Visit our Patreon for more:
Get membership in patreon to read more chapters♥️💫
Extra chapters available in patreon
patreon.com/Dragonscribe31
-----------------------------------------------------
While upgrading membership use this discount code"20D9C "
It will be available for few days only use it !!♥️⚡
---------------------------------------------------
News spread like wildfire across the world that morning, shaking the foundations of the business world. Every major network was flashing the same headline — "Stark Industries in Crisis!"
As the headlines rolled and investors panicked, stock prices began to plunge. The fall was swift and brutal. Within just a few hours, several major companies had seen their valuations slashed. But among them, none suffered more than Stark Industries.
By the end of the morning session, Stark Industries' stock had fallen by ten percent.
At first glance, ten percent might not sound catastrophic. But in the world of global giants like Stark Industries, where every fraction of a percent represented billions, this was an earthquake. A ten percent drop meant hundreds of millions wiped out in hours, and investors across the world were bleeding red.
The financial world was in shock. Analysts called it "the Stark Collapse."
Inside Tony Stark's seaside mansion, however, the man at the center of it all was nowhere near the boardroom.
Pepper Potts stormed through the glass doors, clutching a folder filled with urgent reports. "Tony!" she shouted. "Tony! What the hell did you do yesterday?!"
Her voice echoed through the empty marble hall. No reply.
"J.A.R.V.I.S., where is Tony?" Pepper demanded, rubbing her forehead in frustration.
Silence.
That alone made her heart skip. J.A.R.V.I.S. was always active, always listening. For it to go completely offline meant something serious had happened.
She turned sharply toward the elevator leading down to the basement. A faint sound of metal clanging echoed from below — a rhythmic hammering mixed with electrical hums. Pepper grabbed a baseball bat from beside the door, ready for anything, and descended.
The underground lab glowed dimly, sparks flying from several open machines. Wires and circuit boards littered the floor like fallen leaves.
In the middle of it all stood Tony Stark, wearing a stained shirt, his hair a mess, and dark circles under his eyes. He was hunched over a workbench, soldering something onto a glowing core.
"Tony!"
Pepper dropped the bat and rushed in. "The entire board of directors is looking for you! The stock is crashing, and you're down here playing with toys?"
Tony didn't even look up. "Hey—wait, wait! Don't talk. I've got a dozen calculations running in my head right now! You'll break my focus!"
Pepper blinked, exasperated. "Oh my God, you didn't sleep last night, did you?"
Tony finally looked up, his eyes bloodshot but burning with excitement. He nodded proudly. "Not a second. I was working on unblocking J.A.R.V.I.S. It's… partially online now. I've reactivated some of its core systems. Still missing a few subroutines, but we're getting there."
Pepper sighed and handed him a cup of coffee. "Tony, you're unbelievable. You might be a genius, but you're still human. You need to rest."
Tony smirked and sipped the coffee. "Rest is for people who run out of ideas. I'm just getting started."
"Be that as it may," she said firmly, "the board is going insane right now. They want answers — and they want them from you."
Tony groaned but finally pushed back his chair. "Alright, alright! Ten minutes. I'll call them in. J.A.R.V.I.S., bring up the phone projection."
No response.
Tony frowned, then chuckled. "Right… forgot. Still rebooting."
Pepper rolled her eyes and manually flipped the projection control. The lab lights dimmed, and the room filled with a flickering blue glow as the holographic conference began to form.
Suddenly, Tony's workshop vanished around them — replaced by a virtual conference room filled with board members sitting around a long table.
The shouting began immediately.
"Tony, what happened yesterday?!" one of them demanded.
"How could so much internal data leak out?" another snapped.
"You picked a fight with the president of Vanderbuilt Technologies!"
"You're supposed to be leading us, not starting corporate wars!"
The accusations came like gunfire. Angry faces, raised voices — chaos.
In a single morning, they had watched hundreds of millions in value disappear, and Tony was the man they blamed.
"Hey, hey, hey!" Tony lifted both hands casually. "Calm down, people! One at a time! I can't process panic this early in the morning."
But the crowd wasn't having it.
At the head of the table, a bald man in a sleek black suit raised his hands. His deep, calm voice cut through the noise. "Everyone, settle down. Let's hear what he has to say."
The chatter died instantly.
Tony smirked. "Obadiah, always the voice of reason."
Obadiah Stane, Stark Industries' long-time senior executive — a man who had stood beside Howard Stark before Tony was even born. His words carried weight.
"Tony," Obadiah began slowly, "I've been trying to calm them down all morning. But you've put us in a difficult position. Vanderbuilt Technologies is calling for an inquiry, and our investors are threatening to pull out. You need to fix this."
Tony leaned back in his chair, utterly unfazed. "Relax, Obi. You're all worrying over nothing."
The board stared at him as if he'd lost his mind.
Tony raised one hand, smirking. "Give me ten days."
"Ten days?" someone repeated incredulously.
"Ten days," Tony repeated firmly, "and I'll deliver a product that makes Vanderbuilt's Modia Units look like toys."
The room fell silent. Even Obadiah's eyebrows rose.
Tony's tone was full of his trademark arrogance — but also that glint of genius they'd seen before. When he talked like this, it usually meant something big was brewing.
"Tony," one of the older board members said cautiously, "we've always trusted your designs, but this is reckless. Vanderbuilt's Modia line dominates the market. They're integrating advanced neural AI into human-like constructs. You can't just outdo that in ten days."
Tony's grin widened. "Watch me."
The board members exchanged nervous glances. But in the end, Tony Stark was still the company's beating heart. They had seen him perform miracles before — the Arc Reactor, the repulsor engine, even the exo-suit prototype that started it all.
"Alright, Tony," Obadiah finally said, rubbing his chin. "Ten days. We'll give you that. But if you can't deliver…"
"…then you'll find someone else to run this company, right?" Tony finished his sentence for him, his grin unfaltering. "Deal."
The board murmured among themselves. One by one, their holograms flickered and vanished as they logged out of the meeting.
When the last image disappeared, only Obadiah's projection remained.
He smiled faintly. "You've always had your father's confidence, Tony. I'll handle the board until then. Don't make me regret it."
Then he, too, faded out.
The lab's lights brightened again, returning Tony and Pepper to the real world.
Tony stretched lazily. "See? Easy. You just have to know how to talk to them."
Pepper crossed her arms. "Tony, do you even realize what you just promised? In ten days, you said you'd surpass the Modia Units. Do you even know what that means?"
"Of course," Tony said, completely unbothered. "They're impressive — synthetic humanoids, adaptive neural learning, all that fancy PR talk. But they still think like machines."
He tapped his temple. "I'm not building another machine. I'm going to build something that learns, thinks, and evolves like a human — but better."
Pepper blinked. "You mean… an artificial consciousness?"
Tony smiled. "Not artificial. Enhanced."
Pepper groaned. "You're impossible."
"Relax, Pep. I've had this concept for years — just never had a reason to make it real."
He turned back to his workbench, eyes glimmering with excitement. "But seeing Vanderbuilt's Modia Units finally gave me the push I needed. It's like watching someone else try to finish a song you wrote — and completely butcher the melody. I can do better."
Pepper took a deep breath. "I hope you're right. Because if you fail, you'll lose not just the company — but everything your father built."
Tony glanced at a framed photo on his desk: himself as a boy, sitting on Howard Stark's lap, watching their first Arc Reactor prototype hum to life. His expression softened for just a moment.
Then he smiled again. "Failure's never been in the Stark vocabulary."
He slipped his welding goggles back on and picked up his tools. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a god to build."
Pepper frowned. "A what?"
"Something that will change everything," Tony replied with a wink. "And maybe save this company while I'm at it."
As the sparks lit the lab once more, Pepper turned to leave. The hum of machinery echoed behind her, a metallic heartbeat growing stronger with every second.
She knew that look in Tony's eyes — that wild mix of exhaustion and genius. Whenever Tony Stark locked himself in his lab like this, the world outside had no idea what was coming next.
And somewhere, buried beneath that mountain of wires and glowing cores, a new revolution was being born.