Rise of the Hero

3: 05

RACETRACK

Engines revved and the race took off. A man dressed in orange as pit crew walked beside the track. Tony was doing surprisingly well with race car driving. Orange man was on the track. It was Ivan. People panicked, speaking in French. The lightning whips struck a car. Pepper and Maritza looked terrified.

Another commentator said, "Mon Dieu."

(My God)

Happy appeared at the door and held up the briefcase. Pepper and Maritza went with him to the car and got in the back.

"Go, go," Pepper and Maritza ordered.

"Hang on," Happy said as he crashed through a barrier onto the track heading the opposite way to the race cars. Tony's car got hit and he went flying, losing the front. Ivan headed forward. Another car got hit. There was fire and dripping gasoline.

"Give me the case," Pepper told Happy.

"Here, take it," Happy said.

Pepper tried to open the case, but couldn't. "Where's the key?"

"It's in my pocket."

"Car!"

Ivan sliced more of Tony's car, but he was gone. Tony came up from behind him and whacked him around the head with a sheet of metal. Tony was knocked on the floor. He saw the dripping gasoline. Ivan began to swing the whips. Tony moved, hit the gasoline and the car burst into flames. Happy appeared, driving and ran Ivan into the fence. Tony was up the fence.

"Are you okay?" Tony asked.

"Yeah," Happy replied.

"Were you heading for me or him?"

"I was trying to scare him."

"'Cause I can't tell!"

"Are you out of your mind?!" Pepper and Maritza cried.

"Better security."

"Get in the car right now!" Pepper demanded.

"I was attacked. We need better security."

"Get in the car," Happy told Tony.

"You're CEO. Better security measures. God, it's embarrassing." Ivan's head moved. Tony opened the door. "First vacation in two years." Ivan sliced the door in half.

"Oh my God!" Pepper and Maritza yelled as Happy reversed a little and ran into Ivan again.

"I got him!" Happy exclaimed.

"Hit him again," Tony said. "Hit him again. Football."

"I got him."

"Take the case!" Pepper shouted. "Take it!"

"Give him the case!" Happy said.

"Stop banging the car!" Out came the airbag and Ivan sliced the car in half. He continued to slice at the car.

"Calm down," Tony stated.

"God. God."

"Give me the case! Please! Come on!" Pepper threw the case, Tony stood on it and it turned into the Iron Man Suit. A fight began. There was more damage to the car and damage to the Iron Man suit. Tony ripped out the Arc Reactor, shutting off Ivan's suit.

As Ivan was being taken away by the police, he said, "You... You lose. You lose Stark." Justin smiled.

PRISON

A police officer said in French, "On a vérifié ses empreintes et on n'a rien trouvé, même pas son nom."

(We ran his prints. We got nothing back, not even a name.)

Tony replied in French, "Où allons-nous?"

(Where are we going?)

"Par là. En fait on ne sait même pas s'il parle. Il a pas dit un mot depuis qu'il est arrivé, pas un son."

(Over there. We're not even sure he speaks English. He hasn't said a word since he got here.)

"Cinq minutes."

(Five minutes.)

The police officer opened the door. Tony said in French, "Non, non s'il vous plaît tout ira bien. Five minutes." The door was shut behind Tony.

(No, no please, everything will be fine.)

Tony said to Ivan, "Pretty decent tech. Cycles per second were a little low. You could have doubled up your rotations. You focused the repulsor energy through ionised plasma channels. It's effective. Not very efficient. But it's a passable knock-off. I don't get it. A little fine tuning you could have made a solid pay check. You could have sold it to North Korea, China, Iran, or gone onto the black market. You look like you got friends in low places."

"You come from a family of thieves and butchers," Ivan shot back. "And now, like all guilty men, you try to rewrite your own history. And you forget all the lives the Stark family has destroyed."

"Speaking of thieves, where did you get this design?"

"My father. Anton Vanko."

"Well, I never heard of him."

"My father is the reason you and your sister are alive."

"The reason I'm alive is 'cause you had a shot, you took it, you missed. Maritza's alive because she's smart and more cautious than I am."

"Did I? If you can make God bleed, the people will cease to believe in him. And there will be blood in the water. And the sharks will come. The truth, all I have to do is sit here and watch as the world will consume you."

"Where will you be watching the world consume me from? That's right. A prison cell. I'll send you a bar of soap." He got up to leave.

"Hey, Tony. Before you go, palladium in the chest, painful way to die."

Tony left the cell.

TONY'S PRIVATE AIRPLANE

Stern spoke on the television. "It's just unbelievable. It proves that the genie is out of the bottle and this man has no idea what he's doing. He thinks of the Iron Man weapon as a toy. I was at a hearing where Mr. Stark, in fact, was adamant that these suits can't exist anywhere else, don't exist anywhere else, never will exist anywhere else, at least for five to ten years, and here we are in Monaco realizing, "These suits exist now.""

"Mute," Tony said. "He should be giving me a medal. That's the truth."

"What is that?" Pepper asked, looking at her food.

"This is your in-flight meal."

"Did you just make that?"

"Yeah. Where do you think I've been for three hours?"

"Tony, what are you not telling me or Maritza?"

"I don't want to go home. At all. Let's cancel my birthday party and... We're in Europe. Let's go to Venice, Cipriani. Remember?"

"Oh, yes."

"It's a great place to be healthy."

"I don't think this is the right time. We're in kind of a mess."

"Yeah, but maybe that's why it's the best time. 'Cause then we can..."

"Well, I think as the CEO I need to show up."

"As CEO, you are entitled to a leave."

"A leave?"

"A company retreat."

"A retreat? During a time like this?"

"Just a ride. Well, I'm just saying, to recharge our batteries and figure it all out."

"Not everybody runs on batteries Tony."

Maritza emerged from the bathroom, looking at her brother sadly. She'd figured out, after some snooping, what was going on with her brother and she wasn't yet sure how to help him, which broke her in a way far more than losing her parents had.