Synopsis / Summary / Plot
This time the action pings back and forth between present and past.
Currently in Sofia Iron Man is still being attacked by Cassandra Gillespie's Mandroids and they're tearing bits off his power-drained armour. Tony Stark tells AI Friday to release the armour and trust that his foes will obey Cassandra's instructions not to kill him. Reluctantly she obeys.
20 years ago in Stark Mansion Howard Stark chats with his son. He reviews the past-set action of #1-2, expanding on his theory that young Cassandra was a honey-pot to tempt Tony into the clutches of the Gillespie family - his business rivals in arms dealing, although Howard claims they sell to terrorists and he doesn't. He points out that it was an amazing coincidence that Hydra attacked the Gillespies on the very night Cass introduces Tony to her family. And untrained Tony was able to outperform their bodyguards, getting wounded for his pains. He suspects that they weren't really Hydra, and it only seemed like Tony killed 1 of them.
In the present Tony hands over his armour to the Mandroids, who are immediately suspicious. They suspect it's rigged to explode. Still all but 1 of them take it away to deliver it to their mistress. The remaining 1 stays to guard Stark, apologising for his actions because he's a fan. Tony shrugs off the loss of his armour - he's got plenty more at home. Eventually his guard too leaves, telling Tony that Cassandra's never let an interfering foe live before.
In the past Howard discovers that his son has managed to slip out of the house. Some weeks later Cassandra is continuing her college studies in Cambridge UK. Her bodyguards escort her to her flat and check it over before letting her in. In the bathroom Tony suddenly appears sitting on the loo. He has an experimental cloaking device which won't work for long. She turns on the shower so they can talk without the guards outside overhearing.
Tony explains that it took him weeks to get back from America because he had to avoid surveillance by the SHIELD organisation Howard founded. He stowed away and worked his passage on a cargo ship. He suggests they run away together.
In the present again the Mandroids deliver Iron Man's armour as Cassandra had ordered. But she's angry that they've brought it to her private mansion because it's probably got a tracker in it. They swear that they checked and it didn't emit anything. She tells them to take it to a warehouse.
She's still suspicious when she hears how Stark just handed the armour over. Rightly so as she finds Tony sitting on the loo in her (much grander) bathroom. His tracking system is much better than anybody else's.
Cass pulls a gun. But it turns out Tony is wearing an invisible armour. So they sit and talk.
Once more in the past, Tony and Cassie have run away together. They're sailing a boat off New Zealand. He tells her about Howard's theory that she was a honey-pot. She goes quiet and admits that was the original plan. But then she did fall in love with him.
In the present Tony no longer cares about that. Instead he's looking for his real father, and the trail led him to where he met Cassandra and her Mandroids. So now he wants her to tell him who his biological father is.