C37 It's Vintage

Soon after, endless laughter accompanied by cries of help could be heard from my room as I tickled them until they passed out from exhaustion.

---

"So... you just let Jarvis do it all?"

I'm in Tony's workshop, looking around at the scattered schematics and seeing Jarvis build some armor parts on the side.

"I made Jarvis, so anything he makes is technically something I make."

Shaking my head, "Yeah, I don't think it works that way, but whatever floats your boat."

He motions to the cars lined up on one side of the workshop, "I'm more of a car guy, but whatever," then he walks over to the fridge, grabbing some wine, "Want some? It's vintage."

"Sure," I say, but pretend not to hear his mutter, "Not as vintage as you, though."

Handing me a glass, he says, "You know—you seem rather normal for being an 'angel,' or whatever you are."

He sits down on a stool, "Which is what exactly? I mean—I know you're old, like really old, but don't tell me an actual angel," he points up, "from Heaven—is running around starting businesses just for the he-fun of it."

I continue looking around the shop, "Oh, you don't believe in the supernatural or something? Is it really so hard to believe that there's an angel who wants to come and hang out on Earth for a while?"

"I've never really put my hat in one ring or the other when it comes to religion, but I'm inclined to go with the more logical assumption that you're either an alien or some ancient human that acquired abilities somehow."

I look at him, "And of those, what do you think I am?"

He swirls his wine around before answering, "Someone like the 'Fantastic' Four, or a mutant, is my guess."

"A mutant, huh."

'If God heard him say that...'

"You mean, like the one that's snooping in on this conversation, through your head?" I point at his head.

His eyes widen, "Huh. How did—" but he quickly calms down after seeing my smirk.

Laughing at him, I say, "Don't worry. While there are a few who could do it, they aren't able to mess with you. I made sure of that the first time I saw you. That other guy as well."

Then I start looking around again, "Though, you should still look for a way to block it, like you were probably planning to do."

Tony mutters, "Yinsen?" then he asks, "Why? I don't recall either of us doing anything for you to be concerned about us." His eyes start to narrow, "And why bother—"

I cut him off, "So what's different about this one?" I point to the armor that's being made.

"This one's meant to automatically seek and equip itself to whoever's wearing these," he shows his two bracelets. "That way, I can be battle-ready at any given moment without using a weaker version," he points to a suitcase.

"Makes sense," I nod.

Seeing that he wasn't going to get any 'help' from me, he finished his question.

"Why did you keep people out of my head, and why have you been," his face twitches a bit, "helping—me?"

"Well, if by chance someone looked through your memories, I didn't want them finding out about me," I answered matter-of-factly.

Giving me a raised eyebrow, "Really?"

"No," I smiled, then walked over to holograms that projected the current armor being made and started messing around with them.

Snapping from his daze, Tony came to me, "Hey, hey, hey, do you even know what you're doing?!"

"Yeah—pretty much."

"What do you mean 'pretty much?'"

"Well—I got some pointers from someone who's been making highly advanced armors for a while now and decided I would save you some embarrassment."

I stopped what I was doing and looked at him, "Unless, of course—you're one of those kinds of people who like to be embarrassed," I give him a questioning gaze.

He didn't answer and only looked at what I was changing, probably wondering who I was talking about more than anything.

'Well—aside from wondering who, or what, I am.'

I continued altering some parts and a few protocols. Only things that will save him a bit of time; nothing else, as I don't want to mess with his—development.

"There. I'm sure you can figure out why I've done it this way." I didn't help him purely out of my own goodwill either. I did it to get a look at how he did things as well.

I've already consulted with Doom, and while he's certainly more advanced, he lacks a certain—flair—that Tony has.

Reed and Doom may be smarter the Tony, but he still has a few things over them.

Namely, his ability to make jumps in logic, multitasking, and engineering—at least when it comes to weapons.

'Of course, that all depends on what knowledge is available to him.'

Doom simply knows more than Tony at this point, which is another reason why his stuff is better as of now, and perhaps, always will be.

As for me, I'm only taking them as an influence. I've already started to develop my own 'style,' so to speak.

Tony was looking through the changes I made as I started to leave. It seemed as though he got sucked into them and forgot that I didn't answer the second half of his question.

But I did hear him say something before I made it up the stairs.

"Hey, Jarvis."

"Yes, Sir?"

"How did he edit the schematics? He doesn't have access."

"I—I don't know, Sir. My defensive protocols never activated."

I smirked as I left his Malibu Mansion.

---

'Do I really want to interfere?'

While I know that my self-imposed limitations are severe, and I could've been done and out of Earth with everything that I wanted within a week.

'What's the point in even coming here if I don't at least get in on the action?'

I'm at 'my' company's headquarters in New York, working in my private lab.

'That's why I'm making what I'm making. Not because I'm a manchild—but—because I'm a man with a child's heart.'

In my hand, I'm working on a gauntlet made from what looks like steel but definitely isn't steel, as it's much more durable.

'That, and they'll probably need some help to survive Thanos this time.'

Because even if he doesn't know I'm here, which is now impossible, he will know the increased strength of those I'm associated with and plan accordingly.

'And I can't, as a morally upright individual, make them fight a harder battle because of me, without making up for that difference,' I nod as I find a good reason to indulge myself.

Through Marvel logic, he will likely send some sort of invasion, even if Loki isn't the one to bargain for it in the first place, and it will probably be much stronger than the one from the movies.

"That should do it." I finished making a few adjustments to the gauntlet and move to a standing, bare-metal armor.

It's made up of a few layers of numerous, small, metal plates and is much sleeker than Tony's earlier suits since it doesn't have traditional hydraulics or mechanical parts.

I move the gauntlet to the unfinished arm, and all the pieces shift and move into place automatically.

Magic takes care of most things on the suit, and the metal basically acts as the 'carrier' for everything. The enchantments, strength boost, attacks, and the 'battery' are all dependant on the metal.

The entire suit is made purely from metal as everything else, like padding and technological functions, can either be materialized through magic or just done by it.

At first glance, one might think Doom was the only influence on the armor, but if one looked at the design of both the armor and the enchantments themselves, his influence would become more apparent.

The armor functions by using the stored energy within the metal to power the enchantments, which are basically extremely complex programs that act on the world itself rather than a computer.

The energy comes from the surroundings, whether mundane or mystical, and is only limited by my own knowledge.

'This is my forte.'

While I may not yet know how to consume every energy, I do know enough to power some enchantments with damn near any energy.

The armor's only limiting factor is how much energy it can absorb, store, and output.

It takes a while to fully charge without being 'plugged' into anything since Earth is fairly sparse in terms of energies without signing a pact with one of the extradimensional power companies.

I tap on the chest of the armor, and it explodes into a bunch of pieces that start floating around me.

They start orienting themselves around me while radiating bright blue light. Eventually, they combine and attach to me after identifying their respective locations.

I'm not much taller, still about seven-foot, but now I have what looks like a chiseled body of steel with blue light shining from all the ridges.

Its strength is weaker than tony's current suit, as this was not meant to be a battle-ready version, and just a proof of concept, as well as to narrow in the design.

I could make this suit a 'Hulkbuster' version as well since I only have to keep adding layers of metal.

This suit won't have an AI either, at least not yet, and will be directed by me and the enchantments' natural control.

A smile forms on my face as I step out of the suit, 'This armor can't handle the 'AI' that I want to 'install' on it. I'll have to wait until I get what I came for and travel to the universe I have in mind first.'

I look outside, through the oneway glass, at New York City, 'The invasion should occur in a month or two.'

I look back at the 'MK1,' "I should have enough time to make a battle-worthy version."

---

//Note//

Was busy with stuff.

I didn't have a chance to read any comments either. Well—I did but I don't want to…

--

I also didn't edit very much on this one, so I may possibly gloss over any errors I may have made but didn't notice in a later chapter.

Hahaha!

What am I talking about, I do that already!

--

This is the closest armor I could find that matches what I'm imagining.

Basically, it's a sleek, medieval-ish armor, but fully enclosed and powered like Iron Man.