The roar of the sports car had barely faded when the door to the storage room was flung open with characteristic drama. Tony Stark strode in, radiating confidence and smelling faintly of ozone and expensive aftershave. He closed the door with a loud thud, surveyed the stark red brick interior, and immediately targeted Leo.
"Leo, what a surprise! You're actually here waiting for old One-Eye?" Tony sauntered over, settling himself into the nearest chair with a flourish. "Did he try to recruit you for his 'Super Friends' club already? You're too smart for this government nonsense."
He immediately spotted the manila folder on the table, labeled 'Preliminary Report of the Avengers Initiative,' and tried to snatch it up with a curious grin.
Just as his fingers made contact with the paper, Nick Fury's hand shot out, pressing the document firmly onto the table. His expression remained utterly unreadable.
"That's classified internal data, Stark. The only thing you need to worry about is the assessment of your performance." Nick Fury picked up a second, thinner report and slid it across the table toward Tony.
"As for this report," Fury said, leaning back slightly, "this is Agent Romanoff's professional assessment of you. Take a look for yourself; you earned it."
Tony took the document with a puzzled frown, his confidence momentarily replaced by professional curiosity. He opened it and began to read aloud, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
"'Personality analysis shows that Stark often acts impulsively.'" Tony paused, looking up with wide, incredulous eyes at Fury. "Okay, that was literally just last week. You want to see impulsive? I single-handedly stopped a global weapons crisis and fixed my own imminent death problem. That's genius impulse."
He kept reading, his voice getting higher.
"'Has a tendency toward self-destruction.'" Tony threw his hands up in the air. "I was about to die, Fury! My old reactor was poisoning me! I was forced to be self-destructive! Come on, who among your 'Super Friends' doesn't have a death wish, huh?"
He skimmed the next point, then read it slowly, dramatically.
"'A typical narcissist?'"
Tony paused for a long, theatrical moment, his eyes darting between Leo, who was watching with amusement, and the poker-faced Director. A slow smile spread across his face.
"You know what? I agree. That's a fair point. Agent Romanoff knows her stuff."
Tony went back to the summary section at the end of the report, his playful mood dissolving into genuine annoyance as he read the final verdict.
"'Avengers recruitment assessment, Iron Man... Status: not recommended for team membership.'" Tony slammed the paper down on the table, staring at Fury with an expression of betrayal. "Wait, you rope me into this, you watch me single-handedly save the planet twice, and now you decide I'm 'not recommended'? Is this a joke, Fury?"
"How can you accept me into your secret government fold and then reject me again? I literally just installed a brand-new, clean-energy 'heart' in my chest, and I intend to treat Pepper with the respect she deserves. Our relationship is more stable than your entire organization."
Nick Fury slowly walked over to Tony, his single eye fixed on the industrialist. "That's exactly why we're convinced you are currently too valuable and too essential to Stark Industries and world peace to be used as a battlefield grunt. You can only serve as a consultant for now."
Tony frowned slightly, picked the report back up, tossed it back onto the table, and stood up, smoothing down his jacket. He then smiled the biggest, most insincere smile he could manage and extended his right hand to the Director.
"Consultant? You know what, Fury? I'm the best genius in the world. You simply can't afford to hire me at my current market rate. The answer is no."
He turned and walked toward the exit. Nick Fury remained seated on the table, watching Tony with a completely tranquil, confident smirk.
Sure enough, Tony had only taken a few steps before he paused, then spun back around, snapping his fingers.
"However," Tony conceded, a touch of desperation showing through his bravado, "I'm willing to use the equivalent of my entire contract fee to ask you to do me a small, immediate favor. I need actionable intelligence, and I need it now."
Leo, who had been studying the electronic map on the wall, finally turned around and walked toward the two men. "Nick Fury, forget the theatrics. What is at this precise location?"
Leo pointed to the only one of the seven marked points on the digital map that was situated in the middle of the dark, deep Atlantic Ocean. The dot pulsed a dull, ominous green.
Nick walked over with a stoic, dark expression, calmly looking from Leo's finger to the glowing dot.
"Do you know of any other significant locations, Advisor Leo? Perhaps you can offer a preliminary threat assessment on the map before you leave."
"Wait, you joined this 'Avengers thing' too, Leo?" Tony asked, genuinely surprised, forgetting his own drama for a moment.
Leo shook his head and sighed, running a hand through his hair. "I'm the only one here who isn't a narcissist, Tony. But even you can recognize a few of these locations, can't you?"
Tony, easily distracted by a puzzle, walked over to the electronic screen, peering at a location marked on the far left of the map.
"Is this a surveillance map? Why is my home address marked in Malibu? Are you staking out my house, Fury?" Tony accused immediately.
"It represents an area of high activity and strategic importance, Stark," Fury said dryly.
"Fine. New Mexico is right next door, which is where Coulson and his flying circus should be going now. There's also a location in Harlem, New York. I'm guessing that's because of the Hulk situation and the cleanup."
He pointed to the rest of the map quickly. "The rest are Greenland, Tunschberg in Norway, Wakanda in Africa—that's a big one, good luck getting in there—and this anomaly here."
"What exactly happened on this mysterious Atlantic island, Fury? What warrants that level of secrecy?" Leo asked again, drilling down on the Atlantic marker.
Nick Fury merely gave Leo a meaningful, knowing smile, indicating that the topic was definitely off-limits and that Leo knew exactly what that green dot represented—the long-lost Captain America, frozen in the ice.
Leo returned home, and the next day, a strange, incredibly high-tech package arrived via a discreet courier.
It was a small, matte black box, clearly a piece of advanced technological hardware.
He opened the package, and there was a neatly folded, handwritten note from Tony—not a digital message, but actual ink on paper.
"Open it. Don't let the one-eyed pirate monitor our comms. P.S. Don't worry about the instructions; you're the only other person on the planet capable of using it."
Leo placed the small box gently onto the floor of his garage and pressed the switch on the side.
A powerful, smooth blue scanning beam instantly shot out from the box, surveying the garage's dimensions and environment.
Within seconds, a perfectly rendered, life-sized holographic projection of Tony Stark appeared in front of Leo, the illusion moving with stunning fluidity.
The holographic Tony seemed to be able to see Leo's appearance and the lighting in the garage in real-time.
"Hey, Leo, how's it going? This is my brand new, bespoke information base station—our own private equipment, so no monitoring or spooky eavesdropping from S.H.I.E.L.D. or anyone else. You seemed a bit preoccupied yesterday at the red brick funhouse; what's wrong? Spill it."
The projection of Tony was busy fiddling with something on a holographic workbench in his own Malibu lab, emphasizing the real-time nature of the chat.
"It's nothing serious, Mr. Stark. Just a lot of secrets being kept, which is annoying," Leo replied, walking around the projection. "What are your plans now that the Expo drama is over?"
Tony paused his work for a moment, turning his chair to look directly at the projection of Leo.
"I will personally redefine the direction of Stark Industries' development. My primary goal is to use this new, clean element—the one you gave me the blueprints for—to create entirely new sources of clean, renewable energy. I want to replace fossil fuels with something truly sustainable."
"The new energy division will become the core pillar of Stark Industries. And since we've confirmed that the palladium reactor hasn't, in fact, leaked, and I'm no longer dying, I can continue being the world's favorite armored superhero. What about you, Leo? You sounded like you were planning a trip."
"Of course, I'll continue my studies; school starts soon," Leo confirmed. "But before that, I plan to take a quick trip to New Mexico."
"New Mexico? Ah, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s desert outpost. What's the commotion over there? Why did Fury highlight it?"
"An extraterrestrial visitor, Mr. Stark. It's nothing more than a minor problem, but an interesting one," Leo said, shrugging. "Does the Mark VII armor have any new ideas or developments after your battle with Ivan?"
Tony's face lit up with enthusiasm. "Of course! The core issues of portability and quick, reliable equipment deployment still remain. My current idea is to design the Mark VII so I can summon it remotely, and it can rapidly assemble and outfit me wherever I am—even without a dedicated suitcase or massive silo."
"But it's still just in the conceptual phase. I've been incredibly busy lately, you know? Pepper absolutely hates the CEO position, and I've been elbow-deep in the new clean energy projects, managing the fallout of the Expo, and helping clean up Rhodes' mess. So, the Mark VII will be born a little later than usual."
Tony was sitting in his holographic studio, rapidly typing on his keyboard, when he suddenly seemed to hear a sound off-camera and immediately stood up, looking toward the side of the projection.
"Pepper's back, Leo. That means my break is over, and I'll be forced back into wearing a suit and handling spreadsheets. Talk to you next time. And Leo—"
Tony suddenly faced the projection directly, his expression serious and rare. "Remember to call me if you need absolutely anything. Anything at all. I owe you a lot, kid."
"I trust you, Tony."
Finally, Tony's projection gave a quick, warm nod, and the holographic image instantly turned off.
Leo looked down at the small black box on the ground and let out a small, inexplicable laugh at Tony's drama.
The box flew automatically into his outstretched hand and was placed securely onto his workbench.
"Leo! Come out for dinner! Peter's here to play with you, and he brought a new board game!" Aunt Jenny called from the kitchen.
"Sounds like my ride is here."
The next day, right after finishing his lunch, Leo told Aunt Jenny that he was merely going out for a quick walk to the park. He carried his small backpack, which contained his personal metallic reactor—his power source—and a heavy, annotated book of Norse mythology.
He had bought the book in the children's section of the library the day before and had finished it in one night. He found the stories extremely disappointing and contradictory. Aside from the characters possibly looking the same as the Asgardians, the story was poorly structured and childishly written.
He grabbed his small, non-descript cell phone, and ten streets away from his house, he transformed into a golden ray of light and shot silently into the clouds.
He flew toward the American Southwest.
In just ten or twenty minutes—a testament to his incredible, new top speed—he arrived above the desolate Gobi Desert, the vast, unforgiving expanse of New Mexico stretching out beneath him.
He turned off the map on his phone, located the only visible, single small town he could see in the distance, and descended quickly. He landed on the dusty outskirts, replacing his armor with his casual clothes and backpack, and walked into the town on foot.
The town wasn't very big—a classic, dusty, old American settlement. Leo immediately guessed that this must be the town where the main action surrounding Thor and Dr. Jane Foster would take place, and also the location for the upcoming final battle.
His eyes scanned the surroundings, but he didn't see anything matching the description of a large, high-tech S.H.I.E.L.D. containment facility.
I wonder what time it is now in the timeline. Is Thor still in the hospital after being hit by the van, or has he already tried to steal the hammer?
Looking at the satellite phone Tony had given him—the one supposedly protected from all eavesdropping—he realized Tony hadn't bothered to input Agent Coulson's number.
Never mind. He decided. He randomly picked a corner restaurant that looked nice—a quaint, local establishment—and walked inside.
Although he had just finished lunch hours ago, traveling at hyper-speed works up a unique kind of appetite. It's not every day you come all the way to the middle of New Mexico.
How can I not try some local specialties while I'm here?
He went in, ordered a few of the most famous, spiciest dishes the town was known for, and sat down at a quiet corner booth to eat. The food was surprisingly flavorful.
Just as Leo finished the last, sugary bite of his dessert cake, savoring the local flavor, he noticed a group of rather serious-looking people walking toward the entrance.