"Tony, Tony?"

When Tony Stark woke up, he felt like his head was stirred into a big ball of paste. He sat up dizzyly, patted his forehead, and tried to restore the focus function of his eyes. After he barely adapted to the dazzling white light, he finally judged from the messy mechanical devices and circuit boards in front of him that this was his own experimental table.

He remembered. He had been almost working in the laboratory for the past seventy-two hours, and he kept awake until all the functions of his body no longer allowed him to wake up.

He subconsciously glanced at the watch and found himself sleeping for four hours without realizing it. He looked at the side again and saw Steve Rogers wearing a white short-sleeved shirt standing on the side, looking at him in confusion.

"Are you okay, Tony?" he asked.

"I... it's okay." Tony waved his hand, stood up with a shaking body, and rubbed his eyes.

"Is there anything wrong, captain?"

"You said you were going to have a party with Christmas. Everyone has come to the building." Rogers shrugged, "You still remember, right?"

"Oh, yes, the party...of course, I remember." Tony slapped his forehead, "Just...wait, it's already Christmas?"

"Today is December 24th, Christmas Eve." Rogers frowned, "You don't look in good shape. Maybe you can continue to rest here, and we can..."

"What? No, no. I'm in good condition, look."

He walked out of the lab table as he spoke, as if he wanted to use his actions to prove that his condition was very suitable for partying. Rogers frowned as he looked at his steps as if he was about to float up.

"Seriously, when was the last time you went to bed, Tony?"

Before Tony could answer, Jarvis's voice rang out in time: "Mr. Stark's last sleep was seventy-two hours ago."

"I didn't let you talk too much, Jarvis." Tony said unhappy.

"You should pay more attention to rest. No matter what..."

"Okay, I know." Tony got rid of the criticism and education of the "political commissar" impatiently, walked quickly to the bathroom, and directly expelled the guest, "You go back and wait with the others, I will wash my face and come."

......

It should be said that it is a Stark style big deal. The entire top floor of the Avengers Building on Christmas Eve activated the optical camouflage setting, and the roof became transparent. Snowflakes floated like swan feathers and fell slowly, sliding down along the transparent roof, and the night sky was clear.

When Tony entered the venue, most of the Avengers were already here. Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson (Falcon), Colonel James Rhode (Gears of War). Natasha and Clint, the agent duo, were also rarely present. Spider-Man is not here for the time being, because he has to spend Christmas Eve with Aunt May, but he should join him after Aunt May falls asleep later.

Thor Thor returned to the atrium after the aftermath of Loki's previous affairs. This time his main task was to retrieve the Destroyer armor. So today he had a rare opportunity to attend this Christmas party, and even enthusiastically brought the aged thousand-year-old wine from Asgard's specialty (but most people chose to stay away from it and dared not try it).

Tony was particularly in a bad mood today. He only talked with the people attending the meeting symbolically, and even didn't talk much with his best friend Rhode, then sat alone on the sofa and stopped talking.

This is undoubtedly quite anomaly, not at all like Tony Stark at the party.

Rogers sat down next to him.

"Not energetic?" He put a glass of wine on the table in front of Tony.

"If you haven't closed your eyes for seventy-two hours, you will be like this." Tony lay on his back without touching the glass, and changed his mouth, "Oh, when I didn't say it, I know you won't."

Rogers looked at him with a serious expression as if he was in office: "It's not that simple. You have always had some worries, it has been serious since you came back from the Divine Realm with Thor. The matter has something to do with that, right? What have you experienced there?"

The Avengers probably knew that Iron Man and Thor had a trip to the two-person divine realm ten days ago, and they roughly heard them roughly telling the story of Loki trying to usurp the throne and being successfully stopped. But both of them had a very vague description of the matter and were underestimated about the process of fighting Loki. But since Tony came back that time, he always looked absent-minded and wanted to spend twenty-four hours in the laboratory. Rogers could clearly see that the experience was not as simple as they had just mentioned.

"nothing."

"I asked Thor, but he didn't mention the details. He only said that you fought very well and fought very well..."

"Excellent? Excellent warrior who lies on the corpse throughout the whole process?" Tony smiled sarcastically. Unlike in the past, this time he was the target of mocking himself.

Rogers shut up and looked at him for a while.

"So that's why?" he asked. "You've been frustrated and your confidence has been hit. So you're stuck in the lab all day long, trying to tinker with something new?"

Strike? Yes, he was hit, and it was far more than once.

Before, he naively thought that Iron Man's technology was the dawn of world peace. He thought that wearing armor and transforming into Iron Man could solve all problems. But soon he found out that he was wrong. The cruel reality and the powerful enemies one after another shattered his fantasy again and again, and also trampled his burst of confidence to the point of being completely overwhelmed.

At first it was Aldridge Killian, the desperate warrior who claimed to be the "ultimate creature" who defeated his armor for the first time, making him realize for the first time that the Iron Man armor was not invincible. Then he met the Kerry robot, Asgard's Thor, and then an alien army. Then the Hulk who ran away in the Avengers Building, and finally the Rocky he had faced in Asgard before.

Every defeat made him further realize the shortcomings of Iron Man's skills. He was forced to see the reality clearly and understand that Iron Man is far from enough to deal with those real threats.

Oh yes, and Ultron, the creature he thought he designed to solve the problem, but it turned out to be trouble itself, and it was surprisingly in dispersed. Ultron seemed to have stole some amazing armor from Asgard, which according to Thor's description to him was a set of "unable to be blocked".

"You can't carry the world on your shoulders, Tony." Rogers enlightened, "After all, you are just a human being, and what a person can do is limited after all..."

"Oh, is that? But I knew there was such a human who also fought with individual armor, but he was ten times stronger than Iron Man... No, one hundred times."

Rogers shook his head: "Fighting is not just about guns and equipment, Tony. The warrior himself is equally important."

Tony suddenly stood up from the sofa and said loudly: "Okay, this is not about fighting the ***. Times are changing, and the good days of captains who can win battles by relying on their spirit and will have been gone forever."

He stopped his mouth in time when he realized that his voice was too loud and attracted too much unnecessary attention. He didn't want to say anything more, and he felt very tired. Tony turned his head and quickly left the venue under the gaze of everyone, and headed towards his laboratory again.

Power, this is what Iron Man needs most now, and what the Avengers need most now.
Chapter completed!