Tony Stark meets with his Resilient partner Tim Cababa, who walks him through his development ideas for New Asgard. Tony tells him he will take these promising plans to Thor and discuss them, but first he suits up as Iron Man and heads to New York, fitting in an appearance in his busy schedule for the talk show Shownight. He gets in-depth with the hosts about his plans to develop non-weaponizable RT technology for the public. While he watches the rerun of the interview in his hotel room, he notices a strange floating machine launching a missile at him. He suits up as Iron Man and survives the blast, then confronts the man in the machine: Doctor Octopus. Doc Ock shows him a 21-kiloton nuclear device, which forces Iron Man to stand down. He threatents to explode the device if Stark will not help attempt to cure his deadly affliction of brain and nerve damage. Octavius is spurred on by a lifetime of wanthing to show Stark up for his smug and superior attitude as a fellow scientist and developer. He tells Stark he wins either way: either Stark will cure him or he won't be able to and be forced to admit there was a problem he could not fix. To insure Stark's cooperation, Octavius reveals that Electro and Sandman have kidnapped Tim Cababa in Broxton, holding him hostage to force his cooperation. Stark agrees to help try and save his life, and begins scanning his physiology for a way. Meanwhile, in Broxton, Pepper Potts innocently knocks on Cababa's door with a pizza, not knowing the villains are waiting inside.