Behind Jack stood a guy who looked to be in his mid-thirties, holding a gun and looking a little suspicious.
Hearing the question, Jack replied, "I felt a little hungry so I came to get something to eat," and reached over to grab a piece of bread from nearby, taking a bite.
"Don't let the boss see you," the man said, watching him for a second, then turned and left.
It seems he believed it. Jack glanced around the kitchen, then grabbed a basket, loaded some food into it, and headed out toward the other side of the cave.
"Omar, where are you going with that food?" Just as he turned into another route, two guards on security duty spotted him.
"Boss told me the American asked for food at night, so I'm delivering it," Jack said, holding up the basket.
The two guards looked at each other. One of them frowned. "I delivered food to that guy just a few hours ago. Why didn't the boss tell me?"
"Are you questioning the boss?" Jack asked, his voice sharpening.
Hearing that, the guard backed off — clearly more afraid of the boss than curious about the food — and they let him through.
It worked. Jack had an intuition that Tony was on this side of the cave, and it seemed he'd been right.
As he walked further in, he spotted an iron door at the end of the tunnel.
This must be the place.
He tried the handle — locked from the inside. He knocked first, but not loud enough. He knocked again, harder this time.
Inside the room, Tony and Yinsen were working hard as usual, pushing through another long stretch to finish the iron suit. With only about a week left before the deadline the terrorists had given them, the past few days had been brutal — four hours of sleep at most, every other hour spent working.
Hearing the banging on the door, both of them looked at each other.
"Why are these guys knocking this late?" Tony muttered under his breath, irritated, as he quickly moved to hide the suit. Yinsen helped, covering the other components as fast as he could.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
It took them a few minutes to hide everything properly. Then Tony walked to the door, took a breath, and opened it — putting on the look of someone who'd just been woken up.
"Hey. Why are you here this late? I was sleeping."
He looked at the man in the doorway. A new face.
"I'm here with the food you ordered, Mr. Stark," the man said, holding up the basket.
Tony glanced back at Yinsen with a look — did you order this?
Yinsen shook his head slightly.
Tony turned back, eyes narrowing. "I didn't know there were terrorists here who spoke English."
"I'm new here," Jack replied simply, stepping past him into the room with the basket, eyes moving across the space — the different parts, the half-finished components, everything spread across the workshop floor.
Sensing the danger, both Tony and Yinsen tensed up, trying to find a way to get him out without drawing attention to anything.
"Drop the food and go. It's late." Tony said in his usual way
"Why are you trying to make me leave, Stark? Are you hiding something?" Jack asked, already having spotted the place they'd hidden the suit. Seeing Tony's performance was honestly a little funny, and Jack figured he might never get another chance to mess with Iron Man in person, so he walked straight to the hiding spot.
"What's this, Stark? A new missile? Doesn't quite look like one."
Both Tony and Yinsen's hearts dropped.
"How did it fail at the last minute?" Tony felt the despair of it hit him — three months of work, and now this. And if these people found out Yinsen had helped him too, they would kill him immediately.
Meanwhile, Yinsen looked at the situation. He suddenly grabbed a gun he had hidden nearby, with a look that said he was ready to die right there.
"Hey — hey, easy, cool down—"
Seeing the situation, Jack knew he had gone a little too far with the prank, so he undid his Omnitrix transformation.
The terrorist's face and clothes dissolved, replaced by his plumbers suit, the full technological presence of it filling the small room.
Tony and Yinsen were both shocked by the sudden sight of a guy transforming into a suited figure.
"Who are you?" Tony asked, shifting into a defensive stance.
"Don't be afraid, Stark. You can call me Omnix. I came to rescue you at the request of an American organization."
But both Tony and Yinsen didn't lower their guard, Yinsen keeping the gun pointed at Jack, ready to shoot.
"How do I know I can believe you masked, guy ?" Tony asked, keeping his back to the door.
"You know these terrorists couldn't build a suit like this to fool you, right?" Jack explained calmly.
Tony knew that, but three months in this place had made him very paranoid — though he didn't show it on his face.
"You nearly gave me a heart attack. I'm definitely filing a complaint with your superiors," Tony said.
"Tony," Yinsen said quietly, stopping him. The situation was still unclear — no point making enemies.
"You can, Stark. I'm just helping them out — not exactly a subordinate," Jack replied. He looked around at the workshop. "But you're genuinely a genius to have built all this in these conditions."
"Of course — I'm Tony Stark. Even if you guys hadn't shown up, I was getting out of here."
"I have no doubt about that. I wouldn't say the same for your friend, though." Jack glanced at Yinsen.
That made Tony go quiet. He knew the odds of both of them making it out had always been lower — but he was Tony Stark, and admitting that out loud wasn't something he did.
"But are you using nanotechnology? Earlier you disguised yourself as a terrorist, and that suit appeared instantly—it has to be nanotechnology, right?"
"I've only been here three months. When did America develop that?"
"It's not nanotechnology. It's my personal invention."Jack said, and he was clearly a little proud to be showing his technology to Tony.
"Not nanotech? Then what—adaptive assembly? Programmable matter?" Tony guessed.
"Nope."
"Yeah, I'm not getting that. We'll figure it out later—right now, we move."
"But your style is terrible," Tony added sharply.
"Like your designs are any better," Jack said, glancing at the prototype sitting in the corner.
"That's a prototype. Once I finish the real one, I'll show you how my suit works better than yours."
"Guys — this is not the time to argue. The terrorists could come any minute," Yinsen said, visibly nervous.
"So how many people came? Is the military already here?" Tony asked.
"No military. Only three guys are outside on backup."
"Three? That's it?"
"There are more than twenty people here. You want to fight them with only three guys — are you insane?" Tony was clearly in a bad mood hearing the number.
"No need. Just me is enough to handle these guys," Jack replied.
Tony looked the suit over carefully. It wasn't bad — but it was still dangerous. He didn't know enough about Jack, and handing his safety over to a stranger felt like a bad call.
"Get ready — we're about to move."
"Wait." Tony looked back at the half-finished suit in the corner. "This is almost done. Give me a minute to put it on — I can help."
Jack glanced at it. Prototype, clearly. But he also knew that three months of Tony's hard work was sitting in that thing, and Tony didn't trust him — so looking at Tony, he made the call.
"Fine. Make it fast."
They helped Tony into the suit and waited for it to run through its startup sequence.
Meanwhile, the terrorist from earlier noticed that Omar still hadn't come back after delivering the food, and the delay was starting to make him suspicious.
At first, he tried to ignore it, thinking it might just be taking longer than usual. But as more time passed, the feeling only grew stronger.
Frowning slightly, he decided to check for himself and headed toward Tony's place.
When he got there, he reached for the handle—but the door was locked.
"Omar — what's taking so long in there?"
"Why is the door locked? Open it now!" the man shouted in his language.
"It's going to need five more minutes to boot up," Yinsen said, panic creeping into his voice.
As time passed, more and more terrorists, drawn by the noise, gathered at the door and began attacking it.
"I'll stop them." Yinsen grabbed a gun.
"No — leave it to me, Yinsen." Jack held up a hand, sent the signal to Natasha and the others through the device, and touched the Omnitrix.
Katcha.
Upgrade.
Both Tony and Yinsen stared in shock as Jack transformed into a black-and-green figure.
"Are you actually human?" Tony asked, genuinely uncertain.
"We'll talk about that later, Stark." The voice came out different now, layered with the Upgrade form's tone.
And then Jack merged directly into the Iron Man suit.
The suit shifted — black and green lines spreading across every panel, the whole thing restructuring in real time. Inside, Tony watched his own suit transform around him, barely able to process what he was seeing.
In the end, Jack optimized the bulky, half-finished suit into a true Iron Man–style suit as he remembered.
"Oh my God," Yinsen whispered, not believing what he was looking at.
"Let's go, Stark. We're out of time."
A/N:🚨 Power Stone Goals! 🚨
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