Helen Cho stood rooted to the spot. At last, her hands dropped from above the keyboard to her sides.
She arranged her face into an expression of weary frailty, her voice carrying just the right amount of remorse:
"Mr. Stark... I'm so sorry."
"I'll assemble a technical team immediately to inspect the Regeneration Cradle's underlying code."
"If this really was an accident caused by a system flaw..."
"Enough." Tony kept his back to her as he buttoned his lab coat one button at a time. His voice was muffled.
"It's not your fault."
"With that bastard's advanced armor tech, there was no way you could've stopped him from tampering with the program."
He sounded like a man forced to thank someone who had just beaten him up. Then he added:
"This... stays between us."
"Everyone who was here today, keep your mouths shut!"
Helen Cho nodded with the utmost sincerity. "Of course."
She wanted nothing more than for the matter to end there!
But she knew that was wishful thinking. From today on, she would have to make the occasional delivery for a certain bastard.
If necessary, she would even have to bring her secretary along to help...
At 1:17 that afternoon.
The first tweet with a photo appeared on Twitter.
Attached was a blurry photo taken through a shattered window.
In it, Tony Stark stood bare-legged beside the Regeneration Pod in a lab coat. Its front bulged outward in two unmistakable curves, while his waist looked at least two sizes slimmer than it did in armor. His face had the look of a husky that had just been hauled out of freezing water.
The caption read: "Holy shit!! Iron Man turned into a woman! Pics or it didn't happen—well, here's the pic!!"
Three minutes later, the tweet had