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The first time he kills a man, it’s in a desperate bid for freedom. He’s cocooned in a metal suit, and no one can see the smile that graces his lips as he aims his weaponry. It’s a crude and cruel method, but for these men he’ll allow it. They deserve it. Still, he cannot help but wonder how he can improve it.
He escapes the Ten Rings. He finds freedom, and Rhodey finds him. Still, he cannot escape the screams of the men he killed. They echo in his ears, even as Rhodey falls to his knees before him.
“How was the ‘Fun-Vee’?”
Tony smiles, closing his eyes. In the darkness behind his eyelids, he sees the corpses of his captors, and he feels purged, a new man. He is a phoenix among men.
“Effective immediately, I am shutting down the weapons manufacturing division of Stark Industries.”
They don’t understand, such small minds never could. He does not explain to them that there are better ways to save the world. He does not need to; they will never understand that he was given a mission in those caves. He has purpose now, and he will let nothing stop him.
He builds a suit. He builds a suit, and god is it beautiful; it looks nothing like the crude prototype he had killed his first man with, and the thought sparks something within him. He is fighting for more than freedom now, more than himself, he is fighting to improve the world.
He flys. He falls. This is nothing but a delay. He fixes the icing problem quickly, and he does not let himself waver. He has a job to do.
It’s the TV that first steals his attention away from his project, the rampant speculation that he’s bed ridden with PTSD, that he won’t attend his own benefit. That he wasn’t invited to his own benefit.
Scoffing, he puts on a suit. He is not a sheep to be herded; he is a shepard, with a plan of his own. He steps on to the red carpet with a smile, let these people think he is still a man without substance, let them think he is broken; it does not matter, all that matters is that they see him, that they know he is alive and well, and among them.
A reporter approaches him, Christine Everheart, but she is insignificant. She does not play a role in his plans.
“It’s a town called Gulmira. Ever heard of it?”
His mask slips.
“When were these taken?”
Christine’s eyes are big, and something in the back of his mind tells him that the old him would never act like this, would never snarl and grab her arms.
“Yesterday,” she squeaks.
The mask comes back, and he steps away from her with an easy smile. “Then I guess it’s time to go talk to the board.”
The trip to Gulmira was not part of the plan, and he vaguely wonders if this will affect everything he is working for, but he pushes that away. This must be done, he owes this much to Yinsen.
The second time Tony kills, though not the second man for in Afghanistan he killed many, he slaughters them all, quickly and efficiently. Now is not the time for anything else.
Gulmira is definitely going to affect the plan, he thinks as he attempts to dodge two USAF jets. Quickly, he weighs the consequences of all his potential actions.
His phone rings, Rhodey.
“Hello?”
Rhodey questions him about Gulmira, asking if he has any tech in the area, and he has to hold back a groan. Gulmira is already biting him in the ass.
“No,” Tony informs him. “I’m not in that business anymore.”
He hangs up, and he blows both of the jets to hell. The explosions propel him through the air, but he catches himself last second, and makes his way back to his home. He hadn’t wanted to do that, but there was no other option. He can’t have anyone thinking that the suits have anything to do with him, and nobody would ever go so far as to accuse him of killing two dedicated Air Force pilots. Besides, it also got him out of his already tricky situation.
Dum-E yanks at his armor, struggling to get it off, and Tony scolds him for his roughness, though he’s already planning his next model, how to improve it.
“Sir,” Jarvis interrupts. “Ms. Potts is approaching.”
“Make the windows opaque, Dum-E, hurry up.”
Jarvis obeys, and the room is suddenly closed off as Jarvis hides the workshop from the outside world.
“Tell her I’m working with volatile materials, and I’ll be out in a few moments.”
“Done, sir.”
“Thanks, J.”
Dum-E finishes, and he makes his way out of the workshop. Mentally, he designs a hidden room in which he can handle all matters related to his mission.
Later, after he sends Pepper on her way, and sequestered himself back into his workshop, he gets to work.
“Someone sold those weapons behind my back Jarvis, and after the injunction Obie filed, I can’t trust anyone. Do a deep dive into everyone with the authority to get away with something like this. Start with the people closest to me.”
Jarvis sets to work, but it’s too late. By the time that he finds the videos on Obidiah’s computers, the man in question is with Tony, paralyzing him with his own technology, stealing his arc reactor.
Dum-E saves him.
“It was Obadiah in Afghanistan too,” Jarvis tells him. “He arranged your murder, but they found out who you were and took you instead.”
“He’ll pay for that,” Tony promises, and he takes to the air.
When he finds Obadiah, the man in testing out his own suit; Tony chuckles. Despite its many improvements, the man has obviously pieced it together from the scraps he had left in the desert, not once thinking about the safeties Tony had built in on the off chance that the suit were discovered by the Ten Rings before completion.
The third time Tony kills, it is a brutal execution. He leads Obidiah on a merry chase, tiring him and weakening his armor with a fall from the sky. Then he aims at the weak spots in the joints, and forces him to his knees.
“I didn’t want to have to do this.” Tony tells him. “I wish I could have trusted you. You’re certainly ruthless enough to have been useful.”
He stalks in closer, and reaches out as if to touch Obie’s face. The older man never even sees the paralysis taser hidden in his hand.
Looking down at Obadiah, trapped in the weight of his replica armor, Tony’s face is colder than ever before. He removes the Arc Reactor from his suit, chatting idly.
“There’s a lot I’m willing to look past, betrayal is not on that list. Keeping you alive would mean exposing myself anyway, and I can’t afford that.”
Tony looks around, and, upon finding an old piece of rebar, he takes it and returns to his once friend. He lifts the rebar high, and then, as quickly as he can, he drives it down through the hole the reactor had once filled.
Then he sets about the task of removing Obadiah from the Iron Monger armor.
He steps out of his armor, “Police will be here soon, Jarvis, take the suits home. Be discreet. I’m afraid that I need to play victim, wipe all security footage.”
When police enter the scene, they find Tony Stark covered in blood, both his own and his godfather’s, sitting beside a cooling corpse. Tears fall from his eyes as he explains it all, how Obadiah had kidnapped him, enraged that he hadn’t died in Afghanistan, that he would dare to destroy all his carefully laid plans for when he took over the company.”
Between Tony’s own tragic past, Obie’s various public acts against Tony’s corporate control, and the video Jarvis had discovered, all charges against Tony are quickly dropped. The public views him as a victim, allowing him to disappear from the public eye for a little while.
During Tony Stark’s sabbatical, the strange technology from Gulmira makes a reappearance. They deem the oddity Iron Man, and a villain as it attacks various military bases, both United States and not, destroying weapons caches and killing anyone who gets in his way.
No one can pinpoint its origins, especially since it doesn’t differentiate between potential victims. It isn’t just governments that are under attack however, terror groups are decimated, and so are several major weapons manufacturers including Hammer and Stark industries, despite the fact that they have long since stopped production (Tony is quite proud of that once, erasing any potential suspicion that it may be related to him, even as he destroys hidden stockpiles of Stark weapons).
The first time that Ironman is called a Supervillian, is right after the announcement that Captain America has been discovered alive and well. It seems that times are changing now that there is someone capable of opposing him.
Oh well, things have been boring lately anyway. Killing Captain America will be good entertainment.