The problem with being Tony Stark was that "normal" stopped existing quickly.
A week after the desert test, his labs became a second home. Actually, a first home—he slept here more than the penthouse.
That suited him fine.
The Level 42 Aether Lab buzzed quietly with fabrication arms, 3D-printing units, holo-screens, and tables covered in half-built ideas. It smelled like heated metal, coffee, sleeplessness.
Tony stood in front of three floating projections:
1. Mk-43A telemetry logs
2. Arc Reactor efficiency graphs
3. A wireframe of his own torso, zoomed on the thing behind his sternum that definitely hadn't been there two weeks ago
All three were connected, whether he liked it or not.
***
The glass door slid open.
Venus walked in carrying a stainless travel mug and a tablet. White blouse, dark skirt, composure dialed to eleven. She took one look at the mug and sighed.
"You've been here forty-one hours."
Tony didn't look up. "Time is a social construct invented by people who don't have arc reactors to finish."
Drink this or I call security." She parked a fresh coffee under his nose.
He took it without breaking eye contact with the reactor blueprint. "You're a saint in four-inch heels."
"Five-inch. And you missed the energy board. I told them you were personally hand-delivering free power to orphans. They cried. It was beautiful."
Tony finally glanced over, smirk in place. "You're wasted on scheduling."
"I know. Raise pending."
She flicked through her tablet, then paused on the torso scan. Her eyebrow did that tiny, elegant lift she reserved for when Tony was being especially insane.
"You're building something new," she said. Not a question.
"Always."
"Something dangerous?"
"Everything worth making is dangerous before it's safe."
Venus let it go. She was good at that.
Tony removed the torso projection and spun the reactor schematic 180 degrees.
"Alright, JARVIS, talk dirty to me."
[Certainly, sir. The new triangular core geometry increases surface-area-to-volume ratio by thirty-eight percent. If we swap the palladium lattice for the osmium-iridium variant you sketched at 3 a.m. while singing 'Highway to Hell', theoretical output jumps to nine gigajoules continuous.]
Tony grinned like a kid who just found the matches. "And the Aether Node?"
[Resonance now at ninety-six percent. The node is literally syncing its pulse to the reactor's magnetic bottle. Your chest is flirting with physics, sir.]
"Buy it dinner first."
Venus looked up from her tablet. "Is that safe?"
"Safe is for people who don't have alien thing growing in their ribcage."
He zoomed the reactor until the triangular core filled the room, then overlaid the Aether Core sphere directly on top.
The glowing segment brightened the instant the holograms touched.
"See that? The second I push the reactor past eight gigajoules, the node drinks the excess like a frat boy at an open bar."
Venus folded her arms. "And when it gets full?"
"Then we find out if I explode or ascend. Fifty-fifty."
She didn't laugh. She rarely did when he was serious.
Tony waved the reactor away and pulled up the civilian queue instead — the stuff he'd started dumping into production the day after the desert.
StarkBand 4: a watch that could detect atrial fibrillation, diabetic shock, or stroke in real time and auto-dial 911 with vitals and GPS.
StarkMed Flyer drones: bright orange quadcopters the size of a pizza box that could deliver defibrillators, EpiPens, or whole blood to any rooftop in Manhattan in under six minutes.
A new phone line with quantum-dot screens and arc-batteries that charged to 100 % in nine minutes and lasted a week.
He flicked the drone swarm schematic toward Venus. "Push these to FEMA. Tell them it's my apology for the sonic boom."
"You caused three."
"Charity covers a multitude of sins."
Venus tapped her tablet. "Already in production. First ten thousand units roll out next month. They're naming the program after you."
"Great. Immortalized as a delivery service."
Tony spun back to the reactor. "JARVIS, queue the new core. Full print. Titanium-Gold-Osmium-Iridium lattice, triple redundant magnetic bottle. I want it singing by Friday."
[That will require the large bay and forty-eight hours of your undivided attention.]
"Done and done."
He reached out and physically rotated the Aether Core hologram again. Six segments. One glowing steady void-white, black edges flickering like a dying star.
He zoomed until the segment filled the room.
"Show me growth events."
Clips cascaded:
Desert test — Event Shell activation → +4 %
Gauntlet overclock incident → +7 %
Yesterday, when he finally solved the forty-percent lattice problem at 4:17 a.m. → +11 %
Tony exhaled through his teeth. "So I feed it adrenaline, caffeine, and impossible math."
[Essentially correct] JARVIS said.
[Curiosity appears to be the strongest catalyst. You are, quite literally, powered by your own ego.]
"Finally, a renewable resource."
Venus glanced up. "You're enjoying this."
"Dangerously smart, beautiful, and now I've got a cosmic Tamagotchi in my chest? What's not to enjoy?"
She shook her head and walked out. Tony watched the door close, then turned back to the sphere.
He placed a hand over his sternum. The glow pulsed once, warm and patient.
"Stage One," he said quietly. "Let's see how many stages there are before the universe runs out of surprises."
Tony turned back to the torso wireframe.
He pulled the Mk-45L blueprint forward — forty percent Celestium, redesigned from the ground up around the new reactor and whatever the hell his body was becoming.
"Start the print," he told JARVIS. "And wake me when the core's ready for install."
[Define wake, sir.]
"Any state that involves fewer than six empty coffee cups."
"Understood."
Tony looked out the window at Manhattan, glittering and oblivious.
Somewhere out there, gods were sharpening knives, aliens were loading guns, and Nick Fury was definitely writing him another strongly worded email.
Tony smiled the same smile he wore the day he flew out of that cave in Afghanistan.
"Bring it on."
The single glowing segment pulsed brighter, like it agreed.