Agent Hill reviewed morning briefings at SHIELD's East Coast command hub. Nothing stood out until she reached a low-priority civilian observation tag—uploaded from a street camera in Queens.
It showed a timestamped image of a boy delivering food. The facial recognition tag came back quietly: [Kai — no last name. Status: Special Observer. Contact: Tony Stark].
She tapped her earpiece.
"Director. He's back."
Fury didn't turn away from the briefing board. "Who?"
"Kai. A local camera caught him in Queens. Food delivery. No mask. Looks healthy."
Fury exhaled. "About damn time."
Hill looked up. "Do we approach?"
"Not yet. If he's gone quiet, let Stark handle it. He'll talk sooner or later."
The elevator door hissed open, revealing Stark's lab: clean floors, structured chaos, and half a dozen machines humming in low tones. Kai followed Tony in without a word, his eyes briefly glancing over the tools and materials laid out in neat clusters.
In the center of the room stood a completed suit, mounted upright and lit by overhead lamps. The arc reactor at its chest was triangular—clean, glowing, and silent.
"This is Mark VI," Tony said, circling the suit like it was an exhibit. "Strongest I've built so far. Upgraded shielding, cleaner flight systems, better arc core."
Kai stepped closer and studied the joints and reactor channels. "Looks solid."
"It is. Took a few near-death experiences to get here. You remember the Palladium issue? Solved that with a new element." Tony looked at him. "One I kind of invented."
Kai nodded. "You always say that like it was easy."
"I never said it was easy. I said I didn't die." Tony walked around the display and picked up a tablet from his workbench. "But this isn't why I brought you here."
He flicked the screen, and a 3D blueprint appeared above the table—sleeker than Mark VI, with extended shoulder lines and segmented deployment brackets.
"This is Mark VII. My next upgrade. And it's a problem."
Kai tilted his head slightly. "What kind of problem?"
Tony tapped a few parts of the model. "I want it to deploy mid-air. Like, jump-off-a-building-and-it-catches-me level of fast. Fully automated targeting. Rapid armor fitting. Emergency field deployment."
Kai looked back at him. "That's a big leap from what you've done."
"Exactly," Tony said. "I've got the base design. But I'm hitting a wall with control systems and magnetic frame fitting. Every time I test the launch pods, I either lose parts or break something."
He paused, then added, "I was hoping you had something—or someone—who might help."
Kai folded his arms. "An alien?"
"Yeah. One that can manipulate tech. Fuse materials. Understand motion at a structural level. I don't need them to build it—I just want the insight. Something I can reverse-engineer."
Kai didn't answer immediately. He was thinking. Not about the suit, but about who, among the catalog of species inside the Omnitrix, could offer that kind of precision.
"There's one," he finally said. "Organic. Not mechanical. It doesn't speak, but it's smart. Knows how to break things down. Rebuild. Analyze as it moves."
Tony raised an eyebrow. "And?"
"It won't be pleasant to watch. The form is... unsettling."
Tony smiled a little. "You forget what I see in my own mirror every morning."
Kai smirked faintly, the most expression he'd given all day.
"Alright," Tony said, powering off the display. "I'll prep a clean test area tomorrow. No lab drones. No recording. Just you and the thing."
Kai nodded once.
As he turned to leave, Tony called out, "Hey. One more thing."
Kai stopped at the lab doors.
"You sure you're back for real this time?"
Kai didn't answer right away. "Let's see how long peace lasts."
Then he left.
.