Lost Cause (Ironman)

Chapter 11

Word count-1336

"Day 11, test 37, configuration 2.0. For lack of a better option, Dum-E is still on fire safety. If you douse me again, and I'm not on fire, I'm donating you to a city college. All right, nice and easy. Seriously, just gonna start off with 1% thrust capacity. And three, two, one." He hovered for a few seconds, wobbling slightly. He landed with a smirk on his face. "Okay." He turned to Dum-E. "Please don't follow me around with it, either 'cause I feel like I'm gonna catch on fire spontaneously. Just stand down! If something happens, then come in. And again, let's bring it up to 2.5. Three, two, one." He hovered higher this time and started moving around. He ended up going over the cars. Cal was relieved to see her bike on the other side of the room. "Okay, this is where I don't want to be! Not the car, not the car. Yikes! Table!" He started going over the table as papers flew everywhere. He managed to change direction and get to where he started. "Could be worse! Could be worse! We're fine! Okay." When he landed he stumbled slightly but stayed standing. He turned to Dum-E who was about to douse him. "No! Ah, ah, ah, ah." Dum-E lowered the extinguisher. "Yeah, I can fly." He praised himself. Cal congratulated him.

Soon enough Tony had a full, silver suit that completely covered him. Cal was still perfecting the size of her's. "JARVIS, are you there?"

"At your service, sir."

"Engage heads-up display."

"Check."

"Import all preferences from home interface."
"Will do, sir."

"All right, what do you say?"
"I have indeed been uploaded, sir. We're online and ready."

"Can we start the virtual walk-around?"

"Importing preferences and calibrating virtual environment."

"Do a check on control surfaces."

"As you wish."

"Test complete. Preparing to power down and begin diagnostics."

"Uh, yeah. Tell you what. Do a weather and ATC check. Start listening in on ground control."

"Sir, there are still terabytes of calculations needed before an actual flight is..."

"JARVIS! Sometimes you got to run before you can walk."

"Tony, don't forget about the ice." Cal reminded him.

"What ice? It's not winter." Tony said confused. "Ready? In three, two, one." He took off to the skies. "Handles like a dream." He passes a Ferris wheel and zooms his sight in on some kids in a carriage, and the kid drops his ice cream.

"Sir, you have a message from Cal. Would you like me to read it out for you?"

"Yeah, go ahead JARVIS."

"It says 'Don't forget the ice'." Tony sighs and ignores it. "All right, Let's see what this thing can do." He starts flying straight up. "What's SR-71's record?"

"The altitude for fixed-wing flight is 85,000 feet, sir."

"Records are made to be broken!" His thrusters pushed him up faster. "Come on!"

"Sir, there is a potentially fatal buildup of ice occurring."

"Keep going!" His suit started freezing over. "Higher!" His suit powered down completely and he started falling, his limbs flailing. "We iced up, JARVIS! Deploy flaps! JARVIS!" JARVIS couldn't answer because the power was gone. "Come on, we got to break the ice!" He managed to pull the tab on his suit which deployed the flaps. He powered up again and stopped falling. He flew back to his home and prepared to land on the roof. "kill power." Due to the sudden weight, he fell through the ceiling, through the piano and the floor before landing on his blue sports car. It set the other car alarms off.