After speaking with Lex Luthor on the phone the other day, and after talking with the billionaire about options to turn over Stark Enterprises to him, Tony felt that a personal visit was in order.

He needed to get out of California, to tell the truth. The revelation that Mrs. Bambi Arbogast, one of his most trusted assistants, was a Manhunter, along with her attempt to kill him, had filled him with so much doubt about whom he could trust and whom he couldn't, that he just had to get away. When he had his mind together about who was his friend and who wasn't, and who was behind the company's problems, and what to do to save the company, he would go back to Stark Enterprises' California headquarters.

Very soon, Tony was going to have to have a meeting with some representatives of S.H.I.E.L.D. about his supposed payments to terrorist organizations. S.H.I.E.L.D. had offered him a deal: if he agreed to design some new weapons for them, they would hide his payments to ULTIMATUM and to other organizations, tell him who received them, and they would keep the news media from spreading stories about Stark Enterprises' troubles.

Stark didn't like the idea of selling out to S.H.I.E.L.D., but he was in the middle of a public relations disaster. The Stark Enterprises Board of Directors was starting to ask a lot of questions, so he knew that he had to get things in order quickly. Perhaps S.H.I.E.L.D. would not make too many demands, but perhaps they would.

Either way, Tony wanted to see what Luthor was up to with his hinting at offering to buy Stark Enterprises. Stark had never thought of Luthor as an extremely legitimate businessman, but nobody had been able to directly tie him to anything illegal . . . yet.

Someone was behind Stark's recent troubles . . . maybe it was Luthor.

He went through the revolving door to the Lexcorp building.

Luthor opened a bottle of expensive champagne.

"To the success of my plan," Luthor said, raising his glass.

"To my part in that success," Pamela added in a coy tone, putting her small purse down on one of Luthor's coffee tables. She raised her champagne glass and clinked it against Luthor's.

Tony Stark came to the receptionist's desk at Luthor's offices. After he spoke to the receptionist, he sat down and began looking at his appointments on his PDA.

He had received an instant message from Oracle.

Oracle had discovered plenty of dirt here and there on the Internet about Luthor.

Stark was almost positive now that Luthor had something to do with his company's recent troubles. All that he had to get now was some form of proof.

He looked at his watch as he waited to meet with Luthor.

"Now, about the matter of my final payment."

Luthor's eyes darkened a little bit. He had hoped the champagne would have put Pamela into the right mood, but she was apparently going to be all business.

He cleared his throat and walked over to his desk. "Yes. Your payment. Let me just write up a check here . . . "

"Mr. Luthor?" a voice called through the intercom.

Luthor picked up the telephone as if he were strangling his secretary's throat.

"Tess!" Luthor yelled. "I thought I told you that I was not to be disturbed!"

"Yes, you did, sir . . . " Tess responded quietly. "But someone important is here to see you!"

"Who is more important than me?"

"Tony Stark is here to see you, sir."

Luthor and Pamela looked at each other. For the first time in many years, the icy Poison Ivy and the cold and calculating Lex Luthor had been taken by surprise.

"Should I send him in, Mr. Luthor?" Tess reminded over the intercom.

The pair soon figured out what they would do.

"Jump in that walk-in closet," Luthor whispered. "I'll get him out of here quickly."

Tony took it gingerly and greeted him, setting his briefcase on the floor.

Luthor smiled broadly. "Well, Mr. Stark! What a pleasant surprise!"

"I wasn't . . . interrupting anything, was I?" Stark asked with a slightly sly tone.

"No, not at all. To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?"

"What we were talking about a couple of days ago. You said that you wanted to discuss the future of Stark Enterprises with me . . . that you wanted me to think hard about the future . . . "

"Yes, I remember saying that."

"Why would you be so interested in my company's future?"

Luthor offered Tony a drink, but Stark remembered to refuse. He wanted a clear head while he was confronting Luthor.

"Let's talk man to man, Tony. You and I have been competitors for years. My competition with your father extended for a few years before that. He had your same upstart, determined spirit, too."

Tony bristled at Luthor mentioning the example of his father, Anthony Stark.

"I've been watching how your company has been performing lately. You weathered that CleanJet crash crisis pretty well."

Luthor looked Stark dead in the eye. "But we both know that things are just getting worse and worse for your company. It might be good to take a break for a while, don't you think?"

Tony sat down. "What are you getting at, Luthor?"

Luthor sat down, too. "What do you think, Mr. Stark. I'm a very rich man, you know."

Tony was about to respond when he noticed something over on the coffee table. It was dark green velvet, almost as dark as . . . ivy.

It was Pamela's purse! He had seen it over and over again, and even commented on its beauty while she was working for him. She must have been working for Luthor! Was she here now?

Tony tried to keep his cool, to savor this moment of truth, and to get Luthor right where he wanted him.

"Look, Luthor. I have proof that you were behind what's been happening to my company. I can go to the SEC and get them to start an investigation of your business practices. I have some friends there that will make sure the investigation gets started soon . . .

"I know who owns this purse, Luthor. She worked at my company for a little while and did both me and my company a lot of damage. I think she was working for you."

Luthor was silent, and was trying not to betray any emotion, but he was also beginning to reach into his desk.

"If anything happens to me, Mr. Luthor, my new secretary and many other people in my office know exactly where I am."

The door behind Tony Stark opened.

Luthor smiled. "Oh, I rather think we'll be able to convince them that you went on a long trip after visiting me, and came down with a serious plant-related allergy . . . "

Poison Ivy leapt out, in full costume. She slashed at Tony with poisoned nails. She caught him a glancing blow on the cheek.

Tony brushed the blood from his cheek.

"Pamela!"

"Tony!" Poison Ivy instinctively responded to the man she secretly loved.

"Why are you doing this to me?" Tony asked.

"Don't ask why, Tony," Poison Ivy said. "Just lay there and die!"

Tony was not very far away from the suitcase in which he kept his Iron Man outfit. If he could just get to it, he could come up with a way to finish this to his advantage.

Luthor pulled a pistol with a silencer out from his desk.

"It's very seldom I get involved so . . . personally, Mr. Stark. In your case, with the way that your company has always outperformed mine, I think my involvement is worth it, don't you? To tell the truth, I've always wanted to see you groveling before me."

Luthor pulled a piece of paper from a folder on his desk.

"This, Mr. Stark, is a legal document signing over ownership to Stark Enterprises to me. Now, if you would like Poison Ivy to give you the antidote to the poison she just gave you so that you don't die within the hour, I think you had better sign this contract."

"You can't . . . do this . . . " Tony said. He had to act fast or the poison would overcome him and Luthor and Poison Ivy would win. In a burst of speed, he launched himself from the floor, grabbed his briefcase, and leapt out the open window.

"What the . . . ?" Poison Ivy said.

Poison Ivy and Luthor raced to the window to see when Tony would hit the ground.

"I suppose I could forge his signature . . . " Luthor muttered.

"I don't see a body," Poison Ivy said, scanning the street below with her eyes.

Tony had taken a desperate risk, and it had paid off. He had managed to engage the boot jets in his armor in his suitcase, to fly himself to a lower landing. He would just have to get a new suitcase, but it was worth what was left of his life. Now he willed the armor to assemble itself around him.

So he was going to die within the hour from Poison Ivy's attack. He had better make his last hour alive worth something. Iron Man ignited the boot jets and took off into the sky. The Lexcorp employees gawked at his form as he soared past their offices.

In an instant he was back at Luthor's window. He hovered there for a moment in front of the window, just long enough for Luthor to notice him. Iron Man hovered there, looking at them, enjoying the fact that he had Poison Ivy and Luthor on the hot seat for a change.

As Luthor and Poison Ivy scrambled to figure out what to do, Iron Man ignited a tiny laser from his glove. He slowly cut the glass of the window, all the way around. He was savoring every moment of apprehension that he caused.

Finally Iron Man pushed the window lightly, and it fell in with a crash. He soared into the office and landed in front of Luthor and Poison Ivy.

"You l-listen here, Iron Man. I'll have you know these offices are my personal property!"

"Your property upon which you tried to kill my boss!" Iron Man said. "He's in good hands now, if he ends up surviving this. Now you're in my hands, and you're going to see just how loyal to Stark I am."

Poison Ivy pulled a specially-designed pistol from her pocket.

"Once these seeds get in your armor, Iron Man . . . "

"They won't have the chance to get in." He blasted the pistol from her hand with a repulsor ray.

Poison Ivy clutched her hand. She had received a little burn from Iron Man's attack. Underneath his armor, Stark actually started to feel sorry for her. He knew that his love for Pamela would not go away quickly.

Iron Man knew he had to get rid of Poison Ivy before she or Luthor came up with an attack that would actually hurt him.

He put his repulsors on stun-level power and strafed the room. Iron Man felt great about visiting random destruction upon Lex Luthor's valuables. As priceless vases and wooden cabinets exploded into pieces, one of the bolts caught Poison Ivy in the chest, and she went down.

"You destroyed my Ming vase, you iron-plated monster . . . " Luthor muttered as he reached into a hidden cabinet.

He was pulling out a rather nasty-looking laser gun when Iron Man swooped across the room and picked him up. He zoomed out of the open window and held Luthor high up in the air over Manhattan.

"You used a lot of information about me to attempt to take Stark down, Luthor. Stark has a lot of information about you. If he dies, he's going to hand that information over to his loyal employees. If they see anything funny happening with any more of his employees, or if he sees you trying to take over Stark Enterprises at all, they're going to tell the press everything about you, as well as about how you tried to kill Tony Stark. And Lexcorp won't be around for much longer . . . "

Iron Man felt his power over the billionaire as he held him high up in the sky. He could drop Luthor to a most certain death; it would be murder, but it would be his last act anyway. But he couldn't do it. They hovered there in the air.

Luthor spoke, calm as always even though he was facing being a permanent stain on the concrete below. "So I take it you are threatening me, Iron Man?"

"You've done a lot worse than that to Tony Stark, Mr. Luthor. And now, you're going to do some things for Tony Stark."

Iron Man flew Luthor back into his office, and then grabbed the prone form of Poison Ivy in his arms.

"Don't forget about those homeless shelters you have to fund in San Francisco and New York. Stark will be waiting for your checks to arrive at his offices. Don't mess with Stark again, Luthor." Iron Man flew out the window, through the skies of New York, toward one of the local precincts of the New York Police Department. He had to drop off Poison Ivy.

The police were apprehensive about contact with a vigilante superhero, but they were thankful to see Poison Ivy returned to justice. The arresting officer said that he would come up with something in his arrest report that did not mention the assistance of a superpowered vigilante. As Iron Man left Poison Ivy off with the policemen, she came to. Her green eyes open, fluttered, and looked deep into the hard metal visage of Iron Man.

"Tell Tony . . . that there was no poison . . . just my nails. He's not in danger of dying . . . tell him that I'll always remember him . . . "

Iron Man stood and watched the policemen take Poison Ivy away. So Poison Ivy had shown mercy upon Tony Stark. She was a hard one to figure out.

It would be a long time before he would ever meet a woman like Poison Ivy again. Maybe despite all of the subterfuge and sabotage that Pamela was involved in, there had been something real between them. But he had to drop it for now and think of his upcoming meeting with S.H.I.E.L.D. Iron Man ignited his boot jets and flew off into the night.

Luthor sat there in his office, his hands crossed and his brow furrowed. He would have to get that hole in the window fixed. He had already written the checks to the two homeless shelters, and was getting them ready for Tess to send out. The money was just a drop in the bucket, anyway.

But his defeat by Iron Man and Tony Stark burned in his heart.

Luthor resolved to get revenge, someday.

I'll win in the end, Stark, Luthor thought. I always end up winning in the end.