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Tony Stark Tony Stark had a mission. A goal. A dream.

That dream was being... Challenged. In under a week, Iron Man had entered into combat with advanced tactical drones with unerring accuracy fielding weapons with more stopping power than anything HYDRA had ever produced. They had come close, and they were escalating with actors like Klaue and the Vulture running high-tech weapons of their own, but still.

Years as an Avenger, and the Mark VII had held up.

A week as a Paladin, and the Mark VII required a total rebuild, the XVII required major maintenance, and the IX had major surfaces in the forge for repairs.

It wasn't a coincidence. It wasn't luck. It was a trend.

And at Stark Industries, they never stopped innovating.

Tony had called up the 'strongest person he could find', and one he had spoken to previously, the God-King of Uruk, Gilgamesh. A literal legend, a god, and a man with every trick in the historical books at his beck and call, Tony Stark could think of no-one more capable of putting his latest armor through its paces. But first came establishing a baseline.

And Tony Stark was never one to set a low bar.

The Shrine of Adversity had been 'bought out' for the evening, and a few idle-looking Iron Man armors of various designs carted in a large Stark-Tech...

Cooler. For drinks. It opens with glasses and fine brandies and other libations to which Tony begins to pour for himeslf as he lets his Guest of Honor get settled.

"King Gilgamesh, I'm genuinely sorry for the short notice, but I've had a week, and your credentials as the 'most powerful' Multiversal just keep being validated. So I had to take a swing. But, more seriously, if we're going to be working together, I don't want to find that I'm not tall enough for the ride."

He raises a tumbler glass with a finger and a half of amber liquid and a snowball icecube in it and waits for the king to respond. "That, and Thor is off bringing 'order to the nine realms' or something and isn't around for tech demos."
Gilgamesh      The King of Heroes is rarely one to walk away from flattery, and Tony Stark is /excellent/ at flattery, especially where massive egos are concerned. This is probably because Tony Stark knows exactly what *he'd* want to hear in the same position.

     He enters the Shrine of Adversity dressed in his black coat, his white turtleneck, his beige khakis. On him they seem as fine as Tony's finest suits, as if the mere presence of the King made the things around him *better*. It's a casual outfit but there's still the sense that he wildly, ridiculously overdressed.

     He stands there, holding a goblet in his hand. The mere smell of it is beyond top-shelf alcohol. Tony can tell in an instant that it's the kind of thing men would quite literally kill each other for a sip of, the kind of thing *Thor* might maybe bring around *possibly* and even *that* is kind of dubious. The goblet is worth an enormous amount of money on its own. If nothing else, the King doesn't live small.

     Gilgamesh waves his hand, a wry smile on his face. The look on his face says /well of course you sought to test yourself against an iron wall/. "Of course. I had nothing better to do today." His attempt at seduction had sort of failed (sort of), so of course he was free. He's got a few of his silken bandages wrapped around various light wounds, and a golden ring around his finger. "It is ever the pleasure of the King to demonstrate power to those who wish to see it, and rarely have I shied away from a challenge."

     As Tony raises his drink, Gilgamesh does the same. "When you are satisfied you will drink of this. I insist that those who drink with me drink only the finest." He takes a sip.

     "Whenever you wish to begin, feel free." The King taps his forehead. He's still holding the goblet. "I advise you aim here. Many people in your position have wished to smash my face in quite openly, often times to my face. You would not wish to pass up such a valuable opportunity, would you?"
Tony Stark Tony Stark is dressed in a fitted collared shirt and a single-breasted two-button blue vest, with a pair of tailored black tactical-dress pants that are deceptively open around the leg and groin.

When you're Tony Stark, even your casually formalwear is ready to get jammed into a super-suit and worn while fighting Bad Guys. Having pants that actually work is a must.

"You take a couple bruises, King Gilgamesh?" He wonders conversationally, drinking when indicated in a quick, efficient motion and placing the glass, gently, back in the Stark Industries TACTICAL COOLER.

They were going to sell them with Jericho missiles before Tony put the kibosh on the weapons department, so they had plenty of extras.

"I appreciate the concern! I'm a man of taste, but my old man had the mouth for whiskey. I have to think the flavors too hard to appreciate them fully." He admits easily. "But unlike my palatte, I'm fairly proud of my armors. Each one iterated on the last, diverging in their paths and roles eventually. To establish a baseline, I'll start out in the Mark Eight. Friday, introduce yourself!"

One of the red-and-gold armors steps forward, of a slightly more streamlined look, and the whole rig opens up. A blue light on the inside shows the delicate moving parts and articulation allowing this to be possible, and a female voice comes out from inside.

"It's my honor, King Gilgamesh. I'm Friday, Mister Stark's personal assistant and operate the Iron Legion while Mister Stark is not directly operating them. I also serve as a natural-language interface for most of Mister Stark's needs."

Tony explains. "She's an AI - an artifical intelligence - I designed to manage things and help keep my attention focused."

With two steps and slightly-outstretched arms, Stark moves back into the Mark VIII and it collapses around him, encasing him from top to bottom in his armor, the faceplate falling down (and eyes alighting) last.

With an almost jovial bend to his now-just-a-skosh tinny voice, Stark addresses Gilgamesh's final remark. "What, hit a guy like you in the face? Then I'd have to validate all the people that want to bowl the Iron Man over because they think they're big time and I'm just a nerd in a can. That it's 'fair' to take away my suits and argue about who'd win in a fight. It's preposterous."

His bootjets and back verniers flare as he shunts fully into action, a rocket-boosted thrust-punch right to the center of the King of Heroes' center of mass starting the fight off.

Which immediately has the whiiiiIIIIIne of the striking hand's repulsor, as he completes the strike via a full-power force blast.

In a real fight, of course, this would be the speed someone would start at, not a jovial mock fight. But Stark shows, right off the gate, that he's not only taking the Fight seriously - he's taking Gilgamesh seriously.
Gilgamesh      "I did," Gilgamesh acknowledges in a distant, high-minded tone, "I suppose you could call it part of a seduction attempt. Whether it was successful or a failure depends heavily on your point of view."

     "I have yet to have any whiskey. I've had it offered a few times. I am technically too young to drink, I'm told." Gilgamesh says this in much the way that most people would say 'this is completely ridiculous and I ignore it because it's /stupid/'. "I invite anyone who thinks they can stop me to try. It would be most amusing."

     The Mark Eight arrives. Tony has a showman's touch; Gilgamesh can appreciate that. As Friday talks, Gilgamesh's eyebrow rises slightly. He lowers his head in a nod at her; he doesn't understand 'natural-language interface' any more than Steve Rogers, but he understands 'Legion,' 'remote operation,' and a number of other terms. When Tony explains 'artificial intelligence,' Gilgamesh opens his mouth in an 'ah.'

     "An artifical servant without a body. Very clever." Sip. "My compliments. I haven't said that about modernity very often."

     He watches Tony with interest in his red eyes. The armor collapses around him, forming up; it changes Tony's voice, which gives Gilgamesh quite a surprise, bringing his brows up into his hair. That's fascinating. The whole thing is sort of fascinating, really. It's a thing that basically exemplifies what he was talking about - a human being reaching for an achievement that they require because they're unsatisfied with the world.

     Tony says something about validating people for punching him in the face. Gilgamesh laughs. "If you wish. Don't blame me, then."

     The jets actually draw Gilgamesh's eyes faster than anything else. Tony *flies*. Gilgamesh is fascinated by this. A human who made a thing to fly.

     Immediately, Tony gets some approval from Gilgamesh.

     The fact that he is clearly taking this entirely seriously brings Gilgamesh's approval up further. He recognizes the King's danger. So the King does him a favor.

     The fist comes in. The fist hits him right in the chest. The repulsor fires, smashing into Gilgamesh's abs. It sends him skidding backwards on the Shrine ground, and Tony can see a golden ring break into pieces and vanish into golden dust. The King cracks his neck slightly and takes another sip of his drink.

     "Fascinating."

     "You fly. You wield force. You have made an armor that can be operated by a disembodied servant, a ghost in your machine."

     "Very interesting."

     The King snaps his fingers.

     The Gate of Babylon yawns open. Countless weapons start raining down, each magical, each gleaming, each worth a small fortune. Hammers. Swords. Axes. Spears. Each of them is hilariously dangerous, each of them fires like a missile, and Gilgamesh isn't even bothering to check whether or not Tony is safe. Tony came at him and wants to see strength, so he's showing strength.

     As the weapons fire, the King's finger rolls around the goblet. "Tell me. What made you seek such a thing?"
Tony Stark "Too young to drink? Bull-shit. I can hear the smug, puritanical comment about that too. Clear as day." Tony chuckles, a bit of wry 'yeah I bet they do' in his voice.

But that's before the strike. And before the snap. Tony was feeling good. Generously optimistic.

Then the Gate of Babylon opens.

The smart-targeting system starts painting each magical weapon individually, crosshairs alighting on each rippling protrudence from the air, and even Friday sounds uncertain about this.

"Boss, each one of those has a similar material and energetic signature to Tho-"
Tony cuts her off. "Mark each signature for interdiction."
"The Mark Eight isn't armed to interdict all of-"
Tony snaps. "Then pick the biggest ones, and interdict those!"

Tony bears one of the most unquestionable arsenals of the Avengers, and even his greatest villians know to respect the firepower of the Iron Man.

But Gilgamesh isn't an Enhanced wannabe upstart from Earth who is trying to knock the king of tech off his throne. He already is King.

The hail of weapons is met by a fusillade of micromissiles and smartgun rounds from the Mark VIII's shoulders, the larger energy signatures recieving a personal blast from Tony's palm repulsors. It's just not enough. Friday is right. The suit just isn't armed to match Gilgamesh blow for blow at range. Each point of light is another Proto-Excalibur, proto-Mjolnir, proto-Whatever. There's just too much.

Smashed and battered and put on defense as he dodges, flares, brakes, and mostly Just Gets Freaking Hit, Stark is pushed back. His guns come up empty. His shoulder pods expend themselves. And he's not even converting that in to hits - it's pure defense.

This unsustainable (partial) interdiction is changed up as Stark moves with a blow from a legendary sword, turning to use palms AND boots to charge Gilgamesh down, this time burning offense for speed as he closes. Jets splutter and fail as he gets in for another heavy punch, and Stark intends to stay there - too close for the Gate to rain down on him.

That's the theory.
Gilgamesh      Gilgamesh watches Tony with a distant sort of amusement in his eyes. It's hard to tell if he's sharing a private joke at Tony's comment about puritanical bullshit or if he's enjoying watching Tony struggle.

     To be fair to Tony it's a damned impressive struggle. There are Servants who couldn't pull off what Tony just did, and Gilgamesh is well aware of that. Who couldn't pull off Tony pushing aside, avoiding, shooting, blasting away, even half as much of the weapons of the Gate of Babylon. It's an impressive feat. Even Yang hadn't been able to do that much earlier; she'd just /eaten/ the hits with the stubborn ferocity of a berserker and kept punching through. Struggling against it like a salmon upstream is...impressive. He even starts to make headway for a bit.

     Before he falls into pure defense.

     Tony takes a hit from a sword, moves with it, and charges. The heavy punch comes swinging in with all the force of the Iron Man armor behind it.

     Gilgamesh's hand comes up.

     He's been holding his drink in his bruised hand.

     The palm catches the fist dead-on. It's like punching Thor, or the Hulk. But unlike Thor, or the Hulk, Gilgamesh *mostly* obeys physics - when Tony crashes into him, he's driven back, skidding along the ground. Tony keeps up with him, staying in melee range the whole time, jets driving forward.

     Gilgamesh's hand closes around the fist. He plants his back foot in the ground. There's definitely *effort* being expended now, not just casually eating a punch; Tony can see his hand strain to keep Stark there, and there's probably another bruise on *that* hand, too.

     "Very, very interesting."

     "I like your toy. Perhaps I should see if I have one of my own. If not, perhaps I should commission one from you and the Presi-King. Something befitting the King of Heroes, something properly majestic." Gilgamesh speculates as his fist closes down on the Iron Man's hand, raw, overwhelming strength pressing against the metal and the jets. A moment later, there's ripples directly above and below them, and blades sticking out all over the place. "It might be fun to fly like that."

     The King raises his goblet to his lips. "You didn't answer me, man of iron. Why did you seek this kind of strength? The King wishes to know."

     Gilgamesh releases Tony's fist and steps sideways as the Gate of Babylon opens up, pouring up from below and down from above. It's so close it looks like it might even cut Gilgamesh's hair a few times, but each time the blades move with perfect accuracy. Gil doesn't even have to *move*.
Tony Stark Tony had heard the words, but there's a ringing in his ears. A tinnitus he can't swallow down. His rational brain knows that this is all 'wizard fake' and he can't die, but his eyes don't see that. They see death. Thor's hammer. Loki's sceptre. The Tesseract. Powers beyond him, that he couldn't engineer around. The power of Gods.

He had challenged Gilgamesh because of this power. Because he had to know. He had to feel it. It had to become real.

Tony Stark could fight something Real.

As they clash in melee, all but his right fist rocketing all the momentum the lightly spluttering repulsors and jets, Gilgamesh... talks to him.

"Because I was brought low. Because my weapons made me valuable to bad people, people who wanted to take my genius - my name - and turn around and burn villages down and cause harm. My legacy was pain and death. These terrorists captured me, filled my body with shrapnel, took me into a cave, and made me make them new weapons. The Jericho missile. I made my first suit, instead."

"And a good man died buying me time to get it online. I get back home, after all that? My father's old friend, the man who ran my company in my absense, turned on me. /He/ tried to use me too, to take my suits, and kill me. To keep the cycle of pain and death, the Stark name, and bury it in another river of blood."

The Mark VIII's arm begins to buckle, and Stark lets the boots end their burn, landing on the ground to push, to clash, to struggle 'physically' with the King of Uruk.

God-Man against Iron Man.

"And after all that. After everything. After I accepted that I wasn't just Tony Stark, that I was Iron Man..."

Tony Stark's hand begins to spasm out, the crushing, bone-cracking force getting an almost unsatisfying 'crnch-crk-pink' as the palm repulsor just shatters in Gilgamesh's grip before he releases the hand.

Iron Man staggers, trapped between the impulse to boost back and the need to press forward.

He's trapped, and the Gate catches him. He can't stand firm against the Gate - it's not bullets that are being shot at him, but legendary weapons. So he half-rolls-half-jets to the side as the Gate tracks him. His right hand, with the broken palm, aims wrist-down at the sources of the ripples and the absurdly overwrought cutting laser strikes crimson against backdrops. Even magic blood-seeking blades folded a thousand times probably shy away from it. But it can only be pointed one way.

"Power critical - Diverting power to central RT." Friday announces, and there's a big red crosshair directly on Gilgamesh's chest.

Tony could rip it off. It'd be easy. The Unibeam, even the Mark VIII's, was Iron Man's trump card.

"Give me full flight power." Tony countermands, firing a repulsor blast of opportunity at Gilgamesh from his left hand, shooting up into the air on his boots aaaand-

A massive golden axe, with serrated edge buries itself in his torso, smashing through the protective titanium-alloy sheet and cracking the chest Arc Reactor in two. The entire suit falls out of the sky, landing mostly-limp on one knee and a fist. Tony struggles to heave himself up.

"Main power offline, Boss! Auxiliary reserves at two percent."

Stark looks up at Gilgamesh. "Then I stopped a god with greasier hair and a shittier chin than you from bringing his alien army to my home. The world's too big to rest because I made a sword and plate. There's too much at stake. I've lost--..."

The back of the Mark VIII opens up, Stark half-falling out of it. His eyes are frantic, just a bit too wide. "Too much. I can't let it mean nothing. I have to be better."

He thrusts his arms forward, sort of 'fingergunning' at Gilgamesh. "So I improved on the design a little."

From out of sight, the two-dozen or so major parts of the Mark XLIII fly in at breakneck speeds, individually latching onto his body as he rotates back to a standing posture, his shoulders back, his chest prominent as the reactor spins up. It's noticibly brighter, for one. Each part
Tony Stark It's noticibly brighter, for one. Each part articulates around him almost faster than the (human) eye can track.

"The world needs Iron Man. Iron Man needs to be better. That's the bottom line."
Gilgamesh      Gilgamesh's eyes are filled with a degree of approval as Tony speaks, and as Tony struggles. That's three in two days. It's probably a new record. However, the King, still drinking, says nothing. He's a remarkably good listener, even through the noise of legendary weapons hammering against Tony's body, legendary swords and hammers and shields and God only knows what else. It's probably a King thing. He probably had to listen to a lot of people less interesting on a daily basis, without even the pleasure of the Gate of Babylon being used against them. He listens as Tony shoots weapons back into the Gate with surprising accuracy, an impressive feat on its own. The blast of opportunity gets him in the chest as he listens, and he slides backwards again, a little bit of a skid. Those repulsor blasts are...interesting. The fact that he took a big hit from Yang earlier helps, but even without that, he can tell that with a bit more power behind it that would be...far, far more dangerous.

     Gilgamesh runs his finger along the edge of the cup again.

     "You need Iron Man."

     Those red eyes watch as the Mark XLIII comes in and starts linking up. Gilgamesh is superhuman in a lot of ways but his senses aren't particularly superior or alien, so he's not tracking the movement. He is watching it assemble, over his drink. "You need Iron Man. It gives you purpose. It gives you a sense of strength. A sense of achievement." Gilgamesh raises his cup. "It is a blade you have forged and will reforge over and over until the end of your life, ever unsatisfied, ever uncertain. Your world doubtless has other champions but you, the man in the suit of armor, will not rest, because without it, you would have no purpose at all."

     "You take the world on your shoulders because you do not know what to do with yourself otherwise."

     Gilgamesh takes another sip. His voice doesn't sound mocking, or accusing, just...interested. Like he's picking apart some fascinating insect, or reading a good book really closely. "I enjoy seeing human need. I enjoy seeing humans struggle to achieve what they need, to grasp what they desire, to become what they seek."

     "I enjoy you, Iron Man. Would that more humans had that will, modernity would not be a place so desperately in need of correction."

     That's probably more than a little ominous. But Gilgamesh raises his goblet again, and any ominousness worth ruminating on is probably blown out of the water as the Gate of Babylon opens next to him. It's only one ripple this time.

     The weapon is some kind of machine gun.

     In fact it's /clearly/ a machine gun. It's ancient, magical, shimmering gold, but as Gilgamesh hoists it in one hand effortlessly and the barrel begins to spin up, Tony can see that that is *clearly* an ancient magical minigun.

     -and then it starts firing lasers. Ancient, magical, laser, minigun.

     "A tool from one of my vehicles," Gilgamesh says idly as he drinks, "I thought perhaps that I should answer your blasts with some of my own. And you are showing me your treasures. It would be rude of me not to give you time to appreciate one of mine."
Tony Stark "There was a world before that cave, where I didn't need Iron Man. Where I wasn't Iron Man. I was still Tony Stark. Genius billionaire playboy philanthropist. I was complete. And then the cave. Then the cave carved out a part of me, and the only piece that fit was Iron Man."

The Gate yawns open, and Tony brings up both hands in a ready position, this time just both palms up and readied. The bright irises of energy thrum as they spool up with contained power.

"And then there was a night that I was more Iron Man than I had ever been. Thirty-five armors simultaneously deployed. And I ran through them trying to do anything and everything. But in the end, I was just Tony Stark. In the end, I wasn't clever enough."

The machine gun reveals itself. Tony's voice remains flat. Directed, serious, and utterly devoid of peaks and valleys. Flat, like a machine.

"And in the end I lost something else. I had something else carved out of me. You can't plug up every hole with a sword, with work, with a mission. Sometimes you just lose."

Tony Stark's voice drops another half-step, a tinny layer over a barely vocalized breathy whisper. "Tony Stark may not have died that night, but don't give me that 'oh ho ho, you NEED Iron Man'. Don't pick a phrase and try to win with it."

Both palm repulsors open up in a scathing pair of high-powered beams, each concentrated offensive repulsor power to bear down on Gilgamesh and his own Ancient Babylonic Laser Minigun.

"I am Tony Stark. I am Iron Man. I told you already. Don't make me repeat myself."
Gilgamesh      Repulsors hammer against magical lasers. Tony shoots, and Gilgamesh shoots, and after a few minutes Gilgamesh gets bored of the laser gun and discards it into the Gate. In this intervening time he takes three repulsor blasts to the chest, which not only knocks him back but actually forces him to *drop his drink*. He grabs his chest. Wounds are actually building up now. He exhales, rising, and there's a tiny bit of blood rolling down his lip. Some internal bleeding, evidently. The repulsors *are* having an effect despite his casual, off-hand demeanor.

     "You can need something that you are," Gilgamesh says idly, "And you can desire to improve it. You are the bone of your sword, the backbone of a weapon that is yourself. You forge it over and over, without stopping, without pausing. You must be stronger. You must be better. You must not lose again."

     "But you are right," Gilgamesh says, "Sometimes you do. Sometimes you simply cannot win. Sometimes there isn't enough force in the world to stop what happens."

     "And yet you cannot stop, can you? You must keep going. You do need it, man of iron. That you are it does not mean you do not need it. There is nothing for me to win."

     "I approve of it. I enjoy it. I appreciate it."

     "So I will show you something interesting."

     Gilgamesh's eyes are glowing as he straightens and wipes his lip with a scarf of shimmering silver out of nowhere. It vanishes as golden light starts peeling off his body. "Look carefully, Iron Man. You have earned some measure of interest from the King of Heroes. You wish to see something real. To test yourself against power."

     "I will show you something real."

     The world around the King seems to suddenly become *less* real, as if the King was more real than all of it, was more *true*, more *fact*. From the ripple below him, a blade rises into the King's waiting hand.

     It's glorious. Even compared to the other swords scattered throughout the arena, it seems to glimmer and glisten with glorious light, matching the King's own glow. It's long, a longsword with a golden pommel like a crescent, with a golden handle and a single blue stripe, with etchings at the tip of the blade. Gilgamesh gives it one swing and it trails with visible, shaking power. The King starts walking forward.

     "I speak of ancient ruin."

     The King's voice echoes as he walks, as the world seems to dim around him. But the world isn't dimming; the sword is glowing brighter. It's not devouring light - it, and the King, are *outshining* it.

     "I speak of a promise forever unfulfilled."

     Another swing of the sword, and now the whole arena is bathed in a light that devours all other light, a brilliant, blazing shine, like standing next to the sun.

     "I speak of that which only the sun remembers."

     Gilgamesh levels the sword at Tony. His mouth opens. He says two words.

     "Wake up."

     The sword's blaze vanishes into a single point, at its tip. For an instant, the world is light again.

     And then, like a laser, it fires - a laser of overwhelmingly concentrated heat, overwhelmingly concentrated force, overwhelmingly concentrated raw power. It's not a giant beam of destruction but rather a single point, all of that /power/, drowning out the light and turning the world dark just by existing. It's like being hit with the full power of the Sun at a single point.

     When it's over, Gilgamesh discards the sword, dropping it back into the Gate of Babylon. His own glow dims. His red eyes dim.

     "There. A taste of power. Well-earned, man of iron."
Tony Stark Tony pours on the firepower, as used to weidling the Iron Man's signature weapons as much as Steve Rogers was at fisticuffs. And the lasers that come at him, those he doesn't clash with or wash away, strike a thin field just outside the armor, splashing against an ablative field of repulsor energy eminating from the chest.

The Mark XLIII is not the perfected crown of Tony Stark's arsenal for no reason. Every upgrade, every test, every feature was refined and boiled down to its most essential components, and sharpened to a pristine degree. This was the bleeding edge of Iron Man. This was the bleeding edge of the Avengers.

Keyword: Bleeding.

Tony stands up straight again, his HUD splitting off a seperate analysis display for the sword Gilgamesh begins to weild. The brightness. Thankfully, the inside of the helmet has light attenuation, so he doesn't go blind from looking into the sun. It's a tiny blessing.

"You know what?" Stark begins. "That's fair. That's very fair and reasonable of you, King Gilgamesh." He responds, to the analysis. Under his armor, there's a Stark Smirk. "I guess I heard the words... and didn't properly give them respect. I've heard them before. That's on me."

Talking eats up time. "Energy levels have passed the maximum tolerance point for defense fields." Friday notes with some trepidation.
"Oh yeah. Yeah I'm seeing it. Prep central RT." Tony replies.
"Boss, we'd burn dry before stopping an energy field of this magnitude were it to continue to grow."
Tony sighs, and shakes his head as Gilgamesh incants. "Confirm ninety-two percent suit power." "Confirming." "Then put it all in the central RT. He's showing us his."

Tony Stark's shoulders set back, and his gauntleted fists clench at his suit's hips. "Let's be polite and show him ours."

As Gilgamesh incants 'wake up', the iris of the Mark XLIII's central Arc Reactor becomes the second point of notable light in the room. The glow, the warm light for all mankind, becomes Iron Man's most potent weapon.

And the amber beam that issues forth FWOOOOOOONs out in a column of destructive light. It clashes with Gram, it locks with the legendary One-Man stopping sword of light, just as Tony's fist locked with Gilgamesh's before. And, for a crystalline moment, the Unibeam is Legendary.

"Reactor power twenty percent! Twelve percent! Three percent!"

The beam gutters and dies, and Tony Stark is without power to fight, to maneuver, to live. And so he 'dies'.

The light washes over him, and the armor is sent plowing into the ring, Tony wordlessly howling as he's cooked alive and unmade.

Or would be, were it not for the Shrine's effects. So instead he's just a crater on the ground, the blackened front plate of the Mark XLIII smoking notably and still hot from Gram's light.

Dazedly, Tony deactivates his helmet and gasps, coughing.

"Guess it's my loss."
Gilgamesh      The fact that for any amount of time the Unibeam is legendary draws a flash of greed from the King of Heroes' face as the two forces clash, pushing against one another, mystic might against technological power. That's something worthy, something worth enjoying, something worth *owning*. That's something that's no longer a toy in Gilgamesh's eyes but something he /desires/. He *wants* a suit like that. He *wants* to play with a thing that can stand up to one of his treasures in such a manner. It is the first thing from modernity that Gilgamesh has seen that he wants and approves of utterly.

     It dies. Tony 'dies' with it. The Shrine kicks in, and Tony Stark is lying there in a scorched crater, unharmed. Gilgamesh strides over, his coat rippling around him in the aftermath of the forces on display. He's leaning over slightly.

     Tony *definitely* left some damage on him.

     The Shrine kicks in again, and he's fine, but for a brief instant Tony can be pretty sure that he most certainly made the King bleed. That's not an easy thing.

     The King crouches, like a caveman. He snaps his fingers. A jug of heavenly-smelling golden liquid, something undeniably divine, falls out of the sky and into his hand. A pair of goblets probably worth as much as an Iron Man suit fall into the other, festooned with jewels and gold. He passes one to Tony and one to himself, and wordlessly, pours the shimmering liquid.

     "Sometimes there is nothing you can do," Gilgamesh echoes from earlier as he sits down at the edge of the crater and raises his goblet, "But you have at least well-earned this drink, man of iron. Drink deep of the King's finest and know that the blade you are has met with my approval."

     "I most certainly will have to commission one of my own."
Tony Stark Tony sits up in his crater, one knee cocked, and an arm resting on it. He moves from 'dead' to lounging pretty smoothly, all told. "I actually..." Stark trails off, before accepting the King's cup, with a genuine burst of laughter. "In the moment, I actually forgot this place had that sort of effect. I guess we proved that worked at least."

Tony was actually hazily willing to die - and not put Gilgamesh at risk in the process, were the Unibeam put at issue - becomes apparent.

He accepts the cup without issue, at the point in his life where 'feeling like a drink' was a more or less constant but repressed impulse. He was Tony Stark. Of course he'd like a drink. Just... Moderation.

Almost killing himself with his own toxic blood was an excellent way to help him get clean-ish. He sworls and breathes in the ambrosiac fumes of the god-liquor, holding the goblet firmly in a metal hand. "Sometimes there isn't. It's about Fate. How people don't see it the right way. In the moment, you just have what you have, and the choices in front of you. In the moment, sometimes you don't have a choice at all. It's just happening, like a movie you're watching."

He tips back the goblet and takes a Thor-smiles-in-the-background tier gulp of the divine wine and holds it in his cheeks, letting it run on his tongue, closes his eyes, and treat it like a sommelier. Then, he swallows, and lets it burn down into his sore chest, and alight under his bruised ribs.

"It's about pushing yourself into situations like this, learning, and improving. So you have the choices you want."

"Or a choice at all."

He looks at the goblet, and its contents again, quirking a brow. "This stuff's pretty good. I can taste the notes of honey in this. Huh. Thor never shared his top-shelf stuff with me, I suppose. As for the armor..."

His mind screams. His thoughts race. The Iron Man suit in the hands of those that would do harm. Iron Man's image shredded. Every part of who he was picked apart and made Mundane. His expression, though, just flickers through a few brief moments before settling on Business. "We'll talk? I wouldn't ask you for your Gate, you see, but..."
"We can talk."