The morning sun at the private airfield was blinding, bouncing off the polished chrome of the Stark Industries private jet.
I stood on the tarmac with Rhodey. He was checking his watch for the fifth time in a minute, his annoyance evident.
"He's three hours late," Rhodey muttered, adjusting his uniform. "Three hours, Adrian. The convoy in Kunar isn't going to wait forever."
"He'll be here," I said, unbothered. I was wearing a simple grey suit, hands in my pockets, watching the heat haze rise from the runway. "Tony likes an entrance. You know that."
"I don't need an entrance," Rhodey sighed. "I need a defense contractor who respects a schedule."
A screech of tires answered him. Tony's Audi R8 tore onto the tarmac, music blaring, and skidded to a halt right next to the stairs of the jet. The door popped open, and Tony stepped out, still wearing the suit from the night before, looking surprisingly fresh for someone who had likely slept two hours.
"What's with the long faces?" Tony asked, grinning as he grabbed his overnight bag from the trunk. "I'm here. The party can start. Rhodey, you look tense. You need a massage? I can expense that."
Rhodey shook his head, half-smiling despite himself. "Get on the plane, Tony."
Tony trotted up the stairs, then stopped halfway and looked back at me. He tapped his breast pocket.
"Got the lucky pen," he called out, flashing a smirk. "If the deal falls through, I'm blaming the ink flow."
I didn't smile. I couldn't. That pen wasn't for the deal. It was the only reason he was going to survive the next forty-eight hours with more chances of survival.
"Just keep it on you," I said, my voice carrying over the whine of the engines. "And Tony?"
He paused, hand on the railing.
"Come back in one piece."
Tony gave a mock salute. "Always do, partner."
He disappeared inside. The door sealed with a heavy thud.
I watched as the engines turned on, the sleek jet taxing down the runway. It picked up speed, lifted into the blue California sky, and banked East. Towards the desert. Towards the end of Tony's old life.
Rhodey gave me a nod before heading to his own transport. "I'll keep an eye on him, Adrian."
"I know you will," I said softly.
But I knew he couldn't protect him from this.
Thirty-Six Hours Later.
I was in my office at the Stark Industries headquarters in Los Angeles when I felt it.
It wasn't a sound. It wasn't a phone call. It was a ripple in the Vitality I had placed in that pen. A sudden, sharp snap of connection, like a rubber band breaking across a distance of seven thousand miles.
It's happening.
In the Kunar Province of Afghanistan, the "Fun-vee" was burning.
The ambush had been perfect. The Ten Rings had struck the convoy. I could almost see it in my mind's eye- the dust, the chaos, the young soldiers dying before they could even return fire.
Tony was scrambling over the dirt, his expensive suit ruined, panic seizing his chest as the chaos unfolded around him. He dove behind a rock, fumbling for his phone to call for help.
And then, the missile landed.
It was one of ours. A Stark Industries "Jericho" prototype shell. The logo, his name stared back at him for a split second before it detonated.
The blast wave threw him backward. Shrapnel jagged, hot metal tore through his Kevlar vest.
Crack.
The fountain pen in his breast pocket shattered.
The ink didn't just spill; it evaporated. The microscopic drop of my blood I had hidden inside misted into the wound. It didn't heal him, I had been careful. If I healed him, he wouldn't need the Arc Reactor. He wouldn't build the suit. He wouldn't become Iron Man.
Instead, the crimson mist acted as a barrier. It coated the arterial walls near his heart. It slowed the shrapnel just enough. Without it, the metal would have severed his aorta instantly. With it, the shards lodged millimeters from the fatal point.
Tony gasped, clutching his chest, blood seeping through his fingers. The world went gray. The ringing in his ears drowned out the gunfire.
Back in my office, I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. The connection faded to a dull throb. He was alive. Broken, bleeding, and about to be dragged into hell. But alive.
My assistant, a young woman named Natalie (not her, not yet), knocked on the door.
"Mr. Raizel? Obadiah Stane is on line one. He says it's urgent. Something about... a missing plane."
I stood up and walked to the window, looking out over the city that Tony built. I adjusted my cuffs, my expression hardening into the mask of the Crimson Shareholder.
"Tell him I'll take it," I said calmly. "And clear my schedule for the next three months."
The good partner's work had just begun.