They had dinner at a seaside restaurant in Malibu that Tony frequented.
Once the main courses arrived, Vanko spoke, his tone even.
"Justin Hammer got me out and gave me a lab and equipment. He's no good man, but objectively speaking, I owe him a favor." He pushed the fries on his plate aside with his fork, as though drawing some sort of boundary. "So I left him a few things."
Lynn looked up, his fork still stuck in his salad.
"A few finished unmanned suits. Not many, but enough for him to deliver to the military," Vanko continued, with the coolness of a technical expert discussing a layman. "But I left them the most basic version of the core reactor. It'll power the suits just fine. Want to take it apart and study it? I installed a physical lock inside. Once the disassembly procedure is triggered, the reactor burns itself out. And I locked down the maximum power output. After a few years of use, it'll naturally decay to zero. What he got was a pile of scrap metal with an expiration date, not the complete technology."
Lynn finished chewing his lettuce, swallowed, and took a sip of water without commenting. Not because he wasn't interested, but simply because he was lazy... After seeing what sort of nonsense Hammer Industries could pull at the congressional hearing, he didn't want to waste any more brain cells on it. Tony's fingers paused against the rim of his wineglass at the words "core reactor," then he raised it for another sip and set it back on the table.
"It wouldn't matter even if you left them the one you're using now," he said, his tone cool but not unkind, merely stating a fact. "Even if they wanted to copy it, they'd have to understand what they were copying."
Vanko fell silent for about two seconds, then let out a very faint snort of laughter.
"True. With Justin Hammer's brains, he'd probably blow up his own factory before he managed to copy it. He's leagues out of his depth."
Lynn looked at the two men who had been trading stubborn remarks all through dinner, clinked his water glass against Tony's wineglass, and went back to his salad.
After dinner, Tony drove them back along the coastal highway. The Pacific Ocean shimmered with scattered silver in the moonlight, the sea breeze carried the scent of salt, and the sound of waves striking the rocks slipped through the gap in the car window, mingling with the engine's low hum. When they reached the Malibu mansion, Tony parked but didn't immediately head inside. He leaned against the car door, glanced up at his brightly lit house, then turned to Vanko, who stood at the end of the driveway.
"I have a few vacant properties nearby. Detached houses, not far from here, with ocean views. If you find it too noisy, there's also a backup temporary lab carved into the coastal cliff. I built it a while back. It isn't as fully equipped as my place for now, but it's enough for you to use. Whatever's missing, I can supply anytime."
Vanko stood in the sea breeze, his hair blown into a mess. He stared at the mansion's floor-to-ceiling windows and glass curtain walls behind Tony for a long time, then slowly shook his head.
"The cave. I prefer a quiet environment."
He paused and looked down at the back of his hand. The scar left by frostbite in Siberia gleamed pale white in the moonlight. Lynn leaned against the car door on the other side, waiting for Vanko to finish.
"Besides, after what happened in Monaco, the outside world already thinks I'm dead, doesn't it? A mansion isn't really suitable for a dead man." He tucked his hands into his coat pockets, tilted his head, and turned to Lynn. "Lynn! My bird! Where's my bird?"
As Tony listened to Ivan's calm words, a barely perceptible flicker of complicated feeling crossed his eyes.
Lynn blinked, then abruptly smacked his forehead.
"Oh, oh, right, your bird." He raised a hand and drew a circle in the air. Orange sparks blossomed at the end of the driveway, opening a portal straight into the hall of the New York Sanctum. Warm yellow light spilled through, meeting Malibu's cool moonlight and drawing a line between light and shadow across the driveway.
Wong was leaning against the second-floor railing, holding a book in his left hand while gently rubbing the white parrot's crown with his right thumb. The parrot squinted, stretching and retracting her neck as she made satisfied cooing sounds. Wong had pampered her so much lately that her feathers shone, and even her calls were much clearer than before.
Hearing the portal, Wong turned and looked expressionlessly at Lynn, who was leaning halfway through it.
"My bird," Lynn said.
Wong looked down at the bird, then back up at Lynn, his fingers still resting on the parrot's head.
"Last time, you said it belonged to your friend."
"My friend's here to get her."
Wong was silent for a moment. He gently lifted the parrot onto his shoulder, then walked downstairs and through the portal to hand the bird to Lynn himself.
Without hesitation, the parrot flapped her wings twice and landed straight on Vanko's shoulder. She tilted her head to look at his face, then pecked his ear. Very lightly, as though reproaching him for taking so long to pick her up.
"You've gotten fat," Vanko said, looking at the parrot on his shoulder.
Wong didn't answer. He merely took another look at the white parrot on Vanko's shoulder, then turned and stepped back through the portal, leaving one last remark before the sparks closed.
"It took me a lot of effort to fatten her up. Don't let her get thin."