The enemy was startled as he realized that his electric whip didn’t have any effect on Tony’s Iron Man suit, but unfortunately, he didn’t have any other weapon to fight Tony with!
After pulling the man to him, Tony immediately swung the Electric Whip and flung the man toward the road, Tony quickly aimed the Palm Blaster to the enemy’s face and apprehended him quickly.
Tony then forcefully tore the Arc Reactor on the enemy’s chest and crushed it immediately.
“When will the police arrive, Jarvis?” Tony asked Jarvis for confirmation.
“In 10 Minutes, sir!” Jarvis said casually.
Tony sighed and immediately tied the criminal with his own whip and tossed him aside to wait for the cops to arrive. But as soon as he did that, a silver Porsche drove close to Tony.
“Now, this guy has a lot of party spirit in him than I will ever be. So instead of going to Monaco, you can party in the precinct later!” Dio said as he drove past Tony.
Tony was tempted to shoot Dio’s car with his Palm Blaster as the car drove away, but as he thought of the consequences of angering Dio, he decided not to.
An hour later, Tony was waiting for the investigation of the criminal earlier to finish, as he was still curious about how did the man have his Arc Reactor!
He soon found out that the man’s name was Ivan Vanko, a talented Russian Physicist. He was the son of Anton Vanko, a man that was involved with designing the Arc Reactor with Howard Stark. But the man was accused of spying on American soil in 1967 and got deported back to the USSR in the same year.
After listening to Ivan Vanko’s interrogation, Tony discovered that the man’s hatred was toward the entire Stark family!
That was because Ivan Vanko believed that Howard Stark had stolen his father’s idea and had conspired with the American Government at the time to accuse his father of espionage and got rid of him!
Tony finally realized that the man must have the blueprint for the Arc Reactor in his possession, possibly the one from his father’s era, but by that time, Tony was faced with another challenge! He once bragged that nobody could imitate his Arc Reactor, and he was confident that no one would be able to steal his Armor Frameworks! He was proven wrong at that moment, and he had to make sure that the army wouldn’t push for obtaining his armor any further.
The good news was that the Arc Reactor that he currently had was clearly superior to the one Ivan Vanko made for himself, stating a fact that the Iron Man suit was still better in many ways.
But as soon as he arrived home, Pepper came with Commander Rhodes, the only person that he didn’t want to see after such fiasco earlier.
“Tony, can you explain what happens in this video?” Rhodey said as he pointed to the monitor that was displaying Ivan Vanko with Tony’s Arc Reactor on his chest.
“As you can see, another villain wants a piece of me, but realize halfway that he was too weak even to put a chink on my armor.” Tony said sarcastically while turning off the video and poured himself a glass of wine.
Rhodey was his best friend, he was the only one who stuck up to him while everybody else only was only after his fame and wealth!
“Tony, you have to explain and tell me the truth about why this man had the Arc Reactor!” Rhodey said annoyedly.
“It may have been an accident on my part, or maybe he stole it somewhere!” Tony said casually while sipping his wine.
“Accident? Stolen? You said that no one else could have your technology, Tony! Now, from the video, everyone could see that the Arc Reactor had the power to cut a sports car in half like butter!” Rhodey said exasperatedly.
“You are right! But my Iron Man suit still beat him easily, the whips weren’t even that useful! Imitation is like the name suggests, a much weaker version of the original! My technology was far more powerful than that man’s technologies!” Tony said confidently.
“The man could possibly catch up with my current tech in possibly 20 years, but sadly he had to spend those years in prison!” Tony said sarcastically while handing another wine glass to Rhodey.
Rhodey ignored the wine glass and got up immediately to leave.
“I hope that you will be able to convince the congress once more not to take your toys from you this time!” Rhodey said solemnly as he walked out toward the door.
Tony also knew that with this video circulating on the internet, there was no way the congress will miss this opportunity to claim his armor as America’s properties! Now he had to think of a way to make sure that his treasured armor for peace didn’t fall into another war weapon!