He was selling gashapon toys in Marvel Studios, and at the beginning, Tony turned into Kuuga.

"Jarvis?"

No one responded.

Only the wind howled in the withered forest.

Mark 42 lay in the snow like a corpse, its gold and red paint charred black.

"Well, it seems I can't count on you."

Tony rubbed his hands together, trembling, trying to wake the damned symbiote.

"Hey, you glutton, wake up and get to work!"

White metallic liquid seeped from his chest, covering half of his right arm, before it swiftly receded back into his body.

"Useless! I'll donate you to S.H.I.E.L.D. to make jelly!"

Tony kicked a snowdrift while cursing.

The armor, weighing several hundred kilograms, was incredibly heavy. With his body weakened by the low temperature, he couldn't even push it, let alone drag it away.

But he has to get moving.

In this desolate wilderness, if we don't find a safe haven soon, Pepper will be burning paper money for him this time next year.

"Henshin!"

Tony closed his eyes and regulated his breathing.

hum!

There was neither dazzling red light nor sacred golden radiance.

A surge of dark bio-energy enveloped his entire body.

Even its compound eyes gleamed with an eerie black light in the darkness.

power.

A violent force surged into his limbs and bones.

Tony felt a sudden lightness in his body, and the numbness that was about to freeze him instantly disappeared.

He grabbed the hundreds-of-kilograms-weight armor by the ankle with one hand and strode towards the dimly lit town not far away.

It dragged along, leaving a deep scorch mark on the snow.

……

A garage somewhere.

When Tony put the armor aside, the energy that had sustained him dissipated.

Overwhelmed by a wave of exhaustion, he didn't even see the transformation effect dissipate before collapsing onto the dilapidated sofa and passing out.

I don't know how much time passed.

"Don't move!"

A low, childish shout, yet deliberately threatening.

Tony struggled to open his eyes, and through his blurry vision, he saw a little boy with messy hair pointing a gun at him.

Wait, what's that thing?

Two PVC pipes, wrapped with several layers of cheap tape, with an igniter attached to the back?

"Who are you? What is that?"

Harry held up his homemade potato gun, watching the intruder warily.

"Obviously, I'm a homeless repairman."

Tony rubbed his temples, his eyes sweeping over the weapon with amusement.

"Kid, if I'm not mistaken, what you're holding is... a potato launcher?"

"It can blow your head off." Harry pushed the gun forward a little.

"If I were you, I wouldn't pull the trigger."

Tony slowly sat up straight. Although he looked a little disheveled, his ingrained arrogance still made him look like a king.

He raised his hand, his fingertips twitching slightly.

"See these nanoparticles in my hand? With the slightest movement of your finger, they'll fly into your gun barrel and smear your mashed potatoes all over your face."

Harry was stunned.

He subconsciously glanced at Tony's empty palms, then at the gold and red armor lying on the ground.

"Are you... Iron Man?"

Harry lowered his gun, his eyes widened, and he immediately moved closer.

"That billionaire who flies through the air with a donut and is always on TV?"

"Yes." Tony glanced at the Mark 42. "Although it's out of power right now and can't fly for the time being."

"What's wrong with it? Is it broken?"

"No, it's just tired and taking a beauty nap."

Tony rolled his eyes, stood up, and although the weakness was still there, he forced himself to walk towards the worktable.

"Listen, kid, I need to requisition your garage, and your... what is all this?"

Tony casually picked up a watch from the table, his brows furrowing deeply.

"My name is Harry."

"Also, this is my sister's, a limited edition Dora the Explorer watch!" Harry tried to snatch it back.

"Limited edition?" Tony scoffed, prying open the watch case. "Now it's the key component to save the world."

He pulled a crumpled list from his pocket, a list he had conceived in his mind before he lost consciousness.

"Listen, Harry."

"I don't have Stark Industries' production lines, Jarvis, or even a decent soldering iron right now."

Tony slapped the list on Harry's chest. "But I have brains, and you have maps."

"Take me to the supermarket in town, or the hardware store, anywhere."

"You want to repair your armor?" Harry looked at the note covered with strange items.

"Repair the armor?" Tony grabbed a wrench and weighed it in his hand. "Yes, and I also want to build something interesting."

……

Half an hour later, at the hardware store.

"This coil is good."

"These firearms are rudimentary, but they can be modified and used."

He even stole a bottle of nail polish from the shelf, saying it was for an insulating coating.

Back in the garage, Tony Stark's personal show begins.

Clang!

The crisp sound of metal clashing echoed in the small space.

Sparks flew.

Tony was wearing an old man's shirt, with a screw in his mouth, and was taking apart the lawnmower engine with both hands.

The coil was rewound, and the magnet was precisely positioned.

He violently disassembled the circuit board of the limited edition Dora watch and soldered it onto the handle of a spray can.

Clang! Clang!

That sound.

This rhythm.

In a daze, the dim yellow lights in the garage began to distort, and the walls that were originally piled with clutter turned into cold and damp cave walls.

The bald Dr. Ethan seemed to be standing right next to him, handing him a glass of murky water.

"We're running out of time, Tony..."

No.

It's not just caves.

The scene abruptly shifts to the giant wormhole over New York.

Countless ferocious Chitauri roared at the far end of the endless deep space.

The purple figure on the throne turned its head and stared at him with the look of someone looking at an insect.

That feeling of suffocation.

That feeling of helplessness, like drowning in the deep sea.

"Ha ha……"

The wrench in Tony's hand fell to the ground with a "clatter".

He took two steps back, his back slamming against the wall. He gripped his collar tightly with both hands, gasping for breath, but felt like he couldn't breathe in a single drop of oxygen.

His pupils contracted sharply, and cold sweat soaked his back.

"Tony? What's wrong?" Harry was startled by this sudden turn of events and tentatively leaned closer. "Are you... having a heart attack?"

"No, not the heart..." Tony's voice trembled, his eyes unfocused. "It's a wormhole. They're here. They're still watching us..."

"Who? The Mandarin?" Harry waved the newspaper in his hand. "The news says he blew up another theater. That guy's preventing us from going out to play."

"The Mandarin?"

Tony looked like he'd heard a joke.

He raised his head, his eyes filled with a morbid mockery and deep fear.

"The Mandarins are nothing!"

Tony growled and grabbed the blueprints on the table, crumpling them into a ball.

"That kind of clown who only knows how to play with bombs, I could smash him to dust with one punch!"

"You don't understand, Harry..."

Tony slid to the ground, hugging his knees, his voice low and menacing.

"Not terrorists, but gods, aliens, or magic."

"That purple guy, and the scepter Loki had before, and the myriad worlds that charlatan Leon talked about..."

"In their eyes, we are like...like ants in a glass jar."

"Can you believe it? I casually created a black hole, and that huge purple guy... he laughed! He laughed at me!"

Tony gripped his hair, his knuckles turning white from the force.

"If they come again... what will we use to defend ourselves? This pile of junk?!"

The garage was deathly silent.

Looking at the distraught superhero before him, Harry suddenly realized that he was no longer the omnipotent god, but an ordinary person crushed by fear.

"But..." Harry crouched down, picked up the wrench, and put it back in Tony's hand.

"Since you're a mechanic, you must be able to fix something, right?"

"If you don't do something, then when the bad guys come, we'll really just be waiting to die."

"Could you teach me how to make this armor?"

The cool touch of the wrench entered my palm.

Tony froze.

He stared at the wrench; the rust and grease on it looked so real.

Yes.

Since I can't be an omniscient and omnipotent god, I'll be a craftsman who uses what I have to the fullest.

Since fear cannot be eliminated, let's forge it into a weapon and shoot it into the enemy's heart.

"call……"

Tony exhaled a long breath, and the unfocused look in his eyes gradually returned to his former arrogance, only now with an added determination.

"You're right, child."

Tony twirled the wrench in his hand. Although his face was still pale, that intimidating aura had returned.

"Since the aliens are watching us, I'd better prepare an even tougher response."

He walked to the workbench and picked up the strange device that was only half-assembled.

It was a gun barrel made from a high-powered flashlight, connected to the engine coil of a lawnmower; it looked incredibly ugly.

Noisy!

Tony pressed the switch.

A blue-white high-voltage electric arc exploded, ionizing the air and releasing a pungent ozone smell.

"But now..."

Tony stared at the flickering arc of electricity, his eyes turning cold and mocking.

"Let's practice on that Mandarin first, as a... warm-up exercise."