Ring----
The crisp ringing of an alarm echoed through Tony Stark's bedroom, breaking the silence.
Tony jolted awake and glanced at the alarm clock by his bed.
It was hard to imagine that Tony had actually started setting an alarm.
He felt as though he was sick.
"Six o'clock... time to get up."
He got out of bed and changed, then slipped into professional protective gear, opened a door secured by a keypad, and went inside.
A week had passed since the battle at the psychiatric hospital.
The truth Zuer had revealed had sent shock waves rippling outward.
The entire region lay under the shadow of protests and looting.
Capturing innocent superhumans.
Drawing their blood and extracting their marrow.
Experimenting on human beings.
If only people with supernatural abilities had been persecuted, the public would have been disgusted, but it was hard to say how they would have reacted.
But there were very few people with supernatural abilities, and those crazed researchers naturally couldn't bear to experiment on them directly.
Most of their test subjects had been ordinary people.
That was unacceptable!
Human rights were supposed to matter here!
When their own safety and freedom were at stake, the public wasn't so easy to pacify.
S.H.I.E.L.D. had spent these past few days putting out fires everywhere and quashing public outrage, keeping its hands full.
"Tony?"
As usual, Pepper pushed open Tony's bedroom door, ready to deal with his "aftermath."
The rather risqué kind of "aftermath."
But Pepper had been happier these past few days.
She hadn't needed to deal with those headaches.
Tony Stark had behaved himself for several days now.
Tony was wholly absorbed in the sheet metal before him and hadn't noticed Pepper's arrival at all.
As Tony's door opened, Pepper cried out in surprise, "Tony, what are