Marvel: I am Iron Man

When the silver Iron Man armor landed back on the launch pad at Stark Mansion amidst white shockwaves and propulsion flames, it was already past midnight.

The mechanical arms quickly removed Tony's armor. He instructed Jarvis to tidy up the lab, then dragged his tired body into the bathroom, took a nice hot shower, wrapped himself in his custom-made Italian towel, and lay down on the soft bed covered with custom-made white goose down.

A huge villa by the sea, the world's most advanced private laboratory... It took Tony some time to adjust to life in this house during his first two days after transmigrating.

Because after actually stepping into Tony Stark's life, he quickly discovered that the extent of Stark's wealth was far beyond what the limited scenes in the movie could portray.

Poverty truly limits human imagination; for the first two days, this house gave him the feeling that even the toilet paper was made of banknotes...

Oh right, to be precise, even the toilet has implemented a "paperless cleaning system," and it even has the function of monitoring physiological indicators and generating health reports—he simply couldn't understand why a toilet would need such a function.

It's no exaggeration to say that for the first two days after his transmigration, he felt like he was living in a villa built entirely of gold. But honestly, it wasn't a bad feeling...

...It would be even better if I didn't have this lump of metal on my chest.

Tony lay in bed, and a mechanical arm at the head of the bed handed him a small box. Tony reached out and took it, and the box popped open in his hand with a "click," revealing a neat row of chips inside.

Tony took a deep breath and pulled the arc reactor from the recess in his chest. The small reactor emitted a beautiful yet deadly, eerie blue light, reflecting on his pale and helpless face.

He carefully extracted the palladium chip from the back of the reactor; the chip was now charred black and hissing white smoke. He casually tossed it onto the floor—a cleaning robot would clean it up later—and then cautiously took a brand-new chip from the box and inserted it into the slot on the back of the reactor.

Finally, he carefully pushed the reactor back into the groove in front of his chest until he heard a slight "click" sound, then released it.

The whole process took less than half a minute, but Tony was already covered in sweat and gasping for breath. It felt like he had been holding his breath underwater the whole time, and even his heartbeat seemed to have stopped briefly.

Only after the chip replacement was completed and the reactor was pushed back in did he feel that he had regained the freedom to breathe and the rhythm of life.

This felt bad; he didn't like it at all.

But he knew that, according to the movies, the arc reactor could not be successfully removed surgically until the end of Iron Man 3, and that would be a surgery with certain risks.

According to the movie's setting, before that, the shrapnel seemed to be too close to Tony's heart, and removing it from that location would require extremely advanced technology, which didn't exist at that time. Around the time of Iron Man 3, medical technology had likely made a major breakthrough, allowing them to successfully remove the shrapnel using this new technology.

So although he dislikes it, Tony probably won't be able to get rid of the reactor in his chest anytime soon.

However, compared to that, he had a more pressing problem: the chip he had just replaced.

Palladium is an essential element for the reactor. Ironically, while this element saved Tony's life by preventing shrapnel from reaching his heart, the toxins within palladium were also slowly killing him.

This is also a very frustrating thing for a time traveler. At the point in time when his soul transmigrated, the original Tony had already returned from the Middle Eastern cave, and this thing had appeared on his chest.

If he could have traveled back a few months earlier, he would never have gone to that godforsaken Middle East.

However, it's somewhat fortunate that at least the time he traveled to hadn't yet witnessed Tony Stark's infamous announcement to the media that "I am Iron Man."

The original Tony Stark loved the limelight and was incredibly confident, publicly revealing his Iron Man identity on television. But as a time traveler, he had no intention of doing that.

He figured that even without the high-profile aura of Iron Man, there were probably plenty of people in the world who wanted him dead. The original Tony had that confidence, but the current Tony didn't. He didn't want to become a sitting duck for all the world's supervillains.

In the movie, Tony says he tried every element in the world but couldn't find a substitute for palladium. So, towards the end of Iron Man 2, Tony even started preparing for his death.

Solving the palladium poisoning problem is Tony's top priority right now, far more important than any snap of his fingers ten years from now—before that, his top priority was killing his uncle Obadiah, who was trying to murder him, but that was just crossed off his to-do list tonight, so now the palladium problem is the top priority.

Unlike the original Tony, as a time traveler, he already knew the solution in advance.

In the movie, just as Tony was struggling with the poison problem, Nick Fury, the director of S.H.I.E.L.D., appeared before him and brought clues left by Tony's father, Howard Stark, many years ago.

Using clues left by his father, Tony successfully discovered a new element, eliminating palladium and upgrading the reactor.

Tony knew that the key to solving the problem lay with S.H.I.E.L.D. Howard Stark, one of the founders of S.H.I.E.L.D., had left a great deal of information there.

Of course, in the end, Tony discovers that the key to extracting the new element is the exposition model Howard left behind years ago. Tony had seen the movie in his previous life and remembered this, so it was only natural that he had already found the exposition model and studied it.

But he soon discovered that it wasn't that simple.

The expo model was indeed a key tool for extracting new elements, but not all of them. Howard had already developed a specific method for extracting new elements back then, but lacked the necessary technology. He compiled all the research materials, experimental data, and specific methods from that time and left them with S.H.I.E.L.D.

Tony, with the advantage of being a time traveler, knew in advance where the key model was, but he didn't have this important data—this research material could have saved him a lot of trouble.

With just a model of an expo, Tony believed that with that inspiration and his precognitive advantage, he should eventually be able to extract new elements. But this would require him to experiment and make mistakes, a process that would incur costs and, more importantly, waste time.

Therefore, if given the opportunity, it would be more economical to obtain the complete set of data directly from S.H.I.E.L.D.

Of course, through the movie, he also knew that S.H.I.E.L.D. had quickly taken notice of Tony's palladium poisoning problem. Fury wouldn't stand idly by and watch him die from the poison; he would patiently wait until Fury handed over the information Howard Stark had left behind.

The problem is that he's not very patient right now. He wants to defuse this time bomb planted in his heart as soon as possible, the sooner the better.

"Sir, I have retrieved the file you requested," Jarvis said.

Tony: "Thanks Jarvis, could you project this onto the screen for me?"

As he spoke, a document was projected onto the screen in front of Tony.

The exotic red-haired beauty has a resume that is so beautiful that it stands out even in a big company like Stark Industries. She has extensive business experience, is fluent in multiple languages, and has a face that can almost be used as a weapon. Without a doubt, she can become the center of attention wherever she goes.

In addition to the archives, there are also a large number of personal life and artistic photos, including some of the turbulent landscapes.

The file states her name is Natalie Northman, and she currently works in the company's legal department.

Of course, Tony knew perfectly well that wasn't her real name. Her real name was Natasha Romanoff, a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who infiltrated Stark Industries on a spy mission: to approach, observe, and assess Tony Stark and prepare a written report directly for her superior, Nick Fury.

On one hand, it was to observe and confirm Tony's palladium poisoning condition, and on the other hand, it was to assess whether "Iron Man" was worth recruiting for the Avengers program.

Tony yawned deeply.

"I'm pretty tired after a long day." Tony rubbed his sleepy eyes and tossed the projection screen aside for the moment.

Jarvis asked, "Do you need to contact Miss Northman, sir?"

"No, not yet. I haven't decided yet..."

Tony thought for a moment and then changed his mind.

"Right, let's leave it at that for now. Notify the legal department to assign Ms. Norsman more tasks, but don't say I arranged it."

"Let me think... like, what's that, cross-comparison of patent documents? Contract review? Find more work for our spy lady, and remember not to give her too much time off."

Since such high-quality labor is being offered to him, he might as well take advantage of it, and the spy lady doesn't seem like she'd sue him under labor law.

"Then I thought about it again. I also need to prepare some ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) public service announcement materials for her... Let me think, three days? Do you think that's too much time?"

Jarvis said, "But sir, you should know that theoretically she couldn't have done all that work by herself."

"Of course I know, but that's the effect I wanted." Tony smiled.

now it's right.

Aren't they S.H.I.E.L.D. agents? Aren't they super spies?

Give me some extra work overtime first, then we'll talk.

"I'm going to sleep." Tony yawned again. "Jackson, my armor?"

Jarvis said gently, "I'm here, sir."

As he spoke, a faint, eerie blue light emanated from the darkness of the room. Transparent ripples appeared from the darkness, and the silver Iron Man armor deactivated, materializing into the room out of thin air.

Iron Man Mark II prototype armor, stealth mode.

Of course, the Tony Stark in the original movie hadn't developed the stealth armor at this stage. This technology was something Tony had just rushed to develop over the past two weeks, drawing on his existing knowledge and his memories of the Iron Man armor from the movie's concept art and comics.

He quickly realized that his precognitive advantage as a time traveler was not limited to the movie plot. He also knew in advance about many new armors and technologies that Tony would develop in the future, including some even more supermodel Iron Man armor models from the comics that had not appeared in the movies.

Having inherited Iron Man's memories and knowledge, all of these can serve as a reference, helping him to research new technologies and develop new armor more quickly and accurately.

Invisibility is a permanent feature of almost all Iron Man armor models in the later stages of the comics. However, Tony, being a time traveler, felt that this technology was more necessary for him, so he recently worked overtime to develop it.

Just the day before, he had installed a prototype stealth device onto the experimental Mark II. Therefore, the Mark II was currently the only armor with stealth capabilities at his disposal.

While Tony was sleeping, he had Jarvis take over the armor, keeping it in stealth mode and guarding his bedside.

There's no other way; he can't sleep soundly if we don't do it this way.

Just kidding, there are countless people in the Marvel Universe who want to kill Tony Stark; if they lined up, they could probably stretch across the entire city of New York. The thought of so many people possibly eyeing his head keeps him up at night.

While Jarvis at this stage cannot fully control the armor to perform some very complex tasks, it is still quite easy for him to remotely control the armor to stand next to him as a fixed turret and fire when it detects a threatening target.

He could only sleep peacefully with a stealth armored figure guarding his bedside.

Goodnight, Jarvis.

"Good night, sir." Jarvis thoughtfully turned off the bedroom light and controlled the armor to return to stealth alert mode. "Sweet dreams."