Chapter 14 Interlude 3 – A Stark realization

"Tony, have you seen this?" Pepper's question rang out through the inventor's workshop as she burst inside, crimson hair trailing behind her like the vengeful tail of a comet.

She came to a halt by a surprising sight, however.

Tony wasn't inventing.

Instead, the brilliant scientist was seated behind his desk, leaning back in his chair as his eyes were fixed on the holographic screens in front of him with an uncharacteristically dark look. The holograms showed the press-conference that Pepper has just been watching and which had caused her to run to Tony's lab as she felt that he needed to be aware of this.

She hadn't expected him to already be on top of this though.

As if he could hear her unasked question, Tony replied, though his eyes were still fixed on the screen in front of him.

"Yeah. JARVIS picked it up and sent it to me, he thought I should have a look at it."

And what he was looking at made him both angry and wary.

Because right there on the screen, clad in a nice suit, stood a behemoth of a man (though not as large or bulky as the Hulk was reported to be) with glowing eyes and a winning smile.

"We at Titan Solutions believe in helping everyone. And with our Blue Box, we will help everyone. The Blue Box is an advanced piece of technology which is capable of producing enormous amounts of energy, without the drawback of polluting emissions which has become the staple of fuel today. Instead, ladies and gentlemen, I give you the fuel of the future!" Michael McCole, the man who had allowed a gamma-mutated scientist to enhance him with God knows what, spread out his enormous hands in a picture-perfect gesture of generosity.

As a loud cheer and a wave of applause filled the conference room, Tony felt unease twist in his gut.

Not so long ago, he would have either been amused or intrigued at the notion of someone else claiming to possess advanced tech on the same level that he could produce.

That had changed ever since Vanko showed up and nearly killed Pepper and Happy right in front of him.

He had managed to recover (somewhat) from the betrayal of his mentor Obadiah because the man's Iron Monger armour had been stolen from his designs, though the memory of the man standing above him while he was helpless to stop Obadiah from (in a way) literally tearing his heart straight out of his chest would probably haunt him for the rest of his life.

He couldn't make the same excuse when it came to Vanko however.

Yes, his Arc Reactor had been inferior, but it had been all made by the criminal with his own two hands, and it had been improved upon after he so foolishly gave the man the info he had needed to do it.

That had been the day that Tony Stark had to swallow a bitter pill.

There were others out there who could do what he did.

So no, he wasn't just going to laugh about or ignore this brand new company nobody had heard about before last week, that claimed they could distribute highly advanced tech to the masses, just because he had thought he was the only one capable of doing so.

He refused to make the same mistake twice.

"What are we going to do about this Tony? That man is clearly trying to sell-"

"-Arc Reactors."

Seeing her blink in surprise at his brusque tone, Tony swivelled his chair around to face her fully, his expression softening somewhat as he looked at her, his face more serious that she was used to seeing outside of life or death situations.

"It's a piece of technology that is literally close to my heart Pepper. They can dress it up all they like, give it fancy names and stuff, but there's no way in hell that I wouldn't recognize what is keeping me alive."

Walking up to him, placing a dainty hand on his shoulder, Tony saw her brows furrow lightly as she looked back at the screen again, where McCole seemed to be shaking hands with the CEO of Honda, which not only made cars for the big consumer market, but also engines for just about every field of motorsport, including F1, which boasted a multi-million budget per race.

Netting this deal (amongst many others) meant that Titan Solutions now was worth billions.

She should know, she had dinner with that very CEO just last week in order to arrange a deal for Stark Industries.

"How did they get Arc Reactors Tony?"

Shrugging, the scientist placed his hand on top of hers as he too looked towards the screen.

"Probably from the Stark Expo fiasco. There were plenty of pieces flying around there, so someone might have picked it up and sold it to a bunch of scientists or something. That or S.H.I.E.L.D. screwed up when they breached Hammer Industries looking for Vanko and didn't secure his blueprints thoroughly enough."

Standing up from his chair, Tony walked towards one of the multitude of tables in his workshop, his restless hands mindlessly picking up an Iron Man helmet (it would be part of his Mark VI armour, which was meant to be the first one to be fully capable of operating underwater) as the inventor inside him started to get to work, leaving him to mull over his thoughts in peace.

"How they got their hands on it doesn't matter. What matters is what we are going to do about it."

"We're going to sue them. We'll bleed them dry." Pepper's voice came automatically, cool and self-assured, born from her experience in guiding Stark Industries to the top of the market which such vigour she had been named business woman of the century.

Still, Tony just absent-mindedly shook his head as his hands kept on working (lining the wiring just so ought to make the data stream to his HUD 0,0056% more efficient) as he replied over his shoulder.

"Maybe. I don't think it's the best idea though. I never took out a patent on the tech, Pepper. I just figured that if I did, I'd only turn back into the Merchant of Death again by giving the people a new kind of weapon to play with. And I wasn't worried about someone making it themselves, because… well, honestly, until Vanko showed up at Monaco I never figured that anyone could."

"But this is clearly corporate theft!"

At her indignant shout, Tony sighed in frustration, placing the helmet back down and turned around to face her, leaning his back against the workbench as he crossed his arms in front of his chest, hiding his own Arc Reactor from view.

"Yes, it is. But how's it gonna look when we call him out on it Pepper? They are out there, right now, selling this tech to just about everyone willing to pay for it. Which, basically, includes just about everyone who can pay for it. And only after deals have already been made between Titan and everyone else, does Stark Industries come out and sue them for doing it."

"Legally, we are fully in our right-"

"Pepper. People don't care about legally. All they care about, is that their cars and homes will become a lot cheaper to provide with energy, and when they see Stark Industries come in and try to take it all away because we have been sitting on the same damned tech for well over a year, do you know what they'll think? 'Well, if Tony Stark has had this for so long, then why didn't he try to make our lives better?' And they aren't wrong."

"Tony, you're not being fair to yourself." Pepper murmured softly as she approached him, her slim arms coming up around his neck as she rested her head on his chest.

Wrapping his arms around her and resting his chin on her fiery hair, Tony looked conflicted, his usual playboy tendencies pushed to the background now that he was confronted with questions he hadn't even known were there, waiting to be answered.

"Am I though? Every time someone got their hands on my tech, they tried to use it to hurt me. To hurt you. Or they tried to turn it into weapons again. Or both. And that made it so easy to justify keeping all of it to myself. But here comes this new guy, right? And he has his hands on my tech, and all he's doing is making deals for engines and generators and stuff. The closest he has come to making weapons is getting into a partnership with Pym Technologies, but for the rest he turns out clean and I'm just left thinking…. You know?"

"When's the other shoe going to drop?" Pepper finished with a soft smile, pulling back a bit so she could look him in the eyes as he sighed in admittance.

"Yeah. Does that make me paranoid?"

Pepper let out a short laugh at that, before she fondly shook her head.

"No Tony. It just means you have been through a lot. More than most. And all you can think about is making sure that other people don't have to. That doesn't make you paranoid; it makes you a hero."

Tony smiled at her reassuring words, before he gently leaned in and kissed her softly, trying to convey with that action all that words failed to say. She leaned closer to him for a moment, before they both pulled back with smiles, and Tony felt that heavy weight that had been resting on his shoulders ever since he saw the conference fall away a bit.

Looking back towards the screen, he couldn't help but frown though, as he saw that McCole character wave to an adoring crowd as he walked off the stage, giving out signatures as he went, his towering size meaning that he remained clearly visible even amidst a throng of people, due to most of them only reaching the man's shoulder.

And because of the fact that a little woman only half McCole's size just kept walking in a straight line, uncaringly shoving people out of her path with contemptuous ease and a bored expression on her face, carving a clear way for her boss to walk through.

'One of those people that had volunteered to be enhanced by him, maybe?'

Tony didn't know how the man had done it (though mostly likely he hadn't, considering the fact that walking behind him was a suspiciously young looking Jeri Hogarth, a lawyer that even the genius inventor had heard about), but Titan Solutions had managed to include a clause in their employee contracts that stated that said employees were free to participate in human testing of experimental drugs.

Where he had found the people, Tony had no clue, but within the week of Titan Solutions entering the global market, reports had been flooding news-outlets as it became clear that the man had hired injured and maimed construction workers, and restored them to perfect health using unknown means.

Looking at one such man walking next to McCole, who Tony knew had been in a wheelchair just last month, Tony couldn't quite suppress the new wave of doubt that came over him as he once again considered just how him being Iron Man had helped the little guy.

Neither he personally, nor Stark Industries as a whole, had focused as much on medicine as they had on tech, but that was mostly because of his own preferences, not due to a lack of ability.

How many cures could he have created, had he sunk his time in researching that instead of trying to figure out a way to cram even more missiles into his armour?

How many more people could he have saved if he had done that?

Sure, fighting terrorists in the Middle East had not only been cathartic, it had helped stabilize the region as well, but what had it done for humanity at large?

Sighing again (Tony was really starting to dislike how Titan Solutions made him feel, with their moral dilemma-raising antics) he looked at Pepper with a wry smile.

"Honestly? I don't feel much like a hero. Yes, I am Iron Man, with or without the suit, and as Iron Man I've done a lot to help people, but what have I done to improve all of humanity?"

Pepper pressed her lips together, worry rising within her as she looked at her uncharacteristically morose lover. He had been behaving erratically during that awful period where he had been dying, and the betrayal of Stane combined with Vanko's attempts on his life still weighed heavily on him, but she disliked seeing him so down like this.

"Iron Man has done a lot to help people, yes, but Tony Stark has helped just as many, if not more. I know that you leave much of the company to me, and I love you for that amount of trust, but you should really take more of an interest occasionally into what it is that we actually do. Relief-efforts, building infrastructure, providing safe water and food to third-world countries… Your company, Tony Stark, is focused on making this world a better place, and even if I do say so myself, it's doing a damned good job at it too!"

For a moment Tony remained silent at her short tirade, took in the fire in her eyes and the heated blush on her cheeks, before he captured her lips with a laugh, seeing her eyes widen in surprise, before she grinned and kissed him back.

"Where would I be without you?" he muttered softly when they released each other, though they kept staring into each other's eyes.

"Either broke or accidentally murdered in your sleep by Dummy." Pepper answered with a laugh, which caused him to chuckle as well, before they both trailed off into a comfortable silence, content with just holding on to each other for now.

"We really do need to respond to this though, Tony. Just from a purely business point of view, we can't let such an up and coming challenger grow unopposed. Right now, even with the deals they are rapidly making, they are still fairly small. You can see it in who they partner with: all of them are companies that have large enough facilities to produce Blue Boxes on their own. At this point Titan Solutions is too small to start producing tech themselves on a massive scale, so they keep selling plans to companies that can, until they are big enough to start producing their own tech for the market. We need to have a response ready before that happens or we could have another Rand Enterprises in terms of competitors." Pepper rattled off, her keen business mind picking apart the weak spots in her opponent with practised ease born from nearly a decade of experience.

"I thought you said you liked Rand Enterprises." Tony said with a grin, which only increased at Pepper's answering sniff of disdain.

"No, I said I liked Joy. The rest of Rand feels… dirty, especially since a couple of years ago. I keep telling you Tony, there's something that just isn't quite right with them."

"Yes, you have, which is the reason why we and Rand have generally stayed out of each other's way. I do listen to you, you know? Occasionally."

For a moment, both fell silent, before Tony pulled back a bit so he could look Pepper in her eyes, his face serious though his tone was concerned.

"You really think that this Titan Solutions could turn into another Rand Enterprises?"

Pepper didn't even have to hesitate in giving her answer.

"Tony. The man allowed a gamma-mutated scientist to preform unknown experiments on him, which made him 8 feet tall and his eyes glow like he's some kind of demon. Whatever else they're trying to sell, cheap energy, a cure for Alzheimer's, I don't care. A company with a man so desperate for power he's willing to be turned into that? If anything, they'll end up worse than Rand. At least with them, they pretend to be above board."

Glancing at the screen (which JARVIS had helpfully paused on a frame of McCole looking straight into the camera, his burning eyes blazing from the hologram) Tony conceded to her point with a slow nod.

"So, no partnership then?"

"No Tony, no partnership."

"Right, then we'll have to push them out of the market while they're still small enough to be vulnerable to that kind of tactic. I'll start releasing a bit more of my Iron Man tech through Stark Industries, though nothing that can be turned into weapons. It ought to give you enough leverage at least to secure some of the bigger agencies to our side. I know for a fact that NASA has been almost literally drooling at the thought of using repulsor technology in their space-crafts. Also, get in touch with Doctor Ross and her team, see where they're at in their research and if they could use my help."

"And the Arc Reactor? What are we going to do about the fact they clearly stole that tech from you?"

"Sue them, but expect a long battle. I've heard enough about Hogarth through the rumour-mill to know she won't go down without a fight, and right now she has the public on her side. So before we drag Titan Solutions to court, we need to do what they are doing. Only better. That way, when they try to defend themselves using the public angle, they'll find that they don't have a leg to stand on since SI is already out there, helping people."

Pepper let out a sly grin at his fierce words, and when he looked at her with a raised eyebrow and a questioning look, she couldn't quite contain her laugh.

"I love it when you talk all business-like." She said huskily, prompting a grin from the inventor, who picked her up in his arms with ease, prompting a startled laugh from the redhead.

"Oh yeah? Well here's some more for you Miss Potts: monthly quota. Taxes. Depreciation. Fiscal bookkeeping."

"Oh, Mister Stark don't stop!" Pepper crooned in a faux-innocently high tone of voice, though Tony could see the glint in her eyes, and with a grin he started carrying her up the staircase, towards their bedroom.

Or the couch, depending on how long he could contain himself.

And as the inventor walked out of the workshop, the woman of his dreams in his arms, and corporate jargon and laughter floating down the stairs in equal measure, the burning eyes of one Michael McCole kept staring out from where they were captured on the holographic screen.

//

Fun Fact: In order to give you an idea just how old Marvel really is: Marvel Comics founder Martin Goodman was meant to be aboard the Hindenberg on the day the ship famously crashed, but changed his travel plans at the last minute.