Hot Potato

California's sunlight poured generously over the terrace of the Malibu Villa, the air scorching and still.

Xiao Han sank deep into a beach chair like a living ore deposit greedily absorbing light and heat, silent tides of power surging beneath his skin.

The small cooler beside him stood open, stuffed with ice cream cones in every flavor—collateral in kind for the "sunshine lease agreement" Tony had signed to keep the terrace peaceful.

Happy dutifully stood in the shadows at the terrace entrance, his gaze vigilantly sweeping the path leading to the villa.

As Tony Stark's chief bodyguard, his duty was to protect the property and the people inside it, including that special tenant, ensuring no clueless intruders disturbed the peace here.

The shriek of an engine drew closer, tearing apart the afternoon stillness.

A red-and-gold armored figure landed on the beach in some haste, kicking up a cloud of sand. Mark XLIII's faceplate flipped open, revealing Tony Stark's face, written all over with exhaustion, irritation, and I really didn't want to come back right now.

He strode forward briskly, the armor's joints giving off faint grinding sounds as he headed straight for the terrace.

Happy immediately stepped forward. "Boss! Over in New York—"

"Tell me later, Happy." Tony impatiently waved him off, his eyes going directly to the figure basking in the glow on the beach chair.

He took a deep breath, like someone facing a neighbor he had no choice but to disturb. His tone carried a hint of helplessness and negotiation. "Hey, Sun's Son! Mind if I borrow your terrace for a meeting? Just for a bit! There's trouble in New York, and it has to do with the 'souvenir' you left behind last time!"

Xiao Han did not even lift his eyelids. He merely extended two fingers, deftly plucked a vanilla almond cone from the cooler beside him, and leisurely tore open the wrapper. The crackle of the crispy coating breaking was especially clear on the quiet terrace, serving as a kind of permission.

Tony's mouth twitched. He was long accustomed to this silent response. He immediately operated his wristwatch. With a soft hum, several holographic beams shot from the armor's miniature projector, weaving together and taking shape in the open space a few meters before Xiao Han's beach chair.

In an instant, several scaled-down three-dimensional figures appeared beneath the terrace's blazing sunlight.

Steve Rogers wore a battered combat uniform, his brow tightly furrowed, with what seemed to be a temporary command tent behind him;

Natasha Romanoff wore neat casual clothes, her red hair still striking in the virtual light, her gaze sharp;

Bruce Banner was curled up in a chair, pale-faced with heavy dark circles beneath his eyes, looking anxious and uneasy;

Clint Barton leaned against a virtual pillar with his arms folded, his expression grim;

Last was Nick Fury, whose single eye looked even gloomier in the holographic light. Behind him was the bustling control room of the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier.

"Everyone's online. Stark, what are you up to? Where is this?" Fury's voice came through the encrypted channel with an electronically synthesized quality, his single eye sharply sweeping over Tony's surroundings in the hologram—

—the sun-drenched terrace, the beach chair, and the figure leisurely eating ice cream—his brow furrowed tightly.

"My terrace, Fury. Keep it down." Tony snapped before getting straight to the point, his voice suppressing anger.

"Everyone, bad news. Those two 'cosmic hot potatoes' in our basement—the Tesseract and the Scepter—have gone haywire again! Their energy resonance index is terrifyingly high. They almost melted my newly installed phase stabilizer into a lump of scrap metal!

"JARVIS is practically suffering a logic breakdown from their energy noise!" He pointed at Banner's virtual image. "Bruce, have your gamma readings shown anything unusual?"

Banner pushed up his glasses, his voice somewhat weak. "My equipment... is too far away. It can only pick up faint anomalous spikes.

"But... Tony, that resonance pattern... it looks very much like they're being... actively activated? Or... responding to something?" He rubbed his hands uneasily, instinctively avoiding the direction of the beach chair.

"Responding?" Natasha sharply caught the keyword, her red lips pressed into a thin line. "Responding to whom? Loki is still embedded in Stark Tower's foundation as filler."

"Not Loki." Fury's voice was cold, carrying an ominous premonition. "The Helicarrier's deep-space monitoring array detected an anomalous signal.

"Extremely faint, but clearly directional. The source is beyond the Kuiper Belt. The coordinates... can't be precisely located. The signal structure is entirely unfamiliar."

His single eye swept over everyone before finally settling on Tony. "Stark, the timing of your laboratory's energy spike is highly consistent with the fluctuations in the deep-space signal we detected. They... seem to be greeting each other."

The news was like cold water thrown into a pot of boiling oil. Steve's expression instantly turned grave. "You mean... there's something else out there? Something worse than the Chitauri?"

"A greeting?" Barton snorted coldly, arms folded. "Sounds more like an activation beacon! Fury, we need to get rid of those two things! The sooner, the better! They're time bombs wherever we put them!"

"How do we get rid of them?" Banner's voice carried despair. "Melt them? Blow them up? Who can guarantee that won't trigger an even bigger disaster? Their energy level..."

"That's why I called this meeting!" Tony raked a hand through his hair irritably. "Put them in S.H.I.E.L.D.? Fury's side has already blown up one lab! Keep them here? My basement is about to become a volcano crater! Throw them into the sun? Who delivers them? How? Any ship that gets close will be torn apart by their energy field!"

The meeting fell silent. Only the faint hum of the holograms and the crunch of Xiao Han biting through the cone's crispy shell remained. Despair spread soundlessly. The two objects, possessing world-destroying power, had become hot potatoes—impossible to hold, impossible to put down.

At that moment, Fury, who had remained silent, turned his single eye toward the beach chair. His tone carried unprecedented gravity and an almost imperceptible hint of probing. "Mr. Xiao."

He deliberately used that form of address. "The energy loss of control in these two objects points to a threat from deep space. If we leave it alone, Earth will face an unknown disaster, possibly far beyond the New York incident.

"Do you... have a way to completely suppress or... deal with them?"

In an instant, every holographic gaze, along with Tony's, focused on the figure on the beach chair who was leisurely eating ice cream.

Xiao Han had just finished the last bite of the crispy shell. He flicked the wrapper precisely into a trash can several meters away. Then he clapped his hands as if dusting off sugar crumbs that did not exist, only then slowly raising his eyelids.

The golden-red light of sunset flickered in his black pupils. His calm gaze swept across the holograms before him before finally settling on Fury's virtual face.

"Suppress them?" Xiao Han's voice carried the languor of someone who had just finished dessert, his tone as casual as if discussing ice cream flavors. "Why suppress them?"

He tilted his head slightly, his gaze seeming to pass through the villa's many barriers and fall upon the energy-disrupted laboratory deep underground. "They're 'hungry.'"

"Hun... hungry?" Banner repeated in disbelief, his glasses nearly slipping off.

"More accurately, they're thirsty," Xiao Han corrected, rising to his feet and stretching. The golden glow of sunset outlined his tall figure. An invisible, indescribable pressure spread with his movement, making even the holograms seem to ripple slightly.

"Those two little things." He casually gestured toward the villa with his chin. "They're like a dried-up riverbed that sensed the upstream floodgates opening. That thing outside... is the one preparing to release the water."

His gaze turned toward the distant horizon, as if he could see the cold depths of space beyond the Kuiper Belt.

"You... you know what it is?" Steve's voice was filled with shock.

Xiao Han withdrew his gaze, the corner of his mouth lifting into an extremely faint, almost mocking curve. "Who knows? Maybe a greedy snake, maybe a lost space jellyfish." His tone was so relaxed, it was as though he were describing a neighbor's pet.

"But..." His gaze swept over the Avengers, who looked as if they were facing a great enemy, before finally stopping on Fury's holographic image. His voice held an indifferent matter-of-factness.

"...It can release its water, and I can sunbathe. As long as the flood doesn't reach my beach chair and doesn't interrupt my ice cream..." He paused, his eyes utterly devoid of emotion. "...what does it have to do with me?"

As his words fell, the terrace sank into dead silence.

The sunlight remained scorching, and the sea breeze remained gentle. Yet the Avengers' holographic images seemed frozen. Tony stood with his mouth open,

his expression stiff on his face; Banner was pale as paper; Natasha's eyes were sharp as blades, yet unable to conceal a trace of shock; Barton's knuckles had gone white around his folded arms; beneath Steve's tightly furrowed brow lay a weight of disbelief.

Fury's single eye stared fixedly at Xiao Han. No expression could be seen on his virtual face, but the air itself seemed to freeze from the chill radiating off him.

What did it have to do with him?

Those five lightly spoken words were like an invisible sledgehammer, crashing into the hearts of everyone trying to protect this planet.