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DoorMan (MCU SI) - #108 : Arrogance? Not for Long.....
🕑 Added 2025-07-19 12:31:30 +0000 UTCDisclaimer - I don’t, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.
DoorMan #105
LA, Earth[April 2008]
–Colin Baxter–
So, there he was, floating in the air, with repulsors, the newest line of energy weaponry from the genius of one Tony Stark, aimed at him, primed and ready to blast him away if need be. He was certain that Tony would not resort to lethal force right off the bat but that was just hopeful thinking.
After a beat of silence, the repulsors powered down and Tony lowered his hands, “You’re the guy who rescued me, in the desert.” Tony’s faceplate slid up, showing Tony looking at him with an appraising gaze.
“Yes,” He confirmed for the guy.
“Who are you? How did you find me?” The man asked, very seriously.
He was about to answer when Tony beat him to the pinch, “You know what? Not here.”
The faceplate slid on and the man rocketed straight down, towards his house. Knowing what was to come, he followed suit, letting gravity take hold while using the Air Doors on his chest and back to aim himself right behind the silver blur. Though, he wondered if Tony could avoid destroying a very classic and very expensive car, along with some equally rare and vintage Piano set because someone else was following him as well.
After a few seconds of continued flying, he smiled as he realised things were about to be the same as they were in canon, with Tony righting himself and floating a foot off the roof.
He neared the rooftop, just in time to hear the man say to Jarvis, “Jarvis, cut off power to the thrusters.”
The reaction was immediate. Tony, with a very dense suit, fell straight through the roof into the next floor, only for a hand to shoot out of his back and grab onto Tony’s form like a claw, holding him in place.
Slowly pulling him up, which finally made him notice how heavy the suit actually was, he laughed at Tony who, honest to Stan Lee, pouted at him, “What was the plan here? Going through the floors until you hit rocks?”
Tony gave him a look, which he could see even through the faceplate as the suit’s repulsors came active, forcing him to dissipate the arm holding on to Tony, who was clearly watching it with barely hidden interest.
“Like what you see?” He asked the man, amused.
“What am I seeing?” Tony said as he veered to the side and into the same tunnel, through which he came. “Come on. Follow me.”
He did, using Air Doors to follow along at a steady pace. At the end of the tunnel, Tony’s lab, the absolute wet dream of a nerd, came into view. Lights shone everywhere, some of which he knew hid the holographic projectors.
The floor with the criss crossed patterns on them was the one that held the platform for Tony’s suits, which he got to see in action as Tony, gently this time, dropped the suit on the grid, which opened up and got Tony out of the suit, without any issue whatsoever.
Tony grinned at him as he walked away from the platform, towards a small makeshift bar counter, preparing a drink for him. “You want any?”
“No.” He denied, no need to risk opening the hood here.
“Suit yourself,” Tony shrugged and he had to take a moment to debate internally as to what he was doing here. Aside from saving Tony from his particularly unique brand of stupidity, there was not much to be gained here, since Tony would not trust him, not without showing his face and that was not happening anytime soon.
The only reason he was here and not on the other end of a repulsor attack was because Tony either remembered being rescued by Colin, which was unlikely because the man was clearly out of it back when they met in the desert, or he got to know from Rhodey or the Military about the clearly enhanced man who rescued Tony Stark.
Some of them must have had a theory that Tony or someone from Tony’s team had hired some sort of super powered mercenary to rescue Tony once all other options had fallen apart.
“So,” Tony began, since all he did was stand in the centre, looking around without touching anything, “How did you do it?”
Without turning around since he was admiring the drone that would, in an alternate timeline, foam Tony once the man fell through multiple floors and destroyed one of his precious cars from his car collection, he replied, “Do what?”
“You know, the healing, the arms, the flying, the dozen different types of energy I can sense coming from you that I have never seen before.”
He raised an eyebrow behind the mask before turning around, activating one of the stealth spells he had learned, blocking most electromagnetic waves from getting out of the suit, “What energy?”
Tony’s brows furrowed for a second then he swivelled one of the monitors to his side, as his eyebrows rose up into his hairline. “What? How? They were just here.” He heard the man mutter before setting his drink aside and letting his hands glide across the custom keyboard setup that he had built for himself.
After a minute or so of the man fiddling with his equipment, Tony whirled around, “How did you do it? Some kind of new stealth system? Some exotic material we haven’t found yet? Better yet, did you hack my systems? Jarvis?”
He let the man ramble on as Jarvis replied, “No breaches detected, sir. The scans are being run on an airgapped system. Scans from their suit show an unknown material, bathed in unknown energy. Unquantifiable for now.”
Tony nodded before gulping down the rest of his drink, crossing his arms and turning to him, clearly very curious and partly incensed, “So, mind telling me how?”
He let the silence sink in for a moment before replying, “Magic.”
The scoff was immediate, so was the disdain forming on Tony’s face as he took the empty glass to get himself another drink. “Fine. Don’t tell me. I’ll figure it out sooner or later.”
With a drink in one hand, Tony took out a checkbook from one of the drawers and threw it towards him, “There. Write whatever amount you want, up to nine zeroes. For rescuing and more importantly, healing me. I feel like a new man ever since you did that. Let me know if that can be arranged on a regular basis, I would love to feel this good all the time.”
He smiled at the man, enjoying the arrogance and snobbishness on display, because this was probably one of the last few years that reality would let Tony have this level of arrogance. Pride? Sure. That would remain with Tony until the end of his life, and not without reason. The man clearly had enough reasons and enough accomplishments under his belt to be more than prideful about his work.
Arrogance, though? That would get beaten out of him as the next few blows take him down, only for him to come out stronger from it.
A small hand shot out of his back, instantly attracting Tony’s attention, which grabbed the checkbook and gave it back to the man, who accepted it absentmindedly, more focused on the golden hand that gave it to him. “I am not foolish enough to accept money through cash, Mr.Stark, even if I did do it for the money. Also, no, I do not offer my services as a healer on demand otherwise you would have heard of me long ago.”
To his credit, Tony snapped out of it as soon as the hand he conjured dissipated, muttering something suspiciously like, “Energy construct, capable of multiple shapes, sizes and elongating on demand. Interesting.”
Then, he replied, a little louder, “Fair enough. What do you want, then? There must be something I can do for my mysterious savior who intimidated an entire military base into letting him leave and managed to escape unscathed from two top of the line Jets.”
“Not now, Mr.Stark. Maybe sometime in the future. Just continue do what you are doing.”
Tony raised an eyebrow at him, “You mean the company? You want me to stop building more weapons?”
“Weapons? Yes. Defensive equipment? No.”
“Elaborate.”
“Well, I assume your plan to save the company is that,” a hand conjured itself and pointed at the Arc Reactor in Tony’s chest.
“Maybe.”
“Then you have your work cut out for you. I don’t expect the first Arc Reactor, outside of your own factories and buildings to be built in this decade. The opposition you will face from Big Oil, Big Coal, their lobbyists, the fearmongers, the environmentalists, and more, would just drown you.”
Tony was about to speak, likely to defend his idea but he bowled over the man, “Oh, I have no doubt that you’ll succeed, eventually. You have your suit for protection and more than enough genius left in that old brain of yours to successfully manoeuvre your company but I would just say that having military contracts, just for defensive equipment will help your company, a lot.”
Tony slowly nodded, thinking about it.
“I would start with lobbying with the Mayor here. Build an Arc Reactor near the HQ, and then sell the excess energy at half the price to the grid. Once that becomes successful, I am sure you can figure out the rest.”
“Eactly what I was planning on doing.” Tony finished his drunk and was about to turn around for his third, which could be a problem but he did heal and flush the man’s body of toxins just a few days ago, so for now Tony was fine.
“Take care of yourself, Mr.Stark. I’ll be seeing you around.”
“Wait-” Tony turned around, clearly intent on making him stay, but the man’s words were stuck in his throat, his eyes widening, as a purple hole in reality appeared behind him, as he disappeared from Tony’s lab.
Ah, that was so much fun!
