M: EM+1 Chapter 1

The Humvee shook over the dirt road, suspension groaning with every dip. Dust hit the windows in bursts. Inside, the air was stale and warm; the vents pushed more noise than cold.

Tony Stark sat with one leg crossed over the other, sunglasses on, drink in hand ice clinking lazily. Across from him, three soldiers tried to act like they weren't sitting next to a famous billionaire.

"Is it cool if I take a picture with you, Mr. Stark?" one private asked, already raising his phone.

Tony grinned. "Yes, it's very cool."He leaned in toward the lens. "Peace..no, no gang signs."The soldier hesitated, half-embarrassed. Tony smirked. "I'm kidding. Throw it up."

The Humvee filled with laughter. Nervous, easy smile.

Outside, the convoy stretched across the dunes, three Humvees in formation, engines humming. Stark took a sip, leaned back and relaxed.

Then came the thunk.

There was a sharp metallic crack against the door. Everyone stopped breathing for half a second.

The sergeant frowned. "Hold up, did you hear that?"

The world flashed.

The lead Humvee erupted in a column of fire. Shockwave first, sound second. The blast rattled Tony's drink across his shirt. The vehicle behind veered off, tires biting sand. The one they were in swerved hard.

"Contact left!" the sergeant shouted, already out the door, rifle raised.

The private next to Tony pushed him down onto the floorboard. "Stay down, sir!"

Tony's heart pounded. He could barely hear through the ringing in his ears. Another explosion went off, closer this time. The second Humvee disintegrated into heat and noise.

Bullets peppered the side of the vehicle. The air filled with dust and burnt rubber. The driver slumped forward over the wheel.

Tony crawled out through the open door, choking on sand. The wind howled. The mountain ridges ahead spat muzzle flashes.

He stumbled toward a rock, tripped, hit the ground. A body fell beside him, the same private, unmoving. Tony looked down, then up. Shapes moved in the haze. Voices yelled in Dari. He didn't need a translator to understand: he was surrounded.

Something metallic struck the dirt near him, skipping twice before stopping upright with a faint clink.

A missile, short-range, painted with letters that caught the sunlight.

STARK INDUSTRIES.

For half a second, his brain refused to believe it. His name. His company. His weapon.

Who signed off on that font?

Then the world went white.

The explosion threw him backward, into silence. The desert folded inward. His ears rang high and flat, like a dying machine. His chest burned. He gasped nothing but dust. Shrapnel bloomed through his vest and into his ribs.

He blinked, vision tunneling. His own blood hit the sand.

Figures closed in, armed men, faces wrapped in scarves. He tried to crawl. One grabbed him, shoved a black bag over his head. Rope tightened. His pulse rose.

The last thing he saw through the tear in the bag was the smoke column rising from a Stark Industries missile.

Then nothing.

Earlier that Day- Queens

Dim morning. Small apartment. One window, nothing special.

Saitama sat at a table he hadn't bothered to wipe. He flipped through classifieds. Page rustle, rent slip under his elbow, phone face-down to avoid a number he knew. Circle. "Mega Sale - One Day Only." Groceries. Buy one, get one, asterisks everywhere. Good enough.

His landlord's name popped up on the phone. He looked at it. It stopped. He picked it up anyway, a second too late. Missed call. He stared at the screen. What do I say? "Hey, I stopped having money"? That never helps.

He looked at his fridge. Inside: one egg, a half onion in a bag, and a bottle of something with a label he didn't remember buying. He closed the fridge.

The ad said the sale was near "International Market." No address. Of course. He pulled on the same hoodie he always pulled on. Wallet, keys, coupon he tore off the page. The tear wasn't clean. He folded it anyway.

Bus first, then a train. The bus never showed. He walked to the station. A guy on the stairs tried to hand him a flyer for a new gym. He didn't take it. The gym probably had fees that hid in small print.

JFK looked like an airport. That is: loud, bored, expensive. He checked the board for no reason. A cheap travel stand had a poster: "AFGHANISTAN FLIGHT SPECIAL – MEGA SAIL!"The typo made it look like a clearance on boats. Under it, in marker, someone had scrawled a date that matched today. He glanced at the price. It was less than his rent and more than his bank balance should allow for an impulse. He did the math poorly and decided it was fine.

Why Afghanistan? The poster had a corner picture of a street market with sacks of rice and a sign in English: MEGA SALE. The same phrase as his coupon. That was dumb. It looked like the guy who made the poster dragged an image off the internet and didn't check it.

He stood there. A voice in his head asked the obvious: Why are you going? Because the store might actually have a sale and the one here is a lie? That's not a reason. He shrugged. It was a reason.

He went to the counter. "One to Kabul." The agent didn't blink. She'd seen worse ideas.

"Checked baggage?" she asked.

He held up a reusable grocery tote. "This."

She looked at it like maybe she'd misheard. "Just that?"

"It's a bag."

"Any liquids?"

He thought about it. "No."

"Passport?"

He pulled it from a pocket he always forgot he had. Expired? He looked at the date. Still good. "Yeah."

She typed. "There's a promotional fare if you board in the next hour."

He nodded again. "Sure."Who books Afghanistan as a spontaneous trip? Apparently him. He tapped his card. It approved. So the bank still believed in him, for now.

Security didn't care about the tote after x-ray. Someone behind him complained about shoes. He didn't say anything. Shoes were reasonable.

At the gate, the TV played news about someone important opening a factory somewhere else. People clapped on the screen like they'd been told to. He sat by the window with his tote between his feet. A kid sized him up and lost interest. A businessman eyed his hoodie like it was contagious. Saitama stared at the plane. Metal, doors, wings. It would fly with or without him.

He boarded when the number on his ticket told him to. Middle seat. The guy at the window slept before takeoff. The aisle seat guy watched the same trailer three times.Saitama put his tote under the seat and held the coupon. It was wrinkled now. Whatever. He didn't read the safety card. He knew the drill. Buckle. Mask if needed. Exit if told. He shut his eyes because there was nothing else to do.

Back to the Desert

The hum came first. A low, rhythmic sound, somewhere between a machine's heartbeat and a whisper under stone.

Tony woke to it.

The light in the cave was dim, filtered through smoke and dust. His chest burned, every breath dragging like sandpaper down his ribs. When his vision cleared, he saw stone walls, rough and uneven, and a generator pulsing softly in the corner. The air smelled of metal, oil, and sweat.

And there was someone else.

A man stood across the small space, calmly shaving in front of a cracked mirror. His hand was steady, his movements deliberate, as if this place, this cave wasn't a prison at all, just another room.

Tony tried to sit up. Pain flared through his chest, bright and immediate. The man didn't turn, but said evenly, "I wouldn't do that if I were you."

The voice was accented, quiet, not unkind. Tony froze. His mind raced, but everything felt sluggish, scattered.

He looked down. His chest was wrapped tight in gauze, stained dark near the center. It felt heavy. Wrong. His fingers found the edge of the bandage and pulled.

The cloth peeled back, slow and sticky. Underneath, something gleamed.

A circular metal ring sat embedded in his skin, wires snaking from it to a car battery beside the cot. A faint blue light pulsed from its core, each flash in sync with the pounding of his heart.

He stared, stunned into silence, until the man across the room spoke again, still without looking away from the mirror.

Later, the smell of food drifted through the cave something faintly charred but warm. The same man, now stirring a dented pot, glanced toward him. Tony sat on a metal crate, still pale, shirt unbuttoned halfway, eyes locked on the glowing light in his chest.

"What the hell did you do to me?" he finally asked, voice hoarse and disbelieving.

The man Yinsen set the spoon down and turned. "What I did," he said calmly, "is to save your life."

Tony blinked. The words didn't make sense yet.

Yinsen came closer, explaining with the tone of a man describing the weather. "I removed all the shrapnel I could. But there's a lot left, and it's headed into your atrial septum."

He reached for a small glass jar sitting on the worktable. Inside, a dozen tiny metal shards floated in murky fluid. "Here," he said, holding it up to the light, "want to see? I have a souvenir. Take a look."

Tony did. The fragments caught the flicker of the generator light twisted, jagged, sharp enough to make his stomach turn.

"I've seen many wounds like that in my village," Yinsen continued, eyes distant. "We call them the walking dead. Because it takes about a week for the barbs to reach the vital organs."

Tony tore his gaze from the jar and looked back at his chest. "What is this?" he asked quietly.

"That," Yinsen said, pointing to the faintly glowing ring, "is an electromagnet. Hooked up to a car battery. It's keeping the shrapnel from entering your heart."

Tony looked down again, the weight of the device sinking in his heart literally wired to a battery.

"That's right," Yinsen added with a faint smile. "Smile."

Kabul, Hours Later

Market noise. Sun lower. Dust everywhere, like it paid rent.

Saitama stood under a crooked sign that read MEGA SAIL. The second L in "SALE" had been painted over but you could still see it. The shopkeeper waved at him with a bored hand. The sacks of rice looked heavy and the numbers on the paper tags didn't feel like a deal.

He took out his coupon. Different store. Different country. Didn't matter. He knew it wouldn't work. He held it up anyway. The shopkeeper squinted, then shrugged the universal shrug for not my problem.

Saitama nodded. Fair. He tucked the coupon into his hoodie pocket so it wouldn't blow away. Wind hit the sign. It creaked. He stared at it, blank as always, thinking one simple thing:

So… who's actually having a sale here?