The Conceptual Deck

Chapter 101: Business time?

I spent a few hours trying out my new armor. I carried two trunks of my robots around to the dark side of the moon, letting them out and giving them an hour to prepare.

I utterly destroyed them.

I was strong enough to tear them limb from limb, even the large behemoths. I couldn't quite punch through their shields, but I could fly fast enough that they couldn't keep up with me. The energy blasts from the battle bot's guns did little to no damage, draining negligible amounts of energy from my energy protections. Even after I gave them permission to crank up the power on their weapons, they were still only draining it at a manageable level.

With the medical bots gathering the scrap and broken robots, throwing them into their respective trunks for me to destroy, I moved on to the next tests. I spent five minutes taking down the armor's sorcerous protection, shooting myself in the foot over and over again. When it was gone I started going through all of my enhanced blades, trying to see if any could make it through. Only my sword, the most powerful blade I had made so far, could cut it at all, only managing a semi-deep groove around along my arm before the blade shattered into a half dozen pieces.

Making a mental note to make a proper melee weapon with the Asgardian weapons I had brought back, I kept testing. I blasted my hands and chest a few more times with my revolvers, moving up to my rifle, before clicking my shotgun up to its highest setting and shooting my foot with the high-energy blast. This was one of my more powerful attack options and all it did was a slight bit of damage, mostly scuffing heat damage. Inside the armor, my foot was completely fine, the intense blast of energy doing nothing at all, even as the extra energy carved a deep hole around my foot. I hooked up a divine repair tablet to my suit while I was still wearing it, noting that there were a few spots of damage from my tests, most notably my arm and foot, but everything was still perfectly functional, the tablet denoting the damage as simple "wear and tear" as opposed to real damage that would threaten functionality.

I pushed out my wings, and soared across the moon's surface, pushing myself as fast as I could go, accelerating at a ridiculous rate. Faster and faster I angled upwards, the slight pull of the moon's gravity barely even registering as I hurtle into space. I was going considerably faster than what used to be my max speed. Realizing that the lack of air resistance probably had a lot to do with that I returned to my test site, cleaned up my mess, and traveled back to the warehouse.

When I arrived I let my armor dissipate, fluttering away and dissolving into green light. I was pretty sure there was a way to do that that wasn't so flashy, but I wasn't in any rush to find it. I spent a while cleaning up the mess I had made while crafting, storing the excess resources away, and junking the scraps. I turned off the majority of UCMs, tucking and stacking the extras into a corner, setting up some for nursing stones, and leaving the ones printing out divine essence and Uru alone, as well as the one printing out the unbound copy of the Panoply. The latter wouldn't be done until the next day. By the time I was all cleaned up it was early morning on the east coast of the US, which is generally what I tried to keep my sleep schedule set to.

With everything set, cleaned up, and organized, I messaged Ema to take a break and had Alfred whip up some breakfast, custard french toast with Nutella and banana. While I was waiting for Ema to get back and Alfred to cook us breakfast, I started going through movie listings and show schedules. I had barely gotten to movie theater listings to start when Ema stepped into the apartment, sitting down next to me.

"So, did you manage to do it?" Ema asked. "How did it turn out?"

I smirked, and instead of answering just stood and activated my armor, letting the protective layers swirl out and cover me. When it was done I opened my arms and gestured to myself.

"Woah That is really over the top," She said, looking me up and down. "But it looks good. Very Scifi-Medieval."

"Yeah, I think that's because of the Asgard armor lining up with the modern armor, combining with tech and magic," I said with a shrug. "I need to make something to change its color."

"Green and gold?" She asked with a smirk.

"Maybe? Green and Gold looks good and it matches my brand but I would like to mix it up a bit," I admitted with a shrug. "Kinda annoyed I can't go Red and gold without looking like I'm copying Tony. Speaking of which I need to talk to him, is he home?"

"Jarvis hasn't said anything, so maybe?"

"Right well sometime after breakfast then."

I sat back down, my armor fluttering away as I did. I pulled up the internet on my phone and started looking through showtimes again before letting out a groan and dropping it to the countertop.

"What?"

"How the hell did I forget that I went back in time?" I asked, rubbing my forehead.

"Oh to be honest, that slipped my mind as well," Ema admitted. "What reminded you?"

"The movie listings," I explained, pointing down to the list of movies, a lot of which I had either already seen or knew wasn't any good. "My options for what I'm taking Natasha to see just got a whole lot more limited."

"Are you sure there aren't any differences?"

"Not sure I would be able to tell. I recognize a lot of the movies, even the ones I've never seen," I answered. "And most of those I remember people saying were crap."

"... You should take her to see one you know is good," Ema said. "It would hardly be that bad to watch a good movie for a second time."

"YeahThats fair...Inception was pretty good," I responded after a long moment of looking through my options. "But I'll see what she wants to see and recommend it if she isn't sure."

Ema and I spent a little while longer chatting before she wanted to get back to the nurse stone project, and I needed to go see Tony. I shot him a quick text to check if he was home before getting dressed in some casual clothes, putting my leather jacket on over that. It was strange to be walking around without the chest plate form of my old armor, but in a way that was very freeing. Tony sent a message back to meet him in New York, which I assume meant Stark Tower.

I deployed my armor and activated my stealth field before traveling to one of my landing pads in New York City, taking to the air and flying across the city. It was hard not to get lost in the sensation of flying. I could feel just how fast I could go, and the temptation to push it was massive. I somehow resisted the urge though and instead made my way to Stark Tower. I did two loops around the building, which was surprisingly far ahead of schedule. There were still some incomplete spots around the exterior, and there were clearly construction workers walking around, but it was a lot more complete than I expected it to be.

I spotted Tony, who was wearing a hard hat on the top floor, watching the construction and talking to someone who I didn't recognize. I banked and swooped in, dropping my stealth field as I landed.

"Tony!" I called out, catching his attention as my armor faded and disappeared into glowing sparks.

The playboy billionaire waved me over, finishing whatever conversation he was having before turning to me.

"Fancy new armor?" He asked, watching as it disappeared. "Let me guess, capable of incredible feats that I won't be able to replicate for a few dozen years?"

"I don't know, I'm sure you'll catch up quicker than that," I said with a chuckle, looking around. "You really doling out the overtime huh?"

"Yeah, wanted it done with people moved in when the research facility is opened." He said. "Costing me an arm and a leg but it's getting done. How's the landing sight looking?"

"The dome is done, which means it's most likely either complete or really close to it," I explained. "We can go check up on it if you'd like. But before that Peggy mentioned you were going on a hiring spree?"

"Heard about that huh?" He said with a smirk, before laughing. "C'mon Maker, you really didn't think Pepper and I would just let a project like this stay as open-ended and casual as you described it? I mean you didn't even have a way to pay people beyond chucking the occasional gold bar at them!"

I winced and remember how I had described the plan to Pepper, before the invasion and before I had gotten several lessons on the importance of planning in detail. I nodded in defeat, getting another laugh from Tony in response.

"Alright, I didn't really have everything thought out," I admitted. "To be fair though, I had originally envisioned a small group of really smart people who wanted to make the world a better place. I hadn't really thought it through from a business perspective or realized just how big the project would get"

"We know, Pepper had you pegged before you had finished your opening pitch," He responded, patting my shoulder. "We knew what we were getting into. Luckily she knows a thing or two about working with eccentric but profitable personalities."

We spent a while talking about the details of the project, going over all of the work Pepper, himself, and a few other people they had hired had been up to behind the scenes. There was a lot he insisted I didn't need to worry about, like business contracts and the like, and I trusted him enough to let him skip over it, though I would have Ema talk to Pepper about it to confirm everything. Apparently, we had a whole lot of staff between janitorial services, IT people, and hundreds of other jobs. That wasn't even including the actual researchers, of which Tony and Pepper had a list they wanted to recruit normally, as well as some of the more famous scientists and engineers that Pepper wanted Tony and me to recruit personally.

"Do we really need all those people?" I asked when he had finished describing the general idea of what would be happening. "I already have robot janitors keeping the Void Skipper clean. And IT? I thought most of the equipment would be conceptually crafted"

"Maybe as a backup, but if you want this to be a real humanitarian venture you should be hiring as many humans as possible. It's not like we have to worry about people lying to us or anything. As for IT, it would be better to keep you as free as possible to work on bigger things," He responded. "Basically a lot of this is going to come from my pocket as well as the profit from your car repair pucks, which Pepper wants to talk to you about by the way. We imagine that either it turns a profit through inventions, or you and I put our heads together and invent something of our own to donate the funds from."

While Tony explained the plan he showed off the Tower, the majority of which had been shifted into apartments along with a lot of other living facilities. When we were done with the tour on Earth, I brought him up to the research center, by way of the warehouse. We made our way across the moonscape to the massive structure.

In order to access the LPMs that were building the structure we needed to enter inside, which meant using one of the airlocks. Technically an airlock wasn't necessary, as the structure created a bubble of air inside its shields, but it was better to have and not need than need and not have.

The airlock opened for us easily, the exterior door opening and letting us in, sealing behind us with a hiss. I dismissed my armor and Tony deactivated his EVA suit. Both of us looked at each other at the same time.

"Our security needs an upgrade."

"How did we forget security?"

We spoke at the same time, and I chuckled.

"Alright, we should start a list of things we need to work on," I pointed out, Tony nodding in agreement. "Upgrading the facilities shouldn't be too hard once I upgrade the LMPs."

"Could you put a landing pad in here?" Tony asked. "One that I can use? I like to be able to change the designs and tweak things."

"Yeah, I'll set one up before you leave."

We made our way through the facility, which appeared to be remarkably complete, if not a bit on the empty side. We checked out the apartments, which were also empty. Tony spent a while in the programable rooms, experimenting with wall and appliance placement before resetting the room to empty. After an hour or so of exploring our massive facility and we finally had an answer, it was complete, according to the LMPs.

"That's good, we can start working on lab spaces and everything else," He said, tapping through screens on the LPM. "They should be modular like the apartments, but they should still start with something in place."

"You need to make me a list of things I should make," I said. "Or that I should set up to have on tap."

"Oh don't you worry, Pepper and I have a list of things," He said with a chuckle. "I'm gonna stick around here for a while, make some adjustments, get everything ready to start moving infrastructure in."

"Yeah, I'll get you a landing pad and travel brace set up, where do you want it?"

"Here would be fine, it's where I'll be most of the time,"

I nodded and stepped away, pushing out my storage shed. Luckily, I already had the framework for a closed-circuit travel system. It only took a few minutes to get it worked down to two landing pads and one bracer.

I put the pad down next to the LMP and traveled down to Malibu, putting the other pad down by Tony's front door, before traveling to the warehouse and making my way back to the facility.

"Well, you can travel between here and Malibu," I said, handing the inventor the brace.

"I'm going to be staying in New York for a while" He said with a wince. "Would you mind?

"Yeah yeah, I'll move it. You can move it around too, just in case your curious."

After a few more minutes of conversation, I left him to his adjustments, traveling back down to Malibu, grabbing the landing pad, and traveling to New York. I set the landing pad in a broom closet, sending him an image of it so he knew where it was. He replied with a thumbs up, before adding that he would get me a list of stuff I would need to make at some point.

Instead of heading straight back to the warehouse, I found a small cafe to have lunch at, enjoying an Italian sub and some french fries before traveling back home. I spent the rest of the day working on getting my systems and equipment updated. Between the Uru and divine essence, everything I could think of was getting a substantial upgrade. I started with the LPMs around the Octopit, before using them to print out twenty-four updated LPMs. If I was going to build an earth defense fleet I would need to ramp up production.

I set up LPMs around the Octopit to dig up and build three more berths for shipbuilding, including the camouflage needed to hide them. They were substantially larger than the Octopit, but without the fancy building around them. Three of them were about twice as big as the original, while the third was just short of triple the size, and was a circle shape instead of an oval.

I made sure there were walkways and shield projectors, as well as life support systems up and down the shipyards, just in case. The final materials list was simple but massive, the size of this project was pretty big, even with the divine LPMs. It took me the rest of the afternoon to get everything set properly.

Not long after I finished, Natasha called. She was clearly tired, but we talked for an hour or so, chatting and laughing before finally bringing up what we would go see. Apparently, she had taken the mention of "show" literally and had been looking at plays and musicals all around the world, since she knew I had a universal translator. I had nothing against the idea, in fact, it sounded better than rewatching something I had already seen, so I agreed to see a live show. I didn't know the first thing about live performances like that, so I let her have the final decision about what we would be seeing.

We talked a while longer, discussing what we would be having for dinner, which since she was picking the show, I would pick out. Eventually, the conversation drifted to more casual topics, before eventually, we said goodbye, both of us tired and ready for bed.

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