By the time the silver Iron Man armor landed back on the launch pad of the Stark mansion, riding on white air waves and propulsion flames, it was already early morning.
Mechanical arms worked clumsily but effectively to remove the armor from Tony's body. He instructed Jarvis to tidy up the laboratory while he dragged his exhausted body into the bathroom. He took a comfortable hot shower, wrapped himself in an Italian custom-made bath towel, and squinted as he lay down on the soft bed lined with custom white goose down.
A massive villa by the sea, the world's most advanced private laboratory... In the first two days after his transmigration, Tony had taken some time to adapt to living in this house.
Because after actually transmigrating into Tony Stark's life, he quickly discovered that the wealth of the tycoon Stark was simply not something the limited scenes in the movies could portray.
Poverty really does limit human imagination. For the first two days, this house gave him the feeling that he wished even the toilet paper was made of banknotes...
Oh, right. To be precise, even the toilet had achieved a "paperless cleaning system," and was even equipped with functions to monitor physiological indicators and generate health reports—he couldn't understand why a toilet would need such functions.
It was no exaggeration to say that for the first two days of his transmigration, he felt like he was living in a villa built entirely of gold. But to be honest, the feeling was actually quite nice...
...It would just be better without this hunk of iron in his chest.
Tony lay on the bed, and a mechanical arm at the head of the bed handed him a small box. Tony reached out and took it. The box popped open with a click in his hand, revealing a row of neatly arranged chips inside.
Tony took a deep breath and removed the Arc Reactor from the socket in his chest. The small reactor bloomed with a beautiful but deadly cold blue light, illuminating his pale and helpless face.
He carefully pulled out the palladium chip from the back of the reactor. The chip was now burnt black, hissing and emitting white smoke. He casually tossed the chip onto the floor to the side—a cleaning robot would take care of it later—then cautiously took a brand-new chip from the box and inserted it into the slot on the back of the reactor.
Finally, he stuffed the reactor back into the chest socket, pushing it in carefully until he heard a slight click, only then letting go.
The whole process took less than half a minute, but Tony was sweating profusely and let out a long breath. During this time, it felt as if he had been holding his breath underwater, and even his heartbeat seemed to have stopped briefly.
It wasn't until the chip was replaced and the reactor pushed back in that he felt the freedom of breathing return, and the rhythm of life resume.
It was a terrible feeling, and he disliked it very much.
But he knew that according to the movies, the Arc Reactor wouldn't be successfully removed surgically until the end of Iron Man 3, and even that was a surgery that carried certain risks.
According to the movie setting, before that point, the shrapnel seemed to be too close to Tony's heart. Removing the shrapnel from that position required extremely high technology, which did not exist at this stage. By the time of Iron Man 3, medical technology had likely made a major breakthrough, and applying new technology allowed for the successful removal of the shrapnel.
So, although he disliked it very much, Tony probably couldn't get rid of the reactor in his chest for a short while.
However, compared to this, he had a more imminent problem. That was the chip he had just replaced.
Palladium. This was an indispensable element for the reactor. But ironically, while this element stopped the shrapnel from entering his heart and saved Tony's life, the palladium itself carried toxins that were chronically killing him.
This was also a very depressing thing as a transmigrator. At the point in time he transmigrated, the original Tony had already returned from the cave in the Middle East, and this thing was already in his chest.
If he could have transmigrated just a few months earlier, he wouldn't have gone to that hellhole in the Middle East even if it killed him.
But comparatively, it was fortunate that at the time he transmigrated, the famous scene where Tony Stark declared "I am Iron Man" to the media hadn't happened yet.
The original Tony liked to show off and was incredibly confident, publicly revealing his identity as Iron Man on TV. But as a transmigrator, he didn't plan to do that.
He felt that even without the high-profile halo of Iron Man, there were probably plenty of people in this world who wanted his life. The original Tony had that confidence; the current Tony did not. He didn't want to become a live target for supervillains all over the world.
In the movie, Tony said he tried every element in the world but couldn't find a substitute for palladium. So in the later part of Iron Man 2, Tony even started preparing for his funeral.
Solving the palladium toxicity was the highest priority item on Tony's current agenda, much more important than some finger snap ten years later. Before this, the highest priority was killing his uncle Obadiah who tried to murder him, but that item had just been crossed off the to-do list tonight, so now the palladium issue became the top priority.
Luckier than the original Tony, as a transmigrator, he already knew the direction to solve the problem.
In the movie, just as Tony was overwhelmed by the toxin issue, S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Nick Fury appeared before him and brought clues left by Tony's father, Howard Stark, many years ago.
With the help of the clues left by his father, Tony successfully discovered a new element, eliminating the palladium element while also giving the reactor a major upgrade.
Tony knew the key clue to solving the problem was in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s hands. Howard Stark was one of the founders of S.H.I.E.L.D., and he left a lot of data with them.
Of course, through the movies, he also knew that S.H.I.E.L.D. quickly noticed Tony's palladium poisoning problem. Fury wouldn't sit by and watch him die of poisoning; if he waited patiently, Fury would naturally hand over the data left by Howard Stark to him.
But the problem was that he wasn't very patient right now. He wanted to solve this ticking time bomb buried in his heart as quickly as possible, the sooner the better.
"Sir, I've pulled up the file you wanted," Jarvis said.
Tony: "Thanks, Jarvis. Put it on the screen for me, will you?"
As he spoke, a document was projected onto the screen in front of Tony.
An exotic red-haired beauty, with a resume beautiful enough to stand out even in a major factory like the Stark Group, rich business experience, proficient in multiple languages, plus that face that could almost be used as a weapon—undoubtedly, she would instantly become the center of attention wherever she was placed.
Outside the file, there were also a large number of personal life details and artistic photos, including some magnificent landscape sceneries.
The file said her name was Natalie Rushman, currently working in the company's legal department.
But of course, Tony knew very well that wasn't her real name. Her real name was Natasha Romanoff, a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who infiltrated Stark Industries with a spy mission. The mission was to approach, observe, and assess Tony Stark, and form a written report directly for her immediate superior, Nick Fury.
On one hand, it was to observe and confirm Tony's palladium poisoning condition, and on the other hand, it was to assess whether "Iron Man" was worth recruiting for the Avengers Initiative.
Tony let out a long yawn.
Having been busy all day, he was quite tired. Tony rubbed his sleepy eyes and temporarily tossed the projection screen aside.
Jarvis asked: "Do you need to contact Miss Rushman, Sir?"
"No, not yet. I haven't decided..."
Tony thought for a moment and changed his mind.
"Actually, let's do this first. Notify the legal department to arrange more tasks for our Miss Rushman, but don't say I arranged it."
"Let me think... like, say, cross-referencing patent documents? Contract reviews? Find more work for our spy lady to do, and remember not to give too generous a deadline."
After all, she was high-quality labor delivered to his door; it would be a waste not to use her. The spy lady didn't seem like the type to sue him using labor laws.
"Then let me think, I also need to prepare an ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) public welfare promotion copy for a sum of funds simultaneously. Let her do that too... Let me think, three days? Do you think that's too much time?"
Jarvis said: "But Sir, you should know that theoretically, she cannot finish so many tasks alone."
"Of course I know, but that's the effect I want." Tony smiled.
That was right.
Wasn't she a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent? Wasn't she a super spy?
Let her work some "007" overtime first.
"Going to sleep." Tony yawned again. "Old J, my armor?"
Jarvis said gently: "I am here, Sir."
As he spoke, a faint ghostly blue light lit up in the dark corner of the room. Transparent ripples emerged from the darkness, and the silver Iron Man armor deactivated its stealth and appeared out of thin air in the room.
Iron Man Mark II Prototype Armor, Stealth Mode.
Of course, in the original movie, Tony Stark hadn't developed stealth armor at this stage yet. This was technology Tony had just rushed to produce over the past half-month, utilizing the knowledge base in his head and basing it on his memories of the movie setting books and Iron Man armors in the comics.
He quickly realized that his advantage as a transmigrator with foreknowledge wasn't limited to the movie plot. He also knew in advance about many new armors and new technologies that Tony would develop in the future in the original work, and even some more overpowered Iron Man armor models from the comics that hadn't appeared in the original movies.
Inheriting Iron Man's memories and knowledge now, all of these could serve as references to help him research new technologies and develop new armors faster and more accurately.
The stealth function was a permanent feature possessed by almost all models of Iron Man armor in the later stages of the comics. However, as a transmigrator, Tony felt that this technology was more necessary for him, so he had been working overtime to develop it recently.
Just the day before, he had just installed the trial version of the stealth device onto the experimental prototype, Mark II. So now, the Mark II was the only armor he had on hand with stealth capabilities.
While Tony slept, he let Jarvis take over the armor, keeping it in stealth mode guarding his bedside.
There was no other way; he couldn't sleep soundly otherwise.
It was no joke; there were countless people in the Marvel Universe who wanted to kill Tony Stark. If they lined up, they could probably stretch across the entire New York City. Thinking that so many people might be eyeing his head, he couldn't sleep at all.
At this stage, although Jarvis couldn't fully manipulate the armor to do very complex work, it was still very easy to simply remote control the armor to stand at attention nearby as a fixed turret, responsible for opening fire upon detecting a threatening target.
Only with the stealth armor guarding his bedside could he sleep peacefully.
"Goodnight, Jarvis."
"Goodnight, Sir." Jarvis thoughtfully turned off the bedroom lights and controlled the armor to return to its stealth alert state. "Sweet dreams."