Shield Boy? Shield Daddy!

After settling matters with Yinsen and his wife and daughter, Leon and Tony returned home to find Rhodes already waiting in the living room, having been let in by JARVIS.

"Tony, Leon, I think I need an explanation."

Rhodes looked at the brothers with a "kind" smile on his face.

Seeing this,

Leon and Tony exchanged a glance. The former shrugged, indicating he did not care, while the latter nodded and led Rhodes to the underground workshop where the Iron Man armor was stored.

They trusted Rhodes completely. He was one of the few close friends who could speak honestly with the brothers, trade jokes with them, and talk to them as equals.

The Rhodes in this Marvel Universe was the one from Iron Man 1, more like Tony's big brother, rather than the Rhodes from Iron Man 2 and later films, who seemed more like Tony's sidekick.

After Tony explained everything,

Rhodes stared at the three Iron Man armors in the display cases and could not stop marveling.

"Oh, my God!"

"You're saying you used just this suit to wipe out those armed warlords entrenched in Gemira, along with all the Stark weapons Obadiah sold them?"

"More accurately, Leon and I did it together," Tony corrected. "But even without Leon, I would have been enough on my own."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah."

Leon rolled his eyes and could not be bothered arguing with Tony, since he was telling the truth.

"If Tony relied on the Iron Man armor, then what about you, Leon?"

Rhodes looked at Leon.

Leon smiled faintly and raised a hand, firing a Palm Cannon that easily shattered a sheet of bulletproof glass in the underground workshop.

He was no longer short on energy.

The moment he had gotten home earlier, Leon had asked Tony for the compact Arc Reactor he had prepared in advance.

As long as Leon did not recklessly drain it dry, that reactor would last him a very long time.

"Shit!"

"Superpower?"

Rhodes looked as though he had seen a ghost, and Leon thoroughly enjoyed it.

After all,

having superpowers and not showing them off was like walking through the night in fine clothes.

With Rhodes playing along so well, Leon would definitely save him from the Skrulls.

No, rather than passively defending himself, he should take the initiative.

There was no such thing as guarding against thieves for a thousand days while thieves only stole for a thousand days.

It seemed

the Skrull extermination plan needed to be put on the agenda.

Leon did not want to one day find himself tutoring a goblin disguised by a Skrull. Just thinking about that scene was terrifying.

He was a firm human supremacist.

Everything else, apart from races that suited Leon's tastes, was heresy!

"Tony, I..."

After witnessing Tony and Leon's superpowers, Rhodes's worldview had taken quite a blow, and he suddenly began acting awkwardly.

Seeing this, Tony waved a hand before he could finish. "Say no more, Rhodes. Mark 2 was prepared for you."

"Oh, Tony!"

"You're one hell of a guy!"

Rhodes excitedly gave Tony a bear hug. With a click, Leon used his phone to record the beautiful sight, comparable to an "Empress Luffy picture."

After that,

Rhodes eagerly asked Tony to take him for a spin in the sky, while Leon once again displayed flying speed that completely crushed theirs.

That provocative attitude made Tony so furious he wanted to immediately cobble together Mark 4, Mark 5...

Happy times were always short.

Two and a half hours later,

Rhodes left the Seaside Villa completely satisfied.

But he did not take Mark 2 with him. Aside from the fact that Mark 2 had yet to receive its latest system upgrades, there was also the need to protect Tony's identity as Iron Man.

It had to be said that, as a good friend, Rhodes truly could not have treated Tony and Leon any better. That was why Leon was willing to reveal his superpowers before him, and why Tony was willing to directly give him an Iron Man armor.

A fortune was easy to come by, but a true confidant was hard to find.

That was the shared trouble the brothers had developed from being too rich.

After seeing Rhodes off,

Tony immediately put the Mark 4 armor on the schedule and got to work, while Leon directly moved his bedroom into the mechanical maintenance room on the second basement level where Arcee was parked.

To build their relationship, Leon decided that whenever he was not spending the night at one of his other sisters' homes, he would sleep with Arcee.

"Leon, you're not a child anymore."

Arcee looked at Leon clinging to her and spoke helplessly.

"But compared to you, I am a child... Ah!" Before Leon could finish, Arcee spun in place and flung him out of the driver's seat!

"Leon, don't you know that discussing a girl's important numbers, especially her age, is extremely rude?"

Furiously transforming into Battle Mode, Arcee pinned Leon, who was lying flat on the floor, beneath her.

However,

Leon never played by the rules.

He gazed deeply into Arcee's eyes and said sincerely, "Arcee, you're beautiful like this too."

"You..."

Arcee's pretty face immediately flushed red. In the next moment, she transformed back into Motorcycle Mode, pointed her rear end at Leon, and did not dare face him directly.

Seeing this,

Leon gave a crooked smile. Just as planned!

The simplest way to win over a pure-hearted mature beauty like Arcee was to be direct. Of course, the prerequisite was that you had to be handsome enough and already hold a certain place in her heart.

This was relationship advice Henry Cavill had personally passed down to Leon.

The next day,

on the second basement level of the Seaside Villa,

in Leon and Arcee's mechanical maintenance room, which also served as their bedroom.

Leon woke groggily from his large bed. Last night, he had dreamed some bizarre dream where he took Sun Wukong's place and was trapped beneath Five Elements Mountain.

"Christine, did you get heavier?" Leon asked drowsily, reaching out to touch the softness pressing against him...

"Huh?"

"What's so hard?"

The strange sensation in his hand jolted Leon fully awake.

Then he realized there was no Christine.

Only Arcee in Motorcycle Mode was beside him, pressed close to the bed for some reason. Judging from the lit vehicle display, she seemed to have just awakened as well.

"Who is Christine?"

Arcee questioned him.

"A reporter friend."

"..."

"..."

Leon did not say anything more, and Arcee did not ask further. Neither knew the other was in an awkward state, so they appeared unusually in sync.

After a long while,

Arcee reminded him, "Leon, perhaps you should look at today's headlines."

"Oh?"

"Let me see."

With a swift flip, Leon landed with remarkable precision on Arcee's waist, and the vehicle display automatically began searching through the day's headline news.

The first thing that caught his eye was a large photo of Soldier Boy—no, Leon.

He was smiling brightly like a child, seemingly caught in the very instant after throwing his shield and fully realizing that he possessed a talent for throwing.

No one knew which little darling had secretly taken the picture, but it captured seven-tenths of Leon's handsomeness.

It was just slightly blurry because it had been taken from far away, and his helmet covered the upper half of his face.

Ordinary people would probably find it difficult to connect the photo to Leon at a glance. However...

"Shocking! The hellish demons appearing in Gemira were wiped out overnight! The return of God's son, Superman!"

"According to reports from our frontline reporter, Gemira was liberated by two superheroes whom the local residents called saviors—"

"Iron Man and Shield Boy."

"Shield Boy, my ass. Why didn't he call me Shield Daddy?" Leon laughed in anger. "This fucking article was written by Tony, wasn't it?!"

"Iron Man was covered from head to toe in an Iron Man armor, and his identity remained a mystery."

"However, Shield Boy was suspected to be Stark Industries' second young master—Leon Stark. Following that line of reasoning, Iron Man might be his older brother—Tony Stark."

"The above report is purely speculation. If there are any inaccuracies, please do not take it seriously."

"Hey, they even put in a disclaimer." Leon's mouth twitched. "Which reporter is so damn unprofessional? I'm going to kill them!"

Furious, Leon activated quantum speed-reading and flipped to the final line. The byline was...

"Christine?!"