A man called Mallen willingly takes a shot in the back of his neck from some kind of gun syringe. The effects are immediate: he falls to his knees in major pain, vomiting blood. His teammates lock him up in a large room with a thick metallic door.
At a Texas lab called Futurepharm, Dr. Aldrich Killian prints his confession about stealing the Extremis dose before committing suicide. His coworker Dr. Maya Hansen finds him, and calls Tony Stark.
Stark is flying the skies as Iron Man (testing a new ocular motion reader system) after his tough interview with John Pillinger, who believes Stark to be a weapons dealer, responsible for the deaths of many including children. While Stark agrees to meet Maya, Mallen teammates find him alive, and changed: his eyes are red, and he's become very strong.