Night at Stark Solutions. It is midnight and the staff have already gone to their respective homes and turned in for the night. Tony Stark has gone to his mansion elsewhere in the city, along with Iron man, Jim Rhodes, Pepper Potts, and Happy Hogan. All this is meaningless to Spymaster, the master saboteur and arch-nemesis of Iron man; the only thing that matters to him is that Stark's factory is unguarded for his master plan to destroy the city of New York and its iron clad protector.

Spymaster parks his blue van in a parking space in the lot that when Stark Solutions is open, the staff would park their vehicles. It is disguised as a delivery van and that should suffice to the guards.

"Hey, what are you doing here?" one of the security guards says, as he draws his service revolver.

Spymaster does not speak, but he does move with the quickest speed. He does not need to speak because that would only alert the guards of his goings-on before it is too late.

He hurls a gas grenade at the guard and soon all the guards fall asleep due to the knock out gas contained within.

Ah, Stark Solutions, he thinks, surveying the product of Stark's years of success of being an inventor, now your inventions shall be mine.

Not wasting a single moment, Spymaster races into Stark Solutions proper. He knows exactly where Stark puts his greatest weapons, in the basement.

Entering the basement, he sees a locked safe where he knows that Stark would keep his inventions. He doesn't know the combination but a simple dissolvo pellet should dispense of the lock in seconds. Watching the lock melt away with ease, he opened the safe and saw his most prized possession and Stark's as well.

The Lazer Gun.

He took it and held in his hands for brief moments, until pocketing it. This shall grant him new worldly powers. There are any number of international world powers that would give their eye teeth to possess this weapon. To destroy Iron Man.

In a matter of moments, Spymaster retraced his steps out of Stark Solutions and drove his van out of there.

Stark stood at his safe, within Stark Solutions the next morning. His whole cadre of staff memmbers were there with him; Jim Rhodes, Happy Hogan, and Pepper Potts.

"Who could have done this, boss?" Happy asked Stark. "And right under our noses, no less?"

"My guess is Spymaster. He is a master saboteur and only he could have attempted to do this. I heard that he caused some trouble for the New Warriors recently."

"Damn that snake, boss," Happy responded with spite in his voice. "What are you gonna do about it?"

"Why, stop him, of course." Tony said. "Pepper, Hap, Jim... you can handle things at Stark Solutions until I get back."

Stark slipped into his office, closed the door behind him, and took out a special attache case. He opened it and saw his Iron Man armour folded into his component parts. He stretched them out and donned the armour of Iron Man. Now, he was ready for action and to find the elusive Spymaster.

Leaving thoughts of Stark Solutions and his staff behind, Iron Man soared into the morning sky. He made a left arc and flew over the cityscape.

For the past few hours, Iron Man searched the city for Spymaster but couldn't find him. That is not to say that he wasn't busy fighting crime.

He returned to Stark solutions hours later and he changed back into Tony Stark in his office and joined his staff members.

In the lobby, Anastasia Swift was waiting for him.

"What's this?" Tony asked surprised at her unannounced visit. "I didn't expect you to drop by here."

"Neither did I. I decided to forgive you for giving me the shaft the other day*."

* (See M2K's Iron Man #19 for details-Gregg.)

"Oh, you mean that. I'm sorry for deserting you but I had business to take care of here at S.S."

"I'm sorry for not speaking to you for days, Tony. My bad. Are you in the mood for a moonlight stroll?"

Tony tugged on his tie, loosening it a bit. "I'm sorrry, Ana. I can't. I've got company business to take care of."

"Thanks a lot, Tony. I come here to share myself with you and you give em nothing but grief. Goodbye forever, Tony Stark."

She slams the door in his face on the way out.

"Not having lucky with women today, eh, Tony?' Jim Rhodes says to his boss and best friend, amidst a little laughter.

"No, I guess I'm not, Rhodey."

"Any luck with finding Spymaster?"

"No, I didn't find him. Guess I'll have to look harder."

"Are you going searching now?" Rhodey asked, a serious expression across his face.

"Might as well. Don't have much choice in the matter if I want to get my laser gun back post haste." Gathering up his special attache case, Tony again made it to his office, closed and locked the door behind him, and changed into Iron Man. Even though certain people knew that he was really Iron man, he felt more at home changing in private. He closed the attache case, folded his suit and underwear on the desk top, and flew out the open window going towards downtown.

It felt good to be in the air again. It was a certain thrill to be flying under his own power, rather than in his private jet as a passenger. He imagined it being a thrill and certain fun that Spider-man must have felt web swinging across town fighting villains. Or Captain America bounding from rooftop to rooftop. Any super hero he imagined would have loved the mode of travel under his or her own power wrapped up in their own thoughts.

He hoped he would catch Spymaster and get him soon as possible. Usually, Spymaster was a master sabateur and bring whatever weapons he stole to his boss. Who was his current boss? Who would have it in for Iron Man and Tony Stark, in particular? Any number of people. Justin Hammer came to mind. Also, Obadiah Stane. Or some new menace.

The problem with this particular clash with spymaster was that there were no witnesses, except for the guards and they were unconscious due to the knockout gas. So, Iron Man had to go on pure guesswork.

Where would Spymaster take the laser gun and why? He probably did it for the money or because he wanted to really stick it to Iron Man and Tony Stark, combined. A random thought occurred to him. Could Spymaster be working for international terrorists? The Mad Thinker was, a short time ago, as per Captain America's informing him told him.*

* (See Cap #13-14-Gregg.)

Iron Man turned on his radio-interconnect communications unit within his helmet to listen to the police band. Maybe they had picked up something that he couldn't see.

"<BZZTTT> All units respond to the downtown district for a superhuman emergency. A terrorist calling himself Spymaster is destroying private property using a laser device that he claims was made at Stark Solutions. All units respond immediately."

"That's my man," Iron Man said, as he turned off the radio connection and flew towards downtown.

When he got there he saw a horrifying sight. He saw Spymaster in the middle of rush hour traffic, pointing the laser gun at certain things; cars, buses, apartment buildings, shops, etc. The laser gun had certain explosive properties, so that whatever it hit exploded.

This was definitely not Spymaster's modus operandi. Sure he did these type of things in the past, but not now. Was a new man under the Spymaster's mask and guise? In this day and age, anything was possible.

Iron Man didn't want to alert Spymaster overmuch so as to alarm him of his whereabouts. He was afraid that he could point the laser gun at him and then his armor would explode with him in it. Dead Iron Men are not good. Not good at all.

The only thing he had to do was aim a pencil-thin laser from his own glove gauntlet to knock the gun from his innocent hands. Yeh. As if. Staying hidden, Iron Man held his aim hand with the other hand and pointed his index finger at Spymaster's trigger hand. He can't be a millimeter off, not more than a hairsbreadth.

ZZIITT! The laser missed. He missed. Iron Man never misses. But that wasn't the bad part. The bad part was that Spymaster heard and felt the laser and pointed his gun at Iron Man's floating form, pointed the laser gun at him and fired it.

This time it was Spymaster's turn to miss. This was developing into a pattern. But he did hit the fire escape above Iron Man and the rubble fell on top of him.

Iron Man slowly fell to the waiting ground below, weak as a kitten. The soot and dirt had gotten into his armor so that it wouldn't perform properly.

Spymaster approached the fallen Iron Man and pointed the gun again at his head. "I wonder what would happen if an explosive laser device hit iron?"