Zemo's single sentence made every gaze that had been fixed on the two girls suddenly turn toward Iron Man—
The effect was outstanding.
Tony merely froze for a moment, but in the next instant, his blazing armor burst forth at absolute speed. Like an afterimage, he shot forward with a bang, reached Zemo, seized him by the throat, and lifted him into the air.
"What... did you say?" The Iron Man mask over Tony's face began to retract, revealing his narrowed eyes and a rather terrifying expression. "Hey, listen, friend. I'm deeply sorry about what happened to your parents."
"If that really is the truth, I'm willing to do anything to express my apology..." His voice was soft, yet carried an unmistakable gravity. "But if you're using this to joke about my parents, darling, then you'll be seeing them very soon."
Perhaps even Tony Stark himself had not realized that, in some ways, he had already been influenced by Rimuru.
Still, mutual influence between friends was perfectly normal.
"Heh... a joke? Do you think... my parents dying at your hands... could possibly be a joke?" Zemo struggled to grip the hand Iron Man had around his throat with one hand. Staring straight into Iron Man's eyes, he said, "I wanted to go to the Winter Soldier base... not to control them and turn them against you."
"I wanted to find... mission records from 1991 as evidence..."
"1991..." Iron Man slowly clenched his other fist. That was the year his parents had died.
"A faction, a powerful faction—outside forces might find it difficult to defeat it... but if it falls apart from within..."
Zemo suddenly laughed with difficulty and murmured, "Then it becomes utterly fragile—"
"Stark, are you really going to believe a criminal?" The faction led by Captain America clearly