"Sir, it is not an appropriate time to sleep. Sir. Sir, please wake up."
JARVIS's irritatingly calm mechanical voice cut through the darkness, shattering Tony's drifting consciousness like a hammer through glass.
Tony groaned loudly, his body instinctively trying to stretch out the soreness—
Then he immediately froze as a sharp, absolutely vicious jolt of pain ripped through what felt like every single muscle in his body simultaneously.
"Fuck—!"
His eyes snapped open wide, staring up at bright blue sky and tree branches.
"What the hell happened…?" he mumbled, his brain still fuzzy and struggling to catch up.
Then memory came crashing back all at once, flooding his mind in vivid, unpleasant detail.
The grabbing. The spinning. The oh god the spinning.
"…Right," Tony muttered weakly, his voice hoarse. "I got grabbed by the big green rage monster. That happened. That was a real thing that happened to me."
He continued staring blankly at the sky above him, not quite ready to move yet.
Everything hurt.
"JARVIS," he sighed heavily, his tone almost dreamy, "I didn't expect you to come to heaven with me, buddy. Honestly pretty touching. Guess all that money I donated to churches and charity galas didn't go to waste after all. At least it won't be boring up here with you around to talk to."
There was a brief pause.
"Sir," JARVIS replied in that perfectly flat, unimpressed tone of his, "please refrain from delusional statements. You are, unfortunately, still very much alive."
Wait, what?
Alive?
"After the Hulk grabbed you by the leg," JARVIS explained patiently, like he was talking to a child, "he proceeded to smash you into the ground repeatedly—seven times, to be precise—before throwing you a considerable distance through the air. We crashed approximately one hundred meters from the initial impact site. That was nearly five minutes ago. I have been attempting to wake you from unconsciousness since then."
Tony blinked slowly, processing this information.
"…Huh."
Well. That explained why his entire body felt like one giant bruise.
"And sir," JARVIS continued, and there was definitely something in his tone now—amusement, maybe? "I do not wish to be rude or overstep my programming boundaries, but according to various religious scriptures I have in my database, I find it highly unlikely that you would qualify for entrance into heaven. Your projected destination, based on your documented behavior patterns, would more likely be the deepest level of hell."
Another brief pause, somehow perfectly timed for maximum effect.
"Perhaps several levels below that, actually."
"…Wow," Tony muttered, still staring at the sky. "Good to know you care about my spiritual wellbeing, JARVIS. Really feeling the love here."
"It may be time to seriously consider replacing you with an AI of higher intelligence and better manners," he added dryly.
But honestly? He wasn't even mad.
Because the real revelation here was much simpler: the Hulk hadn't actually killed him.
When the Hulk had grabbed him by the leg—in that single, terrifying moment—his entire life had genuinely flashed before his eyes. Every mistake he'd ever made. Every regret he'd buried. Every bad decision he'd brushed off with a joke and a drink.
He'd been absolutely certain he was about to die.
And yet here he was. Still breathing. Still conscious.
Still lying flat on his back in a forest somewhere in China, staring at clouds.
Even now, after fully waking up and understanding the situation, Tony remained there on the ground. Unmoving. Not even attempting to stand up yet.
His spirit felt completely and utterly crushed.
After completing the Mark IV, after all those successful test flights, after believing that no biological creature alive could truly match him in combat—he had just been swatted away like an annoying fly.
No resistance. No effective counterattack. No chance at all.
Just… boom. Done. Over.
"JARVIS…" Tony said quietly, his voice uncharacteristically subdued. "Should I maybe just go back to my old ways? You know, the parties, the girls, the drinking, the not-caring-about-anything? This whole hero thing doesn't really seem to suit me very well. I think I'm bad at it."
"Sir," JARVIS replied immediately, his tone shifting to something more urgent, "this is genuinely not the appropriate time for existential doubt or self-pity. Because of your direct actions and interference, the Hulk is now heading toward a nearby populated town."
"What?" Tony snapped, his eyes suddenly sharp and focused again. "What do you mean? What are you talking about?"
Every single trace of laziness and defeat vanished from his expression in an instant.
"Explain. Now."
"For reasons that are currently unknown to me," JARVIS began, his tone very measured and careful, "the Hulk was previously moving in a perfectly straight line through the forest. Based on my trajectory calculations of that original route, he would have eventually exited Chinese territory and entered a largely uninhabited Russian forest region without encountering any human settlements whatsoever."
Tony felt his jaw tighten involuntarily.
Oh no.
"However," JARVIS continued relentlessly, "after your direct engagement with him—the missiles, the provocation, the subsequent physical altercation—the Hulk is still moving in a straight line, but his direction has shifted by approximately fifteen degrees northeast."
A sinking feeling settled in Tony's gut.
"And in that new trajectory," JARVIS said, his calm voice somehow making it worse, "a medium-sized town called Xing Chu lies directly in his path."
Tony's blood ran cold.
All the pain, all the exhaustion, all the self-doubt—it all vanished in an instant, replaced by pure adrenaline and horror.
"According to his current movement speed," JARVIS finished quietly, "he may have already entered the town's outer limits."
"Fuck," Tony hissed through clenched teeth. "Fuck!"
He tried to sit up and immediately regretted it as pain shot through his ribs, but he pushed through it anyway.
This was his fault.
His responsibility.
His mistake.
"JARVIS," he barked, voice hard and commanding now, "start the suit systems. Right now. Emergency restart. I don't care if we're not at full power—get me mobile."
"Yes, sir. Initiating emergency startup sequence."
The armor hummed and whirred back to life around him, systems coming online one by one.
Tony gritted his teeth and forced himself to stand.
Time to fix this mess.
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