The gleaming silver supercar—a silent testament to Tony's abrupt, panicked departure—quickly disappeared from Leo's sight, leaving him standing alone on the pristine, red-carpeted steps of the concert hall.
He sighed, running a hand through his hair. This was the problem with emotional geniuses: brilliant engineering, zero emotional stability.
Leo turned and walked back into the now-hushed, half-empty hall, heading straight for the rooftop balcony. He found Pepper exactly where Tony had left her.
She was standing perfectly still, her back to him, staring out at the city lights. Although nearly forty-five minutes had passed since Tony's dramatic exit, she still held a small, hopeful posture, waiting for the clink of a tray and a martini with extra olives.
When Pepper heard Leo approach and turned to face him, the small, brittle hope in her eyes crumbled into a wave of profound disappointment, a look that spoke volumes of a future she desperately wanted but knew Tony couldn't deliver.
"Sister Pepper," Leo began gently, using the term of endearment that always seemed to soften her professional edges. "Mr. Stark had an absolute emergency—something huge came up at the main R&D facility. He asked me to come get you. He said you drove yourself tonight, so we can head back whenever you're ready."
Pepper blinked rapidly, forcing a tight, professional smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "Oh. An emergency. Of course. Thank you, Leo, let's go."
The drive back to Malibu was subdued but surprisingly warm. Pepper, needing a distraction from the crushing weight of Tony's instability, was focused on Leo, asking about his studies, his opinions on the new gold-titanium composite, and his favorite books.
Leo, always perceptive, kept the conversation light, chatting and laughing easily. He suggested they grab a quick, non-alcoholic bite at a twenty-four-hour diner in the city—a small, necessary deviation from the high-tension environment of the mansion.
It took another hour before they finally reached the villa. Pepper, burdened by both emotional turmoil and a briefcase full of company documents, offered Leo a weary goodnight and retreated to her room.
Leo didn't bother going to his own room. He walked straight toward the reinforced steel door of the subterranean workshop.
Before Leo could even touch the biometric panel, a blinding flash of orange fire erupted from the ventilation shafts. A deafening CRACK split the air, and a massive, gaping hole appeared in the reinforced concrete ceiling above the entryway. The adjacent lighting fixtures immediately short-circuited and shattered, showering the floor with glass.
The heavy door slid open.
Tony, still wearing his expensive suit pants but stripped down to a sweaty, white undershirt, stood amid the wreckage. His right arm was now encased in the fully assembled, gleaming red-and-gold gauntlet of the Mark III armor. He was completely unresponsive to the chaos he had just caused, his face a mask of furious, focused emptiness.
The noise of the blast had brought the television in the corner to life, broadcasting a news report on a loop.
A frantic reporter, standing against a backdrop of smoking, devastated ruins, was describing the terror gripping Gomila. "The recent, devastating violence here is being orchestrated by a rogue warlord faction, who refer to themselves as 'freedom fighters.' But as you can see, anyone who dares to oppose them is simply eliminated."
The camera zoomed in on a woman clutching a faded photograph, tears streaming down her face. "…Beside me, this mother is desperately appealing for any news of her husband, who was kidnapped by rioters and likely forced into their private army."
The harrowing montage continued: "Desperate refugees clutch photos of their loved ones, anxiously asking passersby for information. I was just asked by a young child, 'Where are my mom and dad?' These innocent people have very little hope of survival and can only pray that someone, anyone, will come to save them."
Tony walked slowly toward the glass door that separated the lab from the outside world. He stared at his own reflection—the tuxedoed playboy, the arms dealer, the joke.
'I once made a solemn promise that I would no longer manufacture weapons to kill,' Tony's internal voice screamed. 'But now, in Gomila—Ethan's own hometown—everyone is suffering the ravages of war, victims of the very weapons I swore to stop producing. I am nothing but a walking, talking hypocrisy.'
The confrontation with his own conscience reached a fever pitch. With a guttural roar, Tony raised the massive red and gold gauntlet on his right arm and punched his own reflection.
The thick, reinforced glass door exploded outward in three distinct, sharp cracks—sounds that echoed like a savage celebration of Tony Stark's violent rebirth.
"Leo," Tony called out, his voice sharp and utterly devoid of its usual irony. He didn't even turn around. "The gold-titanium alloy was delivered to your room an hour ago—two tons of it. You can play with your metal tomorrow. I'm going out for a bit. Go to sleep first."
He strode toward the main experimental panel, ignoring the fresh hole in the ceiling and the debris.
Leo, however, had also seen the television screen: the cold, hateful face of the bald leader, the bearded deputy, and the horrifying images of unarmed refugees being slaughtered with Stark weapons.
"Mr. Stark, don't you need to reconsider?" Leo knew what he was planning—a direct, suicidal intervention into a war zone thousands of miles away. But the news about the gold-titanium alloy was also a distraction. Two tons of gold-titanium… that could accelerate my Immovable Golden Body control by weeks, maybe months.
Tony offered no reply. He simply shed his white vest, revealing a sleek, form-fitting black combat undersuit. He stepped onto the elevated circular experimental platform.
The floor of the platform split open, revealing the intricate mechanical arms below. A total of twelve robotic arms, guided by Jarvis's precise programming, presented all the meticulously painted red and gold components of the Mark III.
Tony stepped into the foot armor. The robotic arms moved with surgical precision, snapping the armor plates onto his calves, thighs, and waist. The components hissed as the mechanical arms tightened and locked the internal mechanisms.
The arm gauntlets and shoulder pieces descended from above. Tony extended his arms, and the pieces—the forearm plates, the shoulders, the backplate lining, and the outer shell—slammed into place, securing him completely.
Finally, the head component descended. The inner helmet liner slid into place, followed by the heavy, gold-plated mask that sealed the armor shut. The eyes of the mask ignited with a brilliant, focused blue light.
The completed Mark III suit stood fully donned. It was the iconic, terrifyingly beautiful red and gold combination.
This prototype combat power armor was a marvel: equipped with hand-mounted pulse cannons, multiple mini-missiles, anti-tracking chaff dispensers, and small machine guns integrated into the shoulders and thighs. The newly engineered crystalline lens on the chest could focus the Arc Reactor's energy into a devastating repulsor strike. The new gold-titanium alloy composite solved the critical weakness of high-altitude icing.
"Mr. Stark, it's literally thousands of miles from here to Gomila. Even flying at your maximum sustained speed, that's several hours of high-risk flight. Have you truly made up your mind?" Leo's voice was serious, tinged with a deep, pragmatic concern. "This isn't a test flight. This is a real, live-fire battle zone."
Tony didn't answer. The Mark III's main repulsor engines, housed in the palms and boots, roared to life, spewing controlled plumes of intense blue-white flame. With a ground-shaking WHOOSH, the armor shot upward, crashing through the newly created hole in the ceiling and tearing out into the dark night sky. His stance was clear: the conversation was over.
Leo rubbed his forehead, utterly exasperated. "Well, that's just fantastic. I was hoping to wait another day or two for my control point breakthrough. Now I've wasted another entire day on crisis management."
With a decisive wave of his hand, Leo executed a complex mental command. The miscellaneous titanium and tungsten metal blocks piled haphazardly in the far corner of the lab—scrap from the earlier Mark II development—flew through the air. They warped and smoothed instantly, transforming into components that snapped themselves around Leo's body.
He grabbed a high-tech Bluetooth earpiece from the console table and shoved it into his ear. "Jarvis? Jarvis, are you receiving me?"
"Mr. Leo, is there anything I can assist you with?" Jarvis's voice was calm, a perfect counterpoint to the raging chaos.
"Can you patch this channel into Mr. Stark's armor comms? I don't need two separate AIs fighting for bandwidth."
"Affirmative, Mr. Leo. Connecting your discrete audio channel now."
Another piece of pure, smooth silver titanium from the ceiling scrap flew over, rapidly shaping itself into a sleek, minimalist helmet. It slid seamlessly over Leo's head, covering the earpiece.
A small, pure-white silver exoskeleton was thus completed, weighing only slightly more than a hundred kilograms. It contained no Arc Reactor, no wiring, and no weapons—just a high-density, movable, electromagnetically controlled shell powered entirely by Leo's mind. There were no eye slits, only a few microscopic vents to facilitate Leo's breathing.
The silver armor, the Shadow of Midas, floated gently upward. There were no fiery exhaust plumes; only the silent, powerful magnetic repulsion of Leo's abilities lifting the armor from the floor. He shot out through the massive hole in the ceiling, launching himself into the dark Californian sky.
Leo looked up at the vast, starless night. Even with his golden eyes activated and searching for minute heat signatures, Tony's distant, rapidly shrinking figure was impossible to see.
"Jarvis, which vector is Mr. Stark currently on? Give me precise coordinates and velocity."
"Mr. Leo, Mr. Stark is due east, current altitude 10,000 feet, accelerating."
Leo banked sharply and poured raw magnetic power into the repulsor field surrounding his suit. He accelerated, his speed spiking instantly. Within seconds, he was moving forward at a breakneck pace.
Less than half a minute into the flight, Jarvis's calm, analytical voice returned through the earpiece. "Mr. Leo, I must advise you that your current sustained speed is insufficient to close the gap with Mr. Stark. The Mark III is maintaining an average cruising speed of 300 meters per second, with short-burst capabilities reaching Mach 1.3."
Leo's eyes widened slightly inside the helmet. Mach 1.3? That's over 440 meters per second!
A golden aura erupted from the silver armor. The air around the suit shimmered, and a barely visible golden mesh—the field of his Immovable Golden Body—snapped into existence on the armor's exterior. This was the moment. Leo exerted massive, focused kinetic force, amplifying the velocity gained from the raw magnetic thrust.
The slowly moving silver dot instantly transformed. It became a silent, low-altitude golden ray of light, streaking across the dark sky, the sonic boom of its wake ripping apart the silence of the night.
"Jarvis, connect me to Mr. Stark. Now."
"Attempting connection to Mr. Stark."
Leo immediately judged that his current speed should be well over 500 meters per second—faster than the Mark III's cruise—and he should be rapidly gaining ground on Tony.
"Mr. Leo, Mr. Stark is actively refusing to answer all incoming communications from the ground and from your discrete channel. He appears to be in a highly focused, non-communicative state."
"Okay, I'm not trying to stop him. I just need him to know he's not alone. Seriously, Jarvis, how much distance is left between us now?" Leo asked, an amused exasperation entering his voice despite the life-or-death mission.
"The distance between your position and Mr. Stark's Mark III armor is currently sixteen kilometers. At your present velocity, you should be able to achieve visual range in approximately eighty-five seconds."
"Mr. Leo, you have deviated from your optimized intercept course. Please execute a turn of twenty degrees to the right to correct your flight path."
Leo adjusted his internal gyroscope slightly, the armor banking hard. The silent, gleaming silver form, shrouded in a thin golden halo, cut through the night, a loyal, self-made shadow chasing the fastest weapon in the world toward a destiny of fire and guilt.