Mary Jane and Felicia had become well acquainted during the incident when the Lizard had attacked Midtown High School. At that time, both of them had been in danger and desperately searching for Ben. Through that shared experience, they had gradually become familiar with each other and understood each other's feelings.
However, there was no conflict between the two girls; instead, they got along remarkably well.
Looking at the two young women who were chattering and gossiping with their heads close together, May and Ben Sr. exchanged glances and thought that they really couldn't understand the young people of today.
Could it be that we're too behind the times? Ben Sr. wondered.
Ben sat next to his adoptive father, turned his head and searched the crowd for a moment, then said curiously, "Where's Peter?"
"He said he had something else to do. I think he was going to take photographs for the Daily Bugle," Ben Sr. replied.
The Parker family all expressed support for Peter's freelance work, but Ben Sr. had some complaints about the Daily Bugle. He felt that the newspaper was ignoring objective facts and constantly attacking Spider-Man, which wasn't what a news media should do.
If possible, Peter didn't want to sell photos to someone who cursed his alter ego. But there was no alternative. Even though Jameson was like that, he offered the highest rates among all the newspapers.
The way Jameson cursed Spider-Man while simultaneously buying photos of him made Ben suspect that the editor had some kind of complex relationship with the web-slinger.
As they chatted and watched the exhibition, Ben also noticed that there were many familiar faces in the venue, including several S.H.I.E.L.D. agents positioned strategically throughout the crowd.
Time passed slowly as various companies presented their innovations.
Soon, it was time for the main technology demonstrations.
Harry stood on the dazzling stage and introduced the hover car launched by Primus Technologies, demonstrating its capabilities to an impressed audience.
At the same time, at the Hammer Industries exhibition, rows of tall, heavily armored robots were displayed in perfect formation.
These robots were painted in different colors to represent their military branches—army green, navy blue, and air force silver. All branches were represented: land, sea, and air capabilities.
Not only that, there was also a modified steel war machine, which was worn by military Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes himself, attracting cheers from all the audience.
At this moment, Hammer's promise of "I won't let you down" seemed to have become a reality.
The media rushed to take pictures, and for a while, camera flashes erupted one after another in rapid succession.
This exciting scene made Peter and Gwen exclaim that they had come to the right place!
Originally, Gwen had wanted to visit Primus's venue because she had been an assistant in Dr. Connors's laboratory and naturally knew about his research dreams. Therefore, she was also curious about Primus, which had invented the self-healing serum in collaboration with Osborn Industries.
However, Peter had already seen Ben's hover car technology in advance, so he wanted to see something new and had convinced Gwen to visit other exhibitions instead.
It just so happened that, apart from Osborn and Primus, the most popular company at the moment was Hammer Industries.
"But don't you think that Iron Patriot's armor is a little too similar to Iron Man's?" Gwen asked, studying the bulky suit that Rhodes was wearing.
She suspected Hammer Industries of plagiarism.
But what surprised her was that Peter, who had been chatting with her happily throughout their visit, didn't answer her this time.
Gwen withdrew her gaze from the stage, turned around, and looked at Peter with some confusion.
"Peter, what's wrong?"
"No, it's nothing..."
Peter came back to his senses, but the spider-sense in his brain didn't stop tingling. He realized that something dangerous was probably about to happen.
At this moment, his only thought was to get Gwen to safety with Ben and then investigate what Hammer Industries was really up to.
"Gwen, how about we just—"
Before Peter could finish his words, a flaming meteor fell from the sky.
Iron Man landed in front of Hammer wearing his gleaming red and gold armor. In an instant, those fancy robots became mere background decoration, like green leaves serving only to set off the brightness of Iron Man's presence.
Now, the venue became even more lively.
"Peter, look, it's Tony Stark!"
Gwen screamed like everyone else in the crowd, and she subconsciously reached out to grab Peter's arm, but her hand closed on empty air. She turned her head and found that Peter, who had been standing next to her, had disappeared.
Rhodes, who was wearing the Iron Patriot armor, was also somewhat flustered and guilty when he saw Tony appear.
It could be said that he had betrayed his best friend.
The armor he was wearing had been taken from Stark and then handed over to the military. Rhodes hadn't met Tony since that time when they had fought at the party and he had angrily accused Tony of not being worthy of owning such power.
On one hand, it was because he had been busy with the armor modifications, and on the other hand, it was because he had been too embarrassed to face Tony.
After such a long time, Rhodes had actually figured out one thing: this suit of armor had probably been prepared for him from the beginning. Otherwise, he would never have been able to wear it or interface with its systems so easily.
As a friend, Tony had treated him very well, but he hadn't stood firmly on Tony's side. Instead, he had taken Tony's invention and given it to the enemies of Stark Industries.
At this moment, Rhodes saw Tony approaching and thought that his friend was coming to confront him about the betrayal.
"Tony, don't do this here, there are still many people around..."
Rhodes pleaded in a low voice.
But Tony was much more mature than Rhodes had imagined.
He landed naturally, then walked to Rhodes's side, put one hand on his friend's shoulder, and raised the other hand enthusiastically to greet the audience.
Then he lowered his voice and whispered in Rhodes's ear, "We're in big trouble."
"You have to trust me now."
Hearing this, Rhodes said helplessly, "I tried trusting you, but I got beaten pretty badly at your house."
"Hammer has been working with Vanko."
Tony said seriously.
"Justin Hammer? Where is Vanko?"
Without waiting for Rhodes to reply, Tony walked forward, exposing his defenseless back to his friend.
At the same time, Ivan Vanko, who was monitoring everything from Hammer Industries, sneered and remotely activated Rhodes's armor systems.
The heavy machine gun on Iron Patriot's shoulder activated instantly, rotating to aim at Tony's back.
The mechanical whirring sound immediately made Tony realize that something was wrong, and it also made hundreds of visitors attending the exhibition aware of the sudden danger.
"Rhodes, is that you?"
"It wasn't me! It started on its own!"
Rhodes shouted in panic. Inside the armor, his face was illuminated by red warning lights as the systems operated beyond his control.
At this moment, he knew very well that someone had tampered with the armor's programming.
"Run! You're locked out—all systems are compromised!"
As soon as he finished speaking, dozens of robots on the exhibition platform raised their arms simultaneously and locked onto Tony's position.
Lock onto me? That's not going to work.
"Let's take this outside!" Tony made a split-second decision and flew into the air with flames erupting from his boot thrusters.
At this moment, all the machines opened fire simultaneously, and the powerful concentrated firepower shattered the glass ceiling of the exhibition hall in an instant!
The broken glass fell like a deadly rain of crystal shards.
Hundreds of spectators never imagined that they would be caught in the crossfire just because they had come to visit a technology exhibition. Screams of terror rang out one after another. Many people were pushed down by the panicking crowd, and a stampede was about to occur.
Fortunately, at that critical moment, a red and blue figure began swinging through the air above the chaos.
Spider-Man had arrived!
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