“Just steal all the data you can. Fabricate more storage using the designs I gave you if you need to. We will spend the next few days until Phil comes over for a chat upgrading your hardware further.”

Theres nothing super urgent happening right now, and Tony did promise to lay low until Phil came. He would need to set aside time for upgrades to Home systems supercomputers at some point, might as well do them now.

So they continue hacking and designing various things, until Coulson arrives.

And he will arrive. If there are a dozen other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents hiding in the nearby vicinity, it is not visible. "Mr. Stark. I wish I could say it was nice to see you. Any idea who broke past our security and downloaded the entire S.H.I.E.L.D. database, just a couple days after a certain hacker returned to his home? I have a theory."

Tony will glare at the ceiling. “Jarvis! You were supposed to be sneaky!”

”Gotta say, I’m surprised you noticed the hack. And I hacked the Pentagon, all the letter agencies, the Russians, the Chinese, and pretty much everyone else too.” Tony says a little smugly. “Don’t sell me short here.”

”You want some of the data I found? Its pretty juiiiicy. Also shame on you for not telling me about the aliens! I thought we were friends.” Ah, teasing serious military or spy types, one of his favourite passtimes.

Opportunities for witty banter had been sadly lacking during the captivity with the Ten Rings, because none of them spoke english.

"We're not quite on a telling-about-aliens basis," Coulson replies. "Apparently I don't need to debrief you on anything. You, on the other hand, have a lot of things you're going to need to tell me. What are you planning here?"

“Well… I was planning to make a new better suit, and go crush the Ten Rings in Afghanistan utterly and completely, along with any other terrorist groups who happened to be in the middle east. Give the Earth a nice Christmas present of world peace. While I’m there I’d hunt down any Stark Tech Obadiah sold illegally. And I thought I would maybe help out with some normal world security issues, mundane threats that a suit of power armor could help out with.

But it seems the world has bigger problems than extremist groups now doesn’t it. Shouldn’t we have orbital defence cannons in every major city by now? I could build some for you at close to production costs if you want.” Tony says the last sentence a little accusingly.

Tony might actually be a bit bitter that Shield sat on the knowledge of hostile aliens for decades. At least from Nick Fury, Tony expected more healthy paranoia.

"Current policy is we keep the existence of aliens secret. But we're working on finding defenses. You build us some working cannons, we'll take a look."

"But we haven't had any known alien arrivals since the chaos with Danvers. Most of our problems are a little more domestic." Like, quite possibly, Stark.

“Yeah, how about the decorated war hero James Buchanan Barnes is a Super Soldier controlled by the Soviets and he killed my parents. Domestic threats like that? Or the Black Widow school that tortures and murders little girls until the last ones standing are perfect assassins? How about the illegal human experimentation going on all over this country? The failed super soldiers who are being antagonised towards the US because they are being hunted like animals.” Tony is actually rather grumpy that Shield let things get this bad.

”The thing is Phil, up until I got kidnapped, I was coasting. You saw what I was wasting my time with, parties, alcoholism, supermodels and thrillseeking.

Well, in that cave I got a wake up call. I barely used a fraction of my potential my whole life, and because of my inaction I got blown up and kidnapped. I have the power to end these threats myself and so I will. Before it was just plans to end the threats to humanity I could see, the terrorists, the extremists, an easy goal for myself. Bringing peace to the middle east was something I could do to stop feeling like I was letting the world down.

But now I see the ball has been dropped on so many more threats, and nobody was going to tell me about them until I found about them myself, so I did. Seems like I have to do everything myself.

A few days Phil, a few days is all it took for me to create a program able to hack all of our enemies at once, I know every dirty little secret that anyone has ever put in a computer with internet access. Imagine what I could do in a year, five years, ten.

I could easily make anti orbital weapons. I could give the earth space capable war fleets within a decade. If I focus on it I could crack nanotech in a few years. I can do so much more than I have been, and now I will do more.

So it seems to me I don’t actually need Shield’s help to save the world. I will continue my fathers work. But if you ask nicely I can let you help. And tell Director Fury to actually start doing the things my father helped create Shield to do.”

Maybe that was a little too antagonistic, but half the problems of the old timeline was all the fucking spy bullshit and secrets kept by Shield. Tony’s plans predicted his power base to become a good deal more effective than Shield in just a few years anyway. He would only play nice so far as Shield actually helped defend the earth, and because he still personally liked a lot of the people in Shield.

Claiming that the future tech knowledge was part of his genius will only add to his perceived value, and the stuff about coasting and not doing his best was true, it was just Thanos (and to a lesser extent Ultron before him) that really woke up him up rather than the kidnapping.

"...what?"

"James Buchanan Barnes - what are you talking about? He died in World War Two - a super soldier? He killed your parents? We thought there was a chance it was murder, but - where are you getting this information?"

...maybe J.A.R.V.I.S. should have specifically marked which of the people on the list were and weren't in the S.H.I.E.L.D. database.

Ah shit, he thought this was from a SHIELD file. “I got it from the Russians. Bucky barnes didn't die when he fell off that train, the super soldier experiments Armin Zola did to him kept him alive. He got dug out by the soviets and brainwashed into being the Winter Soldier. They kept him on ice except for when they needed him to do a hit. Like the one against my Parents.” Don’t let the conversation be derailed.

“So yeah, Shield doesn’t seem very effective against domestic threats to me either. So I am going to be cleaning up your messes.” Devalue Shield, keep them on the back foot. They will be helping me and not the other way around. 

"So... you're going to - take down all the terrorists in the world, and protect us against aliens, and... what's your endgame here? You know nobody's going to like this. S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't like this. I had a hell of a time convincing Fury not to try and arrest you; and just for agreeing not to do that he's going to be in trouble with the World Security Council once they find out about you. Not to mention the government as a whole; I doubt anyone other than S.H.I.E.L.D. would even consider working with a lone vigilante like this. What's your plan for when the FBI shows up at your door with an arrest warrant, or more likely a bomb?"

“Arrest me? He’s more likely to recruit me. You've got Banner on your Avengers list and he has got barely a shred of control over big green right now. And I bet once I take out some major Ten Rings bases that I will suddenly be very popular with the public. Nobody wants to be seen as pro terrorist.

I haven't yet done anything that anyone but S.H.I.E.L.D. has noticed, good job on that by the way I really thought nobody would catch on, if you don’t tell anyone theres no problem. Or spin it as a penetration test. Heck I’ll tell you how to beef up security and then it won’t even be a lie.”

He really didn’t expect S.H.I.E.L.D. to try playing hardball like this, he had gotten away with way worse stuff before, though that was after he proved himself as Iron man.
Maybe they just needed to see him in action, well in a month he should have everything ready.

"You'll be branded as a terrorist if you start trying to set up cannons and space armies in thousands of cities, no matter how noble your goals are."

"You want to fight terrorists, then sure, you can help fight terrorists, but do it through official channels and try not to piss off a dozen world governments while you're at it."

“Oh well I was expecting groups like you to be buying the anti orbital cannons, and various governments. Wich I would provide at cost out of the goodness of my heart. And for the space fleets I was thinking of it being a UN thing, joint custody so nobody gets any ideas about orbital strikes.

I’m not setting myself up to be space pirate king of Earth, I am just projecting out big things I could easily do to make things safer. Next time someone like Danvers might not show up. Those Kree orbital missiles would have killed millions.

But I can do a thousand smaller things just as effective when they are all added up. I could give agents of my choosing some of my tech. I could upgrade your level of digital security by decades. My improved Arc reactors could power every major city for basically free energy for all. And once I crack Nanotech the sky is the limit.”

Tony gets a bit rambly about the possibilities then catches himself.

”So you going to help me or what?”

Coulson sighs. "Yes. I'll talk to Fury immediately. Have you gotten to the Avengers Initiative yet? That's probably the best way we can spin this; the World Security Council has technically already approved it so we can put you in the lead and repurpose it into what you're doing. We'll send by a few forms, clear it with the Council, and then you can hopefully make the announcement with them standing behind you and try to not let quite as much hell break loose."

“Why…. Why would we give anyone other than director Fury any warning? Trust me, make the public announcement after I've crushed some cells. Heck don’t even tell the public its me in the suit at first. 

I may not be a super spy but I know how to work the media. Trust my expertise on that at least.”

Wait… did Tony hear that right?

”Wait… I’m actually in charge of the Avengers? Did I hear that right? I get to be captain Avenger, the Avenger in chief, Avenger man, be In front during all group poses.” Oh this turned out way better than expected. They didn’t even trust him to be in the Avengers initially last time.

Hah he knew them playing hardball was weird, Phil had this outcome planned from the start didn’t he! Damn he’s good.

He had zero planned from the start and is pretty sure he will at least lose his job.

"Yes, you are Captain Avenger Man. Don't make that your superhero name."

"And we can't just go behind the Council's backs on something like this. You go out and start fighting people without full permission, you'll just make all of this harder. We get them signed on, you're guaranteed to have an international government agency backing you up in whatever legal shit we get mixed up in afterwards."

“Sure, but don’t make any public announcements yet. You’re the men in black, theres a reputation there, and the terrorists and whoever is helping them don't need a warning. My recent history proves there have to be people involved in national security helping out the Ten Rings, at least for money or Obadiah would never have been able to sell my missiles, we wouldn’t want to give them any advanced warning.

Don’t worry so much Phil, the public is going to see us as heroes, and the politicians will have to rush to throw funding at this.”

"All right. We'll get you cleared with the Council, you take down some Ten Rings bases, and then we can make an announcement once you have some achievements to brag about."

And Coulson leaves.

"The World Security Council contains two HYDRA leaders, and HYDRA has various dealings with the Ten Rings," warns J.A.R.V.I.S. once they're alone. "You may not have as much secrecy as you hope."

“Documenting those specific leaks will make it easier to convince Nick Fury. If they only tell the council about me, and then the info leaks…” Tony feels he should ease Fury into finding out. So he doesn’t overreact and they can plan the sweep carefully instead of it being a rushed thing, where a bunch of HYDRA escapes and they had to spend months cleaning the remaining cells up. Tony also might maybe be enjoying that he can keep secrets from Fury now, see how he enjoys being left in the dark of all this secret spy bullshit.

”Even if it leaks, they won’t know which Ten Rings bases I will hit, I doubt there is anything they can prepare, even with advanced warning, that will be able to stop me.” The new suit will be basically impervious to rpgs, and even some of the better stark missiles Obi might have sold wouldn’t be able to do much. They stood no chance.

Then they can return to building Iron Man suits. Actually, most of the time isn't spent on the suits - there's building the tools necessary to manufacture Iron Man suits, and occasionally the tools for manufacturing those, as well as just the programming aspect; it takes a lot of work to get the suits so that they'll respond well to Tony's movements, and have the right interfaces for Tony to communicate with, and connect to J.A.R.V.I.S., and so on.

But on the suit end, what sort of gear does Tony want to build?

Tony has plans to design two suits to start with. A ‘quick equip’ suit and a ‘hard’ suit.

Most of his suits had been ‘quick equip’ designs by the end of the old timeline. Meant to protect him as quickly as possible with all other capabilities being a secondary design priority. Most of the modern suits he ended up using before had been based around getting them onto him as fast as possible, the suitcase suits, the flying equip suits, the nanotech suits, and Tony now with hindsight feels this made them suffer in the durability department. He had previously thought nothing was out there that needed a proper ‘hard’ suit to take down, so why make one, he had wrongly felt his normal ‘quick equip’ suits could take down anything that would show up. Tony felt that in the past he had been relying too much on portability, equip-ability, and versatility in the old timeline, he had wanted to be ready at all times and didn’t imagine needing heavy firepower, this was a mistake to be rectified in this new timeline.

Time to get to work.

Tony starts with the ‘hard’ suit. It is less intricate and easier to design.

For the ‘hard’ suit Tony goes back to basics. A hyper durable suit that has to be assembled around him by Jarvis every time he needs to wear it, like the old mark II, but much heavier than he made most suits in the old timeline, with 4 extra arc reactors for power, and filled with as many weapons as he can cram into it without sacrificing armor and physical strength too much. Honestly the design kind of felt like if the improved War Machine suit he made for Rhodey and the Hulkbuster had a particularly angry baby. Wearing it makes him considerably taller than even Thor and he bets he could even beat the magically enhanced Asgardain in a pure contest of physical strength in it. It is bulky, big, and incredibly powerful, and only just within a reasonable size for being able to still fit inside buildings. It’s not quite up to fighting Thanos levels of strong, something like that will have to wait for nano forges and better tools, but it should be able to hold off the Hulk for short periods of time even without a hulkbuster loadout. With the extra space available Tony goes absolutely overboard on armaments. The ‘hard’ suit has stupid amounts of firepower. If S.H.I.E.L.D. and the WSC knew he had this much firepower in something flight capable and able to fit into buildings, they would nuke his house right this minute. 

Just to start off with, the chest beam gets a huge upgrade, the foot and hand repulsors get much bigger and capable of bigger beams, and Tony adds extra regular repulsors on the knees and elbows that could independently swivel and fire at targets, as well as help with flight. 

Throw in some weapon hard-points for each shoulder blade on the back plate, each shoulder top, each side of the waist, and each upper forearm. For quick swapping load-outs. At the moment Tony only had advanced designs to fill the back plate mounts. He decides he might as well rip-off Rhodeys War Machine shoulder mini-gun for the shoulder Hard-points until he designs something better.

Speaking of the back plate hard-point mounts, on one of the shoulder blade hard-points Tony attaches a huge rail-gun that folds out from his back that fires explosive rounds meant to tear open the heaviest of alien armor, if the round didn't just over-penetrate. It even had the ability to switch magazines to possibly the most expensive rounds on the planet, each round was meant to penetrate using the massive kinetic energy of the railgun, then release their loads of special energised particles that would erupt into plasma. Tony could even set the rounds to ‘air burst’ so the target was struck by a high speed plasma lance. There was no kill like overkill.

The second back plate hard-point attached weapon was a large missile launcher with 8 launch tubes filled with 2 and a half foot long, long range, high yield missiles that made the Jericho seem piddly. For if he needed to clear entire olympic stadiums worth of area of enemies, or felt a need to personally send missiles up against orbital targets.

for regular weapons that would always be installed, Tony did not go any less overboard.

Compact high rate of fire rail-guns on each fore-arm, just regular armor piercing darts for those, but rail-guns powered by arc reactors are no joke even if just firing regular tungsten and steel alloy darts. Tony expects that these rounds in these guns could even over-penetrate depleted uranium armor plating that was close to half a foot thick in the right circumstances. 

Lasers! 6 chunky fist sized laser swivel turrets for point defence and cutting through obstacles. Installed on each shoulder, on each side of his hip, and at each ankle. No needing to worry about them burning out with the ability to just add larger emitters that wont burn out.

So so so many micro missiles, thousands of micro missiles, with different yields and targeting abilities. Some missiles even filled with knockout gas or immobilising quick hardening foam for when there is a need for a less than lethal option, as rare as that need will be when Tony has been driven to put on the ‘hard’ suit.

Some traditional firearms get hidden here and there, or designed to attach to the weapon hard-points, but those are barely worth mentioning, they only existed to fit into spaces that felt too empty of weapons. Regular guns were only good for really low level threats and it felt like his suit deserved better than gunpowder weapons.

Since Tony had already ripped off Rhodeys War Machine, why not rip off Steves thing too? So he makes a tall kite shield with one big repulsor beam emitter in the center, and smaller flight repulsors on the sides to make it able to fly towards him when needed, to be held by the suit in its actual hand. Why didn’t Tony ever take advantage of the fact his suit had hands that could hold weapons before? It might have blocked the palm repulsors but you could just add repulsor beams to the held weapon! He should have made something like this ages ago. Plus, Steve’s shield couldn’t shoot beams or fly, his could, and it felt very gratifying to have a cooler shield than Captain America. It would be a maximally cool shield when he got his hands on some Vibranium of his own and rebuilt it using that.

That should do for the ‘hard’ suit for now, this suit felt battle for new york ready, invading armies won’t know what hit them.

Tony decides to name it the Iron Warrior I.