Ben left the Hardy residence feeling warm and full. The dinner had been a harmonious affair. Mrs. Hardy's snobbishness hadn't magically vanished, but it had been thoroughly realigned by Ben's current status and influence. She was now even more enthusiastic about him than Walter was.
The atmosphere had been so cozy that the possibility of Ben staying the night was floated, a suggestion that was quickly torpedoed when they realized the guest room was still full of storage boxes. The only option would have been for him to share with Felicia.
Walter had put his foot down firmly at that. "Felicia is still young," he'd declared. "You're both just children."
Please, Ben had thought, this is America, not the Victorian era. Kids here are practically born knowing how to file their own taxes. In truth, however, Ben also felt staying over would be inappropriate. He had the distinct feeling that a cosmic chaperone in the form of the Ancient One was hovering just over his shoulder, a ghost so powerful you couldn't even say her name without getting a strange feeling.
He was only a few steps down the street when his phone buzzed with a call that surprised him. The screen read: Pepper Potts.
They had exchanged numbers at the Stark Expo, a necessity given the business dealings between their two companies. Stark Industries was in the middle of a massive energy sector reform, and while the Arc Reactor technology was Tony's, the new element, Zanium, had been discovered by Ben. Primus Technologies was entitled to a hefty share of the profits. Still, he rarely had direct contact with Stark Industries' CEO.
"Why is she calling me this late?" Ben wondered, glancing up at the sky. It was nearly midnight. At this hour… could she possibly be…? Ben shuddered at the absurd thought. Hard pass.
"Hello, Miss Potts," he answered. "What can I do for you at this late hour?"
The thought of a midnight rendezvous was, of course, a joke. Pepper was almost certainly calling about Tony. After all, most of Primus's day-to-day business was managed by Harry.
Wait, Ben realized with a jolt. Harry's back running things at Oscorp now. Does that mean my massive company is completely unmanaged? He shrugged. Eh, it doesn't matter. There are only a handful of employees anyway.
"I'm so sorry to bother you, Mr. Parker," Pepper's strained voice came through the phone. "It's about Tony…"
From her office in Stark Tower—still unofficially the Avengers Tower until the new Stark Industries campus was completed—Pepper gazed worriedly at the sealed door of Tony's workshop.
"Ever since he returned from the H.A.M.M.E.R. carrier, he's locked himself in the lab," she said, her voice laced with exhaustion. "If I didn't hear the occasional clang of a hammer, I'd be terrified he'd starved to death in there." Her helplessness was palpable. "I called Agent Coulson, and he had Captain America come talk to him. I think they had an argument… it didn't work. The Captain said that you might be the only one who can get through to him."
Pepper sounded like she was at the end of her rope, genuinely afraid Tony would work himself into an early grave.
"Okay," Ben sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I'll head to Stark Tower right away." He hung up the phone. "Am I really destined to be everyone's go-to problem solver?"
He felt like he'd been running nonstop lately, busier now than when he was actively dismantling Hydra.
"I guess I need to find more things to keep these superheroes and villains occupied," he muttered, hailing a taxi. "If they're not busy, then I am."
Half an hour later, Pepper led Ben to the workshop.
Seeing him enter, Tony immediately put down his tools, raising a greasy eyebrow. "Well, look at this. You learned how to use the front door."
"You seem to be in high spirits," Ben replied, ignoring the sarcasm. He plopped down in a nearby chair and gave a casual wave to the ceiling. "Jarvis." He then turned back to Tony. "Looks like Miss Potts was worried for nothing."
"She didn't need to be," Tony grumbled, rolling his eyes. But the facade was paper-thin. He had dark circles that looked like bruises, his face was pale, and his movements were jerky and unsteady. He looked like a man running on fumes and caffeine.
"So, what are you doing locked away in here?" Ben asked.
"What am I doing?" Tony shot back, as if the question was the most absurd thing he'd ever heard. He tossed a wrench onto a workbench and gestured wildly at the ceiling. "It's not like you weren't there when Reindeer Games brought us news of the apocalypse."
It took Ben a second to realize he meant Loki.
"He said the Chitauri were like locusts, stripping entire worlds bare," Tony continued, his hands waving frantically in the air. He looked anxious, suffocated by the sheer scale of the threat. "An interstellar war… How can I be sure we can win?"
"The great Tony Stark has lost confidence in his own genius?" Ben asked, crossing his arms.
"Of course I'm confident!" Tony snapped, his pride stung. When it came to intelligence, he would never admit defeat. But he was also a realist. He knew that even the greatest minds were limited by their time. His own father had never managed to synthesize a new element, and Einstein had never lived to see a black hole. Earth's technological development was still in its infancy.
"We don't have time to relax," he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. A wave of exhaustion washed over him, so powerful his head swam for a moment. He swayed, catching himself on a table before he could fall. "The satellites, the energy barrier, the space station… it's not enough. It's not enough!"
Ben knew the Chitauri's weakness: they were a hive mind, a cyborg army slaved to a single mothership. Destroy the command ship, and the invasion was over.
Tony didn't know that. In his mind, Earth was facing a vast alien empire with an inexhaustible army.
"So what's your solution?" Ben asked.
"I'm building my own iron legion," Tony declared. With a wave of his hand, holographic blueprints of more than a dozen new armor designs materialized in the air. "If—and I mean if—your energy barrier can't stop them all, and they break through to the surface, we'll need enough troops on the ground to fight them."
"Let's put that aside for a moment," Ben said, shaking his head. He pointed to several of the blueprints, his eyes narrowing. "Are these also for the Chitauri?"
Beneath the schematics, the labels were stark and clear: Anti-Hulk Armor. Anti-XLR8 Armor. Anti-Heatblast Armor. And under every single one, a final, damning note: Comprehensive anti-hacking protocols to ensure system integrity.
Tony's eyes widened in panic. "Ahem, Jarvis, turn those off!"
Jarvis immediately complied, but it was too late.
"Who, exactly, are you preparing to fight, Tony?" Ben asked, his voice dangerously quiet. He was furious. If Tony had just designed suits to fight his alien forms, he might have understood. Tony didn't know their limits. But the system-wide anti-hacking protocol felt like a direct insult.
"It's just a contingency," Tony argued quickly. "No one knows what might happen in the future! What if one of you gets mind-controlled?"
"I think you're the most dangerous one here," Ben shot back.
It was, in its own twisted way, a compliment. But Ben still felt the sting of betrayal. Pepper had called him for help, and he had come without hesitation, only to find that Tony had already listed him as a primary threat.
Tony, sensing the shift in mood, quickly changed the subject. "Did you invent the remote control system for the Green Goblin's glider?"
Ben raised an eyebrow. The glider's flight system was his design, yes, but it was rudimentary, basically a glorified autopilot. "I've made a few improvements on the concept."
Tony pulled back his sleeve, revealing a series of faint lights glowing beneath his skin. "You implanted it into your body?"
Tony nodded smugly. "Now I can control the armors remotely, directly with my brainwaves." It was a technology he hadn't developed until later, but the threat of invasion had accelerated his work.
Ben just shook his head. "What happens when someone uses a jammer? Your tech is too immature to be permanently implanting it in your body."
"I know it's not perfect, but I have to make do," Tony retorted, raising his chin defiantly. "And I've already thought about jammers. I built a shielding device to block electromagnetic interference." He gave Ben a proud smirk. "Iron Man doesn't get beaten by the same trick twice."
"That's impressive," Ben admitted with a slight nod. "So how many of these new suits have you actually built?"
"Uh…" Tony scratched his head. "Not even one."
"What have you been doing all this time?"
"Designing!" Tony said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Come on, building an advanced combat suit isn't like snapping together Legos." He waved a dismissive hand. "Alright, if you're done, you can go."
Ben remembered why Pepper had called him. "Get some rest, Tony. Don't burn yourself out before the Chitauri even get here."
Tony just took a sip of scotch and waved him away.
After Ben left, Tony leaned back in his chair, the silence of the lab pressing in on him. He sat there for a long time, lost in thought.
"Is something wrong, sir?" Jarvis's calm voice inquired.
"He has a point," Tony murmured, tapping the glowing implants on his wrist through his sleeve. "The flaw is too significant." He put down his glass. "What if I had a stronger artificial intelligence? One that didn't need my input, that could think for itself, independently… like a person?"
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