A Worthy Enemy
"Marvel's Magnetic Field Rotation"
"Please be understanding. Old people like to reminisce about the past, and once they start recalling their youth, they begin to ramble on." Deathstroke walked over to Ivan Vanko and gently patted his shoulder in sympathy. "Even fifty years from now, he will still be as young as he was fifty years ago, but he will always see himself as an old man. After all, few of his contemporaries have survived, which makes him feel like he has been abandoned by the times."
Even though Deathstroke was holding back, Ivan could still feel the immense power emanating from the other's palm. If that palm had landed squarely, Ivan estimated that his shoulder would have been shattered.
The masked man who called himself David finished his reminiscence and continued speaking to Ivan Vanko: "So, have you agreed to my demands? Take care of Tony Stark for me, or at the very least, make him taste defeat."
"Why?" Ivan Vanko looked at David and asked, "Getting rid of Tony Stark won't do you any good. Your company's business only involves cosmetics and hair growth products, which have no conflict of interest with the Stark Industries. Is it just because you don't like him?"
During this time, aside from visiting his father and staying in his room watching TV, Ivan Vanko occasionally did some crafts, piecing together scattered parts into what he wanted—using equipment that was almost like black technology, he bypassed the top-notch firewall of Conglomerate B and freely accessed internal documents.
Although some important data is stored in a more secure database that he cannot access without alerting cybersecurity personnel, what he has seen is sufficient. At least he has gained some understanding of the organization's structure and funding sources.
He knew women craved cosmetics, but were men really this willing to spend so much money on treating hair loss?
"Yes, you guessed it. I just wanted to teach Tony Stark a lesson." David's head was completely covered by the hood, but he still smiled. "Sometimes people don't need a purpose to do things, just like when your hand brushes through the grass, you always instinctively grab a handful. From ancient times to the present, the most sophisticated form of entertainment for humans has been nothing more than the sexual act between men and women. It's just a process of reproduction, but we try every means to avoid the result of having offspring."
"Mr. Ivan Vanko, do you know how to play chess?"
David's change of topic surprised Ivan Vanko; he had only ever seen this with very old people, who would often forget what they had just said and start a new conversation, "A little."
"Great chess players don't simply defeat their opponents; they just place their pieces where they need to, and that's how they win. And you are the perfect piece to intercept Tony Stark," David recounted his chess experience, though Ivan Vanko didn't see it that way.
With a wave of his hand, David's virtual projection displayed a new blueprint next to the original blueprints of the Arc Reactor. It was a design for an Exoskeleton Armor, which was inferior to Tony Stark's Mark series in many aspects, but if built according to the blueprints, it would be much cheaper than the Iron Man suit.
On some level, the design was already quite mature. Ivan Vanko stared at it for a long time and found that he had no way to improve it—he just wanted to give it the high mobility of the Mark series Iron Man suit and equip it with a sufficiently powerful weapon system, so the whole design had to be drastically changed.
Furthermore, to truly defeat Tony Stark, one needs to be on par with him in terms of energy technology, artificial intelligence operating systems, micro-storage weapons, and anti-gravity repulsion, or even just infinitely close.
Aside from being able to create the Arc Reactor, Ivan Vanko couldn't create anything comparable to the Iron Man suit in any other aspect. This was because Tony Stark had the support of the entire Stark Industries, and his status allowed him access to materials that ordinary people couldn't obtain. He could even invest hundreds of millions of dollars in an Iron Man suit that might never be used.
Ivan Vanko was just a poor man who couldn't even afford his own father's medical care, let alone have spare money to buy parts and make high-tech equipment.
"This is just the basic armor, providing the wearer with the most basic protection, mobility, and some ability to retaliate. I call it the base form." David said, waving his hand again. Another set of blueprints unfolded, and a three-dimensional mechanical structure projection combined with the previous Mechanical Exoskeleton device, covering it with a mechanical connection to form a brand-new exoskeleton system. This greatly improved defense and mobility, added a jet device to gain flight capability, and also included a weapon system.
"This is Iron Man suit I designed in my spare time. The most basic exoskeleton system can be enhanced with additional armor to improve performance, and different modes can be selected depending on the situation."
Under David's command, the enhanced exoskeleton detached from the exoskeleton, and a brand new enhanced exoskeleton replaced it. After being combined with the exoskeleton, it lost the defensive capabilities of the previous exoskeleton, but gained powerful firepower and flight maneuverability. According to the design concept, Ivan Vanko could clearly see that the opponent possessed a fairly mature energy weapon and micro-storage missile technology that was no weaker than Stark's.
Most importantly, the design concept of this Exoskeleton Armor is unprecedented for Ivan Vanko, and it is no less significant than the upgrade of tank protection capabilities by reactive armor.
"I'm giving you the blueprints for this Exoskeleton Armor and providing you with ample resources so you can fully utilize your abilities to build and improve it. Then, you can wear our Mechanical Exoskeleton and challenge Tony Stark's Iron Man suit." David said slowly, "This is the first step in our cooperation, a return on the investment I made in you and your father, and also an opportunity to prove your abilities—please don't let me down; I haven't had any fun in a long time."
Even though the other party didn't say it explicitly, Ivan Vanko already understood what he meant: this way of threatening people was too childish and shouldn't be done by someone who called himself David.
However, Ivan Vanko did not refuse. Just as David had said before, although their starting points were different, their goal was to avenge Stark. Even though his father had received good medical care, he was not long for the future. Seeing his father avenge his father before he passed away was one of the few things he could do.
"Deathstroke, this mission you will partner with Mr. Ivan Vanko. Keep him focused on his mission and don't let him think about anything else," David's virtual projection said, looking at the seemingly unaffected Deathstroke. "If you discover he has betrayed us or leaked information about us, you may take his head."