The glass doors of the Malibu house were left open. The ocean air moved through the living room, carrying salt and the faint echo of waves breaking somewhere below the cliff.
Tony stood by the bar, turning a glass of green chlorophyll juice in his hand. The sickly gray edge that had followed him for months was gone. In its place was unwilling energy. He didn't stand still anymore. Even now, his fingers tapped lightly against the glass between movements.
A hologram hovered over the coffee table. A tower rotating slowly.
"Look at this," Tony said, gesturing toward it. "Whole thing runs on a loop. No refills, no fuel. It just… stays on."
Leaning against the balcony railing, I watched it for a moment, then let my eyes drift back to the water.
"Still storing power," I said.
Tony glanced over, one brow lifting slightly.
"That's a very boring way to describe it."
He tapped his chest, where the arc reactor glowed faintly through his shirt.
"This changes things," he added. "Cities don't have to sleep anymore."
He adjusted the projection again, refining something only he seemed to care about.
"Fury said you went out to New Mexico," he said after a moment. "What was out there?"
"A hammer," I said. "Someone picked it up."
Tony let out a quiet breath that might have been a laugh.
"Yeah," he said. "That sounds about right."
He studied me for a second, like he might ask something else, then didn't.
"Doesn't matter," he muttered, turning back to the model. "I've got enough going on here."
The tower spun slowly in the air. He watched it like it was already real.
"I'm taking this global," he said. "No more patchwork fixes."
He set the empty glass down and stepped away from the bar.
"I'll be downstairs," he added. "Jarvis is still running projections."
"I'll be here."
Tony nodded once and headed for the workshop. His footsteps faded.
The house settled after that.
The light outside thinned, the horizon dimming until the water stopped reflecting anything at all. It moved, but it no longer looked like it belonged to the sky.
I stayed where I was.
For a long time, that had been enough.
Not getting involved with anything that doesn't bother me. Letting things move as they would. It kept everything simple with no consequences.
That was the idea.
Howard came back to mind without much effort.
Not a specific reason. Just… came.
A room. Low light. A bottle between us.
He'd been turning his glass slowly, watching the reflection instead of drinking.
"You know what you do?" he'd said.
I hadn't answered.
"You wait," he went on. "You always wait. I don't know why? I don't want to know either."
He tapped the rim of the glass once, like he was marking time.
"Doesn't matter what it is," he added. "You let it play out first."
I didn't correct him.
He leaned back in his chair, looking at nothing in particular.
"One day something's going to happen where waiting isn't enough," he said. "And you won't like what that looks like."
He didn't say anything after that.
He didn't need to.
I knew how that road would end.
The place. The timing. The way it would happen.
I didn't interfere.
At the time, it was easy to leave it alone. It wasn't my place. Changing it would have meant changing everything around it.
That was enough of a reason.
It doesn't feel like one anymore.
The wind shifted, pushing further into the room behind me. Something inside tapped softly against a wall, then went still again.
Below, Tony was moving through the workshop. The low voice of Jarvis answering him.
Uninterrupted.
I rested my hands against the railing. The metal bent slightly before I eased my grip.
Things had stayed manageable for a long time.
Slow and Predictable.
That's what I wanted until the time come.
The sky had cleared completely. No clouds. Just open dark stretching over the water.
Somewhere out there, things were already in motion like I wanted.
I stayed there a while longer, listening to the ocean and the distant sounds from below, letting the quiet settle without trying to make anything of it.
"Raskreia, I wonder..." he murmured.