"Sir, you were the one who gave your address to reporters all over the world."
"Fuck—!"
Tony cursed under his breath.
The woman had already reached the front door and knocked on the glass. The door slid open automatically.
She glanced around before stepping inside. The moment she crossed the threshold, a laser scanned her from head to toe, and a suit of Iron Man armor walked up to her.
"Don't move. Who are you?"
Tony's voice came from the armor as it raised an arm, aiming directly at her.
The woman studied the armor with curiosity.
"You don't remember me? Honestly, I'm not surprised at all~~~"
She pouted slightly, but didn't seem offended.
"Don't take it personally. I don't even remember what I had for breakfast."
"You had protein waffles with fried eggs this morning, sir," JARVIS chimed in.
"Thank you. That reminder was unnecessary."
The woman shook her head.
"I need to speak with you alone. It's urgent."
"Normally I wouldn't mind," Tony replied, "but I have a girlfriend now, Dr. Maya Hansen."
"You… remember me?"
Maya froze. She clearly hadn't expected Tony Stark to actually say her name.
"Of course. Beautiful women are hard to forget."
Tony suddenly paused, then added cautiously,
"Don't tell me I have a ten-year-old kid waiting for me in your car."
"He's twelve."
The words landed like a bomb. The air seemed to freeze, and the room fell completely silent.
"…Please don't joke like that, Tony," Maya said helplessly.
"I really do need your help."
After a moment of silence, Tony finally spoke.
"Fine. Come with me."
Maya followed the armor into the living room—where she immediately saw Tony sitting on the couch with Carl.
She froze, looking back and forth between Tony and the Iron Man suit.
"You just now…?"
She pointed at Tony, then at the armor, her brain clearly struggling to keep up.
"Just a little trick," Tony said casually. "Don't worry about it."
The armor stepped aside on its own.
Before Maya could say anything, the TV screen suddenly changed. A white trail streaked straight toward the villa.
"Sir, a missile has been detected inbound. Evade immediately."
JARVIS issued the warning—but it was already too late.
Boom—!
The missile smashed through the windows and detonated. The shockwave obliterated everything inside the villa. Maya was thrown violently backward. Tony's nanotech armor deployed instantly, encasing his body, while Carl was shielded by his cloak.
"Fuck—! They blew up my house?!"
Tony blasted apart the slab of stone in front of him with a repulsor and looked out toward the sea.
In the distance, three military helicopters were approaching. Their side hatches opened, and three more missiles launched.
"You've got to be kidding me!"
Tony fired repulsor blasts, detonating the missiles midair, then shot straight up toward the helicopters.
Carl's cloak unfurled, carrying him safely to Maya. Though she had been caught in the blast, she was unharmed—the Iron Man armor had shielded her from debris and shockwaves.
"We're leaving. Now," Carl said.
He scooped Maya up, and with a sweep of the cloak, they shot out of the ruins.
Meanwhile, Tony reached the helicopters. One repulsor blast reduced the first helicopter to scrap. His shoulder-mounted drones deployed, firing energy beams at the remaining two.
One helicopter was sliced cleanly in half, erupting into twin fireballs.
The last helicopter narrowly dodged the beams. Inside the cockpit was the same Extremis-enhanced operative—the one who had put Happy in a coma.
Tony saw him instantly. His rage became almost tangible.
"JARVIS, divert all power to the arc reactor. I want him erased."
"Target locked, sir."
The arc reactor flared with blinding blue light as energy surged to critical levels.
Humm—!
A beam as thick as a bowl erupted forward, warping the air around it. It struck the helicopter directly.
In a flash of intense blue light, the helicopter vanished—completely erased, without even wreckage left behind.
"Sir, armor energy at seventy percent."
One shot had consumed nearly a third of the suit's power.
Tony said nothing. He hovered in the air, staring out at the ocean. The sun was setting, golden light spilling across the endless sea, the waves shimmering like the scales of a colossal dragon.
---
Tony's villa was now nothing but rubble.
At the moment, Tony, Pepper, and Maya were all at Carl's agency. Until a new villa could be built, Tony and Pepper moved into an apartment they'd long rented but barely used.
"You said you had something important to tell Tony," Pepper said.
"What is it?"
Pepper and Maya now knew each other—and she'd already learned about Maya's past, including what happened ten years ago.
Carl, Gwen, and Skye sat off to the side, watching quietly and mentally preparing Tony for the inevitable punishment—possibly involving kneeling on durians.
"I'm part of a four-person think tank," Maya said.
"My superior is Aldrich Killian."
"Killian is your boss?!"
Pepper froze.
"Yes. And he's insane. His research is even worse."
Maya shuddered slightly. What frightened her wasn't the research itself, but Killian's extremism.
"Our original goal was to cure diseases—to help wounded soldiers regain normal lives. But Killian's ambitions went too far. He wants to use the virus to build a super-soldier army. He's completely abandoned the original purpose."
Everyone frowned. Killian truly was a madman.
Suddenly, the TV signal cut out. Static filled the screen, then a symbol appeared: two crossed blades surrounded by ten rings.
The image switched to footage of terrorist attacks—then to a bearded man seated in a chair.
"Mr. President of the United States," the man said calmly,
"I am the Mandarin. I know you're watching."
Across the entire country, every broadcast was hijacked.
Inside the Oval Office, the most powerful people in the nation sat frozen. At the center was the President himself, staring at a phone message containing a string of numbers.
His back went cold.
No more than five people knew his private number—and all five were sitting in this very room.
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