Tony Stark descended like a thunderbolt.
He was wearing the Mark V - the "Suitcase Suit" - but this wasn't the flimsy emergency armor from the timeline Arthur remembered. This was the Mark V Enhanced. Thicker plating, advanced gold-titanium alloy, and most importantly, powered by the new element.
Tony slammed into Vanko like a meteor.
CRASH.
The impact sent the heavy Whiplash armor skidding backward thirty feet, tearing up the beautiful stone patio.
Tony landed in a three-point stance, the faceplate glowing. "Sorry I'm late. Zipper got stuck."
Arthur tossed the wooden pole aside. He walked over to Tony, keeping his voice low.
"Tony, can you take this fight elsewhere?" Arthur asked, gesturing to the ruins of the reception. "I don't want to ruin this beautiful landscape any further."
Tony nodded, his faceplate flipping down. He turned to Vanko, who was struggling to his feet.
Vanko stood up, his armor whirring as systems recalibrated. He looked at Tony, then at Arthur. Then he threw his head back and laughed.
"You think you are strong, Stark?" Vanko's voice grated. "You think I am alone?"
He raised a gauntlet to the sky.
A high-pitched whine filled the air.
Arthur looked up. From the clouds, dark shapes descended.
"Drones," Arthur noted dryly.
Twenty mechanized soldiers dropped from the sky, their thrusters flaring as they hovered behind Vanko. They bore the logos of the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force. But the prominent Hammer Industries logo stamped on their chests told Arthur everything he needed to know about the timeline shift.
Justin Hammer must have found Ivan earlier, just as Obadiah had found Anton. Hammer had given Vanko the resources to build his suit and this army. Now, having likely betrayed Hammer, Ivan was here for his endgame.
"Hammer," Tony realized, his voice cold. "That absolute idiot."
"Fly, Tony," Arthur said calmly. "Lead them away."
"Way ahead of you."
Tony blasted off, banking hard toward the Alps looming in the distance.
"Kill him!" Vanko commanded.
The drones and Vanko's suit ignited their thrusters. Like a swarm of angry hornets, they peeled away from the wedding, chasing the red and gold streak toward the mountains.
Arthur watched them go, calmly retrieving a fresh glass of champagne from an overturned but miraculously intact serving tray.
"He's got this," he said to no one in particular.
—
The Alps – Five Minutes Later
The air was thin and freezing at fifteen thousand feet. Snow-capped peaks rushed by in a blur of white and grey.
Tony checked his HUD. The interface was crisp, fed by the insane processing power of his new suit.
"Twenty bogies. Plus Big Ugly. Okay, Jarvis, let's test the upgrades."
Tony stopped mid-air, spun around, and hovered against the backdrop of a massive glacier.
The swarm caught up. The Hammer Drones spread out in a firing line.
"Target acquired," the mechanical voices synthesized.
Missiles launched. Dozens of them, trailing smoke.
"Jarvis, reroute power to thrusters. Let's dance."
Tony moved.
It wasn't just flight; it was aerial ballet. With the Extremis enhancements, Tony's reaction time was near-instantaneous. He didn't just dodge the missiles; he weaved through them. He banked left, grabbed a passing missile out of the air, spun, and threw it back at the lead Air Force drone.
BOOM.
The drone disintegrated.
"Nineteen," Tony counted.
He cut his thrusters, dropping like a stone into the valley below. The drones dove after him.
Tony waited until they were clustered, then reignited his boots and palms at max output. He shot back up through the formation.
He collided with a Navy drone, his fist punching straight through its chest plate. He didn't stop. He used the impaled drone as a shield, absorbing the machine gun fire from its wingmen, then flung the scrap metal into a Marine drone, knocking it into a canyon wall.
CRUNCH.
"Eighteen. Seventeen."
Vanko arrived, his thrusters burning dirty black smoke.
"STARK!" The scream tore through the radio frequencies. "FACE ME!"
He lashed out with a whip.
Tony rolled in mid-air, the plasma lash missing his helmet by inches.
"You're slow, Vanko!" Tony called back. "Did you build this thing out of a tractor?"
"I build this to KILL YOU!"
"And yet," Tony spread his arms, "here I am. Unkilled. It's almost like you're bad at this."
Vanko screamed wordlessly and charged.
Tony didn't retreat. He closed the distance. He didn't fire repulsors; he wanted to hit something. He engaged his thrusters to boost his punch—a rocket-assisted right hook.
CLANG.
His fist connected with Vanko's helmet. Vanko was sent spiraling downward, crashing onto a flat plateau of ice.
Tony landed on the ice a second later.
The remaining sixteen drones landed in a circle around him, weapons raised. Vanko pulled himself up, shaking his head.
"Surrounded," Vanko growled, satisfaction dripping from the word. "Nowhere to run, Stark. Nowhere to hide."
"Funny," he said. "I was going to say the same thing to you. I call this a target-rich environment."
The drones charged.
Tony moved like a blur. A drone swung a metal fist; Tony ducked, swept its leg, and blasted it point-blank in the faceplate. Two more tackled him. Tony fired his chest unibeam, blowing a hole through both of them simultaneously.
He grabbed an Army drone by the arm, twisted the metal until it snapped, and used the severed limb as a club to decapitate the next attacker.
"Twelve. Eleven. Ten."
"Sir, incoming whip attack, bearing—"
Tony was already moving. He leaped over the plasma lash, using a disabled drone's shoulder as a springboard. He landed on Vanko's back, his boots mag-locking to the armor's surface.
"Piggyback ride!" he announced cheerfully.
He fired both palm repulsors directly into the gap between Vanko's shoulder plates.
Vanko screamed. Sparks erupted from his armor as internal systems overloaded. He thrashed wildly, trying to dislodge his attacker.
Tony backflipped off him, landing in a combat crouch. "Armor integrity?" he asked quietly.
"His suit is at 67% and falling, sir. Significant damage to motor controls and power distribution. However, the remaining drones are reforming."
Tony looked up.
Ten drones had survived the initial engagement. They were regrouping now, forming a tight formation, their weapons charging for a coordinated strike. Vanko turned to face him, his whips glowing white-hot with fury and desperation.
"Now," Vanko panted, blood visible through the cracks in his faceplate, "now you die, Stark. No more games."
Tony stood up slowly. He looked at the circle of enemies.
"Jarvis," Tony said calmly. "One-Off Protocol."
"Ejecting laser cartridges, sir. I feel obligated to mention that this system has only been tested in simulation."
"Then let's call this a field trial."
Panels on the Mark V's gauntlets opened. Two small, cylindrical devices popped up.
Tony raised his arms to his sides.
"Close your eyes, Ivan," Tony said quietly. "This is going to be bright."
Red laser beams erupted from his wrists. They didn't pulse; they were continuous, high-energy cutting beams.
Tony spun.
He pirouetted on the ice with the grace of a dancer and the lethality of a buzzsaw. The red lasers carved through everything in their path—steel, titanium, ceramic armor, hydraulic systems, power cores.
It lasted two seconds.
Tony stopped spinning. The lasers cut out with a descending whine, the cartridges ejecting from his gauntlets in a hiss of superheated steam.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then, gravity took over.
All ten drones slid apart, bisected cleanly at the waist. Their upper halves crashed to the ice in a symphony of destruction.
Vanko stood alone in the center. His whips fell from his hands, severed. His chest armor had a glowing red line running horizontally across it.
Vanko looked down at his chest. The thick plating held, barely, but the internal systems were fried. The reactor sparked and died.
He looked up at Iron Man.
Tony walked toward him, faceplate flipping up. The cold mountain air bit at his face, but he didn't feel it.
"It's over, Ivan."
Ivan Vanko fell to his knees.
The massive armor, without its weapons, without its pilot's rage to drive it, was just dead weight now. It groaned and sparked, systems failing one by one.
Ivan Vanko looked at the devastation around him - his masterpiece reduced to scrap metal in minutes, his army destroyed, his revenge denied.
He looked at Tony. Searched for fear, for hatred, for anything he could use.
He found pity.
And somehow, that was worse than anything else.
Vanko coughed, blood spattering the snow. A twisted, bloody smile formed on his lips.
"You..." Vanko wheezed, "you think... you win?"
"I think you lost, Ivan."
"No." Vanko's hand moved toward a panel on his gauntlet—slowly, painfully, but with terrible purpose. "No, Stark. If I cannot have victory..."
His fingers found the control.
"Then we both have nothing."
He entered the self-destruct code.
"Jarvis!" Tony yelled.
"Core breach imminent," Jarvis warned. "Critical mass."
Tony didn't hesitate. He fired his thrusters, shooting straight up into the stratosphere, leaving a sonic boom in his wake.
KA-BOOM.
The entire plateau vanished in a blinding sphere of white fire. The explosion echoed through the Alps like the wrath of god, triggering avalanches on three neighboring peaks.
Tony hovered high above the mushroom cloud, the heat warning flashing on his HUD.
"Jarvis, scan for survivors."
"Negative, sir. The subject has been atomized."
Tony hung there for a moment, suspended in the silence of the upper atmosphere. He looked at the smoke, then turned his gaze south, toward Italy.
"Well," Tony muttered, turning his suit around. "That was a workout. I hope the wedding can still continue."
—
Lake Como
The rumble of the explosion rolled over the lake moments later, rattling the silverware.
Arthur watched the distant plume of smoke rising miles away. He lowered his gaze to the wedding guests, who were looking at the mountains in terror.
"And that," Arthur announced, clapping his hands together, concludes the entertainment portion of the evening. The bar is now open, and I believe we're all entitled to something stronger than champagne."
A few nervous laughs rippled through the crowd.
Eileen shook her head, smiling. "You're impossible."
"I try," Arthur winked.
"Is Tony...?"
"On his way back. Vanko won't be bothering anyone again."
A minute later, a red and gold star descended from the sky.
Tony touched down on what remained of the terrace, his armor scorched and dented but intact. His faceplate flipped up, revealing a face that was tired but triumphant.
Pepper was running toward him before his boots fully contacted the ground.
She didn't say anything. She just threw her arms around him, armor and all, and held on like she was afraid he might disappear.
Tony held her back just as tightly.
"Sorry about the venue," he murmured into her hair.
"I don't care about the venue."
"The dress might need dry cleaning."
"Tony." She pulled back to look at him, her eyes bright with tears she refused to shed. "Shut up."
"Shutting up."
The priest emerged from behind the altar, where he'd been hiding throughout the entire battle.
"Should we..." He swallowed hard. "Should we continue?"
Tony and Pepper looked at each other.
"Yes," they said together.
And so, amid the lingering smell of ozone and the distant wail of approaching emergency services, the wedding resumed.