The Stark Expo was burning.

  The City of the Future had turned into a war zone in less than five minutes. Glass rained down from the shattered Oracle dome. The air was filled with smoke, the smell of burning plastic, and the screams of twenty thousand people trying to escape through exits designed for five thousand.

  I stood near the entrance of the Japanese Garden, the chaotic stampede flowing around me like a river around a stone.

  Above me, the sky was a mess of repulsor fire. Tony and Rhodey were dogfighting the Air Force drones, leading them away from the civilians. But the Army drones, the ground units were marching through the plaza, their heavy cannons tracking heat signatures.

  A "Hammer Drone" clanked onto the walkway ten yards from me. It was bulky, ugly, and lethal. Its shoulder-mounted gatling gun spun up, the red targeting laser sweeping across a family cowering behind an overturned hot dog cart.

  The laser locked onto a terrified mother shielding her daughter. The barrel stopped spinning. It prepared to fire.

  I didn't run over. I didn't shout.

  I simply looked at the machine.

  Miss.

  I exerted a fraction of my will. Not a crushing force, just a nudge. A precise, telekinetic tap against the drone's weapon servo.

  Whir-CLUNK.

  The drone's arm jerked violently to the left just as the trigger engaged.

  BRRRRRT.

  The heavy caliber rounds chewed up the concrete fountain three feet away from the family. The drone's internal gyroscope tried to compensate, but I held the pressure. The machine looked like it was having a seizure, its aim flailing wildly, unable to lock back onto the targets.

  "Go!" I said, my voice cutting through the noise.

  The mother didn't hesitate. She grabbed her daughter and ran into the smoke.

  The drone, confused by its own telemetry errors, reset its targeting cycle. Before it could find a new target, a repulsor blast from above blew its head off. Tony streaked past, banking hard toward the garden.

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  I watched him go.

  I could have crushed every drone in the park. I could have turned Vanko into a memory with a thought. But that wouldn't solve the problem. Tony needed to finish this. He needed to prove, to the government, to the public, and to himself that Iron Man worked. I'm not gonna waste my investment.

  I walked calmly toward the Japanese Garden, stepping over debris.

  A Navy drone dropped out of the sky, landing heavily in front of a group of teenagers. It raised its missile launcher.

  I narrowed my eyes.

  Down.

  I applied vertical pressure. The drone's knee joints buckled instantly. It collapsed forward, its missiles firing harmlessly into the dirt, exploding in a contained puff of dirt. To the kids, it looked like a mechanical failure.

  I reached the edge of the garden just as Tony and Rhodey landed in the center of the kill box.

  "Get ready!" Tony yelled.

  The drones surrounded them. It was a firing squad.

  I stood in the shadow of a burning kiosk, watching. This was the moment.

  The drones fired.

  Tony and Rhodey moved. It was messy, loud, and desperate. But it was effective. They were using the environment, using each other's weapons. The "lasers" cut the drones in half.

  Then, Ivan Vanko landed.

  The Whiplash armor was huge, bulky, crude, but powerful. The electric whips lashed out, wrapping around Rhodey's neck and Tony's chest.

  I took a step forward. My hand twitched.

  If Vanko tightened those whips, he would cut through the armor in seconds.

  Do I intervene?

  I watched Tony's faceplate. I saw the panic, but then I saw the realization. He looked at Rhodey. He raised his hand.

  "You want to be the Ex-Wife?" Tony shouted over the crackle of electricity.

  Rhodey understood.

  They raised their palms. They aimed at each other.

  I relaxed my hand. They have it.

  The repulsor beams collided. The resonance caused a massive explosion of concussive force. Vanko was thrown back, his armor fried, the systems overloaded by the energy feedback.

  Silence fell over the garden.

  I watched as Vanko, broken and bleeding inside his suit, laughed.

  "You lose," Vanko wheezed. "You lose."

  A red light began to blink on his chest. And on every destroyed drone in the park.

  Self-destruct.

  "Pepper," Tony said, panic rising in his voice. He took off, blasting toward the main pavilion where Pepper was trapped. Rhodey flew off to secure the perimeter.

  I stayed.

  The countdown was at three seconds.

  There were still wounded people in the plaza. Firefighters. Police. They wouldn't survive the blast radius of fifty exploding drones.

  I closed my eyes.

  Contain.

  I didn't stop the explosion. I shaped it.

  When the drones detonated, the fire didn't expand outward. I held the air around the wreckage rigid. The blast waves hit invisible walls of telekinetic force, directing the energy straight up into the night sky instead of out into the crowd.

  BOOM.

  A series of pillars of fire shot vertical, lighting up the clouds. It looked like a final fireworks display.

  The ground shook, but no one was vaporized. The heat washed over the crowd, hot but survivable.

  I opened my eyes. The red glow in my irises faded.

  I brushed a piece of ash off my shoulder.

  In the distance, I saw Tony land next to Pepper on the roof. I saw them kiss.

  "Good job, Stark," I whispered.

  I turned around and began walking toward the exit, blending into the crowd of survivors. My car was waiting. We had a board meeting in the morning, and I had a feeling Stark Industries stock was about to bounce back.