tony glances up from the ruined mark iii faceplate he's working with. on another monitor, beside the one with the mark iii model, reads the result of the analysis: "no identifiable match found." below the words lies the dna readout of the strands of golden brown fur that tony picked off his clothes a month ago during the helicopter ride out of that afghan desert and promptly forgot about until now. in his defense, building the armor consumed his thoughts, then with everything that happened after...
tony frowns. he's not equipped for this sort of analysis, knowledge-wise. "forward the data to dr. alan douglas. see if he gets any bites, literal or otherwise," he tells jarvis.
dr. alan douglas does not, in fact, get any bites. the dna of the fur is unrecognized anywhere in the world's zoological records. a mad scientist's amalgamation of human male and lion is the best douglas can surmise. "do you have any further information for me?" he asks curiously over the video call.
tony thinks of the hazy dream of a lion-man's face as he lay dehydrated and injured after exploding his way out of the ten rings's capture; the dream of soft fur against his cheek, of a clawed hand (paw?) so big it engulfed his entire head as it helped him drink. "... nope!" he says, and that ends that.
with a company to raise from the ashes and terrorists and weapons to turn into ashes, tony shelves the mystery of the lion man. but the possibility has wormed its way in and nestled, a quiet constant in the back of his head: what if it wasn't a dream? when he's talking up the investors about the company's new direction, what if? when he's detecting and removing old land mines in the mark iv, what if? what if?
there's someone else out there who saved me.
he happens to return to that area as iron man, a few miles from where he was held, farther into pakistan and in the pamir mountains. his mission is to eradicate the cache of weapons he located in another ten rings cell. it's night, so the explosions make for a spectacular light show. the ten rings are completely helpless against the armor. though this is a different cell, and each cell operates independently, tony rains fire down on them with prejudice.
once every terrorist is either dead or has fled, tony checks the site for remaining caches. he'll need to sweep all nearby caverns, too.
tale as old as time...
tony glances up from the ruined mark iii faceplate he's working with. on another monitor, beside the one with the mark iii model, reads the result of the analysis: "no identifiable match found." below the words lies the dna readout of the strands of golden brown fur that tony picked off his clothes a month ago during the helicopter ride out of that afghan desert and promptly forgot about until now. in his defense, building the armor consumed his thoughts, then with everything that happened after...
tony frowns. he's not equipped for this sort of analysis, knowledge-wise. "forward the data to dr. alan douglas. see if he gets any bites, literal or otherwise," he tells jarvis.
dr. alan douglas does not, in fact, get any bites. the dna of the fur is unrecognized anywhere in the world's zoological records. a mad scientist's amalgamation of human male and lion is the best douglas can surmise. "do you have any further information for me?" he asks curiously over the video call.
tony thinks of the hazy dream of a lion-man's face as he lay dehydrated and injured after exploding his way out of the ten rings's capture; the dream of soft fur against his cheek, of a clawed hand (paw?) so big it engulfed his entire head as it helped him drink. "... nope!" he says, and that ends that.
with a company to raise from the ashes and terrorists and weapons to turn into ashes, tony shelves the mystery of the lion man. but the possibility has wormed its way in and nestled, a quiet constant in the back of his head: what if it wasn't a dream? when he's talking up the investors about the company's new direction, what if? when he's detecting and removing old land mines in the mark iv, what if? what if?
there's someone else out there who saved me.
he happens to return to that area as iron man, a few miles from where he was held, farther into pakistan and in the pamir mountains. his mission is to eradicate the cache of weapons he located in another ten rings cell. it's night, so the explosions make for a spectacular light show. the ten rings are completely helpless against the armor. though this is a different cell, and each cell operates independently, tony rains fire down on them with prejudice.
once every terrorist is either dead or has fled, tony checks the site for remaining caches. he'll need to sweep all nearby caverns, too.
he gets to work. ]