, a sound that made people's teeth ache. Interspersed among them was also a loud crash of a large area of glass shattering and collapsing.
Then came the rapid running sound of leather shoes and heavy panting that was obviously out of breath.
Amidst these chaotic and noisy ambient sounds, a woman's slightly trembling voice due to extreme fear finally came over, and she almost used all the strength in her lungs to scream hysterically toward this end of the phone:
"Hello! Is... Is it Mr. Arthur?! Help... Tony has an completely uncontrollable emergency here! Can you... Can you come and help him right now?! He can't hold on anymore! The location is—"
Hearing this anxious cry for help, Gwen's eyes widened instantly.
She turned her head and stared fixedly at Arthur. The full head of question marks was almost about to pop out along her pink hair.
That super-rich billionaire Tony Stark who acted like a big shot in Stark Tower now possessed a new mecha capable of smashing through walls, yet when facing life-threatening danger, why did his secretary bypass the Police department and the Military and make a distress call to Arthur, an ordinary college boy who couldn't be more ordinary and might gasp for breath even after running 800 meters? What was she looking for him to do? Help make up a headcount over there?!
Arthur keenly sensed Gwen's probing and puzzled gaze.
He cursed inwardly that Pepper really knew how to pick her timing to call at this moment.
To prevent Gwen's well-developed brain from continuing to suspect in the direction of uncovering his true bottom line, Arthur reacted with lightning speed. Before the other end of the phone could finish explaining what exactly happened, he raised his voice and forcibly interrupted the other party's cry for help with a just-right panicked and speechless tone:
"No... Big sister, what are you looking for me for in such a matter?! I am just an ordinary citizen, and I would have been scared paralyzed when encountering such a commotion, how could I have any way to save people! How about this, why don't you hurry up and send the address to my phone, I... I'll see if I can help you find some people nearby to help out, or help you call the Police to urge the progress?"
After saying this, without waiting for any further response from the other side, Arthur sharp-eyed and quick-handed stabbed forcefully on the red hang-up button.
The call was forcibly cut off amidst a burst of chaotic metal crashing sounds, and the room returned to the previous dead silence.
Putting down the phone, Arthur scratched his hair somewhat helplessly, turned his head to look at the bewildered Gwen, spread his hands, and said with feigned ease:
"You tell me what kind of business this is, is this rich person's secretary indiscriminately seeking medical treatment when in trouble? She was even able to dig out my number. Generally, when encountering such troublesome scenes of large robots fighting, deploying the Police might not even work, it has to be a fully armed army anyway. Besides, don't we still have that good neighbor Spider-Man in New York to cover for us? He will definitely come in handy and go when it's time to show off. Don't worry blindly, rest assured, with someone like Tony who feels extremely good about himself, he will definitely have great fortune and not die."
On the surface, Arthur was comforting his girlfriend extremely naturally, wanting to skip this topic early.
But in reality, his heart was already wildly hitting the keyboard to calculate. The situation was very obvious; being able to force Tony to a desperate situation and make Pepper bypass Tony's pride to make a private distress call could only be that bald Obadiah driving Iron Mongercausing trouble.
This happened to be the timeline at the end of Iron Man 1. Since he ran into this kind of matter and had already shown his prowess, if he didn't go to that battlefield to join in the fun and meddle, while consolidating his unfathomable image in front of Tony, it really wouldn't make sense.
But the problem came. What reason should be used now so that he could reasonably and without making Gwensuspicious shake off this girlfriend who clung to him like conjoined twins?
Say the apartment's toilet was clogged and he had to go down to find a plumber? Or say he suddenly had an extremely urgent desire to go a few blocks away to buy a pack of special cigarettes only sold at that convenience store?
And Gwen, who was sitting right beside him and had just pretended to agree completely, was also experiencing huge ripples in her heart at this moment.
On the surface, she nodded very obediently along with Arthur's words, and even chimed in with a sentence: "That's true, looking for you is useless either."
But when she lowered her head to pretend to play with the corner of Arthur's clothes, her eyes involuntarily glanced at the text message containing the location address that flashed extremely quickly on the phone screen just now.
Although it was just a flash, relying on the extremely strong dynamic vision after the spider mutation, that string of street names had been firmly imprinted in her brain.
Gwen pursed her lips tightly. Indeed, although that Uncle Tony often spoke without boundaries and was annoying,
that guy was after all one of the few friends in New Yorkthat her Arthur could talk to.
If this guy was really crushed into an iron pancake by an inexplicable huge machine, Arthur would definitely feel very sad in his heart.
She absolutely could not allow things that made Arthur sad to happen.
She quickly calculated in her heart: that address was not far from here.
Should she sneak out while Arthur wasn't paying attention, and then go pack up and throw that little spider Parker, who was still wandering around the streets and in a slacking state, over to help?
Or, if the opponent's armed firepower was too fierce for Parker to handle, should she personally enter the field to clean up the mess?
But the difficult problem right before her eyes was, how could she silently slip out of this room right under Arthur's nose?
Two people with respective hidden thoughts sat side by side like this under the warm and bright light, silent to each other, yet their brains were both running at high speed in completely opposite directions, trying to fabricate a flawless lie for the upcoming "brief disappearance".