Night.
Bante left the Hardy household.
The dinner party that evening had been perfectly pleasant, and Mrs. Hardy's snobbish nature hadn't changed one bit. What had changed was Bante's current status and position. She was practically even more satisfied with him than Hardy-ski himself. The atmosphere had built up so nicely that having Bante stay the night, then "discovering" there were no spare rooms and being forced to squeeze in with Felicia, wouldn't have been out of the question.
But Hardy-ski flatly refused. He went on about how Felicia was still too young, you're both still kids, and so on. Come on, this is America, not the Qing Dynasty. American elementary schoolers are already starting to smoke weed.
Truth be told, Bante also felt that staying overnight wasn't appropriate. After all, there was a specter called the censor looming over his head, so incomprehensibly powerful that its name could not be spoken aloud.
Leaving the Hardy home, Bante hadn't gone more than a few steps before receiving a call that caught him off guard.
"Pepper Potts?"
The name displayed on his phone was Pepper's. Pepper did have Bante's contact info; they'd exchanged numbers back during the Stark Expo, since their two companies still had business dealings. Stark Industries was in the middle of an energy reform right now. The reactor technology belonged to Tony, but the new element had been discovered by Bante first. So Stark had to share a portion of the energy profits with Premos.
But he had almost no contact with the CEO of Stark Industries.
"What is she calling me for, and this late at night..." Bante glanced up at the night sky. It was nearly midnight. This hour... was it possible this old woman wanted to spend the night with him? The thought sent a shiver down his spine. Hard pass.
"Hello, Miss Potts, so late at night. Is there something I can help you with?" Saying something like "spending the night together" was clearly just a joke. Pepper calling him was probably about Tony. After all, Premos's business was mostly handled by Harry...
"Wait, didn't Harry go back to run Oscorp?" Bante suddenly realized that his massive company no longer had any management. Well, that's fine. It's not like there were many employees anyway.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Parker, this is about Tony..."
Stark Industries Tower.
Although it had already been renamed Avengers Tower, the iconic "Stark" sign hadn't been taken down yet. Plus, the new Stark Industries building wasn't finished, so the company couldn't move out, and naturally the Avengers couldn't move in. But that wasn't a big deal. With S.H.I.E.L.D. around, the Avengers were like a strike team: they showed up when there was trouble, and when there wasn't, there was no need to gather together.
At that moment, Pepper, her face full of worry, held her phone while staring at the locked door of Tony's lab. "Ever since he came back from S.H.I.E.L.D. last time, he's been shut in his lab. If it weren't for the occasional sound of hammering, I'd be afraid he'd starved to death in there," Pepper said helplessly.
"I called Coulson. Coulson got Captain America to come talk to him. I heard they had an argument, but it didn't work... The Captain said that you might be the only one who can get through to him." "Please..."
Pepper was truly at her wit's end. She was terrified Tony might work himself to death in that lab.
"Alright, I'll head to Stark Tower now." Bante hung up, then rubbed his chin and sighed. "Am I really just destined for a life of hard work?" He found himself incredibly busy lately, especially after S.H.I.E.L.D. was established. It was even busier than when they were wiping out Hydra. "I think I need to get those superheroes and supervillains all busy. If they're not busy, I end up being the one who's busy." He sighed and hailed a cab to Stark Tower. Half an hour later, led by Pepper, Bante saw Tony.
Seeing him arrive, Tony immediately set down his work and raised an eyebrow with a mocking tone: "Learned to use the front door this time?"
"Seems like you're still quite spirited." Bante ignored his snark, casually sat down on a chair, and greeted JARVIS. "Miss Potts was worrying for nothing."
"I didn't need anyone worrying in the first place." Tony rolled his eyes, but in reality, the dark circles under his eyes were heavy, his complexion was pale, and his steps were weak and unsteady, like he'd overindulged. No wait, he always overindulged.
"So what have you been doing shutting yourself in the lab?" Bante asked.
"Shutting myself in the lab doing what?" Tony shot back, as if surprised Bante would even ask such a thing. He put down his wrench, tapped a finger to his temple, and said irritably, "You were there when that horned guy brought the news about the war."
Bante paused a second before realizing the "horned guy" meant Loki. Tony continued, "He said those Chitauri are like locusts in space, leaving nothing but devastation wherever they go. An interstellar war..." His hands flailed erratically in the air, looking extremely anxious, unsettled, even suffocated. "How can I be sure humanity can win this war?"
"The great and famous Stark lacks confidence in his own intellect?" Bante crossed his arms and shot back.
"Of course I have confidence!" When it came to who was the smartest, Tony would never bow his head and admit defeat. But he knew even better that no matter how brilliant a person was, they were still bound by the limitations of their era. Just like his father Howard Stark hadn't been able to truly find the new element, just like Einstein never actually saw a black hole. Earth's technological development had simply been too brief.
"We don't have the luxury of taking it easy anymore." He pinched the bridge of his nose and looked down. In that instant, all the exhaustion surged up like a tide, making Tony's head swim for a moment. He nearly collapsed but braced himself to stay upright.
"Satellites, energy barriers, space stations... Not enough, nowhere near enough!" Tony shook his head forcefully.
To Bante, he knew the Chitauri's weakness. Every Chitauri was a semi-mechanical lifeform modified for war. Their consciousness was linked to the mothership, so destroying the mothership would take out the majority of Chitauri soldiers in one swoop. Tony didn't know that. What he imagined was Earth facing a vast alien empire with countless enemies.
"So your plan is?"
"I plan to build my own Iron Legion," Tony declared. With a wave of his hand, the designs for over a dozen suits of armor appeared before Bante. "If... I mean, if your energy barrier can't stop all the enemies, once they break through, the fighting could spread to the surface. When that happens, we'll need enough troops to join the battle."
"Let's set that aside for now..." Bante shook his head, then pointed at a few of the armor designs and rolled his eyes. "Did you design these to fight the Chitauri too?" Beneath those specific armor designs were clearly written: Anti-Hulk Armor, Anti-Speedster Armor, Anti-Human Torch Armor... And at the bottom of every single armor, there was a note: Anti-Hacker Armor, to ensure the system cannot be hacked.
Tony waved his hand frantically, but nothing happened to the projections. He could only cough awkwardly twice, then his lips moved rapidly. "Ahem, JARVIS, turn that off now!"
"Right away, sir." JARVIS immediately shut down all the armor design projections, but it was already too late.
"Who exactly are you on guard against?" Bante was fuming. If Tony had only drawn up anti-alien armor designs, Bante would have thought it understandable, since Tony didn't know the true capabilities of those aliens. But a full-system anti-hacker measure was a bit much, wasn't it?
"Just a precaution," Tony quickly defended. "After all, who knows what might happen later. What if one of us gets mind-controlled?"
"I think you're the most dangerous one of all." That was probably another kind of acknowledgment. Still, Bante felt rather annoyed. After Pepper called him, he'd rushed over immediately, and here Tony was listing him as the number one threat to guard against.
Tony swiftly changed the subject. "Was the Goblin Glider's remote operating system your invention?" Bante raised an eyebrow. The glider's remote operating system was indeed something Bante had created, though its intelligence was actually quite low, just at the level of autopilot.
"I improved it just a little bit." Tony pulled back his sleeve. Through his skin, Bante could see a signal transmitter and receiver glowing faintly.
"You implanted it into your own body?"
"Exactly!" Tony nodded smugly. "Now I can remotely control my suits directly with brainwaves." This was a device Tony had only developed around the time of the first Avengers film, now a bit earlier than in the cinematic universe.
But Bante still shook his head. "What if someone uses a jamming device? Your tech is still too immature, and you're implanting all this random junk into your body."
"I know it's not mature, but I have to make do right now. I've already considered the jamming device problem. I built a shielding unit that can block electromagnetic interference." Then he raised an eyebrow smugly at Bante. "Iron Man doesn't get beaten by the same trick twice."
"The ones who don't get beaten by the same trick twice are the Saints." Bante said. Then he paused and admitted, "But still, not bad. So how many suits have you actually finished now?"
"Uh... none," Tony scratched his head.
"That slow? What have you been doing these past few days?"
"Designing blueprints," Tony said as if it was obvious. "Come on, building a suit isn't like putting together Lego. It's not that simple."
"Alright, if there's nothing else, you can go." He started shooing him out.
Bante didn't forget why Pepper had asked him to come. "Pay attention to rest. Don't collapse before the Chitauri even show up." That would just make it look like the Chitauri had good aim.
Tony took a sip of his drink and waved at Bante, signaling: see yourself out, no need to send off.
After Bante left, Tony leaned back in his chair alone, staring up at the ceiling and thinking for a long while. Seeing him lost in thought again, JARVIS couldn't help but ask, "What's wrong, sir?"
"He's got a point." Tony set down his glass and tapped the signal receiver inside his wrist through his skin. "The flaws are too serious. If I had a more powerful artificial intelligence, one that doesn't need me, can think independently, think like a human, wouldn't that be much more convenient?"
Ultron: Thinking of me?
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