The golden light didn't just illuminate; it coalesced into a perfect, smooth dome, an invisible kinetic shell that completely enveloped Leo's body, remaining stationary exactly five centimeters away from his skin.
The dome shimmered, looking tangible, like spun gold glass, yet when Leo instinctively reached out his hand, he passed right through it without resistance. It wasn't physical; it was a field, a force generated by the intrinsic power of the Immovable Golden Body.
The immediate physical sensation was astounding. The brutal wind shear, the biting cold, and the dizzying pressure of supersonic flight vanished instantly. Leo felt as if he had jumped from a deep, paralyzing swamp directly into a serene vacuum.
He felt an unprecedented sense of ease and pure, unadulterated joy. He had never been so absolutely free. The air resistance—the fundamental anchor that tethered all movement on Earth—was simply negated. The golden streaks on his body were not just cosmetic; they were the circuitry for this external kinetic stabilizer.
Thousands of meters away, Tony was still plummeting uncontrollably, the massive suit tumbling violently in the high-altitude void.
"Jarvis, for the love of God, deploy the wings! Jarvis, respond!" Tony yelled, his voice strained with pure, primal panic, the sound echoing hollowly inside the blacked-out helmet.
The Mark II, now nothing more than a giant silver coffin, was spinning end-over-end, its rotation completely uncontrolled as it fell toward the ground. The lack of air friction at this altitude meant the descent was silent and sickeningly rapid.
"Hurry! I need to physically break up this damn ice! I need control!" Tony shouted, focusing his scattered thoughts, trying to bypass the software failure and initiate a mechanical override.
Don't panic. Every second is life or death. Think, think, think.
He fumbled desperately for the aileron switch on his thigh. He tried to trigger the mechanical override several times, but the g-forces and the sheer speed of rotation made the action impossible. On the fourth desperate attempt, his gloved thumb finally managed to grip the recessed lever and pry it open.
With a grinding pop of shearing ice, the small, stabilizing ailerons—designed for flight stability, not breaking up atmospheric ice—deployed mechanically behind the suit's calves and lower back. The deployment tore a small, critical fracture line in the thick surface ice. The powerful wind rushing past immediately took advantage of the weakness, stripping away the remaining layer of fragile surface ice like peeling paint.
Jarvis was back. The core systems, freed from the crippling cold, rebooted in an instant. The HUD flooded back to life, and the famous blue lights of the arc reactor eyes flared back on.
"Welcome back, sir. All core functions restored. I have initiated emergency descent protocols and calculated the optimal pull-up vector. Altitude: 4,000 meters and decreasing rapidly."
Encased in the absolute stillness of his golden net, Leo felt a massive wave of relief. He had been preparing to use every ounce of his Metal Control to halt the massive suit, a move that would have been physically agonizing.
He felt so effortlessly powerful in this new state. It truly felt as if his body was the metal; he had transcended the need for external anchors or propulsion.
The two chunks of metal he had launched with, which had been pressed into his palms for propulsion, obediently flew back and settled against his calves.
His body leaned sharply forward, transforming into a pure, concentrated golden light that drew an incandescent line across the dark night sky.
In just two clean seconds, Leo traversed a horizontal distance of over three thousand meters, arriving and coming to a steady, silent stop directly beneath the plummeting Mark II.
A second later, the Mark II—still accelerating toward terminal velocity—flew past Leo, less than ten meters away.
Leo stood motionless in the air, a golden spectator watching the figure continue its uncontrolled rapid descent.
The Mark II's thrusters roared back to life instantly, a beautiful, incandescent sight of restored power. Jarvis immediately assisted Tony in adjusting the flight attitude, which, at only three hundred meters above the crashing coastline, was just in time.
Tony pushed the thrusters to maximum output, accelerating his dive and using the momentum and the final milliseconds of air resistance to flatten the trajectory and regain stable airborne speed.
Tony, having just stared down oblivion, let out a burst of excited, high-pitched laughter—the sound of an utterly reckless genius who had just been handed a second, thrilling chance at life.
Leo, having had his hand on the trigger for Metal Control, finally breathed a profound sigh of relief and aborted his plan to manually capture and gently lower the suit.
Watching Tony's now stabilized figure pull away and roar back into the distance, Leo knew the adrenaline junkie was fine. He ignored the suit's playful return flight and, transforming into a silent golden arrow, rushed back toward the familiar lights of the Malibu villa.
In just a few serene seconds, Leo was standing silently on the terracotta roof of the villa.
The shimmering golden net still enveloped him. He closed his eyes and quietly absorbed the sensation of the absolute, unbridled power it contained.
The tiny golden figure suspended in the darkness gradually began to dim.
The golden net floating five centimeters from his skin began to retract, shrinking back into his body, sinking beneath the epidermis. Strangely, this time, the internal golden threads that had been glowing for days did not reignite their luminescence. Instead, they settled deep into the muscle and bone, becoming indelible, metallic gold etchings in the very fabric of his being.
Even the visible gold marks began to fade away, eventually becoming barely perceptible. If you didn't have his upper body bare and examined the skin closely, no one would notice the slight difference in color or the intricate, barely visible texture beneath his skin.
But as the golden light receded, Leo felt the familiar, heavy anchor of Earth's gravity snap back into place. His body instantly sank a few centimeters under the strain.
He knew if he were to attempt high-speed flight now, he would once again face that crushing, suffocating air resistance. The golden net was an active extension of the Immovable Golden Body, a skill he could now consciously activate, effectively shielding him from all external kinetic forces.
He opened his eyes and saw a small white dot—the Mark II—flying rapidly toward the villa.
He looked at his now clean, smooth arms. The constantly glowing golden threads were gone, and while they had been stylish, Leo, who preferred to be utterly low-key, appreciated the current, less obvious state.
He clasped his hands together, focusing his intent. With a faint whum, the golden net instantly reappeared around his body. His weight lifted slightly, and he regained that state of weightless, unconstrained freedom. There were no physical boundaries, and he hadn't even generated the sound of a sonic boom.
Leo smiled, feeling a profound sense of self-mastery. He had accidentally unlocked the true utility of his passive enhancement.
He quickly rushed back to the garage below, settled into his chair, and dismissed the golden net just seconds before Tony's landing attempt.
This golden net is far more than just a shield, Leo mused, his mind racing. It feels like it's tapping into an entirely new energy source hidden in my meridians. He felt the edge of a vast, magical power, one he couldn't grasp. Perhaps, he hypothesized, he needed to raise his Control Points to over one hundred before he could truly utilize this latent ability.
Meanwhile, Tony, flying home, caught a flash of the intense golden light disappearing on the roof of his house, but it was too fast and too far away to identify.
"Jarvis, did you log that? That golden flash on the roof? Enhance and analyze!"
Tony's screen showed the same golden flash, slowed down and frame-by-frame paused.
"I'm sorry, sir. Despite maximum enhancement, the adjusted resolution is insufficient to clearly discern the nature of the energy source. The signature is highly unusual."
"It was Leo," Tony stated with absolute certainty. The kid was his favorite new problem.
After nearly half an hour of uncontrolled, exhilarating, high-altitude flight, Tony flew back to his own rooftop.
He skillfully decelerated and brought the Mark II to a gentle, controlled hover about thirty centimeters above the roof surface.
"Jarvis, kill the primary power. Cut all thrusters."
"Affirmative, sir. Power disconnec—WHOOMPH!"
The moment the flame beneath its feet vanished, the Mark II—all several hundred kilograms of dense, uncompensated steel—crashed straight down. It punched instantly through the reinforced terracotta roof, tore through the wooden joists, and smashed straight through the priceless, two-story grand piano below, reducing the instrument and its tri-pedestal to splinters.
It wasn't over. The massive suit continued its uncontrolled descent through the second floor's marble flooring, finally landing in the garage below, where it slammed into the hood of a sleek, vintage blue and white convertible sports car.
Leo, who had been waiting for Tony in the garage, calmly raised his hand. With a quick, precise flick of his finger, he exerted just enough Metal Control to gently nudge the Mark II—which was about to crush the entire convertible—a few feet to the side. Only a few dusty, broken bricks from the roof fell onto the car's pristine leather interior.
"Mr. Stark, are you… doing well?"
Leo approached the now-motionless Mark II and lightly tapped the helmet with his knuckle.
The mask was retracted, revealing Tony's pale, dizzy face.
"Ugh! Never felt so nauseous in my life. And I once drank an entire martini made of ethanol. Jarvis, tell me: where did I land this time?" Tony mumbled, his vision blurry.
Leo smoothly levitated the several-hundred-pound Mark II into the robotic arm's operating position, allowing the meticulous arm to begin the strenuous process of disassembling the armor.
"Leo, you were right here. Why didn't you catch me? I thought we were friends!" Tony complained weakly.
"Mr. Stark, don't you think designing a soft landing protocol for a several-hundred-kilo metal shell is a crucial, next step for your engineering focus?" Leo countered with a straight face, a hint of amusement dancing in his eyes.
"Don't worry about the landing gear right now. I think I need to deal with the cryogenic icing catastrophic system failure first. That's a bigger headline problem." Tony's mind, despite the dizziness, was already racing toward the next design flaw.
Fifteen minutes later, Tony was out of the suit, holding a massive ice pack to his head to ward off the residual high-G dizziness from the flight and the crash. He walked slowly toward his computer console.
He spotted the ceramic coffee mug on the table and reached for it, desperate for a caffeine jolt, when he noticed the sticky note tucked beneath the cup.
'From Pepper.'
The note was affixed to a square gift box wrapped in simple, thick kraft paper.
"Mr. Stark, just a friendly advisory: that coffee has been sitting there for approximately four days since the last time you left the studio. Unless you enjoy the complex flavor of stale sludge, I don't recommend ingestion," Leo said from his workbench, a slight smile on his face.
Tony completely ignored Leo's warning. He looked at the neatly wrapped gift box, and with a gesture completely lacking in patience, he roughly tore open the outer kraft paper packaging.
Inside was a square, transparent glass enclosure—a display case for the original, large Arc Reactor that had powered his electromagnet and saved his life.
It was his first reactor. His lifeline.
Etched beautifully in a circle around the object was a simple, profound inscription:
"Tony Stark has a heart."