chapter 64

"Thank you so much for coming today, General.", Serena nodded at the Army officer before he excused himself to talk with other guests.

"We need to talk.", Tony finally said after making sure that there was no one near them except Pepper.

"Follow me", She nodded in understanding before leading them both to the second floor. No one stopped them as it had been hours since the party started and everyone was either returning or busy talking to each other.

"How could you betray me like this?", Tony asked as they climbed the stairs.

"Betrayal is a heavy word, Tony. We are not that acquainted that one of us could betray another. All I did was invest in a good company. In fact, I value you quite high. A major reason why I purchased those shares was because I was confident in your ability to earn me profits.", She shook her head with a confident look in her eyes.

Tony was left speechless for a second.

"You mean to say that you put his position in the company at jeopardy because you are confident in his abilities.", Pepper asked as they entered a dining room led by Serena.

"Indeed.", Kar-el was already present in the room and instead of Serena, he answered her question.

He gestured to them to take seats opposite to him before opening an expensive bottle of wine and serving them each a glass.

"Don't misunderstand. That is not the only reason. Stark industries owned state of the art production lines that are necessary for our latest venture. Making new production lines would have cost a lot of time and capital. It was more cost efficient to just invest in your company.", The main reason was of course to keep an eye on him but kar-el didn't say that.

"What kind of venture?", Tony asked with narrowed eyes. He had already decided to make sure that Stark industries would never make weapons again.

"Clean energy," Serena replied.

"The arc reactor."Pepper grasped with wide eyes.

"You could say that. It is a wonderful piece of innovation but that is not my final goal. It is but an instrument that would help me finish the final product.", Serena frankly stated. Her pride would not allow her to steal someone else's creation so blatantly.

"I am personally leading a team to make a reactor that could use the force generated by the friction between fission and fusion as well as the gravitational pull generated by them to act as a deterrent to the force generated by Dark matter which would in turn create a massive source of energy that is completely clean.", Serena explained.

"But you will need a stable fusion reactor in both sides to put enough pressure on the pull from Dark matter otherwise it would only lead to destruction. The force generated by both the fission reactor and dark matter must be equal for it to keep working for long periods of time. That's where the arc reactor comes into play. It is the only stable fission reactor that i could think of that is both sustainable and small enough to work around with.", Tony muttered with a lost face already making calculations on the Idea.

No one disturbed him while he was using his brain.

After 3 minutes he finally looked up and said, "That might be plausible especially with someone of your caliber taking the lead of the project."He had to admit that she beat him fair and square this time around in terms of innovation. It might have taken him years before he could even get an idea like that.

It was not because he was not smart enough but because there was no need for it in the first place. Arc reactor was capable of fulfilling his needs at the moment whether it be running his suit of armor or providing power for the Stark tower. Necessity was the mother of creation. Since there was no necessity for a more powerful energy source, he never thought about it.

"How powerful will it be?", As a business student, the first thing that came to pepper's mind was the results.

"If..If my math is right then it could easily generate 20 times the output of an arc reactor. The arc reactor at the tower was capable of providing enough energy to the city for a year and in comparison, it could easily give power for the whole country for that much time.", Tony had a wry smile on his face as he said it.

"That...", Pepper struggled to keep her mouth from opening.

"Since we all are on board with that, let us discuss business.", Kar-el gave her some time to calm down before getting their attention.

"Currently the state of your company is not good. The old CEO only appointed people at higher positions that are submissive to him. That cannot continue. El enterprise takes pride in their excellent mangement and as an affiliate, Stark industries cannot fall behind." He told them in a tone with no compromise.

"Our financial and management teams had conducted a check on the company's current affairs. After sorting through it, we want some changes to happen in the company. All of which has been detailed in this file.", He passed a file to Pepper who glanced at Tony once before hesitatingly opening it.

She seriously read the first page that contained some changes about the employees including the change in work environments. There was also a change in allocation of funds provided to the research teams. She then turned the paper and looked in surprise to find her name in it.

"CEO candidate nominee Miss Pepper Potts..", She looked at Kar-el in surprise.

"Your dedication and loyalty for the company is unquestionable. You are also quite close with the biggest asset of the company.", He glanced at Tony as he said that. "You are level headed, emotionally intelligent and hard working. These are all the reasons why we want you to manage the day to day functions of the company as the combined largest shareholders of the company."

Pepper expected Tony to say something since it was his father's company and He should have been leading it but he did not object at all. Later she found out that Tony had already decided to give her the position if any of this hadn't happened.

After that, they started to discuss some points in the file in earnest.

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It was late at night when Tony returned to his villa after dropping Pepper at her apartment. He parked his car at the garage before entering inside.

"Jarvis, why are the lights not working?", He asked while trying to find the switch in the darkness.

"I prefer to be in darkness while waiting for you.", A voice suddenly came from the middle of the room that scared Him.

He turned to find a man sitting on the sofa. Due to the darkness, he could not make out his facial features.

"Who are you?", Tony warily asked.

"I am sorry to scare you out. Mr Stark.", The man stood up and pressed a button on a small remote in his hands. Once he did that, JARVIS started to function again and the lights turned on.

"It is a pleasure meeting you, I am Nick Fury. Director of Shield.", The man was wearing a leather coat. He had one of his eyes covered by a pirate cloth.

"It is very unpleasant for me. Jarvis, inform the security about our guest.", He ordered while still keeping a distance between him and Fury.

"I know my entrance looks bad but I do not have the time to book an appointment with you. As for informing the law officers, it is of no use. I work for the government too.", Fury sighed before removing his gun and sliding it at him to show his sincerity.

"We need to talk, Mr. Stark. The information that i have is of utmost importance to you.", Both stared at each other for sometime in silence before Tony sat down opposite to him finally deciding to listen to him out. He had a repulser on his hands in case of emergency.

"First of all, have a look at this. This file contains all the information about shield that you need to know", Fury relaxed on the couch as Tony silently read the file.

"My father was one of the founders?", He asked once he finished reading it all.

"He was an excellent man.", Fury nodded with a light tone.

"We were observing you for a while now after you got kidnapped and we were really surprised when you managed to escape by yourself and technically speaking agent Coulson was meant to approach you but a high alert observation target got involved with you which is why you are personally speaking with me.", Fury explained while taking a puff out of his cigar.

"Who?", Tony asked in curiosity.

Fury inserted his free hand in one of his pockets and threw some pictures at the table. It was Kar-el in his suit of armor.

"Alias: Karl, Real Name: Kar-el, Species: Kryptonian, Origin: unknown as of yet, Status: Royalty of his Species. Above Data is still under investigation as all of it was presented to us by him. He could be lying.", Fury said in an uninterested tone.

"You want me to believe that I was talking to an alien just a few hours ago?", Tony asked with a flabbergasted face.

"Yes, we are completely sure that he is an alien and in fact he admitted to it himself. He likes to cooperate with us in exchange for his freedom as long as he stays on earth. While he appears friendly, just on the basis of him being an alien we cannot rule out the possibility that he has other plans that we don't know of.", Fury explained.

"Sadly we cannot keep him in a captive environment as he has the technological means to endanger the whole of humanity if anything happens to him. We also believe that the CEO of El Enterprise is also of the same species. The matter is concerning because we do not know for sure how many kryptonians are currently residing on earth. Just recently we have spotted another suspicious individual.", He threw another photo at the table.

It displayed Kar-el and Charmcaster walking on the streets of New York.

"Do you suspect them as hostile to us?"Tony had a serious look on his face. He just interacted with these people and they looked and behaved like any other human that he knew of.

"As of yet, no but precaution is better than cure. The reason why they are able to keep the purchase of the shares of your company hidden was because they had the government's support.", Fury dropped another bombshell intel.

"Explain yourself", Tony demanded quite peeved at the moment.

"The higher ups agreed to it as it would help humanity have a safe and secure source of clean energy. It is not just useful as an energy fuel, it is an essential source of power for planetary level barriers that could protect earth from space objects like meteoroids or even a direct invasion. He is also willing to help us establish contact with other space empires that can be made into allies. The offer was too tempting for them to reject.", Fury sighed.

"What do you want me to do?"Tony wondered why they decided to reveal this information to him.

"We value you quite highly. We want you to keep an eye on them as they make the reactors and make sure that they are in fact making a reactor as they said they would. As one the brightest minds on the planet, I hope you can make sure that we are not being fooled right under our noses.", Fury gravely stated.

"Things are changing before we know it. The peaceful time that we have all become used to can end in the near future. We need to make sure that we are prepared for that time, Mr. Stark"