Leon stood before the time portal.
Before coming here, he had imagined what the first sight after arriving in the Main Universe might be like.
Perhaps the world would be in chaos, the two Earths only minutes away from colliding, with everyone saying their final goodbyes.
Or perhaps the crisis had already been resolved, and Tony and the superheroes from the Parallel Worlds would be singing and dancing amid flowers and applause.
But he had not expected that the moment he arrived—
He would see several people who had stayed up for who knew how many nights, their faces gray and dull as if they were about to drop dead.
"Why do you all look worried but not especially panicked? So the situation isn't too bad yet?"
Leon's voice broke the laboratory's stifling silence.
Tony, who had his feet propped on the desk, his chair tilted back, and was tapping his forehead with a pen cap like a wooden fish, jolted awake and kicked the desk away as he stood.
The Iron Man from the B2 Universe opposite him cursed, "Shit!" as the desk knocked him over.
Tony's eyes had been staring lifelessly at the ceiling just seconds earlier, but they lit up with delight when he saw Leon.
"Leon! Is that important transformation of yours finished?" Tony clenched his hand and crushed the fountain pen.
"It's finished. The process went pretty smoothly, and I even met Dormammu."
Leon spoke as he closed the time portal.
"But I didn't expect to come home and find you guys taking time out to save the world."
Then he added, "And this time, it looks like you didn't make things worse. That's a huge improvement, Tony."
Tony's mouth twitched. That familiar feeling—this really was his little bastard of a brother.
He had been