Roxxon-Stark War

Roxxon-Stark War

Tony Stark had received news of Justin Hammer being released on bail almost immediately, but he had not thought much of it. At the moment, he was busy with something important—continuing his ex-girlfriend's research on the A.I.M. Extremis virus.

[The survival rate of the previous batch of lab mice has reached one hundred percent, sir. It is time to move on to the next stage. The primates ordered from Africa have arrived at the laboratory.]

J.A.R.V.I.S. reported the latest progress, and Tony broke into a brilliant smile. "Excellent. Once I become an Extremis virus Iron Man, Captain won't be able to beat me up with his fighting skills anymore."

[There is no evidence that the Extremis virus can improve a person's combat ability, sir.]

"I know. I mean that even without armor, I won't hurt as much, and I'll have physical abilities that can rival a Super Soldier."

Tony wanted to research a safe version of the Extremis virus and inject himself with it partly because combat was becoming increasingly intense. Forget Captain—even Tony found it difficult to deal with newly emerging enemies through advances in armor technology alone.

The other reason was that research into micro-storage technology for nanobots had stalled. The gap in the number of nanobots between a suit and Iron Armor was simply too vast, drastically slowing research progress.

So Tony decided to take another route—if portable equipment alone could not carry enough nanobots, why not hide them inside his body? Within his bones, muscles, and blood vessels. Perhaps his current body could not do that, but that did not mean an Extremis-enhanced body could not.

Thus, Tony threw himself into his work. He did not even answer Rhodey's calls. After dozens of hours of working without food or water,