Iron Man: Ultimate Upgrade

Lucas Carter had always been obsessed with technology. From the moment he first picked up a screwdriver as a child, he had known that machines were his calling. While other kids played video games, he was busy taking apart consoles to understand how they worked. By the time he was a teenager, he was building his own AI-driven drones and developing prototypes for clean energy solutions.

But his true passion lay in the legends of fiction. Iron Man. Ben 10. Transformers. The idea of wielding technology in ways beyond human limitations fascinated him. He dreamed of being like Tony Stark, of creating an advanced suit that could make him unstoppable. He was intelligent—far beyond his years—but society rarely recognized genius when it came from a broke tech geek rather than a billionaire's son.

His life had been a lonely one. He had few friends, no family left, and no real connections. His one love, technology, had consumed his entire existence. He worked himself to the bone in his tiny underground lab, chasing an impossible dream. And then, in a cruel twist of fate, the dream killed him.

His final project was a sustainable energy core, an attempt to create a miniature arc reactor that could change the world. But he miscalculated. The prototype overloaded, the energy destabilized, and the explosion engulfed his lab. His last thought as the flames consumed him was I was so close…

Then, nothing.

---

Pain.

A dull, pulsing pain radiated through his chest, as though his heart had been replaced by a live wire. The air was heavy, thick with the scent of sweat, dirt, and something metallic. His head throbbed, his limbs felt restrained. He groaned, trying to move, but found his hands bound.

Panic surged through him. He forced his eyes open, but the dim flickering light made it hard to focus. The walls were rough stone, uneven, casting eerie shadows in the firelight. And then he saw it—the car battery. Wires running from it to his chest. The rough, makeshift medical setup.

Recognition slammed into him like a freight train.

He wasn't in his lab. He wasn't dead.

He was in a cave.

His breath hitched. He turned his head slightly and saw another prisoner—a bearded man watching him with calm curiosity.

Yinsen.

That was when it clicked. The Ten Rings. Afghanistan. The beginning of the Iron Man story. The place where Tony Stark had been reborn as a hero.

And somehow… he was Tony Stark.

--

At first, panic threatened to consume him. This wasn't just a dream or some bizarre hallucination—this was real. But how? How had he ended up here? Had he become Tony Stark? Or had he replaced him?

His thoughts should have been jumbled, chaotic. But they weren't. If anything, his mind was clearer than it had ever been. Faster. He could think, calculate, and process information at an impossible speed. He wasn't just Lucas Carter anymore. He had all of Tony Stark's intelligence, his instincts, his vast knowledge of engineering and technology.

And yet, there was more.

Something in his mind stirred, an ability he knew he hadn't possessed before. He focused, and suddenly, he could feel the crude electromagnet in his chest—not just as a foreign object, but as something he could understand at a fundamental level. It was as if he could sense its electrical flow, the inefficiencies in its design, the metal's composition. He could upgrade it. He could absorb it.

That was when realization struck.

Upgrade.

The alien ability from Ben 10, the one that allowed machines to merge, evolve, and improve beyond human limitations. He had that power now.

Holy shit.

---

His mind raced through possibilities. If he had Upgrade's power, that meant he could rebuild, enhance, and integrate technology at will. The only limitation was his creativity—and he had plenty of that.

But first, he needed to escape.

He looked at Yinsen, who was still watching him. The man was cautious, but also curious. In the original timeline, Tony had been a selfish genius who only realized the value of his life after losing everything. But Lucas had already known struggle. He had already died once. He wasn't going to waste this second chance.

He took a deep breath and forced a smirk. "So… what's the damage?" he asked, voice hoarse but carrying that trademark Stark arrogance.

Yinsen looked surprised but relieved. "Shrapnel," he said simply. "Too deep to remove. The electromagnet is keeping it from reaching your heart."

Tony—no, Lucas—nodded. He already knew that. He felt it. The magnet was primitive. He could improve it. But not now. First, he needed to play the role.

The Ten Rings thought he was just a billionaire playboy engineer. They expected him to build weapons. And he would… just not for them.

This time, though, he wouldn't build the original Iron Man suit. He didn't need to.

He had something far better.

---

The next few hours were spent observing, learning, adapting. His captors underestimated him, just as they had in the original timeline. But Lucas wasn't just going to build a crude metal suit.

He was going to integrate with the scraps around him. His body tingled as he tested his power in small ways—absorbing small pieces of metal when no one was looking, reshaping them within his hands. It took effort, but he knew with practice, he could do so much more.

The possibilities were endless. He could create a true exoskeleton, one that wasn't just armor but a part of him. He could design weapons far beyond what Stark had originally envisioned. He could be more than Iron Man.

He could be something greater.

But first, he had to survive.

And that meant playing along, just long enough to turn the tables.

Yinsen approached him later, whispering, "They want you to build them a missile."

Tony smirked. "Then let's give them something special."

As Yinsen frowned in confusion, Lucas—no, Tony—stared at the scattered parts around him. This cave wasn't a prison.

It was a forge.

And he was about to build the future.