Tony Stark learns how baffling life can be. At one moment, he is the billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, etcetera… Now, he is just a prisoner…

“Tony, we can get out of here… Just trust me…” Rhodes tells his best friend in a blind attempt to comfort him. Tony just nods as he makes sense of the resources in front of him. All gears, metals, and tools can help him create something.

He is a mechanic, and he tinkers with stuff… The words of the Russian claiming to have a ‘different’ employer stick in Tony’s mind. “You know what buddy, just sit tight, and help me would you?”

“You want me to help you build weapons for them? Are you crazy, Tony?”

“Just trust me in this one, buddy…”

…

As Tony and Rhodes busy themselves, Obadiah finds himself in a conundrum. “Where is Ivan!?” He screams to his subordinates in maddened fury.

It was too abrupt. Ivan walks out, and then he didn’t return. Just after one call! Obadiah seethes with hatred as he grabs his subordinate’s collar who was guarding Ivan. “Where did he go?”

The subordinate panicky cries. “I… He attacked me, sir!”

“Attacked? And what am I paying you for? I pay your salaries because you have a job… And so all of you are under my employ. See to it that if you don’t do your job properly, consider your life forfeit!” Obadiah pulls a gun and shoots the failure of a subordinate.

Obadiah snarls at his other subordinate responsible for monitoring Ivan. “Who did he call?”

“He said it was from his father, but we are monitoring it in real-time, sir. We found out that the call recipient was from Pakistan…”

Obadiah bashes the subordinate’s head violently, but thankfully the man didn’t die. “Ivan is obviously a brilliant scientist. Faking the call’s recipient is not an impossible task. Why don’t you be smarter?”

His new golden goose leaving him is a bitter taste in his mouth. Obadiah can only suck it up and deal with this slowly. A kidnapped Ivan is also a possibility in his mind, but if Ivan really does renege on his contract with him, then Obadiah can only make Ivan regret his betrayal by then.

Though he no longer has the golden goose necessary for his ascent, Obadiah is still hell-bent on killing Tony Stark. He just badly wants that Arc reactor. In Obadiah’s fingers is the burnt pinky-sized reactor, the future of the world.

…

Drawing, Hammering, Building… All of this is a necessary step. Tony fakes ‘building’ for experimentation, when in fact he was actually creating a weapon that would help him with his predicament.

Tony doesn’t know why but his guards are specifically monitoring him, even going as far as not to create anything that resembles a ‘suit’ or an ‘armor’ which is a source of headache for Tony as his idea exactly was to create an invincible armor that can protect its user and at the same time have combat capabilities that would dwarf the enemies’ weapons.

With Rhodes as a competent pilot, Tony is confident of making it out alive.

However, Obadiah is too cautious.

Tony is not an idiot. They are living on borrowed time. If Tony doesn’t give Obie what he wants by the deadline, then he and Rhodes will die. This is exactly the reason why Tony decides to build the ‘Arc reactor’ last before the armor.

After a lot of thinking, Tony and Rhodes create a very risky plan which would either doom them or be that one spark that will save them.

At first, Tony plans to create a communication tool that would help them ask for help outside, but Obadiah has long accounted that mindful of Tony’s abilities, thus explaining the signal jammers that were hiding in plain sight. Aware that they can only survive through blood, Tony steel his resolve.

It has been a month, and they are ready.

“Are you ready, Tony?”

“Relax, it is just like changing tires in a formula race.”

“But it is not wheel tires you will be working on…”

Tony smiles. And Rhodes exasperatedly sighs.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Here goes nothing.” Tony throws ‘something’ just outside their cell. Tony and Rhodes hide at a piece of thick steel offering cover. For an improvised bunker, it works quite well.

BANG!

The sound of an explosion echoes in the small cell. The flimsy bars bend to the explosion. Rhodes gets out of the cell and acquires the guns of the dead guards. He put them into one side, within an arm’s reach. Rhodes proceeds on doing his part as he arms the thick two-inch steel door with a pre-made bomb courtesy of Tony Stark.

While Rhodes is working on the door trap, Tony is busying himself with his armor. The separate parts were already done. It only needs proper assembling. Welding the small parts together, Tony makes haste.

As the armor cools off from the welding, Tony immediately starts on the Arc reactor. “Rhodes! Little help here!” He shouts to Rhodes who is almost done arming the bomb.

Pouring the palladium into the Arc reactor model, and with Rhodes coming to help him, Tony finishes his work with flying colors. Literal flying colors of pure white. A subtle smile escapes from his lips as he carefully places the Arc Reactor over a separate chest plate.

“Now what?” Rhodes eager for the next step asks Tony.

“We wait, we buy time… I will buy you time… Suit up, Rhodes, this thing needs something like a pilot.” Tony pats Rhodes's shoulder, and with sincere eyes, he asks his friend to wield the weapon.

Rhodes doubtfully looks at the shabby thing. It’s not that he is disdainful of the machine, but he doesn’t like their chances. “Tony, I’ve counted their guards’ change in shifts… They are always different people. I reckon their numbers might be more than we can bargain for. We can as well think we might be in some terrorist’s den.”

“What do you mean? All of that problems will be solved if you ride this weapon.” Tony didn’t pay Rhodes much attention as he connects the necessary cables to boot the machine from a control panel.

Rhodes shakes his head as he already has a firm decision in mind. “No, Tony… You ride that weapon. I am a soldier, remember? I can buy you time. I have enough guns and bullets. Trust me on this one.”

Rhodes helps Tony on gearing up, and suddenly the thick steel door goes into a BANG! “I will be back Tony, I’ll entertain these guys in the meantime.”

Rhodes rushes by the door, grabs a gun, and exchanges fire.

Tony cannot see what was happening as his peripheral vision is stationary. He can hear the continued gunshots incessantly pouring and reminding him that Rhodes is still alive, and is exchanging fire.

The Iron Armor covering him feels heavy to the touch. It is currently immovable as the booting process is still not yet at 100%. Tony can only patiently wait, as the gunshots continue to roar.

Rhodes shoots with not-so-bad accuracy. It has been a long time since he had a gun in his hand, but he is still a considerably good shot, a clear sign of his hard work in the military even as part of the US Airforce. Rhodes pushes the aggressive gunfire by the door as he immerses himself in the zone.

He even manages to take space in the very door where more dead guards died all thanks to the armed bomb. Rhodes drags them inside the cell. Strips them of their guns, and bullets.

The steel door was narrow, a good chokepoint in which Rhodes would take advantage in this battle of attrition. Rhodes is getting greedier and greedier in exchanging fire, and as a result of his folly, a bullet takes its mark on his shoulder.

“Damn, Tony, I am shot…”

“What!?”

Tony worries for his friend as he was still at 93%.

“I am still fine… I’d still live for a few more hours. Dying from blood loss is a long and painful affair. So make sure to be done with this early so you can take me to the hospital…” Rhodes jests as he crawls backward from the steel door. “I shot a few of them dead, so they are kind of motivated to kill me, so pal, hurry up!”

At 94%, the sound of gunshots poking in their cells grows louder and lesser as the aggressive shooters realize Rhodes's lack of return fire.

At 97%, the sound of their footsteps gathers, aware that Rhodes must be hurt and cannot fight back anymore.

At 100%, the Ironman Armor creaks from its joints with reverberating fury.

“Just sit tight, I will be done in a jiffy.” Tony moves his limbs, as he leaves the fainted Rhodes from the corner. Moving his iron limbs together, it feels like it has always been a part of him.

Thus, for the first time, Ironman takes center stage.

…

Morgan is feeling this creeping fear slowly taking a hold of her heart. It has only been some days since her confrontation with Stray. After that, she immediately calms her reason and decides to do things more methodologically.

Initially, she was planning to get to Obadiah by forcefully taking hostage of him, but now, Morgan decides to do a more logical approach— that is to investigate first. However, it has been ‘some’ days already and she still has nothing. She swears, Stray must have a hand on this.

The SHIELD suddenly asking of her is disturbing her enough, but Obadiah’s unusual carefulness is a telltale sign of someone cluing him.

News reports of Tony Stark’s mysterious disappearance are already out, and some 'professionals' are already joining the fray. Morgan who has long had a head start on searching for Tony still has nothing.

This irks her.

It tempts her to just attack Obadiah with everything she has. Morgan doesn’t fault Stray for his choice of interfering with her, but it is too much of a drag. It is greatly disturbing for her how can such a ‘normal’ friend can casually build a criminal empire in not even the past two months.

Morgan recalls her many conversations with Toussaint, about how the young heir of Wakanda, finds Stray’s presence unnerving and untrustworthy. Morgan recalls as their Time Project continues to escalate, the more that Toussaint tells her how to not involve Stray specifically.

Just because of one reason— of an inkling suspicion that he is an alien of a dubious universe.

Morgan listened because what they are attempting to do are bigger than her, than them… Creating another universe by breaking off the timeline is definitely bigger than any of them.

After an excruciating month or so… Morgan finally traces her would-be-father, Tony Stark whose confinement was just hiding in plain sight… “Obadiah, he really outdid it this time…” In the very same headquarters of Stark Industries where Morgan already had a look over, is a very familiar sight... the sight of an Ironman Armor, the Mark 1.

On the TV, news coverage of a ‘small war’ displays itself for all people to see.

…

Meanwhile, on Stray’s face is a system notification.

[ACHIEVEMENT! Aid on the Creation of Ironman! +40 SP!]