Iron Man

Stark Tower

James Rhodes took a menacing step towards the blond man with the pencil-thin mustache who sat behind his desk. His hands instinctively clenched into fists. “You want to clarify that statement?”

Morgan Stark rose from the desk and circled around to the front and leaned against the wooden surface. He ran his fingers over the name plate with JAMES RHODES – CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER engraved on the gold.

“It’s exactly as I said, Rhodey. I’m the new CEO of Stark Enterprises.”

“And what the hell makes you think that?” asked Happy Hogan, sidling up beside Rhodey.

“It’s quite simple, really. In light of my cousin’s recent actions, the board has gotten worried. With shareholders selling, the balance of power has shifted, and notin Tony’s favor. Still, they felt it was best to have a Stark at the helm to maintain continuity.”

“Tony still has control over the company,” said Pepper.

“That’s not quite true,” said Morgan. He leaned over and pushed the intercom button on Rhodey’s phone. “Mrs. Rennie, my guest is waiting in my office. Could you send her in here please?”

“It’s not your office, Mr. Stark,” came Katherine Rennie’s response.

“Just send her in.”

“Morgan, get your ass off my desk or I’ll remove you myself,” said Rhodey.

Morgan slid off the desk and dusted his hands. “Such hostility, Rhodey.”

“My friends call me Rhodey. To you, I’m Mr. Rhodes.”

“Whatever you prefer, Mr. Rhodes.” Morgan said the name with no small amount of snark. “I just want you to be comfortable, seeing as how we’ll be working together. Unless you give me need to find a suitable replacement.”

Rhodey’s muscles tensed beneath his suit, but Pepper put a comforting hand on his shoulder and the gesture calmed him somewhat. He looked at her and she mouthed the words, “not now.”

Mrs. Rennie opened the door and held it open for Morgan’s desk. She entered, wearing a black skirt and blazer, her long, dark hair hanging down her back. Pepper stepped closer to her, brow furrowed in confusion. “Rumiko?”

Rumiko Fujikawa was the granddaughter of Kenjiro Fujikawa, the second most-powerful man in Stark Enterprises’ power structure. And also Tony’s former lover.

“Rumiko dear, our friends are a little confused about the current arrangement. Would you be so kind as to enlighten them?” asked Morgan.

“When I sold my stock to Tony, there was a clause that would enable me to reclaim my share if extreme circumstances permitted it,” said Rumiko.

“Bullshit,” said Rhodey. “No way you could have executed something like that this quickly.”

“It was already executed once Tony assumed leadership of the Avengers,” said Rumiko. “At that point, he became the head of a sovereign nation, I just haven’t done anything with my interest until now. These recent events have shown me that Tony is no longer fit to run the company. The board hasn’t voted on the proposal yet, but with both my grandfather and I backing him, it’s assured that Morgan will be the CEO of Stark Enterprises.”

A wide smile spread over Morgan’s face. “There, you see?”

Rhodey closed the distance between him and Morgan, his large frame towering over the smaller man. Morgan couldn’t help his flinch, especially as Rhodey leaned down, his face mere inches away.

“This isn’t over, you little weasel. And until anything is made official, you can get the hell out of my office.”

Morgan cleared his throat and slid past Rhodey, still feeling the man’s eyes burrowing into the back of his head. Once Morgan reached Rumiko’s side, he turned and looked at his future employees.

“Well, until such a time as this can be made official, we’ll be taking our leave. I did promise to treat Rumiko to lunch, after all. I sincerely look forward to working with all of you.” Morgan raised his fists and pumped them in unison. “Go team!”

“Get out!” barked Rhodey. Morgan flinched again and led Rumiko out of the office. Rhodey followed them to the door and slammed it once they exited.

“Whadda we do now, boss?” asked Happy.

Rhodey banged his fist on the closed door and took a moment to think and regain his cool. “Pepper.” He turned to her. “Get in touch with the lawyers immediately. See if there’s anything we can do to fight this.”

“Can’t believe Rumi would play us like that…” muttered Happy.

“Put it out of your mind. With Tony gone, I’m still in charge of this company, and I will not allow that rat to steal it out from under us,” said Rhodey.

“And what about Tony?” asked Pepper.

“I don’t know,” said Rhodey. “We know he’s no longer in prison, so that’s the good news.”

“Yeah, but leaves the question—is he safe or somewhere worse?” asked Happy.

WHIPLASH

Part IV

By Dino Pollard

The fake Iron Man armor carrying Tony landed atop a burned out tenement. Tony looked around the cityscape, or what little was left of it. Snow-covered mountains were nearby.

“Where are we, Maria?” he asked his onboard artificial intelligence.

[Global positioning says we are in Siberia.]

“Why Siberia?” asked Tony.

“A very good question, Mr. Stark.”

The voice echoed, clearly enhanced by mechanical means. The armor forced Tony to turn and face the speaker. Standing before him was a man in gleaming, silver armor. Tony’s eyes instantly took note of the arc reactor in the chest-plate.

“And who are you?” asked Tony.

“Ivan Vanko.”

“Vanko?”

“Yes, my father was the man who created the Crimson Dynamo. And he did his earliest work here, surrounded by this desolate landscape.” Vanko held his hand out to gesture to the setting. “It felt like a fitting place to seal your doom after you destroyed his legacy.”

“I don’t know where you’re getting your information from,” said Tony. “Anton and I started off as enemies, but he quickly became one of my most-trusted allies. Your father was my friend, Ivan.”

“Your lies will not protect you any longer, Stark,” said Vanko. “You tricked him because you feared his potential to surpass you. And now, with your own legacy tarnished, you will die here, in the place his genius once thrived.”

Vanko’s arms dropped to his sides, hands outstretched. From the housings in his gauntlets, cables extended, lighting up with electricity. Tony watched his enemy’s movements carefully.

“It was you all along. Somehow you managed to get your hands on Starktech and you sold it to the Syrians,” said Tony. “You blew that reactor and then you sent this dime-store armor to liberate me from the prison, then killed Dmitri—all to frame me.”

“Yes,” said Vanko. “Tony Stark will be remembered not as a hero, but as a war criminal. You took my father away from me, and now Whiplash will make you pay for that!”

“‘Whiplash’? Really?” asked Tony. “You chose to take on the identity of a guy whose ass I kicked more times than I can remember?”

Whiplash threw his arm forward and the cable attached to it extended outward, wrapping around Tony’s neck. Tony tried to reach for it, but he had no control over the armor. The cable tightened, sparks flying from the suit and Tony could feel the metal closing in around his throat.

“Is this how you’re going to kill me, Vanko?” asked Tony. “By letting me stand here defenseless? Can’t take me in a fair fight?”

Whiplash paused and the cable slackened, releasing its grip on Tony. “Disable remote control.”

A HUD suddenly appeared over Tony’s retina. Armor status, power levels, weapons array, everything he needed to operate the suit was now right at his virtual fingertips. “Maria, interface with this suit, I want to know everything about it as soon as possible.”

Whiplash swung his arm, one of the cables reaching for Iron Man. It slammed him across the chest, the impact throwing him off the edge of the building. Iron Man’s thrusters came online and hovered back over the roof, targeting Whiplash’s armor. Iron Man threw his arms forward and unleashed repulsor blasts from his palms.

Whiplash took to the skies as well, flying to evade the repulsor blasts. He rocketed towards Iron Man, both cables reaching out for their target. Iron Man used his gauntlets and repulsors to try and deflect each tendril that came at him.

“Maria, any luck making contact?”

[None yet, but that’s not surprising.]

“Right, let’s keep him busy then,” said Iron Man. He switched the microphone back on so Whiplash could hear his voice. “I’ve gotta hand it to you, Ivan. You’ve done a good job of making something that’s almost as good as my early designs.”

Whiplash’s eyes burned with anger beneath his faceplate. He cried out in anger and lunged for Iron Man again, but the Armored Avenger rocketed further up into the atmosphere.

Morgan sat across from Rumiko in one of the private dining rooms of Eleven Madison Park, one of the most expensive and exclusive restaurants in all the world. He picked at the sea urchin with his fork, smiling at her the whole time. Rumiko, however, seemed otherwise occupied, staring out the restaurant’s windows and across Madison Square Park. Normally the room could seat eighteen guests, but Morgan bought it out any way.

“To us.” He raised his champagne glass. Rumiko continued to stare out the window, leaving Morgan holding the glass up. “Umm, Rumi?”

“Hm?” Rumiko turned. “Oh, sorry. My mind was somewhere else.” She took her glass and clinked it against Morgan’s.

Morgan sipped the champagne, still watching her carefully. His cell phone began ringing and he set the glass down before removing the device from his jacket. Morgan gave a sigh. “Sorry, I have to take this.”

Rumiko made no acknowledgment. Morgan answered the phone and stepped over to the window, staring out at the main dining hall. “This is not a good time.”

“Do I need to remind you who you work for, Stark?”

Morgan gave a sigh. “I understand the terms of our arrangement, but—”

“But nothing. Rumiko Fujikawa is crucial to our takeover of Stark Enterprises and the methods we’ve employed to ensure her cooperation—while formidable—are by no means fool-proof. Your attempts to take advantage of her condition are not part of our interests. And moreover, I find it personally repulsive.”

“Fine,” said Morgan. “You have my word, nothing will happen to her.”

“You need to cancel the meeting and bring her in for another session with her counselor.”

The line went dead. Morgan placed the phone back in his pocket and returned to the table. He rubbed his forehead. “I’m sorry, Rumi, but I’m afraid I’m feeling a bit under the weather. Maybe we should take a rain-check on this lunch?”

Rumiko gave a nod. “That sounds fine.”

Siberia

Whiplash’s tendril wrapped around Iron Man’s ankle. Electricity coursed through the armor and Whiplash tugged hard on it, whipping Iron Man back into the tenement they’d met on. Iron Man fell right through the roof, going through at least two more floors before coming to a stop.

He rocketed from the building, pushing the armor to its maximum speed and slamming his armored fists into Whiplash’s chest. As the villain tried to recover, Iron Man unleashed another flurry of repulsor blasts followed by the unibeam fired from the arc reactor in the center of his chest-plate.

Whiplash had been knocked down to the street. He stared up at Iron Man, who descended to meet him on the ground. “Reactivate remote pilot.”

Iron Man found he suddenly couldn’t move. “What are you doing, Vanko? Thought this was going to be a fair fight.”

“Fair fights are not your style, Stark. So I’m playing your game.” Whiplash swung his arm and the tendril tore into Iron Man’s chest plate, throwing him to the ground. Whiplash hovered above and swung again, this time searing off the faceplate. The tendrils wrapped around Iron Man’s arms, hefting him into the air so he was level with Whiplash’s gaze. He pulled his arms apart, the cables retracting and pulling on Iron Man as well. Tony screamed in pain at the feeling of having his body pulled in opposite directions, and knew it wouldn’t be long before something began to give.

Missiles struck Whiplash from behind and his cables released their grip on Iron Man. Another missile struck, and Whiplash rapidly struck the ground, leaving a crater.

“So, this is the man who has been cause for such trouble.”

The voice came from a third party, a man in a white and red suit of armor hovering above. Airstrike of the Winter Guard, the former Crimson Dynamo and a man Ivan Vanko thought he had killed.

“Impossible!” shouted Whiplash. “You died!”

“Funny thing about that,” said Tony. “You see, during the fight, Maria managed to break through and send a communique to Dmitri. The two of us had a quick chat and he had his armor disguise his life signs so it would look like he’d died.”

“After sufficient time had passed, I followed the tracker Tony activated in his Extremis and that led me here to you,” said Dmitri.

“That armor I designed nearly killed you before,” said Vanko. “Do you really believe I cannot do it again, especially with the added firepower of my own suit?”

“Oh, but there’s more,” said Tony. “You see, I’ve been recording this entire conversation with you. I’m sure the Russians would love to hear you admitting to everything you’ve done, Vanko.”

“You are a disgrace to your father, Ivan,” said Dmitri.

“How dare you!”

Whiplash rocketed towards Airstrike, snaking out both cables. Airstrike flew to try and avoid them, but his armor, though very fast, was bulkier than Whiplash’s and not as easy to maneuver. And all Iron Man could do was watch, still restrained by the armor’s remote pilot.

“Maria, try and open this suit right now!”

It took some work, but the suit disassembled and Tony fell to the ground, covered in only the golden under-sheath of his armor.

[Tony, even with the under-sheath, you have no true capabilities. Not without the rest of the armor.]

Tony ignored Maria, but instead ran back towards the tenement where he’d met Whiplash. He went down into the basement and found what he was looking for, a laboratory set up in there.

[How did you know?]

“Vanko said he brought me here because this is where Anton created the Crimson Dynamo. Seemed like it would be poetic justice if he could develop the means to end me from here.” Tony sat at the computer console, examining the keyboard and the array of monitors, all of which only displayed Russian. He shut his eyes. “Maria, I need your help.”

When Tony opened his eyes again, the language changed. Maria, through the Extremis in Tony’s blood, accessed his eyes and rewrote the data incoming, translating it from Russian to English.

“Good, now let’s find a back-door.” Tony got to work on the computer, fingers dancing across the keyboard.

Airstrike and Whiplash were too evenly matched and neither could score a solid hit on the other. Whenever Whiplash managed to get in close to use his cables, Airstrike would unleash a hail of bullets and bombs. And any rockets launched by Airstrike would be sliced in half by Whiplash’s tendrils.

The discarded Iron Man armor sparked to life and reformed. It rocketed at Whiplash, taking him by surprise. Before he could react, Airstrike took the opening to begin firing hundreds of rounds at once, the guns rattling off.

Whiplash’s tendrils were the first to go, the energy dying out. “No, what is this?”

“Hi, Ivan.”

The face of Tony Stark appeared on Whiplash’s HUD. “Stark?”

“I’ve taken control of your system. Should have done a better job password-protecting yourself. Because now, I’m rerouting the power from your whips and sending it back into the arc reactor.”

“No, you can’t do that!”

“If I were you, I’d probably be jumping ship right about now.”

“No!” Vanko opened the armor and jumped from it, falling to the ground just as the arc reactor overloaded and his suit was reduced to rubble. He was caught by the Iron Man suit he designed, which was now being controlled by Tony.

United Nations

Tony Stark stood before the United Nations General Assembly, finally feeling refreshed after showering and changing into a new suit. He tapped the microphone on the podium and began his speech.

“Thank you for having me,” he said. “I understand the past week has raised a lot of tension and resulted in a lot of finger-pointing. First, let me state that I pursued the wrong course of action by charging into Syria before getting all the necessary information. I should have first approached the matter through diplomatic channels. But let me now address the allegations that I killed the Syrian Defense Minister. By now, all of you have no doubt seen the footage of a man named Ivan Vanko who somehow acquired Starktech and sold it to Syria, in clear violation of regulations. Second, Vanko used that same Starktech to construct a remote-piloted Iron Man suit in order to frame me for the death of the Syrian Defense Minister. Colonel Dmitri Bukharin, also known as Airstrike of the Winter Guard, can corroborate my story. But I do have one more thing to say, and this is very important. If you have your hands on Starktech, if you’re using it for military applications, then I have this to tell you: stop.

“Stop using my weapons to wage your wars. I stopped making weapons for that very reason and I will see to it that my technology is not used for these types of operations ever again.

“And should anyone think of using my technology to frame me again, then I will tell you this: I’m smarter than you, I have more money than you, and I will find you and put you down.

“That’s all, thank you.”

Avengers Island

“That was some speech you made, Stark,” said Maria Hill.

“Thank you, Agent,” said Tony.

“That was sarcasm,” said Hill.

“You should work on that.” Tony stretched out behind his desk that sat in the office of the Avengers Chairperson. Agent Maria Hill stood in front of the desk with Rhodey by her side.

“We’ve got another problem, boss. The board is planning to vote on whether or not to retain you as CEO,” said Rhodey. “Your cousin is vying for the top spot.”

Tony considered this and spun around in his chair, staring outside the window over the Avengers Island complex. Nightcrawler and Hawkeye were training out in the field and the Vision kept a vigilant watch from atop one of the towers.

“Tony?” asked Rhodey. “You gonna say something?”

“As a matter of fact, yes.” Tony spun around to face his guests. “I think I’ll take a vacation.”

NEXT: Fire & Ice

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