Synopsis for "No S.H.I.E.L.D. To Protect Me!"

Yvette Avril (First appearance)

Iron Man is engaged in a standoff with a rogue S.H.I.E.L.D. agent named Buck Richlen aboard the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier. Richlen orders Iron Man to take his own life or else he will kill Nick Fury, whose body lies at Richlen's feet. Iron Man uses one of his power pods to generate a concentrated electromagnetic charge which blows up a ceiling projector in the conference room. While Richlen is temporarily distracted by the blast, Iron Man rushes forward and knocks Richlen back with a solid punch.

Suddenly, the room explodes in a hail of bullets originating from outside the Helicarrier. It only takes him seconds to realize that the Helicarrier has drifted into Soviet air space and that the gunfire is coming from a squadron of Russian M-21 fighter jets. As Nick Fury begins to awaken, Iron Man flies outside to intercept the jets. Fury calls down to the engine room and angrily inquires as to why they are above the Soviet Union.

Iron Man evades being struck by Soviet ICBMs and plows into the oncoming fighters. He swoops down into a village and tears the steeple off a nearby church. Hurling it, he manages to offset the trajectory of the remaining missiles.

Unfortunately, the Helicarrier is now coasting towards a mountain range and there is not enough time to alter their course to avoid a collision. Iron Man races back and braces himself beneath the massive ship. Channeling all of his armor's power into his boot jets, he gives the Helicarrier just enough extra push to clear the mountain range with minimal structural damage.

With the danger passed, Iron Man boards the Helicarrier. He meets with Nick Fury in the conference room just as he is placing Buck Richlen under arrest. He provides confirmation that Richlen and his cronies were acting on their own when they hired Spymaster to assassinate Tony Stark and that none of their actions were ever sanctioned by S.H.I.E.L.D.

A short while later, Fury drops Tony Stark off at the Stark International facility in Paris, France. After meeting with his French operations manager Yvette Avril, Tony goes to his office to go over the data he collected from S.H.I.E.L.D.'s computer banks. He is horrified to discover that although Richlen's group were acting against orders, they were in fact furthering an official S.H.I.E.L.D. initiative to buy out Stark International. Furious at such a seeming betrayal, Tony telephones Nick Fury. Fury apologizes, but stands by his actions, citing that the security of the nation requires the sort of weaponry that only Stark International can provide. If Tony will not sell them the weapons technology willingly, then S.H.I.E.L.D. has little recourse but to buy the company out from under him. In a fit of rage, Tony smashes the view screen monitor and storms out of the office.

---