Lynn slept for two days.
Tony barely slept during those two days. He settled Lynn into a guest-room bed and had JARVIS monitor his vital signs around the clock, then plunged into the lab, pulled up all the sensor data from that night, and replayed it over and over.
The suit's recorder had captured Iron Monger's entire disintegration, from Lynn raising his hand to Iron Monger's right arm beginning to turn into particles. The particles peeled away layer by layer, working from the outside in.
Tony froze the video at the four-second mark. In the center of the image, Iron Monger's torso armor was drifting apart.
"JARVIS. Analyze the particle composition."
"Analysis complete. All particles produced by the separation were photons, with energy distributed across the visible spectrum. No metallic residue, chemical reaction by-products, or fragments of any kind were detected." JARVIS paused. "Sir, this means the entire mass of Iron Monger's disintegrated sections was converted into light."
Tony leaned back in his chair, staring at the frozen points of light on the screen. Mass converted into light. This was a direct rewriting of matter's information at the fundamental level.
He pulled up another set of data.
Before the final strike, Lynn had suddenly stopped, his eyes going blank, and then his ability had erupted.
Tony watched the two sets of data displayed side by side on the screen and remained silent for a long time.
"Sir, I believe we can draw a preliminary conclusion."
"Go ahead."
"The essence of Mr. Lynn's ability is the modification of matter's physical information at the microscopic level. It redefines the fundamental particles that make up matter as another type of particle. Iron Monger's armor was redefined as photons, resulting in silent disintegration. This was not an energy attack, but a rewriting of reality at the level of its rules."
"However, such an operation requires processing an enormous volume of information in an extremely short time. The total microscopic information contained in a macroscopic object far exceeds the human brain's normal processing capacity. Mr. Lynn fell unconscious that night after disintegrating only part of Iron Monger's structure, indicating that his brain was under a computational load far beyond its limits. Mr. Yinsen previously told you about the abnormalities Mr. Lynn had mentioned: fluctuations in processing speed, brief blackouts, and inexplicable gaps in time. These were very likely protective responses produced when his brain unconsciously invoked his ability. His brain forcibly deleted some short-term memories to free up processing capacity."
Tony tapped the armrest twice.
"He reversed Landauer's Principle."
"Do you mean the corollary derived from Maxwell's Demon?"
"Maxwell's Demon" was a thought experiment in physics. It proposed that a microscopic demon capable of identifying and sorting particles at the molecular level could reverse entropy increase without consuming energy. This thought experiment was later disproved by Landauer's Principle: any information-processing operation itself consumed energy. Sorting particles required obtaining information, and obtaining information came at a cost. Lynn had not bypassed that cost. He had paid it with his brain.
"He reversed Landauer's Principle. We should call it Landauer's Demon."
Tony rose from his chair and rolled his stiff neck. Outside the window, the morning light was spreading across the Pacific Ocean.
"Keep monitoring him. Let me know when he's about to wake up."
Lynn opened his eyes on the morning of the third day. A white ceiling, warm light strips set around its edges, curtains half drawn, sunlight spilling through the gap. He turned his head and saw a glass of water on the bedside table, still steaming. The air smelled of fried eggs and butter.
He sat up and took a while to establish his current condition and recall why he was here. The last image in his mind was Iron Monger lifting Tony, followed by... a complete blank.
Lynn threw back the covers and got out of bed. Barefoot, he left the room and followed the smell down the hallway, stopping at an open-plan kitchen. Tony Stark stood behind the stove, spatula in hand and an apron around his waist, frying eggs.
"You can cook?" Lynn asked, his voice a little hoarse.
Tony did not even turn around. "I can do plenty of things. Sit down. Eat."
Two plates of breakfast were already set out on the island. Fried eggs, bacon, toast, and coffee. Lynn sat down, picked up a fork, and put a bite of egg in his mouth. It tasted better than he had expected.
"What happened to Iron Monger?" he asked indistinctly through his mouthful of egg. "Back then, I..."
"Cut the chatter and eat," Tony said.
Lynn asked no more questions. He finished the entire plate of breakfast and drank another two cups of coffee.
Tony sat opposite him, barely eating, simply holding his cup and watching him.
Only after Lynn had used the last piece of toast to mop up the egg at the bottom of his plate and put it in his mouth did Tony set down his cup.
"You were unconscious for two days," he said. "Iron Monger's gone. You did it."
Lynn put down his fork.
"I did it? What did I do?"
Tony stood, walked over to the other side of Lynn, and tapped the countertop. JARVIS projected a holographic recording onto it. In the image, Lynn stood beside Iron Monger, his eyes vacant. He raised both hands and swept them toward Iron Monger. Iron Monger's right arm began disintegrating at the fingertips, turning inch by inch into pale silver photons that drifted into the night sky. There was no sound, no explosion, only a silently spreading ripple of light extending from the fingers to the torso.
Lynn watched the hologram, his expression shifting from confusion to seriousness, then to something complicated that could not quite be called fear or relief. He remembered charging forward. He remembered Iron Monger grabbing Tony, and then... then there was nothing.
"I've been wondering what my ability actually is. I've considered plenty of possibilities, but I was never sure."
Lynn watched the cloud of pale silver motes, his gaze complicated. "So... that's what it is."
Tony switched off the hologram and braced both hands against the edge of the island. "I spent two days analyzing it in the lab before I could finally be sure. You rewrote the microscopic information of Iron Monger's armor at the fundamental level. All its material particles were redefined as photons. You processed that information with your brain, and then you crashed... Your brain's self-protection mechanism forced a shutdown to keep you from burning out your entire head."
"All right, now tell me in detail about every abnormal symptom you mentioned to Yinsen. I'll help you analyze them. Guaranteed to be a lot more useful than fumbling around on your own."
Lynn leaned back in his chair and fell silent for a while.
He had told the Ancient One before, and she had said to keep observing. But now there was someone who had spent two days in a lab reviewing data over and over, just to figure out what exactly was wrong with him.
He spoke, telling him about every abnormality. Faster processing speed, feeling that other people moved slowly, being able to predict the cashier's next action, missing time, brief blackouts-he told him everything.
After listening, Tony leaned back in his chair, folded his arms across his chest, and stayed silent for about ten seconds.
"You told me before that you learned magic very quickly. That you could copy it after seeing it once. Now we can be sure that wasn't learning. That was your ability operating unconsciously. You were using your ability to copy magic, and when you use your ability, your brain is processing information too. Every time you use magic, you add to the load on your brain. You thought you were learning magic, but you were actually using another ability to imitate it."
"Your abnormalities aren't happening because something's wrong with you. They're happening because you've been using your ability all along without knowing its cost."
Lynn said nothing. He looked down at his hands, his fingertips slightly cold.
So his supposed talent for magic had all been fake. Every spell, every smug instance of "learning it at a glance," had been unconsciously overtaxing his brain. Those blackouts, those abnormal moments, had all been his body's cries for help.
Tony did not comfort him. He sat back down opposite Lynn and pushed the coffee cup aside, his tone calm but leaving no room for doubt.
"As things stand, unless you stop using your ability from now on, next time won't be as simple as a blackout. Every time you use it, you're trading your life for processing power. Sooner or later, your brain will burn straight into mush."
Lynn raised his eyes to look at him. Tony's expression was grim, but earnest.