When Logan rode his harley to Stark Tower, the downstairs area was already tightly surrounded by Police and reporters.
The flashing Police lights were dizzying, the air was filled with the burnt smell of metal and dust, sporadic black smoke was still rising from the top of the tower, and broken glass and metal fragments were scattered across half the street.
He parked his motorcycle outside the cordon, walked inward with a cigar in his mouth, and the on-duty Police officer, who was just about to stop him, froze upon seeing his face.
During this time, Logan followed Tony in and out every day, and every security guard in the building knew this top-tier bodyguard.
The Police officer hesitated for a moment and let him pass.
The elevator went straight to the top floor, and the moment the doors opened, a wave of heat and dust hit him in the face.
Pepper was standing in the ruins making a phone call, a few strands of hair disheveled, her shirt stained with soot, yet she was still methodically giving instructions into the phone, looking impossibly competent.
Tony leaned against an intact pillar, his Iron Man Suit half off, his face bruised and battered, the corner of his mouth split, cursing at the armor fragments in his hand.
“Yo, Mr. Stark, quite a unique look you’ve got there.” Logan walked over and kicked a twisted steel plate near his foot.
“Getting beaten up like this in a fight, aren’t you afraid of losing face as a billionaire when word gets out?”
Tony looked up and saw him, his anger flaring: “You fucking asshole, stop making sarcastic remarks! Come over here and lend a hand, there are still reactor fragments stuck in this pile of scrap metal, if we don’t get them out it’s going to blow up in a minute.”
“Triple wages, as agreed.” Logan walked over leisurely, his fingertips twitching slightly as he quietly deployed his magnetic field abilities.
The metal fragments stuck in the ruins were guided by an invisible hand, clattering as they all gathered together and piled neatly in the corner.
He did it covertly, masking it with the action of bending down to pick things up.
Pepper was busy on the phone and didn’t notice, but Tony saw it dead on, his mouth twitching slightly without uttering a sound.
With Logan helping out, the cleanup speed was much faster.
Before even half of it was cleared, the elevator door opened again, and Agent Coulson walked in with two Agents.
He still had that mild and polite look, but as his gaze swept across the littered mess, a trace of imperceptible sharpness flashed in his eyes.
“Mr. Stark, Mr. Howlett.” Agent Coulson stepped forward and handed over his identification.
“We have taken over the scene, sorry to trouble you both. Regarding tonight’s events, there are some details we’d like to confirm with you two.”
“Confirm what?” Tony twitched the corner of his mouth, hissing in pain.
“Didn’t you see? Someone stole my company’s technology, built a piece of crap iron lump to make trouble, and I’ve already taken care of it.”
“We understand that the attacker was Mr. Obadiah Stane.” Agent Coulson’s tone was steady, but his gaze fell on Logan.
“According to our intelligence, Mr. Howlett was not at the scene tonight?”
“Of course I wasn’t.” Logan leaned against the wall, casually puffing on his cigar.
“I was at home watching the live TV broadcast, the fight was quite lively. What, does Agent suspect I did it? With just these two fists of mine, could I dismantle an Iron Man Suit?” Follow the newest chapters on NovelPing.
“Mr. Howlett is joking.” Agent Coulson smiled and looked back at Tony.
“It’s just that besides the traces of armor collisions at the scene, there were also some special magnetic field disturbances. We’re very curious, when did Mr. Stark’s armor get retrofitted with magnetic field weapons?”
Tony’s heart skipped a beat, but his face didn’t show it at all.
Instead, he sneered: “Magnetic field weapons? Agent Coulson, have you watched too many sci-fi movies? That was an electromagnetic pulse caused by the reactor overloading, do you understand technology? If you don’t understand, go back and ask your technical advisor.”
He spoke righteously and confidently, looking like “you guys are uncultured, stop guessing blindly.” Agent Coulson was choked up by him for a moment, but didn’t press further.
Instead, he asked a few questions about Obadiah’s motives and the source of his weapons.
Tony had already fabricated his excuses in his heart, answering fluently without a single flaw.
Logan stood nearby with his arms crossed, watching the fun and occasionally chiming in—either complaining about Obadiah’s insatiable greed or mocking S.H.I.E.L.D.
for lagging news.
Amidst the banter, he threw the conversation completely off track.
Agent Coulson asked for a long time without getting a single piece of useful information, and instead got heavily frustrated by the two working in tandem.
Finally, he realized that these two were utterly impervious to reason, one overly protective of his own, and asking further would be useless.
So he put away his notebook, smiled and said “We’ll contact you if there’s any follow-up need”, and left with his men.
Once they left, Tony breathed a sigh of relief and looked at Logan: “You were way too risky just now, what if he had figured it out?”
“So what if he figured it out?” Logan sneered.
“Without proof or evidence, would they forcefully drag me away for dissection?”
Tony grunted without refuting, just kicking the metal fragments near his foot: “Alright, stop running your mouth, finish cleaning up quickly, I’m starving. Pepper, where’s the midnight snack you ordered?”
“It was ordered long ago, in the downstairs lounge.” Pepper shook her head helplessly and walked toward the elevator first.
The three arrived at the lounge, where food boxes were already laid out—steaks, pasta, salad, and a few bottles of beer.
Tony was starving fiercely, grabbing his knife and fork to wolf down his food, completely losing his usual playboy demeanor.
Pepper sat beside him, nibbling on her salad while discussing the follow-up PR arrangements with him.
A press conference would be held early tomorrow morning, and the official statement had already been drafted: stating that a robot experiment went out of control, and Obadiah unfortunately perished.
“Troublesome.” Tony chewed his steak, saying unclearly, “Making up lies is the most boring thing.”
“What else can we do if we don’t make it up?” Pepper glared at him.
“Are you going to tell the whole World that you built an Iron Man Suit, and wore another suit to fight your uncle on the streets of New York? Tomorrow the Military will come drag you off for research.”
Logan drank his beer nearby, gloating: “Exactly, honestly read according to the script, don’t improvise and make trouble again. That mouth of yours, you wouldn’t feel comfortable if you didn’t stir up some trouble any given day.”
“I know what I’m doing.”
That’s what he said, but at the press conference the next day, he still stirred up trouble.
Logan stood in the corner of the press conference backstage, watching the bruised and battered Tony on stage.
This guy actually knew how to care about his appearance, specially covering the bruises on his face, but the split at the corner of his mouth couldn’t be hidden, still looking disheveled.
He held the speech draft in his hand, reading quite properly at first and pushing everything onto an experimental accident.
But as he read on, he suddenly stopped.
Reporters off stage looked at each other in dismay, camera flashes going off non-stop.
Pepper stood in the wings, her heart instantly jumping into her throat as she desperately signaled Tony with her eyes.
But Tony acted as if he didn’t see.
He fell silent for a few seconds, raised his head, and his gaze swept over the dense crowd of camera lenses below, the corner of his mouth hooking into his habitual, punch-able yet proud smile.
“The fact is,” he put down the draft, propping his hands on the desk with a relaxed and certain tone, “I am Iron Man.”
The entire audience fell dead silent for a second, and then completely exploded into an uproar.
Reporters went crazy raising their hands to ask questions, shutter sounds crackling into a chorus.
Logan supported his forehead backstage, unable to help rolling his eyes dramatically.
“I knew this guy couldn’t hold it in.” He muttered in complaint, “Pretentious bastard, sooner or later he’s going to die from showing off.”
Pepper beside him turned pale, gritting her teeth as she whispered: “Is he crazy?! Last night we clearly agreed to read according to the script!”
“Don’t you know what kind of person he is?” Logan chuckled.
“Face is more important than his life; making him lie to the whole World that it was an accident is more painful than killing him. Besides, how cool is it to be a superhero? It just plays right into his wishes.”
Although he said that, he knew clearly in his heart that by saying these words, Tony was equivalent to pushing himself into the spotlight.
From then on, troubles would only become more and more numerous.
S.H.I.E.L.D., the Military, and all kinds of freaks and monsters would all swarm around him.
But…
so what?
Logan held the unlit cigar in his mouth, looking at Tony on stage surrounded by reporters yet still handling it with ease, and twitched the corner of his mouth.
As a salaried bodyguard, joining in on the lively fun was enough for him.
After the press conference ended, Tony was unsurprisingly nagged by Pepper all the way.
Logan was happy to watch the show, fanning the flames from the side the whole way, which made Tony so angry he almost threw the documents in his face.