The voice on the other end of the phone carried unmistakable amusement.
"Fury's guys are like a swarm of flies. If you don't destroy the hive, they never stop buzzing."
A brief pause.
"And I just happen to own a very large can of insecticide."
Joren said nothing.
He understood the implication.
An invitation.
A transaction.
Solve a small problem by stepping into a larger one.
"…Okay."
"Ten minutes," Stark replied immediately. "My ride will be downstairs."
The call ended.
Joren disliked being ordered around.
But he disliked surveillance outside his home even more.
Between two annoyances, choose the quieter one.
Exactly ten minutes later, a black Audi A8L pulled up in front of his house.
The vehicle looked understated, almost corporate — yet its arrival carried the quiet authority of immense wealth.
The driver's door opened.
A stocky man in a tailored suit stepped out, trying very hard to look composed.
Happy Hogan.
Tony Stark's driver.
Bodyguard.
Occasional voice of reason.
"Mr. Joestar?"
Happy aimed for professional calm, but the young man's silent presence made him feel as if he were addressing his boss.
Joren gave a small nod and opened the rear door.
Happy hesitated for half a second before returning quickly to the driver's seat.
Inside the Dodge Challenger across the street, the two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents stiffened.
"The target entered a Stark Industries vehicle."
"…Copy. Maintain surveillance. Do not engage."
Inside the Audi, silence settled like fog.
Happy could hear his own breathing.
He considered small talk.
School. Weather. Traffic.
He checked the rearview mirror.
The boy sat perfectly still, watching the city slide past the window.
The brim of his hat concealed his eyes.
No curiosity.
No anxiety.
No teenage restlessness.
He didn't feel like a high school student.
Happy looked away and pressed the accelerator slightly harder.
Best to drive.
Best not to speak.
The setting sun bathed Manhattan in molten gold.
Glass towers reflected the dying light like silent titans watching over the city.
Among them, Stark Tower dominated the skyline.
The giant STARK logo glowed in cool blue against the twilight.
What an ostentatious man, Joren thought.
The Audi descended into Stark Tower's private underground garage.
A private elevator waited.
"The boss is on eighty," Happy said, pressing the button. He didn't step inside.
"My job ends here."
The doors slid shut.
Silent ascent.
Smooth.
Fast.
Numbers rising.
Ding.
The doors opened onto another world.
Floor-to-ceiling glass wrapped the entire level, revealing Manhattan's night skyline in full panoramic sweep.
The space was minimalist yet impossibly expensive — sunken Italian leather seating, polished stone, and ambient lighting calibrated to a warm twilight hue.
In one corner, a holographic solar system rotated in slow precision, planets trailing luminous arcs around a miniature sun.
Tony Stark stood behind the bar.
Black T-shirt. Dark jeans. Barefoot confidence.
He poured amber liquid into a crystal glass with practiced ease.
"Welcome to my humble residence."
He raised the glass in greeting.
"Drink? Apple juice, maybe. Feels age-appropriate."
Joren didn't answer.
His gaze moved across the room, cataloging materials, layout, energy sources… then settled on Tony.
"You didn't bring me here to serve juice. Get to the point."
Tony smiled.
"Direct. I like that."
He drained the whiskey and swiped the bar's surface display.
"JARVIS, guest file."
"Yes, sir."
A blue holographic screen materialized before Joren.
Personal records.
Birth date. Address. Academic transcripts.
Behavior reports.
Even the disciplinary note about punching his history teacher.
"Joren Joestar. Seventeen. Midtown High."
Tony stepped out from behind the bar.
"Parents: historians. Wealthy background. Top academic performance. Limited social connections. Occasional violent incidents."
He tapped the display.
The image shifted to aerial surveillance footage from Grandview Theatre.
Golden light devouring darkness.
"This file is perfect," Tony said quietly. "So perfect it looks fabricated."
He stepped closer.
"It doesn't explain how a high school student crushes steel with bare hands."
Another step.
"It definitely doesn't explain…"
His eyes locked onto Joren's.
"…power my sensors classify as nonexistent."
Tony stopped less than a meter away.
"So tell me, kid."
"What exactly are you?"
Pressure.
Presence.
Information dominance.
A negotiation tactic refined through boardrooms and battlefields.
No seventeen-year-old should remain calm under it.
Tony miscalculated.
Joren glanced at the whiskey bottle behind him.
"Islay single malt," he said calmly. "Too peaty. Better suited for blending than neat drinking."
Tony blinked.
That… was not the expected response.
"What?"
"Your file is the same," Joren said, returning his gaze. "Too crude."
He raised a finger and pointed at the holographic profile.
"My mother's preferred afternoon tea is Dimbula from Sri Lanka. Not Darjeeling."
"She dislikes Darjeeling."
Tony froze.
The Darjeeling record came from a Michelin restaurant bill in Paris.
But Dimbula…
Private.
Family knowledge.
"Sir," JARVIS said, "Mrs. Joestar mentioned Dimbula tea in a social media post three years ago. My data correlation contained an oversight."
Tony stared.
That wasn't the point.
The point was that when confronted with a complete intelligence dossier…
…the boy corrected tea preferences.
"It's not important—"
"It is," Joren interrupted. "Incorrect details produce incorrect conclusions."
He walked toward the holographic solar system.
He reached toward Earth's projection — stopping just before touching it.
"Like this."
He gestured toward the orbital paths.
"The gravitational model you're using for Mars ignores perturbations from Ceres and Juno."
Tony frowned.
"It's negligible."
"In short simulations," Joren said. "Run it fifty years and the orbital deviation exceeds one hundred thousand kilometers."
The holographic planets continued their silent rotation.
Tony stared at him.
Then at the projection.
Then back at him.
The room fell quiet.
Tony Stark, genius futurist, billionaire engineer… stood studying a high school student who critiqued astrophysical modeling between breaths.
"…Kid," Tony said slowly.
"You're really not making this less weird."
Joren lowered his hand.
"I'm not here to make you comfortable."
Silence.
Then Tony's mouth slowly curved into a grin.
"Well," he said, pouring another drink, "this just became the most interesting Tuesday I've had all year."