I Hate It When People Touch My Hair

Boom!

Rhodey was sent flying by a punch, smashing into a shipping container.

"Rhodey!"

"I'm fine... Fuck! This guy's ridiculously strong!"

Mark 17 Heartbreaker had barely landed when an Extremis Soldier grabbed its head and violently tore it off the chest armor!

"Sir! Their strength is too great! My drone protocol cannot engage them effectively!"

"Then don't engage them! Blast them apart!"

Mark 16 Disco's palm repulsors began charging, but a female Extremis Soldier rushed in even faster and plunged her hand into its reactor!

Boom—boom!!!

Disco exploded on the spot, turning into a burst of very expensive fireworks.

Tony stared in disbelief.

This was not a battle at all. It was a slaughter.

"JARVIS! Analyze their weakness! Why can't they be killed?!" Tony activated the thrusters on his back, flew into the air, and swept the area with repulsor fire.

"Sir! Their regenerative abilities are too powerful! Unless... they are killed in a single strike!"

"Easier said than done!"

Bang—!

"Shit!"

Tony was seized out of the air by two Extremis Soldiers and slammed viciously onto the deck.

"Tony!" Killian's voice came from above.

He stood atop a crane, dressed in an immaculate suit with every hair neatly combed, but his face glowed with a hellish red light under the intense heat.

"Look at you, Tony! You always rely on these toys!"

"Killian!" Tony aimed his chest-mounted cannon at him. "Where's Pepper?! What did you do to her?!"

"Her? She's evolving, Tony!" Killian spread his arms, reveling in his masterpiece. "I gave her a gift! A perfection you could never give her!"

"Go to hell!!"

Tony launched the missiles from within his armor, but Killian moved faster.

Whoosh—!

He exhaled a stream of dragon-like fire, detonating the missiles the instant they left their bays!

Boom!

The shockwave hurled Tony hard against a shipping container.

"Sir! House Party has been completely wiped out! Please withdraw from the battlefield immediately!" JARVIS's voice sounded.

Those early models were as fragile as cheap plastic toys before these three-thousand-degree "humanoid furnaces."

With their limited numbers, they could not form a proper force. They were swiftly routed, melted, and torn apart, their wreckage scattered across the deck.

"It's over, Tony."

Killian slowly walked down the stairs, followed by more than a dozen surviving Extremis Soldiers.

Like a pack of glowing wolves, they surrounded the fallen Tony Stark.

Tony tried to stand, but his damaged armor would not respond.

"JARVIS... eject the armor..."

"Authorization denied, sir. The chest armor has suffered severe deformation from the impact."

Tony was trapped inside his own "iron coffin."

Killian stepped forward, his palm turning crimson. He intended to melt Tony's faceplate open like a tin can.

"You know, Tony, my greatest regret was choosing... to believe your bullshit." Killian's voice was filled with the pleasure of revenge.

"And now..."

He raised his hand and aimed it at Tony's face.

"Goodbye, outdated... futurist."

Tony closed his eyes. "...Pepper."

"Stop."

A voice suddenly rang across the entire deck. In the night sky, the man slowly descended.

His golden hair was perfectly groomed, and there was not a ripple in his azure eyes.

The Stars and Stripes Cape billowed behind him without any wind.

"Homelander..." Tony could barely breathe.

"W-What?!" Killian's smile froze. "You... When did you get here?!"

"Hey, Tony. Colonel Rhodey." Homelander turned and waved at them, as though greeting them in his own backyard. "Looks like... your party got a little out of hand?"

"Homelander..." Rhodey crawled out of the shipping container, half of Mark 12's body nearly melted away. "How... how are you here?"

"Oh, me?" Homelander pointed at himself. "I was... saving the world."

He turned slightly.

Everyone, including Killian, saw what was behind him. Behind Homelander... stood someone.

A man in a well-tailored suit, badly shaken but completely unharmed.

"M-Mr. President?!" Rhodey's jaw nearly dropped.

"Good evening, Colonel." President Ellis pursed his lips, forcing himself to remain calm.

Tony Stark's brain short-circuited.

"Wait... wait a second..." Tony struggled to stand. "The President... the President was clearly still up there... We... we came here to save him..."

Homelander smiled.

"Tony, Tony... Did you think I just arrived?"

He swept Tony's chest with X-Ray Vision. "Your little heart is beating fast."

"I got here twenty minutes ago."

"What?!" Tony and Rhodey blurted out in unison.

"Right when you... um... were sneaking up here like two headless flies." Homelander shrugged. "I flew to the top of that oil tank and untied the President. And while I was at it, I told him a joke."

He turned to the President. "Did you find it funny, Mr. President?"

"...Very... very humorous, Mr. Homelander." President Ellis wiped away a cold sweat.

Tony Stark felt more insulted than he had in his entire life.

"So..." Tony pointed at him, trembling with rage. "You fucking... After you saved the President... you just hid up there... and watched us get beaten like dogs?!"

"Whoa, Tony, watch your language." Homelander covered his mouth in mock surprise. "I wasn't watching."

"That was called trust."

"Trust in the abilities of you so-called Avengers."

"You..."

"Tony!" Rhodey grabbed Stark before he completely lost it.

"Enough!!" Killian finally snapped out of his shock and pointed coldly at Homelander. "And what the hell are you supposed to be?! You're just a clown in a costume! Kill him!!"

"Die!!"

The Extremis Soldier nearest Homelander roared and charged forward, flames blazing all over his body. His hands, glowing like branding irons, reached for Wu Yanzu's head!

Homelander did not even look at him.

He merely... casually backhanded him.

Slap—!!!!

An unimaginably crisp slap rang out.

The Extremis Soldier, who could tear apart Iron Man armor with his bare hands, had his neck spun seven hundred and twenty degrees by that single slap.

Thud.

The corpse hit the ground, and the entire deck fell silent...

"..." Tony Stark held his breath.

"..." Colonel Rhodey's armor system warned him that his heart rate was too high and advised him to stabilize his emotions.

"He... fuck..." Rhodey muttered.

"Oh, I'm sorry." Homelander shook his hand in disgust, as if he had touched something filthy. "I hate it when people touch my hair."

"Fucking monster..." Killian quietly took a step back.

"No." Homelander shook his head, that "holy" smile appearing on his face again. "I'm Homelander."