The reporters were still pressing when Tony reached the entrance, and one of them stepped directly into his path — phone raised, recording.
"Mr. Stark — if Iron Man can't handle this, do we need to call in the rest of the Avengers? The Paragons?"
Tony stopped.
The implication landed exactly where it was aimed, and Tony felt it land. He looked at the phone, at the man holding it, at the circle of cameras and microphones pulling in tight around him. Happy was lying in a hospital bed because of this. Happy, who had complained about Tony's friends and missed the old simpler days, was wrapped in instruments and not waking up.
"Is this what you want?" he said.
The man said nothing. Tony looked around at all of them.
"I have a holiday message for the Mandarin," he said. "I've been working on the wording. Here it is."
He looked directly into the nearest camera.
"My name is Tony Stark. I'm not afraid of you. You are a coward using someone else's name because your own isn't worth anything. You hide and send other people to do your work and call it power." He paused. "So I've made a decision. You're finished. I'll be the one to end it. No politics. No Pentagon. Just you and me."
He reached into his jacket for a card. "You want to find me? I'm at 10880 Malibu Point, 90265. Come to the door. I'll leave it open."
He reached over and took the phone out of the man's hand.
"That's what you wanted," he said. He crushed it. "I'll cover the replacement."
He pushed through the hospital entrance.
The press didn't follow — the hospital was private and they understood their boundaries. Behind him, he could hear them already talking over each other, pulling clips, calling in.
One of them shouted after him: "Mr. Stark — you said he was pretending to be from the Ten Rings — what did you mean?"
Tony stopped at the door and turned back once.
"He's a fraud using their name. The real Ten Rings is already hunting him. You'll have a statement soon." He let the door close behind him.
Happy looked smaller in the hospital bed than Tony had ever seen him look anywhere else.
The sterile room was glass-walled, the monitors surrounding him in a configuration that meant the staff wanted eyes on everything at once. The oxygen mask, the IVs, the burns across his arms and neck visible even under the dressings.
The doctor met Tony in the corridor and gave the assessment in the careful language that meant things were bad. Extensive burns. Six broken ribs. Blast trauma to multiple internal organs. No signs of consciousness. Possible organ failure developing.
"I need to transfer him," Tony said.
The doctor paused. "His condition isn't stable enough for—"
"I have better equipment than you have here. Arrange the discharge."
The doctor recognized the end of the conversation and went to handle the paperwork. Tony stood at the glass and looked at Happy and thought about the man who had told him he missed the old Tony, the simpler Tony, the one who didn't spend his time with gods and enhanced individuals and alien invasions.
He hadn't been wrong.
The ambulance followed Tony's car to the airport, the Fraternity had people ready for the transport.
At Fraternity HQ Happy was moved to the recovery room in and lowered into the medical pod as the fluid began cycling.
Bulma ran through the initial scan and stepped back from the instrument panel.
"Twenty-four hours," she said. "I'll give you back a fully functional Happy."
Tony exhaled slowly. He looked at Happy through the pod's transparent housing — the burns already beginning to respond, the monitoring data stabilizing as the fluid did its work.
"If this thing were commercially available at hospital scale," he said, "the entire American medical industry would collapse inside a decade."
Smith leaned against the doorframe. "The price keeps it out of that range."
Tony thought about the number. "Fifteen million last time. What's it now?"
"External rate is thirty million."
Tony looked at Happy in the pod. Then he laughed despite himself — a short, genuine sound. "Happy," he said, "you're getting a thirty-million-dollar recovery. When you wake up, you're going to thank me and I'm not going to let you forget it."
He straightened and looked at Smith.
"Tomorrow same time, I can collect him?"
"He'll be ready."
Tony nodded. "Then I'm going to work. Xu Xialing and I have a Mandarin to find."
Smith watched him go and said nothing. Tony's address to the press was going to be everywhere within the hour. That would bring the situation to a head faster than Xu Xialing's investigation — which was probably what Tony intended.
He looked at Happy in the pod and hoped the next twenty-four hours stayed quiet.
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