I Hate It When People Touch My Hair

Boom!

Rhodey was punched into the air and crashed into a shipping container.

"Rhodey!"

"I'm fine... fuck! This guy's fucking strong!"

The moment Mark 17 Heartbreaker landed, an Extremis Soldier grabbed its head and forcibly tore it off its chest plate!

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

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

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

Boom—!!!

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

Tony stared in disbelief.

This wasn't a battle at all. It was a slaughter.

"JARVIS! Analyze their weaknesses! Why won't they die?!" Tony activated the thrusters on his back, took to the air, and raked them with repulsor fire.

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

"Easy for you to say!"

Bang—!

"Shit!"

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

"Tony!" Killian's voice rang out from above.

He stood atop a crane tower, dressed in an immaculate suit, his hair perfectly combed. But his face glowed with a hellish red light beneath the intense heat.

"Look at you, Tony! Always relying on these toys!"

"Killian!" Tony aimed his unibeam 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 fired the missiles from his inner armor, but Killian moved faster.

Whoosh—!

He spewed a dragon-breath torrent of fire, detonating the missiles the instant they left their launch bays!

Boom!

The shock wave smashed Tony violently into a shipping container.

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

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

With their limited numbers, they could not form any real scale of attack. They were swiftly overwhelmed, melted down, 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 plate was severely deformed in 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 can.

"You know, Tony, my greatest regret was choosing to... believe your bullshit." Killian's voice brimmed with the thrill 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, a man slowly descended.

His blond hair was flawlessly groomed, and not a ripple stirred in his deep blue eyes.

The Stars and Stripes cape behind him fluttered without wind.

"Homelander..." Tony could barely breathe.

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

"Hey, Tony. Colonel Rhodey." Azu turned and waved at them as though greeting neighbors 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 nearly melted away. "How... how did you get here?"

"Oh, me?" Azu pointed to himself. "I was... saving the world."

He shifted aside.

Everyone, including Killian, saw what stood behind him.

Behind Azu... stood someone.

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

"M-Mr. President?!" Rhodey's jaw nearly hit the floor.

"Good evening, Colonel." President Ellis pressed his lips together, forcing himself to remain composed.

Tony Stark's brain crashed.

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

Azu smiled.

"Tony, Tony... did you think I just got here?"

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

"I got here twenty minutes ago."

"What?!" Tony and Rhodey said in unison.

"Right when you... hmm... came sneaking in like two headless flies." Azu shrugged. "I flew to the top of that oil tank and untied the President. Oh, and I told the President a joke while I was at it."

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." Azu covered his mouth in mock surprise. "I wasn't watching."

"I was trusting."

"Trusting in the abilities of you 'Avengers.'"

"You..."

"Tony!" Rhodey grabbed Stark before he could explode.

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

"Die!!"

The Extremis Soldier closest to Azu roared and charged. His entire body burned with searing flames as his hands, like red-hot irons, reached for Wu Yanzu's head!

Azu did not even look at him.

He merely... casually swung a backhand slap.

Smack—!!!!

An incomparably crisp slap.

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

Thud.

The corpse hit the ground, and the whole deck stopped breathing...

"..." 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." Azu shook his hand in disgust, as if he had touched something filthy. "I hate it when people touch my hair."

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

"No." Azu shook his head, that "holy" smile returning to his face. "I'm Homelander."