Public Opinion Offensive

"Tony!!!"

"Uh-oh~ JARVIS, you deliberately cut off the power to the Mark VII armor, didn't you? Otherwise, with Leon's Active Adamantium at its current hardness, even Pepper after being injected with the Super Soldier Serum couldn't possibly have kicked the Mark VII apart with one blow."

"Sir, yes."

JARVIS immediately confessed without hesitation.

"Heh~"

Tony was so angry he laughed.

"I think I need an explanation, Tony."

The veins on Pepper's forehead bulged. The fury building inside her was like a volcano on the verge of eruption; even from afar, Tony could feel an utterly terrifying pressure.

"Ah, well, um, I'm busy over here... Huh? Bad signal, I... you... bye." Amid a burst of obviously faked signal interference, Tony promptly hung up.

Pepper lowered the phone from her ear and crushed it in one furious grip, her face dark as she shouted word by word, "Tony, you're dead!"

Meanwhile, Tony, who was catching up with an old jogging buddy, looked awkwardly at the footage of Pepper "going berserk" on his phone.

"Hiss—kind of scary."

The video signal came from the surveillance feed of the Mark VII armor, which had already been kicked to pieces.

"Tony? You were taking a little too long in the bathroom, so I got worried and came to check on you..." Just then, a familiar female scientist in a white lab coat walked over.

"It's nothing. The tigress at home called to check up on me. Seems something happened over there."

Tony said casually.

"Is that so?"

Maya Hansen raised an eyebrow but did not ask further.

"That bastard!"

Still unable to calm down, Pepper rushed over to the dismantled Mark VII armor and savagely kicked the metal parts scattered across the ground.

"Ma'am, you cannot inflict effective damage on the Mark VII armor. To