Appearing in 1st story
Featured Characters:
- Iron Man (Tony Stark) (Main story and flashback)
Supporting Characters:
- Captain Nick Fury (Only in flashback)
- Friday (Voice only)
- Anna (Main story and flashback)
- Amanda Armstrong (First appearance)
Antagonists:
- Hydra (Behind the scenes) (Only in flashback)
- Cassandra Gillespie (Main story and flashback)
- Mandroids
Other Characters:
- S.H.I.E.L.D. (Main story and flashback)
- Howard Stark (Only in flashback)
- Dum-Dum Dugan
- Unnamed agents (Main story and flashback)
- Unnamed Sofia Hospital Administrator (First appearance) (Only in flashback)
- Spider-Man (Peter Parker) (Mentioned)
- Red Skull (Johann Shmidt) (Mentioned)
- Hulk (Bruce Banner) (Mentioned)
- Avengers (Mentioned)
Races and Species:
- Humans (Main story and flashback)
Locations:
- Earth (Main story and flashback)
- United States of America (Only in flashback)
- New York (Only in flashback)
- New York City (Only in flashback)
- Manhattan (Only in flashback)
- Stark Mansion (Only in flashback)
- Manhattan (Only in flashback)
- New York City (Only in flashback)
- New York (Only in flashback)
- New Zealand (Only in flashback)
- Auckland (Only in flashback)
- Romania
- Bulgaria (Main story and flashback)
- Sofia (Main story and flashback)
- Unidentified orphanage
- Sofia (Main story and flashback)
- United Kingdom
- England
- London
- Camden Town
- North Star Studios (First appearance) (Unnamed)
- Camden Town
- London
- England
- United States of America (Only in flashback)
- Hell (Invoked)
Items:
Vehicles:
Synopsis for 1st story
Twenty years ago, Howard Stark's funeral was held. Later, a low-key memorial service takes place at the Stark Mansion, attended by S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, including Nick Fury. Fury finds Tony Stark drunk, sitting by the pool, and tries to convince him that his father truly loved him. What Fury considers acts of fatherly kindness and sacrifice are refuted by Tony as Howard's attempts to destroy his life. One of the events Tony recalls is the incident at Auckland involving Cassandra Gillespie, which Fury states to be yet another effort of Howard to protect Tony. Fury leaves Tony alone, and encourages to put his intelligence and fortune into doing "something no one else can," to which Tony insults both of them.
In the present, Cassadra's Mandroids surround her compound, and she informs Tony that he has ran out of time. Tony continues stalling for time, and asks Cassandra if she ever thinks of him, to which she replies she does more often that she would want to admit, however, she clarifies their relationship was never meant to be. Tony begins to compliment the technology of the Mandroids, specially their closed code systems, but surprises Cassandra with the revelation Friday has managed to hack into them, and got them to fire at and strike down each other. The Mandroids fall into the mansion and the building begins to collapse. Cassandra escapes after unsuccessfully shooting Tony, who is protected by his cloaked armor. Tony remains immobile, sitting in the bathroom. He calls Friday, who takes control of the other suit the Mandroids had confiscated and uses it to intercept Cassandra and cause her car to crash. Gillepsie flies through the windshield and lands on the floor. As she gets up, she finds the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier hovering above. S.H.I.E.L.D. agents arrest Cassandra, and Tony and Friday fly away from the scene. Stark is informed by his digital assistant that he has numerous calls from Anna, the manager of the orphanage in Sofia.
Iron Man arrives to the orphanage he had visited, and Anna shows him a black folder titled "дело." Anna proceeds to inform him how did she get her hands on it. After failing to find any records regarding Tony, she had found three missing numbered files from around the year he had supposedly been born. She took the missing numbers and called local hospitals and administrators. In one of these hospitals, its manager told Anna that two times some kind of agency has taken the birth files of newborns. However, they don't touch their mother's files. One of these files had been stored by the hospital's former administrator in a safe, and had called it her "black file." Said former administrator believed that if the baby's files were worth taking, the mother's files must've been worth saving, and stored them thinking someone could come looking for them one day.
Tony stands speechless with the file unopened in his hands. He tries to thank Anna, but she replies it was the least she could do considering considering how many times Iron Man must've saved her life without her even knowing it. A an act of gratitude, Tony decides to place Anna's orphanage under his financial care. Tony lets the kids of the orphanage play with his armor for a while, and decides to open the file, jokingly wishing the Red Skull isn't revealed to be his father.
In London, Tony arrives at a recording studio and visits music producer Amanda Armstrong, when she questions Stark's presence, he asks her about a baby she gave up for adoption years ago. She remains baffled until Tony reveals that he might be her son.