"But I also heard... Tony Stark spent all day obsessing over building his muscles, staying home and never going out. Compared to your younger brother, you didn't seem much better either. = ="
Honestly, if Tony had not displayed superpowers distinct from the Iron Man armor—of the extra-large variety—Maya Hansen would probably have assumed that the reason he had stayed out of the public eye for so long was because he had secretly gone off for cosmetic surgery.
Otherwise, how could he have become so much younger when he reappeared in public? He had even dyed his hair white and looked like an entirely different person.
"Slander! Utter slander!" Tony flatly denied Maya Hansen's accusation.
"But Ms. Pepper told me so herself. = =" Maya Hansen said, smiling with her eyes as she covered her mouth.
"Pepper said that? Then... never mind." The moment Tony heard that Pepper was the one spreading rumors about him, he instantly accepted it.
"So it really was true?" Maya Hansen looked at Tony in surprise.
"Half true, half false."
Tony casually waved a hand, unwilling to dwell on the matter with Maya Hansen. Otherwise, she might spill something juicy to Pepper later as her best friend.
"Fine."
Seeing that Tony had no intention of continuing the topic, Maya Hansen tactfully refrained from pressing him.
Tony lightly tossed the tiny speck of starlight floating above his fingertip upward, chanting as though he were reciting some sort of spell:
"A bag of rice up how many floors, a bag of rice up to the second floor, a bag of rice, how tired must I be, a bag of rice, I have to wash it, a bag of rice, I washed so much mud, every grain has mud, who gave you a bag of rice!"
"All right—**add