This was Tony’s first attempt at designing a suit of armor.
Although he had accounted for the need to fly during his escape, he had severely underestimated how difficult it would be to control his posture in midair.
At that moment, the thing Tony was most grateful for was that Sherlock had arrived in time to rescue him and take Yinsen away.
If they had followed the original plan—whether Yinsen rode on the armor’s back or Tony carried him—the result would have been the same with the Mark I flying this badly.
Yinsen would have fallen from the sky and died.
Tony’s relief did not last long.
His flying posture might have been humiliating, but at least the thrusters beneath his feet were still pushing him forward.
Then several sharp explosions sounded, and both thrusters abruptly died.
The instant he lost power, Tony began to panic.
The bulky metal giant flailed through the air like a fish drowning above the water, but no amount of struggling could overcome gravity.
He plummeted toward the desert and slammed into the ground.
Ironically, the Mark I’s crude construction became the very thing that saved him.
Because the armor had been assembled from mismatched pieces of metal, it absorbed most of the impact by breaking apart.
Tony was still thrown clear when the suit shattered, but compared to being reduced to paste against the desert floor, escaping with only a badly sprained arm was extraordinarily fortunate.
There was just one minor complication.
During the fall, Tony had accidentally swallowed the “tracking ring” he had been holding in his mouth.
Lying on the scorching sand, Tony could only hope the device still worked from inside his stomach.
He had barely eaten or drunk anything in weeks and could no longer summon the strength to move.
So he remained sprawled where he had landed, waiting for Sherlock and the others to find him.
Under the relentless sunlight, Tony soon drifted into an exhausted sleep.
The past month had pushed him far beyond his limits.
Then, somewhere between sleep and consciousness, the smell of a cheeseburger stormed into his nose and kicked down the doors of his brain.
Tony instinctively opened his mouth and tried to take a bite.
His teeth closed on empty air.
Just as irritation began to rise, a familiar voice filled with barely concealed amusement reached his ears.
“See?
I told you this would work.” Tony forced his eyes open.
For a moment, the sight before him made him wonder whether dehydration had finally driven him insane.
A massive Ford Raptor was parked nearby, its glossy paint and elaborate detailing looking absurdly out of place in the empty desert.
Sherlock sat inside wearing spotless beach clothes and sunglasses.
In his hands was a fishing rod, and dangling from the line directly in front of Tony’s face was a cheeseburger.
His young face was twisted into the gleeful grin of a fox whose prank had succeeded perfectly.
John sat behind the wheel in equally ridiculous vacation clothes and sunglasses, one hand resting on the steering wheel while he laughed hard enough to slap his thigh.
Yinsen was sitting in the truck bed, freshly washed and neatly dressed, leaning against the side with an amused smile.
Compared to the exhausted prisoner Tony remembered, this Yinsen looked clean, composed, and dignified again—a proper doctor rather than a man who had spent months trapped in a cave.
What truly convinced Tony that he was hallucinating, however, was the back seat.
A woman sat there watching the men’s childish behavior with visible exasperation.
Beside the window, a strange cartoon creature that looked completely detached from reality was peeking out and studying Tony with wide, curious eyes.
“A hallucination,” Tony mumbled.
“Could be worse.” He started closing his eyes again.
Then the cheeseburger touched his lips.
The rich scent of grease and melted cheese overwhelmed him, and Tony instinctively bit down.
The instant his teeth sank into the burger, the fishing line went taut and jerked his head upward.
The supposed hallucination erupted into even louder laughter.
“I caught him!
I actually caught him!” Sherlock shouted.
“I’m the first man in history to fish a wild Tony Stark out of the desert!” The force tugging against Tony’s mouth and the unmistakable taste of the cheeseburger made one thing perfectly clear.
This was real!
Tony’s eyes snapped open.
He sat upright, tore the burger from the fishing line, and began eating while staring at the bizarre scene in front of him.
“Sherlock, that’s enough,” the woman in the back seat said helplessly.
“Let Tony clean himself up so we can leave this awful place.
I’m starting to miss civilization.” “Human, Doro wants to go home too!” the strange creature added.
That finally convinced Sherlock to end the joke.
He opened the door, stepped out of the truck, and approached Tony.
“Come on, playboy.
Get in the truck so I can take you back and finish the job.” After devouring the cheeseburger, Tony finally felt awake again.
He looked at Sherlock and grinned.
“I’m riding in the truck bed with Yinsen.
Damn it, I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy to see the sun.” Sherlock rolled his eyes.
“Great.
Another man driven insane by captivity.” He was about to help Tony into the back when Yinsen spoke up.
“Sherlock, I think you should let Tony wash first.
My God, the smell is unbearable.” Yinsen covered his nose as he spoke.
The moment he mentioned it, Sherlock finally noticed the powerful odor coming from Tony.
He immediately stepped back and gave Yinsen a thumbs-up.
“You’re absolutely right.” The words had barely left his mouth when a simple shower room rose from the sand directly in front of Tony.
Tony stared at the newly formed structure in complete disbelief.
After connecting it with everything else he had witnessed, his mouth twitched several times before he finally demanded, “Don’t tell me all of you showered, changed clothes, and relaxed before coming to find me.” “You guessed correctly, genius,” John answered from the driver’s seat with a particularly vicious grin.
Helen rolled her eyes at him from the back.
Sherlock and Yinsen burst into laughter, while Tony remained sitting alone in the sand, wondering why he had bothered surviving all of that shit.