Chapter 147: Spencer's Assassination Attempt.
Tony was an exceptionally intelligent man. That was not in question.
Which meant he had worked out his current physical state, and the general mechanism of Matthew's "new product," in approximately one second flat.
He looked down at his chest, now completely restored, and asked the obvious follow-up. "This new product you gave me. It doesn't just give the user exceptional healing, does it."
Matthew didn't see any reason to hedge. "Extremis Virus. Gives the user powerful regenerative capability. Something like a severed limb, it would probably close over in about ten seconds."
"Beyond that, it allows the user to generate internal heat capable of melting steel."
"So." He paused. "Going forward, when you're with a companion, you'll want to keep the temperature under control."
"..."
"Otherwise it'll be roughly equivalent to a red-hot iron bar."
Matthew didn't finish the second half of that observation out loud. He simply looked at Tony with an expression that did the work for him.
If that happened, you wouldn't be Iron Man anymore. You'd be something else entirely.
Tony's mouth did something involuntary at the corners.
He understood exactly what Matthew wasn't saying. Which was precisely why it landed the way it did.
At that moment, Pepper pushed open the workshop door and walked in.
She took one look at Tony's expression and immediately wanted to know what had just been said.
"Tony—"
"Pepper. I know what you're going to ask. Don't." Tony raised a hand. "Let me sit with this one for a while first. Better for both of us that way."
It genuinely was better for both of them.
Tony at this point was completely devoted to Pepper, which meant that at some stage he was going to be doing the things you do when you're completely devoted to someone. Before any of that happened, he now had a new item on the preparation checklist: get the temperature under conscious control. The alternative was not an option he intended to explore.
Since Tony wasn't going to explain the conversation, Pepper let it go and handed over the contracts she'd brought. Once he'd signed them, she looked him over with the evaluating eye of someone who has managed another person's schedule for long enough to read them at a glance.
"Tony. Based on what you're wearing, I'm going to assume you've completely forgotten about the lunch reception."
"Reception?"
"Yes." Pepper nodded. "Justin Hammer of Hammer Industries is hosting a lunch reception today. He sent you the invitation a month ago. You said yes."
"Does that ring any bells?"
Hearing Justin Hammer's name, Tony went still for a moment, then arrived at the memory and reached up to scratch his slightly unwashed hair. "That's why it completely slipped my mind. It's the one that idiot is throwing."
He looked sideways at Matthew. "Are you going? Hammer's actual output doesn't hold up to any serious scrutiny, but his company's catering is genuinely decent. Want to come?"
Matthew caught the invitation in the phrasing and shook his head. "I've got someone else at lunch today. Another time."
That was true. The past stretch had been unusually calm, and his time with Ada and Eleanor had been moving into different territory, so today he'd arranged to take both of them to lunch at a restaurant.
Tony didn't push. A few more words, then he and Pepper headed out.
Matthew didn't linger either.
He sent a driver ahead with the Vibranium powered suit to get it back to the company, then got in his own car and headed toward the restaurant where he'd made the reservation.
The city center was slow going. Traffic moved in fits and starts, and he hit congestion almost immediately.
The car ground to a stop in the backed-up street.
Matthew looked at the unbroken line of vehicles ahead of him and let out a quiet breath.
That was when a man appeared at the front of his car. Ragged clothes, heavy stubble, the general presentation of someone who hadn't been near a shower in several months. He knocked on the window.
"Sir. Can you spare anything? I haven't eaten in days."
The voice came through the glass, muffled but audible.
Matthew looked at him. He did look genuinely hungry. After a moment's consideration, Matthew reached into the center console, took out two hundred-dollar bills, and lowered the window. "Get yourself something to eat."
The man took the bills immediately with both hands.
Matthew was about to raise the window again when the man spoke again. "Sir, I'd like to give you something in return for your kindness. A small token of my appreciation."
He turned and reached into the bundle of cloth on his back.
Under Matthew's gaze, the man's entire manner changed in an instant. He pulled a grenade from the bundle, yanked the pin, and his expression went somewhere uglier.
"Die, you bastard."
He moved to throw it through the window.
Matthew looked at him with the expression of someone watching a magic trick they've already worked out, and unhurriedly rolled the window up.
Then, without any announcement, a force landed on the man from the outside. His arm snapped at an angle that arms are not supposed to achieve, cutting the throw off mid-motion.
Before he could process what had happened, that same force turned his broken arm back on him and fed the live grenade into his own mouth.
One second. Two. Three.
The detonation at close range converted him into a dispersal pattern. The pieces went in every direction.
If Matthew hadn't already wrapped the car in a gravity membrane, the vehicle he'd had cleaned two days ago would have needed cleaning again.
The sudden explosion compounded the traffic situation considerably. Several drivers with a preference for continued existence abandoned their cars and ran.
The drivers immediately in front of and behind Matthew, however, did not run.
Instead, they moved with a precision that had clearly been rehearsed: sharp wheel cuts in coordinated sequence, two seconds, and Matthew's car was boxed in completely.
This had been planned.
While Matthew was registering what the next move might be, a countdown tone started from inside the panel vans on both sides of him.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Then: detonation.
Two fireballs, each rising dozens of meters, went up simultaneously.
The shockwave shattered every window in the surrounding area and flipped the nearby vehicles. Matthew's car, closest to both blast points, came apart at once and caught fire.
On the roof of a building some distance away.
An operative in tactical gear lowered his binoculars and looked at the sniper waiting for the order.
"It's done."
"That kind of close-range detonation, it doesn't matter if the target is human or a B.O.W. They're dead."
The sniper listened and said evenly: "The Ten Rings really do go all in. Rigging trucks to blow."
"They do." A short pause. "Though it saves us the follow-up work, doesn't it."
"True enough."
"Anyway. We can wrap up early."