The kinetic energy Leander Hayes generated as he plummeted toward the coastline was nothing short of apocalyptic. Moving at forty times the speed of sound, he was a living railgun round. Without his Nirvana Wings acting as spatial rudders to smooth out the violent ripples in the air, his passage alone would have shattered skyscrapers and vaporized everything in a mile-wide wake.
He was moving faster than any rocket ever conceived by human hands. If a surface-to-air missile had detonated right in his face, Leander wouldn't have even felt the heat; he would have been three zip codes away before the shockwave could even expand.
Ten minutes. That was all it took to cross half an ocean.
As the coastline rushed up to meet him, Leander saw the sprawling, neon-drenched grid of a massive metropolis. He didn't care about the GPS coordinates; he just needed a place to stand and a way to hear the world's heartbeat again. He banked hard, his wings glowing with a final pulse of sapphire light before they folded into his back and vanished.
He landed in a narrow, shadowed alleyway, his feet hitting the pavement with a silent, cat-like grace. Above him, the night sky was choked with the orange glow of city lights. Looking around, he saw signs written in familiar, blocky Chinese characters.
China? he wondered. Not bad for a random jump.
With a thought, his meteorite-crafted suit—which had been a sleek, vacuum-sealed flight garment—began to ripple like liquid mercury. It shifted color and texture, lengthening and loosening until it became a simple pair of dark shorts and a short-sleeved T-shirt. It was late December, and the air was crisp, but Leander's body was a furnace of internal energy; he didn't feel the chill, though he knew he looked like a tourist who had lost his mind.
He stepped out into the bustling main street, his eyes wide as he soaked in the reality of being back among people. He tapped a passerby on the shoulder, a young man staring at a smartphone.
"Hey, friend. What's the date? And... has anything big happened lately?" Leander asked, his voice sounding strange to his own ears after weeks of talking only to an alien and a space whale.
The man looked him up and down, confused by the summer clothes in winter. "It's December 24th. Christmas Eve. And 'big'? Man, where have you been? The Mandarin just blew up Malibu. They're saying Tony Stark is dead. Iron Man is gone, kid."
Leander's heart did a slow, heavy roll in his chest. Tony? Dead? He didn't believe it for a second. Stark was too stubborn to die in a house fire. But the news meant the world was in chaos, and he was right in the middle of it.
Rose Hill, Tennessee
Thousands of miles away, in a drafty, dimly lit garage, the supposed "dead man" was currently being interrogated by a ten-year-old.
Harley Keener was gently running his hand over the scarred, muddy plating of the Mark XLII. To him, this wasn't just a machine; it was a fallen titan.
"Life is unpredictable, kid," Tony muttered, sitting on a crate and watching Harley fiddle with the arm servos. "I raised him. I built him from a handful of screws and a dream. I took care of him, and look at him now."
Tony looked at the suit with a father's weary affection. To the world, they were just tin cans, but to Tony, the suits were his children, his brothers-in-arms, and JARVIS was the soul that tied them together.
"Are you a repairman?" Harley asked, looking up from a broken finger joint.
Tony thought about the news reports, the smoking ruins of his home, and the fact that he was currently hiding in a shed in the middle of nowhere. "That's right," he said, nodding slowly. "I'm a repairman. You can call me The Mechanic."
"Cool," Harley said, his eyes bright. "If I were the one making Iron Man and War Machine, I'd do things differently. I'd add... you know, those shiny things. To make them hide."
"Reflective panels?" Tony suggested.
"Yeah! Make him invisible. Stealth mode," Harley said, his expression dead serious.
Tony actually smiled. "Stealth mode. That's a solid idea, kid. Maybe I'll put that in the Mark 43."
Suddenly, there was a sharp snap. Harley had pushed a bit too hard on a compromised joint, and the Mark 42's finger dangled by a wire.
"Hey! Don't mess with that!" Tony yelled, standing up with a surge of protective anger. "What are you doing? You're going to break his hand! He's already hurting, he's injured! Don't touch him!"
Harley jumped back, looking startled and deeply embarrassed. His lower lip began to tremble, and his eyes filled with a sudden, apologetic wetness. "I... I'm sorry. I'm just... I'm sad."
Tony snapped his mouth shut. He looked at the kid's teary eyes and felt his anger evaporate instantly. He was a guest in this kid's garage, and he wasn't about to be the guy who made a lonely child cry on Christmas Eve.
"Alright, alright," Tony's voice softened. "I'll handle it. It's just metal, I can fix it. Who else is around? Your parents home?"
Harley looked down at the floor, picking at a loose thread on his jacket. "My mom's at the diner working the double shift. My dad... he went to buy a scratch-off ticket six years ago." He paused, a hollow sort of humor in his voice. "I think he won, because he hasn't come back to tell us otherwise."
Tony felt a familiar, uncomfortable prickle of empathy. "Yeah, well... fathers are a specialized breed of disaster. Don't let it get to you." He cleared his throat, wanting to change the subject. "I need a shopping list. Laptop, digital watch, cell phone, the air brake from your potato gun, a map, a big bow, and a tuna sandwich. Heavy on the mayo."
"What's in it for me?" Harley asked, crossing his arms.
"A chance to save yourself," Tony said, leaning in. "What's the name of that kid who bullies you at school? The one who makes you want to hide in here?"
Harley's eyes widened, indirectly confirming Tony's suspicion. "How'd you know?"
"I'm a genius, remember?" Tony reached toward the back of the Mark 42. He clicked a release, and a small, gold-and-red cylinder slid into his hand. It was a high-frequency flash-bang, usually used for crowd control. "I call this 'The Cricket's Candy Shop.'"
"Kidding," Tony added at Harley's confused look. "It's a non-lethal stunner. Don't point it at your face. You press this button, it'll blind and deafen anyone within ten feet. It won't kill 'em, but it'll give 'em a very bad afternoon. Standard self-defense protocol. We clear?"
Harley reached for it, but Tony spun him around playfully, making the kid follow the movement before handing it over. "Agreed?"
"Agreed," Harley whispered, clutching the stunner like a magic wand.
"Good. What's your name, kid?"
"Harley. You?"
"Repairman Tony," Stark said, patting his stomach. "Now, where's my sandwich? I'm starting to see spots."
Malibu, California
At 10880 Malibu Point, the scene was a nightmare of floodlights and sirens. Fire trucks and rescue teams were swarming over the cliffside, pulling twisted beams of steel out of the surf. Journalists were lined up like vultures, waiting for a body to be pulled from the water.
Pepper Potts stood alone on the very edge of the precipice, the cold sea wind whipping her hair across her face. Her eyes were red, her face etched with a grief so profound it looked like it had aged her ten years. In her hand, she clutched a scorched, broken faceplate from the Mark VII.
In a moment of pure despair, she pressed the cold metal of the mask against her forehead, her body trembling with a sob she couldn't let out.
Beep.
A faint, electronic chirp came from the mask. Pepper gasped, pulling it away. A tiny red light was pulsing in the corner of the eye-socket.
"Stark Secure Network," a calm, synthetic voice echoed from the internal speakers. "Retina recognition required for message playback."
Pepper didn't hesitate. She held the mask up to her eye, her heart hammering against her ribs.
"Pepper, it's me," Tony's voice crackled through. "I have so many things I need to apologize for, but..."
Pepper's face transformed. The crushing weight of despair shattered, replaced by a radiant, tearful smile that seemed to light up the dark cliffside. She laughed through her tears, an incredible, soul-deep relief washing over her.
She took the mask off and looked up at the night sky. The stars, which had seemed dim and cold just seconds ago, were suddenly brilliant again. And among them, far to the east, a faint streak of light was cutting through the clouds—something moving fast, something golden.
Back in Tennessee
Harley had delivered. The workbench was covered in old electronics, a digital watch, and a surprisingly good tuna sandwich.
Tony was in his element, his hands moving with rhythmic precision as he used Harley's basic tools to bypass the fried circuits in the Mark 42. Harley sat on a stool nearby, watching every movement with the kind of awe usually reserved for magicians.
"Is the Hulk always that angry? Or does he just need a snack?" Harley asked, his mouth moving as fast as Tony's hands.
"He's a complicated guy," Tony muttered around a mouthful of sandwich.
"And Thor... is he really a god? How do you forge a hammer in a star? Does it have a Bluetooth connection?"
"Magic, Harley. It's basically science we don't understand yet."
"What about the Golden Legend?" Harley leaned in, his voice dropping to a whisper. "I tried to look him up online, but it's like he doesn't exist. There are just these blurry videos of a kid with wings and gold skin. Do you know him? Is he real?"
Tony's hands slowed. He took a bite of the sandwich, the taste reminding him of the long nights in the basement back at the mansion, working side-by-side with Leander Hayes. He remembered the kid's quiet confidence, the way he'd just disappear into the sky, and the silence that had filled the house after he vanished.
Tony's vision blurred for a second, a sharp pang of loss hitting him harder than the Mandarin's missiles.
"Harley," Tony said softly, his voice a little gruff. "You talk way too much. Pass me the soldering iron."