Time passed for a month after Dio had found out about the existence of the black mist, but unfortunately, the black mist never appeared again.
Pepper was also constantly calling Dio as she became more worried about Tony’s abnormal behavior that seemed to escalate every day!
Recently, Tony seemed to focus on his Iron Man armour above anything else. He even slept on his workshop inside his Iron Man suit!
When Dio got wind of this occurrence from Pepper, he was laughing his ass off as he couldn’t imagine Tony became that insecure about something.
. . . . . . . . .
In Tony’s villa, Tony was sitting on the ground tiredly after making another armour last night. He hasn’t slept for a couple of days as he kept researching for a new model of Iron Man armour.
Although he didn’t want to admit it, his mental state was undoubtedly in bad shape now. This all happened after he guided the nuclear missiles through the portal at New York Battle a couple of months ago!
He became insecure unless he was inside his Iron Man armour. That was also the reason why Pepper felt something was wrong with Tony recently.
“Sir, you should rest in your room; your body needs it!” Jarvis advised with his monotone robotic voice.
“You are right! I need to relax for a bit.” Tony said as he sat on his sofa and turned on the Tv.
But as soon as the Tv turned on, the news anchor immediately informed him about the existence of a new terrorist mastermind that called himself the Mandarin!
The news program was interrupted as a live broadcast was currently streamed to all people of America.
The terrorist group was using it to show the entire America that they were bombing shopping centre and airplanes away without giving any valid reason.
The U.S government was overwhelmed by the number of calls that they got from the people who wanted to know whether the scene that they saw on the Tv was true or not. People also asked the government regarding what they were planning to do to stop this terrorist!
For their answer, the government held a press conference with Colonel Rhodey Rhodes as the speaker to ease the people’s qualms.
With his War Machine armour that Tony had officially given to Rhodes after Ivan Vanko’s incident, the people seemed to trust him a little bit more.
But that was soon overshadowed by the terrorist activities that kept growing bolder and killed many more innocent people.
Colonel Rhodes, with his ‘Iron Patriot’ suit that was just the War Machine suit repainted into the USA flag, wasn’t enough to reassure people anymore.
New York was hit the hardest! As obviously, New York had a lot more people per square miles than any other city in the USA. This resulted in people getting afraid of living in New York, especially the wealthy! They were afraid that something bad would happen to them if they stayed in New York, so many of them left New York until the terrorists were arrested!
This obviously affected Dio’s Fantasy Restaurant, as many of his customers decided to cancel their appointment with Dio as long as the terrorists were still operating in New York City. Dio was enraged by this sudden turn of event.
He was furious with this new terrorist group! He lamented why those terrorists prefer New York City among so many other cities in the USA.
Dio also thought about why it was so hard to earn honest money right now! He finally snapped and determined to obliterate this terrorist cell down to its root!
. . . . . . . . .
“So, any new information I got to know about the Mandarin?” Tony asked Rhodes as they were eating their dinner.
“I am afraid that is classified information, but well, it’s useless to tell you that anyway! So, the Mandarin has bombed a total of 9 places in New York alone, but only three were known to the public. But the problem is, the explosion didn’t leave anything behind, so the bomb squad was having a hard time identifying the bomb used by the terrorist.” Rhodey said casually.
“I think I can help you with that. I have the Iron Man Armour that was perfect for the job!” Tony said, but he was immediately interrupted by the sound of his phone ringing.
“Excuse me for a moment. I have to take this call!” Tony said to Rhodey as he picked up his phone.
“Yeah, what’s up?” Tony said upon picking phone casually, but instead of a normal and calm Dio, Tony was met with disgruntled Dio!
“Tony! Stop whatever it is that you are doing now! Come to the restaurant! Because of that damned terrorist, my customers canceled their reservation! Do you know how much I lost in a day? Help me find those bastards, and let’s put an end to this fucking useless group of scumbags!” Dio said disgruntledly to the phone.
Tony put down his phone as Dio hung up, but his expression still showed that he was surprised by the call just now.
“What? Did you get a prank call or something?” Rhodey said as he laughed after seeing Tony’s face.
“No! this is much more interesting than that! The terrorist group has awoken a sleeping bear! This terrorist group sure is unlucky!” Tony said as he smirked to Rhodey and immediately stood up and walked towards the door. With Dio on board in crushing this terrorist group, the situation became much more exciting for Tony.
“Oh, god! Is it one of the Avengers?” Rhodey asked.
Tony smiled as he took a sip of his lemon juice.
“Oh shit! Who is it? Captain America? Thor? Hulk?” Rhodey asked excitedly.
“No, he is just a normal restaurant owner,” Tony said casually.
“Oh my god! He is the last avenger, right? The mysterious guy? I have seen the footage of his fight! He was inhuman! The internet theorized that he was the infamous Grim Reaper from Thor’s world, is that true? Are we going to see him now? Are my clothes okay to meet him? Do I have to change clothes first?” Rhodey said excitedly, annoying Tony immediately.
“Shut up, Rhodes, or I will go by myself!” Tony said annoyedly.
“Okay, okay! I only have one more question, I promise!” Rhodey said excitedly.
“Shut up, already!” Tony said as he walked a little bit faster.