"Don't believe me? If you don't, I'm leaving!"
Ian turned and walked toward the door, his pace neither fast nor slow. Pepper Potts's voice chased after him from behind, carrying an urgency that had been suppressed for a long time and had finally burst free.
"Wait!"
Ian stopped, but did not look back.
"Five minutes."
Pepper's voice rose. "You said you can bring him back in five minutes? From New York to Afghanistan? Even in a fighter jet, that would take hours!"
Ian turned around and looked at her. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but there was light in them—not tears, but the cautious kind of light of someone who wanted to believe and didn't dare believe too easily.
She was waiting for an answer. An answer that could put her at ease.
"I already proved just now that I can fly." Ian said nothing more. His feet left the floor, slowly, as if an invisible hand were lifting him. He hovered in midair in the office, his bare feet about half a meter above the floor, his body perfectly still.
Sunlight streamed in through the floor-to-ceiling windows and fell across him, casting his shadow at Pepper's feet.
Pepper's mouth opened, closed, then opened again.
"I know, but this is still too unbelievable!"
Her hand lifted from the desk, lowered again, then lifted once more, as if she had no idea where to put it. Her eyes were wide as she stared fixedly at Ian's feet, which had left the ground.
"You're a superhuman?" Her voice squeezed out of her throat, hoarse.
"More or less." Ian descended back to the floor, his feet landing on the carpet without a sound.
Pepper took a deep breath. She had seen superhumans before. In this world, superhumans were no longer a secret. Vought International,