Tony Stark wanted a burger.
Not later. Not after a shower. Not after he pretended he was fine for the cameras, or let a board meeting bury him alive in polite applause.
He wanted it effective immediately.
The jet's cabin smelled like antiseptic and expensive leather and the lingering ghost of blood that had soaked into him for weeks. Rhodey was talking—something about medical checkups, something about how Tony needed to sit still for more than five minutes without trying to invent a new way to ignore trauma.
Tony nodded at the right times.
He wasn't listening.
He was thinking about grease.
About a bun that wasn't dry enough to crack his throat. About fries with too much salt. About the ordinary, stupid, beautiful luxury of eating something because you wanted it and not because you were rationing it.
He'd built an arc reactor in a cave.
He'd watched men die for the crime of being weak at the wrong time.
And now he wanted a burger like it was a mission.
"First thing I'm doing when we land," Tony said, voice hoarse but determined, "is getting a burger."
Rhodey gave him a look. The kind Rhodey had perfected over years of dealing with Tony Stark's nonsense and occasional genius.
"We're going straight to the hospital," Rhodey said.
Tony blinked. "Burger first."
"Hospital first."
Tony leaned back, eyes narrowed like he was negotiating global peace. "Burger… then hospital."
Rhodey didn't budge.
Tony pointed a finger at him. It trembled slightly. He hated that.
"Rhodey," Tony said, lowering his voice, "I have survived dehydration, shrapnel, hostage conditions, and the worst interior design I've ever seen. I deserve—"
"A burger?" Rhodey finished.
Tony's lips twitched. "Yes."
Rhodey sighed. "Fine. On the way. One burger. Then hospital. No detours."
Tony smiled like he'd won something important.
He hadn't, but it felt like it.
New York was too bright.
Too loud.
Too normal.
The first time Tony saw the skyline again, something in his chest tightened—not the arc reactor, not the wound, but something behind it. A pressure he couldn't name. A feeling that the world had kept moving while he'd been stuck in a cave, and now it was daring him to pretend it hadn't.
The car ride from the airstrip felt unreal. Glass windows. Smooth streets. People walking without fear in their eyes.
Tony stared out at them like he was watching a documentary on a species he used to belong to.
Then he saw the wreckage.
Not far from Manhattan's edge, the road shifted into controlled chaos—police tape, temporary barricades, heavy cleanup equipment, chunks of concrete stacked like broken teeth. Entire sections of street had been dug up and re-poured. Buildings wore fresh scars: shattered windows replaced too quickly, black smears on brick, the kind of damage that didn't come from storms.
Tony sat up a little.
"What happened there?" he asked.
Rhodey didn't look surprised. He looked tired.
"Couple nights ago," Rhodey said. "Some… thing. Came through. Military mess."
Tony's eyes narrowed. "Military mess?"
Rhodey's jaw tightened. "They called it an experiment gone wrong."
Tony stared out at the ruined block, the patchwork repairs, the smooth lie of "cleanup completed" hiding the fact that people had died here.
"An experimented monster from the military," Rhodey continued, keeping his tone controlled like he didn't want to step on landmines, "came and messed up things. Soldiers tried to contain it. Didn't work. Then it was killed."
Tony's gaze snapped to Rhodey.
"Killed by who?"
Rhodey hesitated—just half a beat, like he still couldn't believe what he was saying.
"Some guy," Rhodey said. "Surrounded in a… rainbow."
Tony blinked.
"A rainbow."
Rhodey glanced at him. "Yeah. Like—prismatic. Bright. Witnesses said it looked like a video game power-up or something. They're calling him 'Rainbow Man' online."
Tony stared, processing.
His brain, freshly traumatized and still annoyingly brilliant, immediately started doing what it always did: turning the impossible into a list of possibilities.
Tech.
Optics.
Energy shielding.
Experimental armor.
Some kind of light-bending field.
But why would someone with that kind of capability step in for that fight, in that place, and then vanish?
Tony's fingers twitched on the armrest.
"And the monster?" he asked. "What was it?"
Rhodey exhaled. "They're calling it Abomination."
Tony's stomach turned—not from fear, but from a specific kind of anger. The kind that came when someone in a lab coat decided the world was their sandbox.
Tony stared at the wreckage again, quieter now.
"More questions," Tony muttered.
Rhodey gave him a side-eye. "That's your whole personality."
Tony didn't deny it.
The burger plan survived exactly twelve minutes.
Because Tony's attention got hijacked by something else.
Billboards.
Huge ones.
Bright, clean advertisements that hadn't been there the last time Tony remembered driving through parts of the city. They looked too fresh, too confident—like whoever paid for them wasn't worried about backlash.
The ad showed a sleek IV pack—stylized, modern, almost fashionable—and a syringe angled like it was something you'd want to show off.
Big text, sharp font, simple promise:
STIMPACK
INSTA-HEAL IS REAL
There was a logo beneath it:
STARVEIL
Tony's eyes narrowed.
He'd seen enough marketing to know when someone was making a move. This wasn't a test product. This wasn't a niche rollout.
This was a takeover.
"What the hell is that?" Tony asked, voice raspier than he wanted.
Rhodey followed his gaze.
"Oh," Rhodey said, like he'd forgotten Tony had been off the planet emotionally for a while. "Stimpack."
Tony didn't blink. "That's not a thing."
"It is now," Rhodey said.
Tony's eyes tracked the next billboard as it slid past the window. Same product. Same smug confidence. A different line of text:
HEAL FAST. LIVE LONGER.
$20
Tony's mouth opened slightly.
He looked like he'd just discovered gravity was optional.
"Twenty dollars," Tony repeated, incredulous.
Rhodey nodded. "Yep."
Tony turned slowly, staring at Rhodey like Rhodey had personally invented the concept of affordable miracles.
"It's the new 'insta heal'," Rhodey added. "The type you see in video games. People are obsessed. Some idiots are literally hurting themselves online and using it on camera."
Tony's gaze snapped back to the billboard.
IV pack. Syringe. Price. Logo.
Twenty dollars.
That was… wrong.
Not morally wrong. Logistically wrong.
Tony knew manufacturing. He knew supply chains. He knew pricing strategies. He knew how many bodies had to be stepped over for most companies to offer "cheap."
You didn't get a miracle for twenty bucks unless—
A) someone was lying, or
B) someone didn't care about profit, or
C) someone had a method that made profit irrelevant.
Tony's hand lifted unconsciously toward his chest.
He felt the faint hum of the miniaturized arc reactor under his shirt, the steady vibration that kept him alive.
A miracle in his chest.
Built in desperation.
Held together by necessity and genius.
He swallowed, throat suddenly dry.
"Rhodey," Tony said quietly, "buy one for me."
Rhodey didn't even turn his head.
"Buy one yourself."
Tony stared at him. "I just got back from being kidnapped."
Rhodey glanced at him. "And you're already giving orders."
Tony's jaw clenched.
Then he laughed—short, sharp, humorless.
Fair.
He leaned back in the seat, eyes drifting to the billboard again as it disappeared behind them.
STARVEIL.
The name had that curated, sleek vibe—like it was designed to sound mysterious without actually meaning anything. The kind of branding people used when they wanted you to feel like you were joining something bigger than yourself.
Tony hated it.
Which meant he couldn't ignore it.
"Who runs it?" Tony asked.
Rhodey shrugged. "Some guy. Young. Built a company out of nowhere. Nobody's got a clean answer. SHIELD's sniffing around, I heard."
Tony's eyes sharpened.
"SHIELD," he repeated softly.
Rhodey nodded. "Yeah. And apparently they're trying to figure out how Starveil keeps canceling shutdown attempts. Like… instantly."
Tony's thoughts moved faster now, gears grinding.
Canceling legal actions instantly?
That meant influence. Money. Or a system so advanced it could rewrite digital infrastructure like it was nothing.
Tony stared out the window, watching New York glide by like it had no idea what kind of monsters lived under its skin.
A military monster.
Killed by a rainbow guy.
A miracle product.
Twenty bucks.
A brand name: Starveil.
A new player on the board.
Tony's brain, still bruised from captivity, latched onto it like a lifeline. Something to focus on that wasn't flashbacks or the weight of a cave ceiling.
Something to solve.
His hand pressed lightly against his chest again.
The arc reactor's hum steadied him.
He exhaled.
There was a new guy in town.
A new kind of impossible.
And Tony Stark hated being second to impossible.
"Evan…" Tony muttered, the name already forming in his mind like a hook.
He paused, brows knitting.
"…Evan—"
His mouth tightened, annoyed.
"Damn it," he said quietly.
Rhodey glanced at him. "What?"
Tony stared ahead, eyes fixed on nothing and everything.
"I've got the first name," Tony said. "Not the last."
Rhodey snorted. "That's a you problem."
Tony didn't respond.
Because he wasn't listening anymore.
He was thinking.
About Starveil.
About rainbow light.
About a twenty-dollar miracle that could change everything.
And about the fact that, for the first time in a long time…
Tony Stark had returned to his world and immediately found someone else bending it.