[HORIZON ISLAND] [NOON – R&D CORE FACILITY]
Banner was unconscious, lying on a reinforced medical bed inside a secure room lined with adamantium. Tony had made sure the sedation levels were calibrated to Banner's unique metabolism. And if the Hulk woke up again and went on another rampage, the walls wouldn't budge.
Outside, Tony stood in the lab, eyes locked on the data streaming across the transparent display walls: Vital signs, adrenal output, Gamma flux, neural irregularities. All of it poured in from the nanites now embedded in Banner's bloodstream. The bio-tagging had worked perfectly. The nanites mapped his regenerative patterns, his mutation rhythms, and even his cortical shifts when Hulk took over. It was everything Tony needed to create a serum to help Banner control his transformation.
But right now Tony's attention was on something else.
He turned away from Banner's feed and pulled up the combat diagnostics from the earlier fight. His Model 50 armor's new generation of nanites had performed nearly flawlessly. The kinetic energy dampeners had absorbed and rerouted 93% of Hulk's total offensive force. That number would have been impossible by every known law of physics.
He hated that. Ninety-three percent meant inefficiency. Somewhere in the system, there was friction, waste, drag. Somewhere, there was still loss.
Tony closed his eyes and focused on the power of the Mind Stone. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes. His eyes glowed yellow for a moment. He finally decided to use his technopathy ability to connect to his suit's interface. The hologram of his suit popped up before his eyes.
For a second, the Mind Stone's network overlaid his perception like an invisible grid. Equations, formulas, theoretical structures, raw atomic behavior, quantum memory loops, all unfolded around him in symmetrical precision.
Tony spoke quietly to himself.
"Theory says no machine can hit a perfect hundred percent."
He blinked. "Theory never had a Mind Stone."
He dove into the simulation, inputting the raw combat footage. Every moment of impact, every pulse of energy, every change in Hulk's muscle mass was recalculated in quantum scale. He also threw in the data from the battle with Captain Marvel.
Tony ran thirty million variations on his kinetic dampener framework in six seconds.
He called up the power diffusion curve. The armor absorbed incoming force and redirected it to the capacitor array, then sent any excess to the environmental stabilizer grid. However, that grid had a flaw: it vented heat to maintain the core temperature, resulting in wasted energy. This was avoidable.
He rewrote the loop in real-time, configuring the system to circulate the redirected energy into micro-actuator reinforcement layers. It would recycle the force, not dump it, but store it. Weaponize it. Turn every hit into a battery charge.
Then he looked deeper.
The Mind Stone offered more than raw calculation. It allowed his mind to grasp concepts in parallel. It could see flaws in design before they happened. It predicted not just performance, but entropy.
Tony locked in a new schematic featuring a nanite restructure. The design included armor filament density modulation, subdermal reinforcements, and internalized failsafe stabilizers. The neural response delay had been trimmed down to below sub-Planck sensitivity. This machine wouldn't just operate at 100 percent efficiency; it would redefine what 100 percent even meant, ensuring it exceeded all expectations.
He spent a few hours perfecting the new technology.
Finally, the new design was ready. [Sorry for the info dump below. Many readers on WN keep asking what his suit can do, what its abilities are, and all that. So, I decided to add enough info for everyone to get an idea without Google search.]
The Mind Stone dimmed, leaving only the sound of his own breathing in the room. He looked at the render before his eyes: The Model 51 "Model-Prime Armor."
This armor is capable of transforming into every single armor Tony created so far, depending on the situation. And it can also transform into a Hulk Buster within 5 seconds.
Apart from that, Tony also added more improvements.
Prime Armor can reach the speed of sound right from lift-off, and additional thrusters can be formed from the suit's scales to reach higher speeds. Flight while in stealth mode won't leave any repulsor energy trail anymore.
As for weaponry. He added everything he had. Plus, he made some upgrades using Ghost's suit's data. The repulsors have multi-vibrational capabilities, being able to damage beings with phasing powers. The armor can also create a "zero-point energy bubble" which drains an excessive amount of energy. This energy bubble can be used to attack enemies with a shockwave energy blast or as a force-field to contain them.
As for defensive powers:
In addition to the extra-durable shell protecting its user, the Model-Prime Armor is completely immune to different types of powerful attacks with such efficiency that its wearer might not even react to them. The suit can also resist powerful blasts of energy that can destroy entire buildings, and now can take repeated blows from the likes of Captain Marvel. The armor also protects against intangibility, preventing objects and individuals from phasing through it.
The division of the suit's surface into individual tiles allows for fast repairing of damaged areas, as the scales simply realign themselves. The extent of this ability allows the armor to rapidly rebuild itself even after being broken down in its entirety. He also added magnetic forcefield, just because... Why not?
Finally, in case the wearer's life is in extreme risk during battle, the Model-Prime Armor possesses an emergency protocol that causes the suit to burst and separate from its user while the device on their wrist flies them away to safety. The armor then realigns itself and continues fighting in automatic control until its user accesses a remote interface and gets hold of the armor.
"Hermes," Tony said, looking at the new model. "Start production. Make three suits: one for me, one for Nat, and one for Yelena."
The landing struts locked with a metallic click. Yelena stepped out of the jet first, and walked straight toward the reinforced bay doors.
Behind her, Janet followed. She wore a clean dark suit jacket, hair pulled back tight. She looked around in excitement and didn't look like someone who had survived a near-murder half an hour ago. She looked like someone who had already moved on.
Two Widows dragged Hank Pym down the ramp. He looked like a sack of broken limbs. His arms were cuffed, his body slumped between them. His face was swollen, and his left eye had closed completely. A trail of dried blood ran down from his nose. One of the widows had clearly used his face to test the deck plating. Repeatedly. Well, the bio-nanites kept him alive.
Tony stood just inside the landing bay, arms crossed.
Yelena gave him a quick nod and jerked her thumb toward Pym.
"Problem solved. Mostly."
Tony didn't look at her and pointed down the hall.
"Basement cell. Throw him in. Let the nanites keep him alive. I'll deal with him later."
The Widows dragged Hank away. He groaned once as they vanished from sight.
Yelena and Janet walked to him.
"Tony Stark." He extended his hand toward Janet.
Janet looked at Tony's outstretched hand for a moment. Then she shook it firmly.
"Janet Van Dyne," she said. Her grip was steady, her voice even. "I suppose this is the part where I thank you for saving my life."
Tony shook his head. "Yelena saved your life. I just gave her clearance."
Janet glanced over at Yelena and nodded once. A silent, grateful gesture. Yelena didn't smile, but there was something lighter in her eyes.
Tony turned, gesturing for them to follow as he walked toward the main corridor.
The sliding doors opened with a quiet hiss as he walked Janet and Yelena into the Ultimates' main living area. The room was large and modern, filled with science and comfort. The walls showed live updates on global weather, news, and alerts. The ceiling glowed softly, mimicking daylight. The furniture was adjustable, made from special materials that changed shape to fit whoever sat in them for ultimate comfort.
A floating tray glided silently across the room, carrying a set of steaming mugs and fresh fruit. It avoided the furniture and settled on a nearby table before hovering idle. Three spider-like maintenance drones crawled across the far wall, inspecting panel junctions. In the corner, a tall humanoid bot was just standing still.
Janet's eyes were wide.
She turned slowly, taking it all in. "I've seen advanced tech," she said, voice calm but awed. "I've been inside twenty classified facilities. I've seen tech that people swore was fifty years ahead of its time. But I've never seen anything ."
Tony kept walking toward the large seating area in the center of the room. "Don't be surprised yet, because this is nothing. Yelena can give you a tour around the place."
"Yeah, leave it to me," Yelena said with a smile.
Janet reached out and brushed her fingers along a floating translucent screen displaying holograms of the Earth's magnetosphere. The image responded to her touch, rotating fluidly beneath her fingertips. "And you built all this?" she asked.
"Yup! Everything," He replied.
Tony gestured to the couch as he walked toward it, then sat down and leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. Janet and Yelena followed and took seats across from him. He picked up one of the mugs from the tray and took a sip. He set it back down and looked directly at Janet.
"I've prepped a long, same old boring speech, but I think we should skip that part." He paused for a moment before saying, "Janet, I want you in my team. Join the Ultimates."
---[Pic updated in aux chapter on NovelHub.]---
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AN: That's it for this week. See ya all on Sunday night with Wanda.