The morning light pierced through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the penthouse apartment in Stark Tower, coating the interior in a layer of pale gold.
Tony Stark stood before the window, dressed in a simple black T-shirt and casual pants, holding a cup of black coffee in his hand, though he had not taken a sip.
His gaze crossed the New York skyline, looking toward the vaguely visible coastline in the distance.
His chest felt light.
This was not a figure of speech, but the most genuine physical sensation.
There was no pressure from the metal base, no foreign sensation from connected wires, no lingering pain brought on by those tiny shrapnel pieces with every heartbeat—pain he had spent years deliberately ignoring.
There was only the elasticity of healthy muscle beneath his skin, the smooth curve of his ribs, and the steady, powerful beating of his heart.
He subconsciously pressed his left hand against his left chest; his fingertips could clearly feel that steady, rhythmic pulse of life—one beat after another, strong and pure.
Health. This state, which most people took for granted, felt as foreign to him as a vague concept from a distant childhood memory.
No, it was even stranger than a childhood memory; it was more like a miracle that had been forcibly implanted into reality, one that shouldn't exist.
A miracle brought by a blonde girl holding a staff, surrounded by a radiance that did not belong to this World.
"You've been staring outside for twenty minutes." Pepper's voice came from behind him. She walked over, placed a document on the nearby bar counter, and her gaze fell upon him with concern.
She didn't start discussing work immediately as she usually did, but instead carefully looked him over. "How do you feel? Are you really... completely fine? I mean, besides looking surprisingly healthy." Her voice held a trace of lingering tremor; the shock of last night evidently hadn't fully subsided.
Tony turned around, set down his coffee cup, and without answering immediately, opened his arms and performed a slow, demonstrative spin, as if confirming it to her and himself. "Better than ever, Pepper. Better than it has ever been."
He stopped his movement and looked at her, his eyes clear, devoid of the bloodshot look of a hangover or the dark shadows of exhaustion caused by tormenting pain.
He paused, his tone taking on a rare, almost naive sense of wonder—something rarely seen in him.
"I can even feel the slight coolness of the air entering the very bottom of my lungs—before, it always felt a bit stuffy, like being clogged with a wad of wet cotton. My shoulder blades can fully retract backward without a hint of pulling pain."
"And here," he tapped the spot above his heart on his left chest again, his movement very light, as if touching a fragile treasure, "When I'm quiet, I can count my own heartbeat; it's as clear as if someone were tapping a precision metronome right beside my ear."
"No noise, no delay, steady, powerful, perfect, like... like a work of art that has just been created."
Pepper walked up to him and looked up at him. His complexion was indeed healthy and ruddy, the dark circles under his eyes had vanished, and his skin was smooth and taut, as if he had grown a few years younger.
In those caramel-colored eyes, the fine bloodshot lines and the difficult-to-erase shadows of exhaustion from long-term endurance of pain were gone, replaced only by sharpness, clarity, and an exceptionally bright luster of someone who had survived a catastrophe—a luster that was searing and compelling, filled with a certain, almost greedy, vitality of having been reborn.
She reached out, not out of desire, but out of an almost instinctive need for confirmation, and lightly touched his cheek.
The skin was warm, the touch real. Then, she grasped his hand hanging at his side. The palm was broad, the fingers slender, warm and dry, steady without a trace of trembling.
"I can't believe it..." she murmured, her voice very soft, afraid of disturbing something, "Obadiah... he was so close, so ruthless. And those things in your chest... those things..."
She couldn't continue, only gripping his hand tighter, as if the moment she let go, this unscathed Tony before her would vanish, turning back into that terrifying phantom lying in a pool of blood last night, his chest hollowed out.
"It's all been taken care of." Tony gripped her hand back, his strength steady, conveying a reassuring warmth.
The look of novelty on his face faded, and his tone lowered, carrying a cold certainty.
"Obadiah got what he deserved, burned to ash along with his ambition and his scrap metal."
"And I..." He paused, his gaze seemingly passing through the walls, looking toward the chaotic pier from last night, or perhaps looking further back, to the holy light that had descended in that laboratory, "I have been given a second chance."
"A real chance to start over, clean from the inside out. Not relying on that hunk of metal stuffed in my chest, reminding me of how close I was to death, but relying on..." He searched for the words, finally using the simplest one, "Relying on healing."
He recalled the warm door of light that had pierced the dome of the Villa laboratory, remembered the girl who walked through the blood and despair, radiating an unearthly tranquility and compassion.
Aerith... that was what she called herself at the time. A girl holding a vintage-style oak staff, possessing the power of healing and purification.
This sounded like a concept that had leaped out of a fairy tale book, a cheap fantasy novel, or the shoddiest comic book setting, full of unrealistic romanticism and logical loopholes.
But Tony Stark, the genius who believed in the laws of physics, worshipped quantifiable data, and believed the World should be explained by mathematics and engineering, had now become the most irrefutable evidence of this "fairy tale."
His body, this body that felt incredibly good right now, every inch of healthy skin, every smooth breath, was silently shouting that impossible fact.
"That Miss Artoria... and her companion," Pepper hesitated, finally asking the question that had been circling in her mind all night—a question that, after the ecstasy of Tony's miraculous survival, was gradually surfacing like a reef beneath the water, "Who exactly are they?"
"That method of treatment... I can't even imagine what kind of technology that is. And last night, Happy said that when the attackers downstairs were found, they had all been inexplicably subdued, without triggering a single alarm, without leaving a trace of a fight, just like... just like they had been taken down by ghosts. Was this also their doing?"
"They are friends." Tony's answer was simple, crisp, without any embellishment, yet carried an unquestionable certainty.
He let go of Pepper's hand, turned, and picked up the document on the bar counter. It was a summary of preliminary evidence regarding Obadiah Stane's illegal dealings, attempted murder, and unauthorized weapon development, as well as the draft agenda for the emergency board meeting this afternoon.
His gaze fell upon those cold words and charts, becoming sharp and focused once again; it was the look of a businessman and a warrior.
"As for who they are... Pepper, we have to start accepting a fact: this World is much larger and much stranger than the picture we've pieced together from our top-floor office using financial statements and tech magazines."
"We just need to know that in a situation like last night, they were on our side, saved my life, and protected you. That is enough; it is the most important and most grateful point for now."
He raised his eyes to look at Pepper, his tone softening a little: "As for the rest, those parts we can't understand or categorize for now, we can harbor doubts, but there's no need for fear, and certainly no need to rush to dissect and analyze them. Sometimes, keeping a little mystery and awe isn't a bad thing."
He shook the document in his hand, a cold arc curling the corner of his mouth, "But what's right in front of us is the reality we need to face and clean up immediately."
Pepper took a deep breath and quickly adjusted her state. Worry and questions were suppressed, and competence and professionalism returned to her eyes.
"I understand. I'm already contacting the legal team and top independent auditing firms; they will be assembled and fully in place by noon today at the latest. But Tony, there's one more thing: the public and the media. The explosion at the pier last night cannot be hidden, and news of Obadiah's death won't be suppressed for long."
"Agent Phil Coulson of S.H.I.E.L.D. contacted me an hour ago. They can provide an official cover story of an 'accidental explosion at a military prototype testing ground' to stabilize the situation for now, but..."
"But it won't be hidden for long, especially when 'Iron Man' is flying all over the sky," Tony interjected. He walked to the window, slightly lifting a slat of the blinds, watching the news broadcast trucks, satellite antennas, and the restless crowd of reporters on the street below who were like sharks that had smelled blood.
Camera flashes flickered in the morning light from time to time, like a restless omen.
"I don't intend to hide it." He lowered the blinds and turned around, his face revealing that signature smile Pepper was intimately familiar with, yet felt was somehow different at this moment—a mix of a genius's arrogance, unquestionable determination, and a trace of perpetual cynicism, a playfulness that held the World in the palm of his hand.
Pepper was stunned, her eyes widening slightly: "What? Tony, do you mean..."
"Schedule a press conference." Tony walked back to the bar and downed the cold coffee in his cup in one gulp, his movements crisp and decisive.
"This afternoon, right in the headquarters media hall. I'm going to stand up there myself and tell them personally what happened at the pier last night, why Obadiah Stane brought about his own destruction, and..."
He paused, his gaze cast outside the window, as if he could pierce through the steel and concrete to see that silver-blue armor soaring in the sky. His eyes were exceptionally bright at this moment, filled with a certain excitement and determination to make history.
"I, Tony Stark, am Iron Man."
At three in the afternoon, the media hall at Stark Industries headquarters, which could accommodate hundreds of people, was packed, with even the aisles and areas near the emergency exits crowded with reporters holding voice recorders and cameras.
The air was stuffy, filled with the smell of sweat, perfume, and a collective, ready-to-erupt excitement.
When the side door opened and that man, wearing a perfectly tailored dark gray Italian handmade suit, tinted sunglasses, and walking with steady strides, stepped onto the podium alone, all the clamor reached its peak in an instant, only to be strangled by an invisible hand, turning into a suffocating silence filled with anticipation.
There were no attendants, no speech drafts, no teleprompters. Tony Stark walked straight to the microphone standing alone on the stage and stood still.
He didn't speak immediately, but raised his hand, leisurely taking off the sunglasses on his face and casually tucking them into his suit's breast pocket.
This simple action attracted the focus of every lens. Then, he raised his eyes, his gaze sweeping calmly, even somewhat aloofly, across the sea of people below and the countless pitch-black lenses, as if evaluating a group of noisy, but still controllable, test subjects.
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