Heroes Assemble!

The Path You Choose

Tony walked around the Mark LI armour, examining it once again. Its specs had come up beautifully; it was ready, not that Tony had any idea when he was likely to use it. Space Armour, able to protect him if he ever needed to take a trip into orbit again. The modifications that he'd made even made re-entry possible if it was necessary.

"What do you think of the colour?" he asked Friday.

"I do not believe that the colour of the Mark LI will be of any consequence in space," Friday replied.

"Well, you're no help," Tony groused.

In the end, he decided to keep the matte black with red and gold piping down the legs and arms and on the belt.

"Right, send it below into the Hall of Armours," he instructed.

Immediately, the Mark LI fired its repulsors and drifted across to the far side of the room to where a hidden door had just appeared, sliding out from the wall and across to the side out of the way. As soon as it was inside, the door sealed itself flush back into the wall. The armour, Tony knew, would quickly descent into the deep sub-basement of the Tower where it would join its brothers.

Soon, the vault would be completely repopulated by the rebuilt armours that he'd had blown up after the Roxxon event. Now that Tony knew that someone out there was playing games, he wanted to be as prepared as possible in case Earth caught their attention again. Thus, every one of his designs was in the process of being pulled out of mothballs and being rebuilt by Friday. Of course, he was the only one who knew that.

Returning to his primary console, Tony tapped the next file in line waiting for his attention.

This one was an extremely early prototype armour that he was having designed. The big difference was, this one wasn't for him. Utilising the data that Peter's new suit was sending back, including his favoured ways of operating it and the parts that he simply didn't seem interested in was a huge help in designing this new suit.

Swivelling the model about, Tony tapped four panels in the very centre of the back, two on either side of the spine.

"Here. I need a pocket of space behind these panels for some added tech. It'll be collapsible, maybe even nano-tech if I can get it working properly, so that should help," Tony stated. "And the area around them needs to be reinforced."

He noted that Friday accepted his commands and had begun working on the requested modifications, so he swiped the design across to a different screen and brought up the next one.

"Ah, yes. I've been neglecting you, haven't I?" Tony said, not so much to the schematics, but more to the image of the quinjet in the corner of the screen.

Every test that he'd run after that little jaunt into space after Brazil had come back with flying colours. In fact, so pleased was he with the results, that there'd been very little for him to tinker with.

"I want four more of these put into production," Tony stated. "Even with how much the team seems to have grown of late, that should be enough to handle any eventuality."

"Where would you like them housed?" Friday asked.

"The Compound," Tony replied automatically. "There should be more than enough room in the main Avengers' hanger for them, even with the extra base models that I've planned for. And prepare the quinjet for another jaunt into space.

"When would you like to depart?" Friday asked.

Tony glanced at the clock, thinking about his plans before replying.