Iron Man 2 [MCU x OC] [Book 2 of the Stephanie Stark Series]

Chapter 6

Italics = thoughts

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Sitting between Pepper and Natalie while watching some idiot dance on stage at the Stark Expo was an odd experience to Stephanie. She couldn't help but blurt out her thoughts, "He looks so stupid." Natalie covered a laugh from beside her while Pepper scolded her.

"Don't say stuff like that it's not nice." Stephanie rolled her eyes, but didn't miss her guardians small smile when she turned back to the stage. Discreetly Natalie fist-bumped the girl, the two of them sharing laughs as Justin hammer introduced himself. 

"That's what I'm talking about. Thanks for coming." The man stopped in front of a clear podium on stage to begin a speech. "Ladies and gentlemen for far too long, this country has had to place its brave men and women in harms way. But then Iron Man arrived and we thought the days of losing lives were behind us. Sadly, that technology was kept out of reach. That's not fair, that's not right. That's just to bad." 

Pepper let out a breath beside Stephanie. "Oh, Lord."

"Regardless it was an impressive innovation, one that grabbed headlines the world over. Well today my friends, the press is faced with quite a different problem. They are about to run out of ink!" Hammer smirked, expecting to get a large round of applause but only got a few scattered claps. 

Stephanie tried to contain her laughter but couldn't and let out a pretty embarrassingly loud snort. This time both Pepper and Natalie shushing her as people around them began to look over. 

Up on stage Hammer cleared his throat obviously uncomfortable with the tension in the room and two workers ran over to take the clear podium away from him. He straightened himself up before speaking again. "Ladies and gentlemen, today I present to you the new face of the United States military. The Hammer Drone!" 

Stephanie shook her head, It's a horrible name, she thought. 

Hammer motioned behind him as more stage lights turned on, and began introducing the different types of machinery. This time, the audience did applause, though it was drowned out by the loud music playing over head.

"Army!" Eight large robots rose up from below the stage, all owning an arc reactor in the middle of their chest and with large guns strapped to their backs. Pepper and Natalie looked at each other, obviously upset. Stephanie scoffed and crossed her arms. He completely ripped Tony off.

"Navy!" Again eight robots rose up to stage. Still glowing from the arc reactor but instead of large guns they were equipped with large... shoulder pads?

"Air force!" Closer to the front of the stage, eight more similar looking drones appeared on display. 

"Marines!" Stephanie had to admit, these one were probably her favorites. They looked similar to the other three groups but were designed to look camouflage. 

After all of the drones were shown, Justin was cheering on stage. "Yeah! Woo! That's a hell of a lot better than cheerleaders, I'll tell y'a." He placed his hand on his hips, "But as revolutionary as this technology is, there will always be a need for a man to be present in the theater of war. Ladies and Gentlemen, today I am proud to present to you the very first prototype in the Variable Threat response Battle Suit and its pilot Air Force Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes." More music started to play and something started to rise in the middle of the stage.

"What?" Pepper asked. Stephanie looked down at her lap, Maybe I shouldn't have given him the code to the suits.

Rhodey who was now inside a bigger, darker version of Tonys Iron Man suit stood on stage. Eyes and arc reactor glowing, he saluted, the rest of the suits as well as Hammer followed in his action.