As for the Material Definition ability of the Void Engine, Tony had so far only received a general description and still was not completely certain where the limits of that ability lay.
However, it truly gave him new hope.
Although he was not currently injured by shrapnel from armed militants and did not need an Arc Reactor to stay alive,
after seeing himself on the screen displaying his power in the Iron Man armor, Tony had already made a decision:
Iron Man was him! He was Iron Man!
No matter how difficult it was, he would put everything he could into finding a new element and solving the problem of palladium poisoning.
[The image continues.]
[Just as Tony was drinking chlorophyll juice and trying to temporarily alleviate the palladium poisoning, Pepper Potts also entered the basement.]
[She accused Tony of completely ignoring the company and of giving away his entire art collection.]
[But Tony not only did not want to listen, he instead appointed Pepper as the new CEO of Stark Industries.]
Strange looked at Tony with a complicated expression.
"You are preparing for your own funeral? I did not expect you to be so incapable of openly showing your feelings."
"Yes."
Even the way little Wanda looked at Tony changed somewhat.
"You are dying, yet you still refuse to tell the truth to the woman you love. You carry everything by yourself."
"You really are not an ordinary playboy."
"Cough!"
Somewhat embarrassed by everyone's gazes around him, Tony coughed and tried to change the subject:
"What nonsense are you talking about? Who said I love her that much? Pepper is only my assistant."
"Only an assistant?"
Almost everyone looked at him suspiciously. Even Peter Parker, who trusted Tony the most, slightly turned his head.
Obviously, no one believed him.
Seeing this, Tony's face stiffened, but for a while he did not know how to explain himself.
God was his witness, there really was nothing like that between him and Pepper yet!
However, after seeing himself on the screen entrusting everything to Pepper, even Tony began to waver a little.
"Have I really unconsciously fallen in love with her?"
"Impossible!"
"I truly only consider her an excellent assistant!"
Tony now began seriously doubting himself.
[The image continues.]
[Tony was practicing fighting with his driver Happy Hogan when Pepper suddenly appeared with her new employee and asked him to sign documents related to the change of CEO of Stark Industries.]
[As soon as they saw the beautiful woman standing beside Pepper on the screen, a commotion echoed through the live broadcast room.]
"Ms. Natasha? That is you!!!"
Peter Parker opened his eyes wide and stared at Natasha Romanoff, while confusion suddenly filled his mind.
Although Peter was simple and somewhat inexperienced, he was not stupid.
By this point, he already knew that the beautiful woman before him was actually a spy.
That spy had disguised herself as a secretary and infiltrated Tony's side.
What did she want to do? Did that even need to be asked?
"Your S.H.I.E.L.D. truly does not care what methods it uses."
Tony's face became cold as ice as he stared at Black Widow and said:
"It seems that from now on I will have to thoroughly investigate every employee in my company to see how many spies you have planted inside!"
Seeing that everything had been exposed, Black Widow simply shrugged and calmly said:
"Your company? Maybe it is still yours, but I heard that the board of directors is already preparing to remove you."
"You!!!"
Tony became furious when he heard this, but soon calmed down, and a trace of contempt appeared in his gaze toward Black Widow.
"Hmph, you spies truly have a limited perspective."
Now that he had mastered the incredible technology of the Transformers and the Void Engine, how could Tony still attach great importance to something like Stark Industries?
Just as Tony calculated inwardly how he would develop new products in the future and how he would strike back at Stark Industries, the image on the screen changed again.
[The image continues.]
[Black Widow did not only possess first-class looks and figure, but also exceptional martial arts skills. With a single move, she knocked Happy down, leaving Tony completely stunned and unable to take his eyes off her.]
["Pepper, who is she?"]
[Tony asked while drinking chlorophyll juice.]
[Pepper angrily replied:]
["She works in the legal department. So if you continue flirting with her, it could end in a very expensive sexual harassment lawsuit."]
[Tony turned his head and shamelessly said:]
["You are the CEO now, so I need a new assistant."]
["I have already found three candidates for you."]
[Tony immediately said:]
["I only want her."]
[Pepper did not give in: "No way!"]
"Hahaha..."
Seeing this, laughter once again echoed through the live broadcast room.
Loki, Strange, little Wanda, and even Black Widow herself began to laugh.
"Stark, you really are incredible."
Little Wanda bent forward with laughter:
"Your life is almost over, and you are still thinking about how to seduce a girl."
"And the funniest thing is that she is even a spy!"
Listening to the laughter continuously echoing around him, Tony stood there with an extremely ugly expression and for a moment truly wanted to rush into the screen and punch his own version from another universe.
Are you normal?
Have you never seen a woman before?
At such a critical moment, instead of thinking about how to extend your life by a few more days, you are completely captivated by a spy!
You are a disgrace to the Stark family!
[The image continues.]
[Discovering that his blood poisoning was getting worse and worse, Tony completely stopped caring about the consequences and decided to go to Monaco to enjoy life.]
[In order to improve his mood, he even personally got into a race car and temporarily became a racing driver.]
[But while the race was underway, a man wearing an exoskeleton equipped with steel whips suddenly entered the track.]
[It was Ivan Vanko!]
[Ivan activated the Arc Reactor, and the long whips in his hands were immediately filled with electrical sparks. Then he swung them and cut the race car Tony was driving in half with a single strike!]
[At that extremely critical moment, Happy arrived in time with Pepper and brought Tony the portable Mark V armor in the form of a suitcase!]
[Relying on the Mark V, Tony successfully transformed into Iron Man and defeated Ivan Vanko.]
[Later, when Tony visited him, Ivan mocked him and accused his father Howard Stark of being a liar and a thief.]
[Just as Tony was preparing to leave, Ivan again said that palladium poisoning was a very painful way to die.]
Seeing this, Loki in the live broadcast room sneered mockingly again.
"Mortal, it seems to me that this man on the screen is not lying."
"Is it possible that your father's energy technology was actually stolen from his father?"
Tony angrily shouted:
"Loki, do not think everyone is a thief and liar like you!"
Although he said this, Tony's heart was anything but calm at that moment.
Honestly speaking, his relationship with his father Howard Stark had never been good.
And Tony was not naive enough to think that his father must have been a saint who had never done anything wrong.
In fact, if he truly had been such a man, how could he have built an enormous weapons manufacturing company from nothing?
And after seeing the Arc Reactor made by Ivan Vanko, Tony could not avoid becoming suspicious.
Had his father really once done something shameful?
[The image continues.]
[Tony's birthday arrived, but the palladium poisoning continued to worsen, causing him to begin feeling that this might be his final birthday party.]
[Driven by despair, Tony put on the Iron Man armor and began causing chaos at the party, eventually forcing his old friend Colonel Rhodes to intervene.]
[Rhodes put on Tony's spare armor and clashed with him in the middle of the party.]
[The shockwave created by the direct collision of the two Iron Man armors almost completely destroyed Tony's villa.]
[In the end, Colonel Rhodes angrily accused Tony of not being worthy of wearing that armor, then directly flew away in the spare armor.]
Seeing that scene, Strange suddenly sighed.
"You on the screen probably deliberately left the spare armor for Rhodes."
Tony's face was somewhat gloomy, but he still nodded slightly.
"Although that guy is somewhat rigid, he is the only person I can trust."
As he spoke, he could not resist looking at Peter Parker.
Perhaps that had been the case before, but now it seemed that he had an even better successor.
[The image continues.]
[Tony continued completely ignoring his problems, and in the Iron Man armor he even went to sit on the roof of a fast-food restaurant and eat donuts.]
[At that moment, Nick Fury came to him again.]
[Inside the restaurant, Nick Fury directly revealed Black Widow's true identity and ordered her to inject Tony with medicine.]
[But Tony claimed that it was useless, because he had already tried every known element and knew that he was definitely going to die.]
[Nick Fury told him that he could still be saved.]
[It turned out that Tony's father had once designed an energy source far cleaner than an ordinary Arc Reactor.]
[However, because of the technological limitations of that era, he could not complete the research.]
[Nick Fury believed that Tony would be saved if he could find that new element.]
"What? Dad again?"
Seeing this, Tony was first stunned, then his expression darkened again.
In his memory, Howard Stark had devoted almost all of his energy to the company and had barely paid attention to his own son.
Besides that, Tony had been sent to boarding school while still very young.
If he had a choice, Tony truly did not want to use Howard's invention to save his own life!
[The image continues.]
[Nick Fury gave Tony some old recordings and materials belonging to his father.]
[Just as Tony was trying to find the secret of the new element in the recordings, he discovered something else.]
["Tony, you are too young to understand this now, so I want to record everything."]
["I made this entire Stark Expo for you."]
["What?"]
Looking at his father on the screen, with a serious face and eyes filled with warmth, both the Tony on the screen and the Tony in the live broadcast room were stunned at the same time.
"How is this possible?"
Tony unconsciously muttered:
"If you truly thought that way, why did you never tell me while you were alive?"
Hearing this, Strange and the others fell silent.
With such complicated feelings between a father and son, no outsider had the right to interfere lightly.
Of everyone present, Loki's expression became the most complicated.
In the earlier recording, his other version from another universe had given almost everything just to gain Odin's approval.
But in the end, he suffered a tragic defeat, fell alone into a cosmic vortex, and almost chose his own destruction.
[The image continues.]
["One day you will understand that what this Expo represents goes far beyond the inventions of other people. It represents the work of my entire life."]
["This is the key to the future."]
["I was limited by the technology of my time, but one day you will solve this problem."]
["When you do, you will change the world."]
[Howard Stark seriously presented his Expo in the recording, but at the very end suddenly said with deep tenderness:]
["Tony, my greatest creation is you!"]
Seeing that scene, Tony seemed to turn into stone. His entire body stiffened, and for a long time he could not say a single word.
He could not understand.
If his father truly loved him that much, why had he never said anything like that while he was alive?
If he had not happened to see these recordings now by pure coincidence, would he have continued believing even after his father's death that Howard had never loved him?
Just as Tony's mind was completely confused and his entire body stiff, a thought suddenly flashed through his mind and he remembered something.
"So that is it! The Stark Expo had that meaning from the very beginning?"
Tony closed his eyes and took a deep breath, while sadness and joy appeared on his face at the same time.
"The new element... Is that the gift you left me so many years after your death?"
"Father?"
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