Marvel: I am Iron Man

Almost the instant the door was blasted open, the well-trained Black Widows pulled the triggers in unison.

Tony, clad in armor, watched as countless gun muzzles flashed and bullets pounded and deformed against his body, clattering and falling to the ground. Yet, he felt nothing beneath this mobile fortress-like shell.

"Everyone, calm down. Let's sit down and talk like civilized people."

As Tony spoke, a series of lock-on boxes appeared on the monitor in front of him, locking onto each of the Black Widows who were shooting at him, with the assistance of Jarvis AI.

The message "Target locked" appeared on the screen at the same time.

A hidden shotgun muzzle popped out from the right shoulder of the Iron Man armor. With a single hiss, all the Black Widows fell to the ground, instantly losing their ability to resist.

Drekoff stared wide-eyed at the scene, at the armored vehicles that had stormed in as if a god had descended from the heavens.

So effortlessly, so casually raising his hand, he instantly annihilated all his elite troops... No, strictly speaking, the opponent didn't even raise his hand.

He had painstakingly built up his elite Black Widows over the years, each one a master of firearms with unerring accuracy, yet they were utterly useless against this red-gold steel demon.

Among them was even Taskmaster, Drekoff's own daughter and his most prized creation. She could replicate anyone's moves and possessed the strongest skills and best techniques. In fact, from the moment an enemy entered, Taskmaster began observing, scanning, and analyzing them, using her vast database to predict their movements.

However, it was of no use whatsoever.

Her superb skills, master-level martial arts, and unparalleled predictive abilities...

However, these are clearly useless against a super exoskeleton armor with AI auto-aiming capabilities.

Drekoff's ace, the strongest widow "Taskmaster," was sandwiched among everyone else, unremarkable, and was taken down by one of the bullets scattered by Iron Man, as if she were no different from any other cannon fodder.

Only Drekoff truly knew how much effort he had poured into this master impersonator, and just how exceptional she was. But it was precisely because of this that he felt more acutely than anyone else the helplessness that came with seeing such a masterpiece treated like worthless paper.

The times have changed.

Just as the invention of the gun rendered the swordsman of the old era obsolete, that red-gold armored warrior single-handedly swept through his entire aerial fortress, instantly killing his proud Black Widows, making his theory of "controlling the world with the red house" seem like a ridiculous joke.

In an instant, Drekoff's grand ambitions and aspirations all became a joke.

Tony had just taken down all the Black Widows with a single homing shotgun blast, but missed Drekoff. This was intentional, as he still had questions to ask.

"Drekov".

The voice, altered by the armor's voice-changing technology, came from inside the armor as Tony walked up to Drekoff with the sound of machinery whirring.

"You and your Red Room recently took on a job to assassinate Tony Stark," Tony said bluntly. "I need to know who the employer is."

Drekoff looked up and stared directly at the golden mask, watching his distorted image reflected on the steel mask.

"So, you're Stark's dog," Drekoff said coldly.

At least now he knows who he messed up with that led to his downfall.

"Give me a name, you have three seconds," Tony said.

Drekoff sneered: "If you think this will make me talk... Ughhhhh—"

His words hadn't even finished before they turned into a violent scream.

In that instant, Drekoff felt as if he had been thrown into an electrified bathtub, every nerve ending feeling like it was exploding, and the blood vessels under his skin feeling like boiling molten lead. His fingers spasmed into claw-like shapes, and every joint seemed to explode with a cracking sound of unbearable strain right next to his ears, like walnuts being crushed by a hydraulic press.

It was a pain that was almost beyond words, and at one point he was even surprised that he hadn't fainted.

Then the pain stopped, and Drekoff was drenched in sweat. He tried to say something but seemed to have lost control of his tongue and couldn't utter a word.

"Do you like it? This is a stimulating electric current that I designed myself."

Tony extended a finger, and a dangerous arc of electricity crackled and pulsed at the red steel tip.

"This device can release a specific pulse of current within 0.1 seconds, precisely matching nerve frequencies... To put it simply, it stimulates your pain nerves, causing you a sharp pain similar to a dental drill touching the pulp, only ten times more intense. During this time, I will also inject infrasound of a specific frequency to disrupt the brain's adaptation mechanism to pain, thereby prolonging the pain sensitivity period."

Tony paused, then added with a smile, "And do you know what's even more amazing? It's that by precisely controlling the frequency of the electrical current, you can regulate neurotransmitters and counteract the inhibitory signals caused by pain... In other words, no matter how much pain you're in, you won't pass out."

As he spoke, he released electricity from his fingertips again. Drekoff let out another pig-like scream.

Natasha had already stood up, supporting her broken arm. She looked at the agonizing howls of Drekoff, at the seemingly inhuman interrogation scene, but felt no pity whatsoever.

There was even a slight...pleasure?

Because it was Drekoff who ruined her life, and also ruined the lives of all the Black Widows in the Red Room.

Every Black Widow was a minor when she was thrown into the Red Room, many even under ten years old. But in the eyes of this demon, they were like objects waiting to be transformed.

He surgically destroyed their organs, depriving them of their fertility, and then trained them in the most cruel ways. Only the girls who were strong enough to survive were qualified to become his brainwashed puppets.

So yes, she felt pleasure at the beast's screams, and was even almost grateful to Stark for avenging her—even though she knew Stark was only doing it for his own purposes.

Drekoff's screams paused briefly again. His face was deathly pale, and he looked almost like a dead man.

"Alright, now are you willing to share with me who hired you to kill Tony Stark?" Tony asked.

Drekoff's lips trembled.

"Okay, it looks like you need a little more motivation."

Tony said, then lifted his sizzling, electrifying fingers again.

"Wait...wait a minute!" Drekoff shouted almost desperately. "I don't know...I really don't know who it is. We've worked with that client a few times, but they always communicated through an encrypted channel. We did the work, they paid, that's all."

Tony: "You mean you took the money and did the job, but you don't know who paid you or who you were working for?"

"It's true, I can show you... show you all our mission logs and transaction records," Drekoff said with difficulty. "I only know one code name... the client's code name."

At this moment, the built-in display on Tony's helmet was showing the lie detector interface, with the word "Truth" prominently displayed next to Derekov's head on the screen.

So this good-for-nothing really doesn't know who his client is.

"Okay, so what's the code name?" Tony asked.

Drekoff took a deep breath and uttered the name: "...Viper."