It's Christmas season. Rumiko Fujikawa and Tony Stark return from an evening of shopping. Tony tells his girlfriend that he asked Santa Claus for someone to watch over him. Suddenly, a teenage girl named Angela hands Tony the wallet he just lost. Angela is homeless, so Tony takes her to a foster home of his, and gives her a pair of gloves.
Somewhere in the Atlantic (in international waters), an Iraki boat delivers an atomic bomb to a small North Korean submarine. A U.S. Navy boat finds them and when a boarding party is to be sent, the submarine sinks the American boat using torpedos. As the Iraki boat departs, it is also sinked by the submarine, which then heads to America with the bomb's clock ticking.
The U.S. sends a rescue submarine to investigate, but an accident traps it, putting its occupants in great danger. Tony Stark is informed and as Iron Man, he saves their lives. But he is now trapped in the boat that sinks to the bottomless ocean, and his armor won't take much more pressure.
Meanwhile, a priest reports that a stone angel has been stolen from his churchyard. And Pepper Potts is not at ends with her husband Happy Hogan, or Rumiko.