His tone was aggressive: "I was in my workshop at Stark Tower, helping her fix her car... for the twenty-seventh time in two months, by the way! Then she suddenly stood up, burst into flames, and flew out the window of the eighty-seventh floor. The eighty-seventh floor!"
Tony took a step forward, staring at Mavuika. "Can you imagine what I felt? I almost thought I was dreaming or having a mental breakdown. But the reality is, the woman I know can fly and manipulate fire, and my parents obviously knew about it all along."
He turned to Howard, his voice growing louder. "So you were all in on it? I was the only one kept in the dark? Something this big, this important, and you didn't tell me a single word?"
Howard's expression changed slightly, and he quickly rebuked, "Tony! Show some respect!"
Mavuika laughed and interrupted him.
"It's alright, Howard," Mavuika's voice was calm and gentle, as if soothing a petulant child.
"I apologize. The situation was urgent. I had to leave immediately to make it in time. A few seconds later..."
She didn't finish, but the meaning was clear: if she had arrived a few seconds later, Howard might have been dead.
Tony's expression stiffened for a moment. His anger subsided slightly, but confusion and dissatisfaction remained.
He looked at Mavuika and asked the most crucial question: "Mavuika, what exactly are you? Why can you breathe fire and fly? It's not scientific. It's... it's not normal."
Mavuika smiled and waved her hand, the expression easy and natural as if discussing the weather. "I didn't deliberately hide it from you, Tony. And you never asked."
Tony faltered, his expression turning somewhat awkward. Thinking about it carefully, he really had never asked.
He had noticed Mavuika's peculiarities, guessed her identity was special, but he had indeed never directly asked a question like 'Are you hiding some secret from me?'.
He thought it was privacy, thought it was a secret his father didn't want to reveal, thought he would find out sooner or later...
Although now he certainly would find out sooner or later... but the truth was making it a bit hard for him to stay calm.
"We'll explain all this to you later," Howard said, his voice tinged with weariness. "Let's go inside first. We need to tend to wounds, we need to handle a lot of things."
He turned to the unconscious Bucky on the lawn, his brow furrowed.
Only then did Tony notice there was a fourth person. He walked over to Bucky and examined him closely by the light spilling from the Villa's entrance.
It was a man who looked around thirty, with dark hair and handsome features, but currently his eyes were closed and his face was pale.
The most striking thing was his left shoulder. There was no arm there, only a complex mechanical interface, with exposed wires and hydraulic tubes still faintly smoking.
And on the ground, a silvery-gray metal arm lay quietly, reflecting a cold gleam under the light.
"And who is this?" Tony asked, frowning. "Dressed like he's imitating some cold-blooded killer or something."
He pointed at the black tactical suit Bucky was wearing—professional, streamlined, devoid of any insignia, the standard gear for special forces or covert operatives.
Mavuika was amused by Tony's analogy. "Perhaps he isn't imitating at all."
Tony was taken aback for a moment, then realized. "Huh? A real assassin? Old man, here to kill you?"
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