Chapter 13: A Deal Truly from a Shark

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"If today is the worst day ever – tomorrow has to be better."

– Ikusaba Marco, (Future Diary)

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"What the hell are you doing here Mr. Sugarbaby?" Tony Stark asked in his signature snarky voice even while he was pinned under the grip of the frozen Iron Monger.

"Me? Oh, I was just here to enjoy the view but then I saw a grand fight going on around here. So, I just came to check it out. But then imagine my surprise when I found out that the great genius Tony Stark was getting his ass kicked like a little bitch. It was almost painful to watch." I chuckled as I began to float in a sitting position.

"So, you are a metahuman, huh? I knew having two rich and beautiful sugar mommies couldn't be normal, otherwise, I would have already done it." Tony complained, still struggling under Stane's grip.

"Maybe, or maybe I am just a better and more attractive guy than you. Anyhow, I have watched this fight for too long now. I should go back..." I said as I turned back, not caring about the expression of helplessness on Tony's face.

"WAIT. I mean, since you are here and all, you could give me a hand in clearing this all up. My armor's power is quite low since I have been fighting this giant piece of trash from the beginning." Tony tried his best to stop me from leaving.

"Huh, did you say something? I mean I am quite a helpful guy but I failed to hear the words 'please' and 'help' in there." I said with a straight face.

"... Okay, fine... Can you please help me? I am literally bleeding out here. The light is getting too close for me to be comfortable." Tony said as he placed his hands on his bleeding arm. However, to his surprise, it wasn't bleeding as severely as before. Instead, it looked like some invisible force was trying to contain his injury.

"What the fuc..." Tony was utterly confused at the continuous miracles he was witnessing one by one.

"Well, since you said please, I guess I should help. But, I don't like doing stuff for free especially if I am doing it for a bloodsucking billionaire. So here, this is my contract. Take a look at it and see if you still want my help." I said, throwing a piece of rolled paper towards him which hit him in the head as he failed to catch it.

"I am literally pinned under a 4000-pound piece of armor with one of its drill-shaped hands piercing through my shoulder. Do you really expect me to pick that up?" He asked with a tired voice which made it seem like he just wanted to go home.

"Okay okay, here." I used my telekinesis and floated the piece of paper near his face so that he could skim through it and save both of us some valuable time.

"What the hell is this contract? You are more or less ripping me off with this. There is no way people charge this much for anything. I am just giving you free business if I sign this contract." Tony complained as he finished reading the entire contract in one breath.

"Yeah, so? I think you are missing the point here. I am not here to give you a healthy 'equal for all sides' contract. I am here to profit off of you as much as I can. I have needs man. I need food to fill my stomach and a roof over my head. I can't do all those without being a little selfish, can I." I shrugged with a helpless expression on my face.

"You little bloodsucker... But, what if I sign it now, and refuse to abide by its terms later? I can always just hire some good lawyers to help me fight your contract off later." He asked, raising one of his brows with a smirk but I knew he wasn't planning to do that since if he was, he wouldn't have asked me that.

"Do you think I would just leave a contract like this to a court and a bunch of lawyers? No, I have my own way of making sure that you stay true to the contract. You will understand it soon enough. All you need to know is that the contract will see itself fulfilled no matter what. So, sign only if you intend to fulfill the conditions.

Tony didn't give any more retorts to my answer and instead sighed like he had already made his decision. "My arms aren't working at their full capability you see, so how the hell do I sign this? Right now, I just wanna do this as quickly as possible and then go home and have a burger." 

"A drop of blood would be enough to seal the deal," I answered.

"For some reason, I feel like I am signing up with a satanic cult or something," Tony muttered while touching the contract with one of his bloodied hands.

The moment his blood touched the contract, it glowed slightly red as it seemed to melt and transform into two red hot metal chains that shot straight into my and Tony's hearts. 

As one of them entered my heart, the conditions that I had written on the contract as well as the penalty in case the conditions were not fulfilled became imprinted in my mind, reminding me to complete my responsibility. I knew the same thing happened with Tony as well since the expression on his face looked like he wasn't at all happy with the arrangement.

"Congrats, you will live today to see tomorrow just as I promised, enjoy," I said as the entire frozen figure of Iron Monger pinning Tony began to float and slowly move away from the billionaire, thus releasing the genius playboy to move around more freely.

"I don't think I ever had a man pinning me down for that long" He joked as he tried to stand up but unfortunately his arc reactor was running on fumes and didn't have nearly enough juice to power his armor.

"Here, take your new arc reactor back. It seems that Obadiah drilled you so hard that you ran out of energy." I said with a grin as I pulled the arc reactor from Stane's armor using my telekinesis and floated it near Stark for him to grab.

"That sounds even dirtier than the one I made up. My father must be rolling in his grave right now." Tony let out a small tired laugh as he caught the arc reactor from the air and exchanged his old arc reactor with the new reactor again.

"What happens with him by the way? I mean if you are handling him to the authorities, I should warn you that he has a lot of connections..." Tony started to give me some advice on what to do with Stane but unfortunately, he was unable to continue.

*BOOM* Stane clad in his massive Iron Monger armor suddenly exploded in a grand fashion as I released my crimson red-coloured divine energy directly at it through my eyes, not only destroying the armor's technology but completely erasing it by basically reducing everything to bits of metal coated with blood.

"... You-you killed him? And I thought you were the friendly type who was gonna hand him over to the authorities and later help me sue him by acting as my witness." Tony commented while watching the pieces of metal on the ground. He looked annoyed and yet satisfied at the same time, probably annoyed that he wasn't the one killing Stane.

Tony previously being a weapons dealer knew about the laws of the real world. He knew that there were some enemies that you just could not spare unless you wanted to spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder.

"Nah, that would be too much of a drag. Anyhow, I should go now. And if anyone asks, remember he died due to the arc reactor explosion. I mean I don't care if you snitch on me but that little chain inside your heart isn't going to appreciate you trying to sabotage me without fulfilling all the conditions first." I warned before flying away.

"Wait, that wasn't some fancy-ass illusion technology? At first, it was pieces of metal, now a goddamn chain, my heart really is a cold place to be at, isn't it?" He thought aloud to himself as he made a note to do some research on how to get that chain out of him after he reached home. He knew that the chain wasn't just inside him to look cool, no, it was there as a backup in case he failed to hold up his end of the deal. That chain meant that the moment he tried to betray his new 'partner', he would die, probably with a heart attack or a stroke.

"Tony, are you alright? Goddamn it, why did you cut my call? I was so worried about you. Have you no sense of..." Pepper came running out of nowhere and hugged him but then immediately began to berate Tony like a mother admonishing her spoiled child. 

"Hey hey, slow down. I literally had a drill run through my arm a few minutes ago. So, go a little easy on the hugs." Tony tried to protect his injured hand.

"What? Oh sorry. Wait, where is your hand injured? Both of them seem completely fine to me. Are they broken on the inside or something?" Pepper began to thoroughly check his hands trying to find out if anything was wrong with them. But amazingly, there was not even a single scar on them.

'That's interesting. It seems he had some sort of healing power as well. That reminds me, maybe I should have also added a clause in the contract specifying that Pepper should only praise me from now on instead of reprimanding me all the time. Tchh.' He thought to himself dejectedly, lamenting the missed opportunity.

"It seems Tony's personality is more like his MCU counterpart here than his comic one. Makes him slightly more likable." I noted while floating high up in the sky, watching the interaction between Tony and Pepper while chewing on some popcorn.

"I have completed scanning both the armors and the arc reactor Atem. The miniaturized Arc reactor might be slightly useful in some particular Para-sentinel models, however, there is nothing new in the two armors that can be added to better our Para-sentinel army. Both designs are extremely basic compared to the versions of the Para-sentinels that we are currently churning out from our secret manufacturing facilities." Zoya revealed as she floated to me from behind.

"I see. But don't worry, I believe he will be innovating his armors steadily. I am sure that in just a few years, he will be our biggest free supplier of new innovative sentinel designs." I nodded like a sage as I remembered the dozens of unique armor designs in the Ironman 3 movie or the Hulkbuster armor in the Age of Ultron. 

"I hope so. After all, he got his deal dirt cheap. Not only did you heal all his injuries, and save his life but even won his battle for him as well. The conditions you gave him were more than light enough." Zoya expressed her biased opinion as well.

"Yeah yeah, sure but this won't be happening every time. Next time, he would be on his own if something like this happened again. I just hope he won't be vomiting blood later while paying me back as part of the deal." I murmured as I thought about some of the absolutely bullshit conditions I had included in there.

"However, I don't really feel particularly bad for him. I am sure he doesn't either. He might even figure out a way to profit off those conditions if he puts his mind to it." 

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