𝙸𝚗𝚏𝚒𝚗𝚒𝚝𝚢 (𝚆.𝙼𝚊𝚡𝚒𝚖𝚘𝚏𝚏)

The Birth of Iron Man -- (Iron Man I)

AIR FORCE BASE

"The future of air combat. Is it manned? Or unmanned?" Rhodey spoke up to a group of fellow uniformed Air Force soldiers. "I'll tell you in my experience, no unmanned aerial vehicle will ever trump a pilot's instinct, his insight, that ability to look into a situation beyond the obvious and discern it's outcome, or a pilot's judgement."

"Colonel?" Rhodey turned behind him to find Tony interrupting. "Why not a pilot without the plane?" Tony joked, as Rhodey saw fit to introduce to them the changed man. "Look who fell out of the sky, Mr. Tony Stark." The pilots all greeted Stark generously as he continued to shake their hands. "Speaking of manned or unmanned," Tony began.

"You gotta get him to tell you about the time he guessed wrong at spring break." He pointed to them, continuing to joke. "Just remember that, spring break, 1987! That lovely lady you woke up with... gets Zach everytime I tell him that story."

"Don't do that!" Rhodey flushed, embarrassed of the revelation Stark just blessed them with. "What was his name – Was it Ivan?" The pilots laughed their asses off, just as Rhodey turned back to Tony. "Don't do that, they'll believe it." Rhodey quickly warned before directing himself back at the group. "Give us a couple minutes, you guys."

The group of pilots walked off, just when Rhodey gave his whole attention to his best friend. "I'm surprised." Rhodey chuckled. "I swear, I didn't expect to see you walking around so soon!"

"I'm doing a little better than walkin'." Tony answered graciously, earning a "Really?" from Rhodey. "Yeah, Rhodey, I'm working on something big, I came to talk to you. I want you to be a part of it." After Tony's talk with Obidiah and his experiences with Yinsen and the Ten Rings in the Kunar Province, Tony wanted to experiment, tinker around with the concept of an Arc Reactor, the very thing in his chest, closeted off from everyone.

Rhodey chuckled once more. "You're about to make a whole lot of people around here real happy, 'cause that little stunt you at the press conference," Rhodes shrugged his shoulders, still keeping contact on him. "That was a doozy."

Tony sighed. "This is not for the military." He answered truthfully. "I'm not... it's different." Rhodey shook his head, leaning to his side. "What, you're a humanitarian now or something?"

"I need you to listen to me."

"No, what you need is time to get your mind right," Rhodey explained bluntly. "I'm serious." Tony simply smiled. "Okay." "It's nice seeing you, Tony. Tell Amara I said hi." Rhodey ended their conversation and walked off, leaving him with only "Thanks."

"Wait, who's Amara?"

TONY'S WORKSHOP.

Tony arrived back at his workshop, ready to craft up his ideas at his computer and hologram. He tapped a couple of keys into a holographic keyboard, and spoke up. "Jarvis, you up?"

"For you, sir, always." The A.I of the mansion answered obediently.

"I'd like to open a new project file," Tony commanded. "Index as Mark Two."

"Shall I store this on the Stark Industries Central Database?"

"Actually, I don't know who to trust right now," Tony answered as he set up the proper programs for his holotable. "I can trust Zach though, we will see. Till further notice, why don't we just keep everything on my private server?"