HIATUS

"Ladies and gentlemen, today I present to you the new face of the United States military. The Hammer drones;", Justin Hammer's said. The floor of the stage opens introducing the Hammer drones. Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine type drones were shown on stage, the crowd responded with a loud round of applause.

Right now the person on the main stage of the Stark Expo is Justin Hammer, he is currently introducing the drones that Vanko had greatly improved. With confidence, Justin said to the cheering crowd, "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".

Colonel James Rhodes rises to the stage with the suit that will be referred to as War Machine in the future. The crowd cheered even louder when Colonel Rhodes and the Hammer drones saluted at the same time.

Justin who was savoring the spotlight that he was in said with a smile on his face, "For America and its allies, Hammer Industries is reporting for----"

Suddenly the cheers for Justin and for his Hammer drones stop with the arrival of Tony Stark wearing his signature Iron man suit stole his thunder. What accompanied Tony was the loud claps and the standing ovation from the crowd as he landed on the stage.

"Finally, took you to look enough, Tony", I said to myself. I had been hiding on the rooftop since the event started, and I was already getting bored waiting.

"AH!"

"AH!"

"RUN!"

After a while, screams of panic and fear started happening when due to Rhodes suit being hack by Vanko, and his minigun appeared out of his shoulder.

People were pushing each other as they all wanted to get away and save their lives. It didn't matter if you were young or old, men or women, if you're too slow, then you'll get a push to the ground.

Tony seeing this, immediately flew to the air and said, "Let's take this outside". Colonel Rhodes as well as the Air Force Hammer drones immediately began following after Tony.

The Air Force drones may have left, but there were still 3 types of drones left. The Marines, Army, and Navy drones.  They began to fire at the people and buildings of the Expo. People were getting hurt, injured and some of the unlucky ones were probably killed.

"Activate the Emp", I said to Alfred. I was wearing an earpiece that connects me directly to Alfred.

"Emp, initiating in 3.2.1.", Alfred said.

"BANG!--"

The entire Expo became dark due to the Emp blast but it was powerful enough to take out all the drones left.

I appeared behind Natasha and whispered to her ear, "Nat, Vanko is in Hammer Industries. There is a car in the back of this building, use it". Pepper who was with Natasha wasn't able to see me due to it being too dark.

Romanoff left and went straight to the car that was prepared for her. I had told Howard to make me a car that was sturdy enough to survive an EMP blast. It's actually funny that a car was sturdier than a drone that was supposed to be sent to war. Oh wait, Justin Hammer's made it, no wonder it was subpar.

While Romanoff left, I took all the drones that were taken out by the EMP blast. I didn't want them, but I just can't let them be taken by the government. This thing is too powerful to be given to the hands of politicians. Especially due to them having their own Arc Reactor, I wasn't letting anyone get their hands on those.

"Oh, yeah, Alfred, short all available stocks of Hammer Industries. Their stock price is bound to drop by tomorrow morning. Might as well get some spare cash", I said to Alfred with a smile on my face.

Spare cash? please the amount of money I would gain from shorting their stocks would probably be in the hundreds of millions, will see if Hammer Industries won't go bankrupt from this. Plus they would still have to deal with all the lawsuits that would certainly come their way.

After storing the Hammer drones, I heard guns being fired not far from my location. I immediately went towards it, I was just in time to see Ivan Vanko arrive. It seems Natasha failed to catch him.

Vanko was a man that wanted to ruin the name of Tony Stark. That was his goal but analyzing everything he did so far, he failed.

True,  drones that have their designs based on the Iron Man suit did cause a lot of damage as well as multiple injuries, but who was the one that was presenting them. It was from Justin Hammer. This places the blame on Hammer Industries, not on Stark Industries.

How about the War Machine suit that Colonel Rhodey was wearing, it also caused mayhem in the Expo, but the man that was wearing the suit wasn't Tony. It was Rhodey, an Air Force Colonel. The blame for it being hack could be placed on the military, due to them not placing any defense system to prevent hacking.

All these scenarios that Vanko made to destroy Tony's reputation were stupid. Tony's reputation could never be hit by these scenarios, in fact, due to Tony fixing the problem his reputation will soar. Makes you wonder if he even thought about this plan carefully.

"Good to be back", Vanko said as he landed in front of Tony and Rhodes.

"This ain't gonna be good", Rhodey said as he saw that the suit that Vanko was wearing was bigger than his. So Rhodes decided to use his strongest trump card and a missile that was placed by Justin in his suit, it was so-called the Ex-wife, Justin's greatest invention. A missile came out of his shoulder and he said to Tony, "I got something for this guy. I'm gonna bust his bunker with the Ex-wife".

"With the what?", Tony said, a little confused. Suddenly Tony saw a missile that came out of Rhodey suit and it went straight to Vanko. But the missile didn't explode when it came into contact with Vanko's suit. It was a dud.

"Hammer tech?", Tony asked.

"Yeah", Rhodey said weakly.

Tony started the fight by firing his own missiles at Vanko but it wasn't effective. Vanko's suit was just too durable, in fact, it was more durable than even his own suit. Rhodey helps by using his guns but once again it was not effective. Vanko wasn't just being idle, no, Vanko took out his signature electrical whip and proceeded to beat both Tony and Rhodey's ass with it. Eventually, the two of them were wrapped by the electrical whip of Vanko.

"Need a hand", I said to Tony. I still had my earpiece on and I told Alfred to high jack Tony system so that I could talk to him. The car wasn't the only thing powerful enough to survive the EMP blast.

"AH!. Who is this?", Tony said as he struggles to get out of the electrical whip.

"Someone that is going to save your ass. For the second time, now", I said as I made a huge Rasengan and hit Vanko with it.

"BANG!"

Vanko was then propelled multiple meters away leaving behind remnants of his suit.

"Who is this guy?", Rhodey asked as he saw their savior. A man wearing a black cloak with a red cloud design and a mask that had a ripple pattern.

"Oh, I'm just a man that saved your life", I said to him.

Suddenly were heard beeping sounds all around us and we heard Vanko saying, "You lose Stark!".

"Bombs! We gotta go", Rhodey said.

"Bye", I said as I disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Both Rhodey and Tony were shocked but they immediately went into the air so that they won't die.

"BANG!!!"