Perhaps it was because Qin Xiao was now in the picture.
Compared to the movie, Nick Fury was much more open with Tony.
He brought along the belongings Howard Stark had left at S.H.I.E.L.D. right from the start.
He gave them directly to Tony as a gift, and his very first words told Tony that Howard Stark had been one of the three founders of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division.
After World War II ended, an army general, a super agent named Peggy Carter, and a genius scientist named Howard Stark founded an organization called the Strategic Scientific Reserve, or SSR for short.
That was how S.H.I.E.L.D. had come to be.
"Your father wasn't just some old man who made weapons. His views on this world and his influence on it went far beyond anything you could imagine. He firmly believed that science would ultimately bring prosperity to everyone and prevent wars, but he was constrained by his era, and many of his ideas couldn't be realized. He believed you would eventually change all of that!"
Although he had already discussed their attitude toward S.H.I.E.L.D. with Qin Xiao, Nick Fury's words still struck deep in Tony's heart.
After all, deep down, he believed his father had never liked him.
That his father thought he had accomplished nothing and couldn't be relied on at all.
Who would have thought his father had placed such high hopes in him?
"I know it's hard for you to believe your father said this. Here are the things he left you. Take a good look, and you'll understand. He saw the Arc Reactor as the greatest hope for eliminating war. Renewable energy-countries around the world would no longer need to wage wars to seize resources, would they?"
Nick Fury truly was skilled at winning people over. He never once mentioned having Tony Stark join S.H.I.E.L.D. or the so-called Avengers Initiative.
Qin Xiao would naturally handle those matters. Fury merely built some rapport and brought out what Tony Stark craved most deep down.
His father's approval.
It struck straight at the heart.
So whether it was because of what Nick Fury had brought out, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s origins, or Tony and Qin Xiao's own little plan.
Iron Man joining the Avengers was practically a done deal.
As for that big guy Hulk, according to Black Widow, he was still continuing his research while undergoing a series of special training sessions.
They were meant to let him control his emotions and heartbeat more perfectly, keeping him from transforming into Hulk in everyday life.
But Qin Xiao knew that, in a certain sense, Hulk and Banner could be considered two people sharing one body.
The more he suppressed it like that, the more likely things were to become irreversible in the end.
Just like Banner in the Avengers, who maintained perfect control in everyday life and even had Black Widow directly rein in Hulk's temper whenever he transformed for battle.
That was what led to Hulk taking control of the body for two whole years on Sakaar.
Knowing that was one thing, but Qin Xiao wasn't going to interfere too much for now.
Mainly because he didn't have any particularly good solutions himself.
After looking through the belongings his father had left behind, Tony plunged straight into his laboratory.
Qin Xiao knew that Tony had probably already discovered the palladium poisoning caused by the Arc Reactor.
Before he and Black Widow officially began working on selecting a location, Qin Xiao's home was finally completely ready.
He drove the Audi R8 he had helped himself to from Tony's garage. In the movies, it might have been because of advertising sponsorships.
Audis often appeared in Marvel movies.
But now that he had come to this real world, there was a more realistic explanation for why Tony liked Audis.
Tony had helped improve Audi's engines.
Tony Stark was a superstar scientist who drew attention wherever he went. The importance of his endorsement to the entire Audi brand went without saying.
Audi also sent Tony its newest models every year.
They had just delivered another new one recently, so Qin Xiao had shamelessly driven one away on the pretext that there was limited space in the garage.
Arriving at his new apartment, he entered his fingerprint into the fingerprint lock.
"Welcome home, Mr. Qin. I'm your housekeeper. You can call me Nicole!"
The voice of a young girl rang out, with a slightly playful lilt.
"Nicole?"
Qin Xiao mulled the name over.
Why did it sound like it had a hint of Nick Fury to it? But that wasn't important!
What mattered was how useful the artificial intelligence was.
Of course, it couldn't compare to JARVIS. After all, Tony had essentially modeled all his own theoretical knowledge and the known operating rules of this universe and fed them into JARVIS.
That allowed JARVIS to handle any supporting calculations and scientific research Tony needed.
By comparison, though, Nicole was much more oriented toward everyday life.
Aside from being able to control all the specially made furniture and appliances in the home.
She also had some supporting functions, such as alarms, time reminders, and weather reports. You could even watch a movie at home and then discuss parts of the plot with Nicole.
Of course, it had to be a movie that had already been released to the outside world.
After all, Nicole served a different role from JARVIS. She gathered existing movie review data from outside, filtered it herself, and used it to converse with her owner.
Qin Xiao didn't understand the more profound technical details. In short, as a home-use model, she was perfect.
This was what a smart lifestyle should look like.
In Qin Xiao's previous life, quite a few AI-like products had appeared in the world, paired with specific furniture and appliances.
They could also achieve direct control with a single command, but the way those things received and sent commands was far too rigid.
Sometimes, they were even less convenient than simply doing things yourself.
He didn't immediately take a proper tour of his new home, and he also overlooked Tony's mischievous placement of a photo at his bedside-a photo the media had edited together of the two of them making peace signs, which had made headline news.
Qin Xiao instructed Nicole to open the secret room behind the bed in the bedroom.
There was also a manual button for it, right behind the photo of the two of them. Placing Qin Xiao's palm against it would trigger an automatic scan and open it.
This was a specially modified secret room.
Tony had encased the entire room in a layer of special alloy.
Even if the whole building exploded, this secret room would become a heavy metal shipping container once separated from the surrounding reinforced concrete.
It was tough enough to withstand damage on the scale of an intercontinental ballistic missile.
Inside the secret room was a small study. Besides a desk, a computer, and so on, it also came equipped with a small camp bed and a toilet.
It was practically a temporary shelter. Tony's arrangements were undeniably thoughtful.
And the server for Nicole, the artificial intelligence program Tony had custom-made for Qin Xiao, was housed in this little study-cum-shelter.
This was Qin Xiao's ultimate reason for wanting Nicole: to copy her program!