Some Things Must Be Done

As soon as he reached home, he ran into Pepper Potts.

Seeing the blood around Tony's mouth and nose, Pepper screamed in fright. "Ah... Tony, are you okay? We need to get you to a hospital, now."

Tony said, "I'm fine. I'm just stuck inside this hunk of metal and can't get out."

"How can you be fine after bleeding so much? Are you trying to tell us your last words? I... sob..."

Pepper couldn't help but burst into tears.

Apocalypse sighed helplessly. Women really loved to cry. His own Black Widow was better, at least she didn't scream at the slightest thing.

Ignoring Pepper's frantic rambling, Apocalypse carried Tony straight into the underground lab and tossed him onto the floor. The mechanical arms could handle the rest.

With the mechanical arms' assistance, Tony finally got free. He said to Pepper, "This is the delivery guy I told you about, Tang Tianqi. And this is my friend and assistant, Pepper Potts. You can just call her Pepper."

"Thank you for saving Tony. Twice."

Pepper was tall, and with her high heels on, she was nearly as tall as Apocalypse. She took the initiative to shake his hand, her eyes full of curiosity as she studied him.

Tony trusted Pepper completely. No matter how confidential something was, he never hid it from her. Naturally, she knew about what had happened in the cave.

Still, even after the two of them thought it over, they couldn't figure out Apocalypse's intentions.

After shaking hands, Pepper said, "I'll be going to Stark Industries these next few days to handle some matters for Tony. Why don't you stay here for a few days, Mr. Tang? We haven't properly repaid you yet."

Before Apocalypse could agree, Tony jumped up. "No, no, no. Absolutely not. I like peace and quiet. Tang, this isn't aimed at you."

That was true enough. Apocalypse understood Tony's personality.

Such a huge villa, yet only Tony and Pepper lived there. There wasn't even a single servant.

Whenever Tony brought women home to spend the night, Pepper was the one who delivered clothes and took out the trash.

Pepper said to Tony, "You like peace and quiet, or you like flying around recklessly? If it weren't for Mr. Tang this time, you'd be dead."

"Either way, I don't agree."

Apocalypse said, "I happen to have a house that needs renovating, so I can take a look at your design. Pepper, arrange a large room for me."

"No problem."

Tony cried out, "Hey, hey, hey... Do either of you still see me as the owner of this place? Fine, fine... Just don't put his room too close to mine. I like peace and quiet..."

Pepper ignored him completely and deliberately assigned Apocalypse the nearest guest room.

She meant well, afraid that Tony might run into another accident.

With a mysterious powerhouse like Apocalypse by his side, Pepper felt much more at ease.

Apocalypse himself had nothing to do, and Black Widow wasn't replying to his messages. It made no difference where he stayed.

Besides, being able to watch Tony build the Iron Man armor step by step was quite interesting.

Tony spent all day holed up in the underground lab. Apocalypse went down to watch a few times, but found it rather boring.

Polishing armor was an extremely tedious task. The movies only showed the most exciting scenes, but the actual research and development process was incredibly dull.

Tony often went an entire day without speaking, sitting in front of the computer to think and calculate.

A few days later, Tony finally perfected the Mark II model.

The Mark II corrected every flaw of the primitive Mark I. Not only was it resistant to freezing, it also used lighter and harder titanium alloy. Its flight speed increased greatly, and it would no longer have the embarrassing problem of crashing through the floor upon flying home.

To celebrate, Tony officially painted the armor a flashy gold and red.

With his masterpiece complete, Tony decided to attend a party and relax.

He wanted to invite Apocalypse along, but Apocalypse had other matters to attend to and had no interest in Western cocktail parties, so he didn't go with him.

At the party, a gorgeous female reporter showed Tony several photos. They proved that Stark Industries was still selling weapons, and those weapons were still harming civilians.

The location was a town called Gulmira in the Middle East.

Only days after announcing the shutdown of the weapons division, he had been slapped in the face.

Tony's expression darkened. After returning home, he found Apocalypse and asked, "Tang, was Yinsen's hometown called Gulmira?"

"Yes. Did you discover that a large number of weapons were being sold there without your authorization?"

"That's right." Tony was somewhat surprised. "You knew about this too?"

"That isn't the important part. The important question is, have you really decided to destroy those weapons and save the civilians?"

Tony's body trembled. "How did you know what I was thinking?"

It wasn't too strange that Apocalypse knew about the weapons. Even an ordinary reporter could get hold of photos, so it didn't seem difficult for a mysterious powerhouse like Apocalypse to obtain that information.

The frightening thing was that Tony's thought of going to destroy those weapons had only occurred to him on the way home. No one could possibly have known, yet Apocalypse did.

Just who was this Oriental man? Could he read minds?

"Tony, you aren't difficult to read. The key is, what will you choose?"

Tony drank a glass of wine and said, "Some things must be done, otherwise my conscience won't rest."

With that, he headed down into the underground lab.

The Iron Man armor was still relatively primitive at this point. Putting it on required the assistance of a set of mechanical arms, and the process was complicated and time-consuming.

After several minutes, Tony put on the gold-and-red armor and stomped his way over to Apocalypse, every step shaking the ground. "Don't tell Pepper."

Apocalypse said, "Even if I don't, you won't be able to hide it from her. Go. If you run into trouble on the way back, call me."

"Whew..."

Tony said no more and flew directly out the window, disappearing beneath the sky.

He flew at full speed the entire way. A white sonic boom cloud formed around the armor, first surrounding Tony before rapidly being flung behind him.

Apocalypse wasn't worried about Tony's trip to Gulmira. With Tony's armor, it would be a complete one-sided slaughter.

Not only did Tony destroy every weapon made by Stark Industries, he also wiped out the militants in one sweep. Even tanks couldn't withstand a single tiny missile from the armor.

After cleaning everything up, Tony threw the leader responsible for slaughtering civilians before the terrified townspeople and left them to deal with him.

This was also a test for the refugees. Their previous lack of resistance could be understood—they had endured humiliation just to survive.

But now the militants had invaded their homeland, massacring them and doing whatever they pleased. If they still didn't dare kill them, Tony no longer wanted to care whether they lived or died.

Very soon, the leader was swallowed by the enraged civilians...

With everything handled, Tony flew back.

But leaving was easy; returning was hard!

The United States wasn't strict about monitoring planes flying out, but it was extremely wary of unidentified aircraft entering its territory.

Not long after Tony reached the border, ground radar detected him.

Immediately, two F-22 fighters took off and tailed Tony from behind.

After a brief chase, Tony's friend, Colonel Rhodes—the future War Machine—keenly sensed that something was off. That style, that technology... it looked far too much like Tony.

So he immediately called Tony. "There's a humanoid flying machine in my base's airspace. That wouldn't happen to be you, would it?"

Tony said, "How could that be? I'm at home taking a bath."

Colonel Rhodes said, "Good. Then we're going to shoot it down."

"Whew..."

A tracking missile fired from the side of an F-22. Tony hurriedly launched dozens of decoy flares for cover.

"Boom..."

The tracking missile struck the decoys and exploded, igniting a huge fireball in the sky.

Then the other fighter locked tightly onto Tony's tail, its mounted machine guns spitting two streams of fire with a rapid rat-a-tat-tat.

Tony failed to evade in time, and the armor was hit in the back.

Since he couldn't escape through speed, Tony had a flash of inspiration. He spread his limbs in midair, using air resistance to brake sharply and hide beneath the aircraft.

But he could only hide for a moment. Soon, the other fighter spotted him.

In the original story, Tony had called Colonel Rhodes himself and asked him to let him go, barely escaping in the end.

Because of that, Colonel Rhodes even held a press conference, claiming it had been a military exercise and that one F-22 fighter had been damaged.

But due to Apocalypse's arrival, Tony turned to someone else for help in the same predicament.

Soon, Apocalypse received Tony's call. "Tang, are you some kind of prophet? How did you know I'd run into trouble on the way back?"

Apocalypse laughed. "Hahahahaha, let me guess. Two F-22 fighters, and you can't beat them, right?"

The Iron Man armor was still fairly basic at this point. It had plenty of agility but lacked speed, and its frontal firepower couldn't overpower the most advanced F-22 fighters.

Just in terms of size, the amount of weaponry it could carry was incomparable.

"You're completely right. Come save me, quickly, or I'm going to die for the third time."

"Hold on for a little while. Let me see what useful stuff you have around the house."

Apocalypse looked around the hall, grabbed two antique medieval spears, and leaped toward the United States border.