I Am Iron-Man

Chapter 40

Tony's POV

The nerve of Rogers! Who does he think that he is? I shouldn't be surprised that he thinks that having a normal talk would mean cornering someone in the hallway and force them to have a conversation with him. Just when I started to have a good day. To be honest, I was surprised that Barnes came to my aid, maybe I should send him a thank-you present when I have the time.

After I was forced to have that uncomfortable encounter with Rogers, I went to the tower to prepare for my meeting with the committee in less than two hours. Honestly, I could have stayed at the compound, but I didn't want to risk anymore encounters with the rogues, especially Rogers, right before I'm about to have a very important meeting. Once I arrived at the tower, I saw Pepper and Rhodey standing at the entrance, looking very concerned.

"Tony! Are you alright?! Friday told us what happened!", Pepper asked, sounding frantic.

"Yes, I'm fine. I handled Rogers before"

"But that doesn't mean you should have to deal with him alone this time. He almost killed you one time, and I don't think he would hesitant to do it again"

"Guys--"

"Tony, you know that we can never forgive him for what he did to you. When we saw that video, it...looked like he wanted to decapitate you"

"Yeah, he's too dangerous for him to be around you or anyone for that matter"

"I know, but I mostly worry about the kids being around him, especially Ethan and Jessica, since they're the ones who spoke out against him the most"

"I know, Tony, but your safety matters too"

"Yeah, we don't want to lose you this time, Tony. When I heard that you died four times, I was worried that you weren't going to make it"

"Me too. I didn't know what I would've done if you actually died, especially died because of the man who was supposed to be your friend". Man, I never knew that they felt that way when Jessica and Vision rescued me and brought me to the med bay.

"I never knew that, I'm sorry for worrying you guys like that"

"Don't apologize, it wasn't your fault. You didn't that Rogers was going to do that to you"

"Yeah, we're just glad that you're okay now. Anyways, you should hurry and leave for your meeting. If you want to be on-time that is", Pepper said jokingly.

I rolled my eyes at her. "For once, I do want to be on-time for this meeting since it's important for the protection of Earth"

"Alright, Tony, good luck". I left the main lobby and went into the elevator, and went into my room and started to get ready for my meeting.

(A/N: Hey everyone. This would be the scene in this chapter that Tony would meet up with the committee, but since I'm terrible at creating character names, especially foreign character names. We're just going to skip that scene and move on to the part where Tony went back into the compound. Sorry, if anyone was wondering how that scene would go. Thank you and good day.)

Well, that meeting turned out better than I expected. I told the committee what I learned from S.W.O.R.D., which that the threat is expected to come sooner than we think, the organization said that we might have about a year if we're fortunate. The committee seemed to accept the information that I had available and they told me that I should hurry and make sure that my teams are well-trained and prepared, and that I should hire more heroes if I can.

Once I left the committee, I decided to return back to the compound. I wanted to see how the teams were handling and improving on their training. Normally, I would've checked on the kids first, but being a team leader as well, I had to make sure that my own team was in balance and prepared for any threats.

I walked into the training room that my team were in. Before I left for my meeting, I had left Josh in charge of the training. I would've left Strange in charge if it wasn't for the fact that he had an assignment to do at the Sanctum, so he wasn't available, but that didn't mean that Josh wasn't incapable of leading the team for awhile.

"Hey, everyone. How's the training going?". The only ones in the room were Scott, Josh, and Vision. Pepper had to run important business errands, so she couldn't make it, she's still the CEO of Stark Industries after all.

"I think that you could say that training has been alright, but that's not important right now. Are you okay?". Great, I'm sure that they probably heard about the forced confrontation I had with Rogers, who else knows about that?

"Of course, I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be fine?"

"Because Friday alerted all of the New Avengers teams that you were cornered by Rogers, who forced you to have a conversation with him", Vision answered causally.

"Wait? Everyone knows about that?"

"Yeah, your cousin almost went on a rampage because she wanted to murder him, but she said that she didn't want to set a bad example for her team members"

"I would've loved to see her murder him if I had to be honest", Vision commented.

"I would've loved to see Ethan murdered him alongside with Jessica; would've been an excellent opportunity to see how his new suit worked, which he has never stopped talking about, by the way"

"Yeah, I know. He seemed so excited to have his own A.I.. In fact, the whole team, besides Loki and Pietro, seemed excited to have A.Is of their own"

"That's cool, but I'm guessing you did that because you want them to be extra protected?"

"Of course, the last thing that I want is to have anyone of them hurt. Most of them may be enhanced, but they're still minors. Of course, I think that I may have went a little overbroad with I provided repulsors in their improved suits"

"I'm sorry, but did you say that you provided repulsors to the Young Avengers? A team full of minors? Enhanced and unenhanced minors?"

"They're low-powered repulsors. It won't cause permanent or serious injuries"

"But are you confident that they could handle the power of those repulsors, Mr. Stark? They're kids"

"Yeah, and how many repulsors did you give them?"

"Just two; one on each arm of the suits"

"Well, I'm sure that Ethan could handle low-powered repulsors, but I don't think that he'll need or use them because of his powers"

"Don't worry, the repulsors should be combinable with his powers and it should help him accurately fire at his targets better since he told me that he's been having some trouble with that"

"Yeah, thank you for that. I can't tell you how many times I've been severely burned by Ethan because he kept missing his targets during his training"

"Really? The kid seemed to have full control of his powers"

"It did appear that Ethan had full reign of his powers and abilities"

"Trust me, he still has a lot to learn. But that's why we have this daily training sessions"

"Speaking of that, I think it's time that we get back to training, don't you think?"

"Fine, you're the team leader after all". Speaking of the kids, I wonder how they're adjusting to their improved suits.