Marvel: I am Iron Man

Tony took a sip of his special drink and listened to Miss Potts' message in his voicemail.

Pepper Potts, Tony Stark's secretary in the original comics, is probably a prime example of a secretary who rises to power. Pepper not only takes care of Tony's work but also meticulously attends to every aspect of his life; she's more like a mother than a secretary.

Perhaps that's why Tony in the original comics became increasingly dependent on her, until he finally ended up with Pepper.

But now, Tony, who has traveled through time, is intentionally keeping his distance from her.

At this stage, Tony and Pepper are only maintaining a boss-employee relationship and haven't taken it any further. Pepper doesn't have any particular feelings for her notoriously womanizing boss.

Tony, now a time traveler, is happy to maintain the status quo and even intentionally keeps his distance from the other party.

This wasn't just because he didn't have any inappropriate thoughts about his secretary like the original Tony Stark did, but also because Pepper Potts was probably the person in the world who understood the original Tony Stark best. This also meant that the more contact he had with her, the more likely he was to show differences from his past self.

Although it may not be a big problem, it's better to avoid trouble.

Tony listened to the voicemail in the time it takes to drink a beverage. There was nothing special about it; it was mostly about company matters and events that required Tony Stark's attendance.

Before he even heard the end, he casually told Jarvis to cancel all the events that could be canceled, as is customary.

It wasn't that he was being arrogant and didn't want to attend—if he could, he would certainly like to cultivate a good personal image and put more effort into making his company bigger and stronger. After all, although he has a lot of money now, who wouldn't want to earn more if they could?

Unfortunately, he always had more important things to do, most of which he considered life-or-death matters, and he simply couldn't spare more time for Tony Stark's daily affairs.

However, when Tony heard the last part of the message, he paused and suddenly changed his mind.

"Wait, Jarvis, don't rush to draft a reply." Tony casually handed his empty glass to the mechanical arm that was reaching out beside him. "Was the last message in the voice report about the Monaco Grand Prix?"

Jarvis quickly replied: "Yes, sir. Miss Potts asked at the end if you planned to participate in the Monaco Formula One Championship."

Monaco is the only country in the world where urban roads can be directly used as Formula 1 racing tracks. Tony also invested in one of the participating teams...

...In fact, in the movie "Iron Man 2", Tony even did the crazy thing of having his boss personally step into the race and squeeze out the competitors to race himself.

Of course, that's because Tony in the movie was already dying from palladium poisoning, so he wanted to go crazy for once. But the fact that "the boss stepped in and squeezed out the driver" was still enough to cause a sensation.

But the race itself wasn't the point. The point was that Tony remembered that in the movie, one of his archenemies, Ivan Vanko, the supervillain codenamed "Whiplash," had launched the attack on the original Tony on the Monaco racetrack.

Thinking of this, Tony quickly asked again, "I arranged for a search for Ivan Vanko... have we found him yet?"

Not long after arriving in the world, Tony had Jarvis create a special archive called the "High-Risk List." Those on this list were mostly people Tony had selected based on his memories of movies, people who might pose a significant threat to him and the world in the future.

For example, the top of the list is his good uncle "Obadai Stan", but he has now been moved to the "resolved" category.

The list currently includes Ivan Vanko and Aldrich Killian, the main villains from *Iron Man 2* and *Iron Man 3*. Unfortunately, their whereabouts are currently unknown.

Tony suspects that Ivan Vanko may be using a false name, as his investigation into people with that name has yielded no results. He only knows that the person is roughly in Russia, but the film doesn't seem to specify which city.

Furthermore, Ivan lived a virtually unknown life until he attempted to challenge Iron Man in the movie, making him an exceptional individual in the vast population of Russia.

But when the Monaco Grand Prix was mentioned, Tony's mind immediately became active.

Finding Ivan in a country as large as Russia is like finding a needle in a haystack, but what if he took the initiative to come to us?

If the movie plot were to follow, Ivan Vanko would also appear at the Monaco Grand Prix to ambush Tony Stark, who is attending the event.

If we assume that "Ivan will also come to Monaco" and only search around the area surrounding the motorsport event, the probability of finding him will undoubtedly increase significantly.

With this in mind, Tony quickly made up his mind: "Send me a message saying that you should cancel all other events that can be canceled. But you can announce to the public that Tony Stark will be attending the Monaco Grand Prix."

Jarvis said gently, "Yes, sir."

The thought of Ivan Vanko gave Tony a slight headache, and he rubbed the bridge of his nose again.

Although being reborn as Tony Stark has pretty good things like luxury cars, beautiful women, billions in assets, high-tech armor, and all sorts of things that other people can't buy even with money, the price is that he's always being coveted by others.

For example, this Ivan Vanko, whom Tony has never even met in his life, claims that he harbors resentment towards Tony because of a grudge from the previous generation...

Tony was very upset.

Why are so many people eyeing me? Can't I just live the luxurious life of a rich tycoon?

After a short rest, Tony quickly returned to the work of developing new elements.

Overall, the process went relatively smoothly. Knowing the method, he successfully developed this efficient, non-toxic, and clean new element in just one day, following Howard's ideas.

Although the film didn't focus on it much, it's not hard to see from some later clips in the MCU series that the development of this new element was not just about giving Iron Man's armor a qualitative leap.

The extraction of this element is of epoch-making significance to the entire world. It is a milestone in energy history and marks the Stark Group, or rather, Tony Stark himself, as a leader in the field of energy technology.

Of course, that's a story for later. Right now, Tony only cares about one thing: he's finally getting rid of that damn palladium poison from his body—and faster than Tony did in the original movie.

In addition, in the original comics, Tony directly said "I am Iron Man" on camera, which had a tremendous publicity effect on himself and his company, but it also brought him a lot of trouble.

For example, in the movie, Tony is currently facing a lot of trouble with the hearing—because he revealed that he is Iron Man, the government has begun to pressure him to hand over the "Iron Man weapons." Although Tony withstood the pressure, it has caused him a lot of trouble.

Tony hasn't appeared in the media at all, and he even secretly resolved Obadiah's troubles. The image of "Iron Man" hasn't even appeared in public yet. So naturally, the hearing didn't happen.

This also allows him to have more time to focus on the tasks he has set out for himself.

The New Elements project has come to a temporary halt, and Tony felt a huge weight lifted off his shoulders.

After finishing his intense work, the fatigue from working non-stop all day came crashing down on him, causing him to let out a long yawn.

Jarvis offered a timely reminder: "You really should get more rest, sir. My statistics show that you've been averaging only five hours of sleep per night over the past week, which is very unhealthy."

Tony sighed upon hearing this.

"I don't want to either. Of course I want to get a good night's sleep."

"But how can I sleep when there are people trying to harm me all the time..."