Tony Stark

Boom!

The moment he entered the atmosphere, a sonic boom erupted around Leon.

His speed had even surpassed escape velocity.

After entering the atmosphere, his figure split the entire sky in two.

The immense air pressure generated by his extreme speed cleaved through the sea of clouds.

The invisible shockwave shredded the clouds filling the sky. At that moment, it suddenly took shape as well, surrounding Leon like an atmospheric shield and dragging a long trail through the high heavens.

It was like a World Serpent descending from the sky into the mortal realm, ready to devour everything in its path.

As he neared the ground, Leon began to slow down, his deceleration exceeding negative five thousand meters per second squared.

He had to slow down.

If he landed at full speed, even with the protection of his biological force field, he would cause widespread destruction to the surrounding terrain.

The thirty thousand kilometers between the spaceship and the ground, plus the more than ten thousand kilometers from above North America to Afghanistan—

He had covered it all in less than twenty minutes.

Leon hovered above Afghanistan, and every cloud overhead had been pushed far away by the shockwave.

The skies here were cloudless for thousands of miles. It was around ten at night.

Leon did not linger. He twisted in midair and continued flying east.

This time, he flew slowly, at just over two hundred meters per second, not even breaking the sound barrier.

Like an invisible ghost, he flew above the cave where Tony was currently imprisoned.

"Tony, time to wake up." Leon looked through the cave and saw Tony sleeping with a frown. He murmured softly.

Then he plummeted downward like a meteor.

Rumble!

The hard, rocky mountain was barely any tougher than thin paper before Leon.

He plunged headfirst through more than ten meters of rock and soil, entering the cave.

Leon dropped from the ceiling and theatrically landed in a half-crouch before Tony's bed, looking exactly like Tony's entrance pose in the movies when wearing his armor.

Chunks of shattered rock fell after him through the hole in the ceiling, large and small, striking the cave with a series of impacts.

Thud! Bang bang bang!

Tremors, deafening crashes, continuous tremors, continuous crashes.

Anyone awakened from a dream by such a commotion would think the world was ending.

"Ahhh!" Tony was no exception.

He had already been sleeping lightly and was instantly startled awake by the sound of Leon smashing through the cave.

Then the unending crashes frightened him into screaming.

"Those guys attacked!?" His face was filled with panic as he instinctively assumed the terrorists had grown impatient and broken in.

A terrorist organization had kidnapped him, and its leader had demanded that he build them a batch of Jericho missiles.

Tomorrow was the final delivery date he had agreed upon with them.

According to the plan, tomorrow he would put on the Mark armor he had made and escape the terrorist organization with his assistant, Yinsen.

It would be a difficult, brutal battle.

For that reason, only minutes ago, before going to sleep, he had even said a prayer, hoping tomorrow's plan would go smoothly.

And if it did not, he hoped Pepper and Leon would take good care of themselves afterward.

But he had only slept for a few minutes after praying. Had those terrorists already grown impatient and attacked?

"Damn it, even Leon wasn't this impatient when he wet his pants!"

Tony cursed under his breath as he frantically looked around and shouted, "Yinsen! Yinsen, are you okay? Those guys are—wait, why the hell is this cave collapsing? Oh, Leon, go check on Yinsen... Wait, Leon?"

Tony stared wide-eyed at Leon, who was half-crouching beside his bed.

The kid was wearing only a pair of pants. Gravel rained down from above his head, yet not a single grain of dust landed on him.

"Leon, you! Why are you here?"

Tony leaned his head back, nearly raising a hand to rub his eyes, wondering whether he was hallucinating before death.

Shock and confusion tangled in his eyes.

Tony's heartbeat quickened, and his hands trembled slightly.

He felt certain that he was hallucinating.

Leon's spaceship was clearly scheduled to return two years from now.

So how could that kid possibly be standing before him at this moment?

Still, even if this was a hallucination, Leon's pose was really cool. It was obviously something only Tony could have come up with.

Yet "Hallucination" Leon stood up and smiled at Tony.

"Because I heard you missing me late at night, constantly calling my name and saying you couldn't sleep if you didn't see me, so I came."

"To be honest, I'm pretty surprised that my big brother still needs someone to put him to sleep at thirty-nine."

Leon joked, "I can sing lullabies, and I can hum country ballads. Tony, which bedtime routine do you prefer? Oh, but just so you know, I can't hold you and rock you around. That's Pepper's job."

Tony froze for a moment before instinctively retorting.

"Hey, kid, I'm the one who used to hold you and rock you to sleep. Pepper hasn't held you nearly as many times as I have." What he meant was, You little brat, how dare you get that backwards.

Their dynamic had always been like this.

Tony was a tsundere by nature, and Leon loved teasing him.

Come on, a nearly forty-year-old man who would still say, "I'll reluctantly accept the holiday gift you gave me,"

Then cherish it like a treasure and display it in his collection room.

Wasn't that adorable?

Tony realized something the moment he finished retorting.

His eyes widened. His body trembled slightly with excitement as he stood up.

"You! Leon! You really came? How? I mean... how did you do it? You should be three hundred kilometers away in space right now..."

He even reached out and pinched Leon's arm.

The firm muscles felt like slabs of marble, and the sensation was so vivid.

This was not a hallucination! Leon was really here. The kid had come to save him!

Tony was utterly shocked, but his entire body relaxed at that moment, and his nerves, taut as bowstrings, suddenly loosened.

An indescribable sense of security welled up within him, and the exhaustion of the past few months suddenly came crashing down.

Unable to stop himself, he smiled, staggered back, and dropped onto the bed with a long sigh of relief.

No one understood Leon's strength better than he did.

When they had tested him half a year ago, Leon already possessed five hundred tons of strength, and even sniper rifles could only leave scratches on his defenses.

Now that Leon was here, the terrorists outside were no longer a problem.

Leon raised a brow. "More accurately, I was in satellite orbit over forty thousand kilometers from here."

"While I was sleeping, I heard you crying to me about being wronged, so I rushed over immediately."

He blinked. "After all, aside from Pepper, no one in this world is allowed to make my big brother suffer."

Tony's face darkened. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, you've got that wrong. Even Pepper can't make me suffer. No one can! And I'm not suffering!"

"So you've been living easily and happily in this cave? Hmm? Traveling all this way for a business trip, then taking a vacation at a terrorist base?"

Leon looked Tony over.

Tony's big, charming eyes were still bright, but the deep exhaustion within them could not be concealed.